Now that I've finally sat down to write this final "summary view" blog post, I'm trying to put it off. I think that's because after this, there is none of the past to retell and hide behind. The posts that come after this will usually be the raw reflections of a moment, or maybe a couple weeks later. And the very next entry that is in the publication queue is a piece I wrote almost exactly a year ago--among the earliest to be written, but the last of these looking-back pieces to be published.
All that to say, it's with mixed emotions that I begin this piece tonight.
September 2020 kept me plenty busy! First I transitioned to working full-time for Christar, then I succumbed to COVID-19. Praise God for full-time Paid Time Off, I definitely used some significant chunks of it during the time I had to quarantine! But praise God also, even with living alone (my housemate went to stay elsewhere while I was sick) and barely seeing anyone, my mental health didn't suffer.
Of note is the fact that I also started this blog in September 2020 (before getting sick)! I only wrote two posts in 2020 and it would be a full year before I shared the link publicly, but this blog began taking shape then.
Also, something I forgot to mention in my previous entry, is that it was during this time period that I began meeting with Ellen, the Biblical counselor who I have been seeing regularly for almost a year and a half now! We've talked of many things in that time, at first predominantly me processing everything that I've shared in this blog. I value Ellen's input and cherish her sweet & tender heart, yet also her direct and Biblical advice.
October and November found me busy with Christar work - particularly with our very first Giving Catalog!!! Our whole team poured a lot of work into creating something from scratch that first year!
Even as I settled in to working full time, I realized that I would have to uproot and move in the next six months, as my then-housemate would be getting married and she and her husband would be staying in the duplex that she and I had been sharing for six months.
November and December also brought wonderful family time, with Nathan being able to visit for both Thanksgiving and Christmas!
I can't think of any other major life updates from that time! So I'll just leave this year with this song. I think it was actually released this past fall, but I still feel like it fits here:
As I mentioned at the end of my previous post, the job at Christar that I was so excited to land was only a part-time position. What I forgot to mention there is that in July I had started working for one of the members at my church who had very unexpectedly gone blind in April. He is an insurance agent, and he needed someone to be his eyes and hands on the computer. So I had started working for him, I think as soon as Baby V's grandma arrived and relieved me of my duties with her.
Mrs. S, my "everything lady,"* also needed someone to grade for both of her World Views of the Western World year two class. That was once a week on Tuesday. So when I started working for Christar on the day after Labor Day, my typical weekly schedule was as follows:
M/W/F: Christar in the morning, Insurance in the afternoon (and re:generation at Watermark on Mondays)
Tues.: Mrs. S's classes, morning and afternoon
Thurs.: Christar all day!
At Christar, my official title was that of "Project Coordinator" - managing the personnel and calendar so that all of our Creative Services department's major projects would get done in time. Thanks to my amazing boss who knew what I loved, I also had the opportunity to write for the Christar blog!!! :D The first stories I did were based on pre-recorded sharing times - but before long I was interviewing our workers (my sources) more like a real journalist!
The insurance work was more challenging, as I had to learn all the new terminology, systems, etc. That boss had a memory like a steel trap, though, so he was a HUGE help in navigating through various things.
To begin with, grading for Mrs. S took the full six hours of the two classes. But eventually, I got it down to a system--and I knew which students I could trust to do well and which ones I had to watch out for!
It was definitely a lot of juggling, thus the title to this post, but it worked surprisingly well through January and February. It didn't take me too long to realize, however, that the insurance position was not something I wanted to do long-term. And so in December I gave my boss three month's notice. He was scheduled to have a surgery that we were hopeful would restore his sight .... but even when that didn't work, I chose to stick to my word and leave that position.
That was partly because Christar had offered me the opportunity to help full-time on a short-term project: Launching a new website!!! So as soon as the date I had told my insurance boss arrived, I bid farewell to him and turned my full attention on M, W, Th, F to learning Site Stacker, Christar's new website platform.
And then March 2020 arrived. And we all know what that meant! COVID-19 officially reached the U.S., changing life as we knew it.
Like everyone else, I worked from home while Christar was totally shut down, which was about six weeks I believe. I was still living in my parents' home, and I sorely missed my Christar desk & computer while I tried to work from my personal laptop! The World View classes suddenly switched to virtual as well, meaning I could do the grading in the evenings and work on Tuesdays for Christar too. I was also so very thankful that I was no longer working for the insurance guy .... I can't imagine the extra challenges that would have presented themselves there!
On April 1st, Christar's new website launched! In the weeks after that, there were still some cleanup sort of tasks to do with the launch, so I ended up remaining full-time until the middle of July. Also, in May, the World Views class responsibilities ended.
In April or May, I decided I was finally ready to start looking for a new place to live. I'd been living at home for most of two years, and was ready for a little more independence!! Praise God, through a string of connections I found a three-bedroom duplex where a gal was living on her own (well, with her large dog! 😉). We met a couple of times, and decided to move forward with things. So in early June, a couple folks from church and my dad helped me moved all my earthly possessions about 15 minutes away.
The same weekend that I first met with my new roommate, she was meeting a guy in person for the first time who she had met online. Keep note of that for the next blog post! 😁 But we hit it off pretty well, mostly stayed out of each other's hair, and had frequent nice chats. And I was so grateful to have a little space and a kitchen to call at least partly "my own"!
In July and August, I once again hit the job searching hard - knowing that Christar was back down to part-time work, and that since I was now paying rent I needed continued income! (Though I did have a pretty nice savings pot from all the time of working the equivalent of full-time and not having many expenses!) I know I applied for two, if not three part-time jobs ... but all of them fell through.
Along the way, my Christar boss had made the offer that I could work full-time for her!! And while I loved the idea, I wasn't sure I could make it work financially as it would involve a decrease in my hourly wage. But naturally there were benefits to being a full-time employee of Christar!! So once I was told that I didn't get the last part-time job I applied for, I called my boss on Zoom and let her know. And then I said "But you know what this means? It means I'm all yours!!" She was quite excited!
As it worked out, I started working as an official full-time employee at Christar within days of my first anniversary of beginning work there! I like anniversaries, so that made it fun for me. The juggling multiple jobs routine was officially over!
Written Jan. 25, 2022
*I call Mrs. S that because she was first my high school teacher for a three-year co-op class, after the first year she asked me to do some work for her (becoming my boss), and when I went away to college she became more of a mentor figure/friend who I met with each time I was back in town. I am so very blessed by my relationship with her! :)
We're going to zoom way out now and catch up to January 2021 in just three posts!! So hold onto your seats!
February 2019 found me stabilizing pretty well after a whole year of the roller coaster mood swings recounted in the previous chapters. I started holding monthly game nights at my parents' house, where I was living, which still continue to this day!
Through a friend at church, I even found a job quicker than I expected - nannying for her neighbors across the alley! I warned them that I had bipolar disorder and had been struggling with managing it for a while, and they still trusted me to care for their baby!
Baby V, as I've always called her online, was eight months old when I started caring for her. There's lots I could say about that ... but we're keeping it high level here. There were still moments when I struggled, spending usually 8, rarely closer to 10, hours a day with a non-verbal baby. But I listened to a lot of podcasts during that time, as well as rediscovering Christian kids music videos on YouTube that I had watched when I was young!
Additionally, I interviewed for and landed a contract job writing short promotional blog posts for an organization that one of my college roommates worked for. I was able to do that while Baby V napped, making pretty good money during those times!
Toward the middle of March, I received one of the best gifts I've ever been given - A CAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I continue to praise God for the generous couple from my church who refused to charge me for the 1997 white Toyota Camry that they were done using. {Almost three years later, the car continues to run well, thanks to my Dallas "grandpa" replacing my battery & alternator and our church's teaching elder who faithfully changes my oil for me :)}
With the arrival of more moderate weather in the spring, I was so thankful to be able to take Baby V for walks. I learned their neighborhood pretty well while I pushed that stroller around! Occasionally my friend from church, her two kids, Baby V, and I would all go on walks together. We discovered a playground within walking distance, and there we met another family with kids who ended up coming to our church - so yay!!!
I enjoyed watching Baby V go from beginning to crawl to walking pretty steadily on her own, from drinking lots of formula milk to eating almost exclusively baby food. But by the end of May, I told her dad that I was ready to start looking for another job. Naptime turned into "update resume" and "apply for jobs" time! My first three applications were at a local seminary - an admin assistant job, a mail clerk job, and another one I don't remember. I interviewed, but none of those turned into anything solid.
In July, I took a break from nannying and had a fun adventure - traveling down to Colombia, South America for my "sister" Sarah's wedding!!! I was so very grateful to be by her side on her big day, and flattered to serve as her maid of honor! First wedding toast speech under my belt. {Sidenote, I also had the opportunity to go on a Colombian birding tour, including spending a couple hours at a hummingbird sanctuary. SO fun!!}
After I arrived back in Dallas, I worked one more week as Baby V's nanny, leading up to her one-year birthday. Then her grandmother came for six weeks, and I turned to full-time job searching, including going to Watermark's Careers in Motion, a weekly job search help session. In quick succession, I applied for yet another seminary job, as well as a seasonal part-time job that would have been with the Samaritan's Purse Operation Christmas Child processing location in DFW. Still nothing, even though I completed FOUR interviews with the latter!
Also in July, I started the re:generation program at Watermark church, which is an explicitly Christian version of the 12-step process from Alcoholics Anonymous, expanded to be helpful to people with all sorts of issues. My journey through that program would continue until May of 2020. Once again that month, I served as the photographer for my church's week of VBS.
In August, I took a huge step of courage and prepared an application packet to deliver in person to the head of Watermark's communications department, for what I saw then as a potential dream job listing. But at Watermark, they like to hire people who are already Watermark members. So that put me out of the running. At least the lady was nice enough to call me promptly and let me know!
Then came August 15-19!!!
It started with an email from Bob, my church's former teaching elder, who had retired while I was in college. He had been talking to a gal who also grew up in my church, who I had really looked up to / idolized just a bit when I was in elementary school and she was in high school / college. She had a position in her department at this place I had never heard of, called Christar, that she was really looking to fill - and Bob had recommended me! She sent him an email with the ministry description, which he forwarded to me.
In exactly five hours, I had fired back a resume and cover letter.
Less than 24 hours after Bob's email, I had sent writing samples in for my childhood role model to review, and I had an interview scheduled!! In the interview, I was pretty honest about what I had been facing for the past year and a half or so. {I've since learned that she knows all too well what being stretched thin on the field can do to one's mental health.} I knew that she really wanted me in the position - but I then had to fill out a formal application.
And then I waited.
Also, there was one small problem: It was a part-time job. So as I waited, I continued applying for other jobs, mostly from the Hope Center job board, that were also part-time.
"Finally," on Aug. 26, I received the official job offer from Christar!!!!
And so came to a close the awkward in-between season that had continued for what felt like forever, from April 2018 - August 2019.
This song is one I learned from a Louie Giglio DVD that Mary Britton had lent me, clear back in Uganda. It fits here :)
A big sigh escapes my lips as I sit here three years later preparing to reflect back on January 2019.
It wasn't my best of months.
Probably not my very worst, praise God. But there were moments when it came close.
As I mentioned at the end of my previous blog post, several of us (I think primarily from the Portland side of things) decided that I would return to Portland for five final weeks after spending Christmas with my family. During that time, I would finish out the Portland portion of Servant Teams, see the team off to Rwanda, and complete the Genesis Process study with a local church group.
Spoiler alert! I sabotaged myself and didn't get the opportunity to do those things the way I wanted to.
I flew to the Northwest on January 5, and initially things went well. I reunited with the church family I had become a temporary part of, with my Servant Teams and Lahash community, and with the small Genesis Process group.
The trouble started on Friday evening, January 11.
I was focusing on the fact that the other five gals on the team I had been part of were excited about completing their final preparations for leaving on their trip. And that was a good thing!! But every comment and brainstorm was like a pin prick in my sore heart - sore that my plan on getting back to East Africa had utterly fallen apart. I was trying hard to not stuff my emotions, but rather to bring them out into the light and process them.
But that made me spiral down.
Yevette, one of my team leaders, came back to my host mom's house with me to hang out and spend the night. I tried to talk things through with her ... but instead the problem started compounding. I barely slept a wink that night, despite taking medication and trying all my normal solutions for insomnia.
The next day, I felt utterly hollow and emotionally paralyzed, my stomach was tied in knots (I couldn't eat), and I couldn't set myself to anything. Yevette and Mandee and I went back and forth on solutions; they urged me to call some of my community members there and spend time with people rather than alone. But I didn't want anyone else to see me like that - numb and listless. So, Mandee and Yevette made a decision for me. Instead of staying until after the team was gone, I would leave the following Tuesday - before they left.
I stared at my computer screen for a long, long time, accomplishing nothing, before I finally put in that flight change.
Three days later I was headed back to Dallas, after lots of packing help from Mandee. {It's hard to believe that was only three years ago - so much has happened and changed since then!}
But first, God graciously gave me a good last day with Servant Teams & Lahash, at the gals' official goodbye dinner where they recognized me too. Additionally, the Lahash director gave me a very generous two-month stipend from the Servant Teams funds that I had helped raise. Both of those things were such huge gifts!
Back in Dallas, I did pretty well and worked on some projects such as updating my LinkedIn page for the inevitable job hunt. But on the 21st, the team left Portland without me ... and that was hard.
Then the 24th rolled around - the one-year anniversary of my breakdown in Uganda.
That evening, I was supposed to housesit for a friend from church. But I was *not* doing well emotionally in the morning, and so after beating around the bush and trying to think of ways to make it work, I finally called her and backed out.
And then my mom drove me up to see my new psychiatrist, an appointment I must have had booked for at least a week. God's impeccable timing!!!
I was brutally honest with him about what I was dealing with, and how exhausted I was from the wrestling fight with the "demons" I was facing.
Honestly, I wouldn't have been surprised if he had sent me back into a psychiatric ward.
But he didn't. Instead, he did what no one had tried yet - a drastic change of 2/3 of my medications.
His response gave me *courage* and something else I hadn't had for quite some time: hope.
By that evening, I was much more normalized again and thoroughly enjoying playing games with my parents and a friend who had been planning to hang out with me at the house sitting location.
And that is what started the upswing as year one of my struggle with mental health issues came to a close.
I've been planning this post for a long time, and I knew this is the song I wanted to put with it! I believe I first heard it in July 2018 at a church my brother Nathan was attending in North Dakota - and shortly afterward I bought an mp3 version of it!
This time I've been trying for about two hours since I woke up after just a couple hours of sleep. It's 3:45 a.m. as I begin this post, and my boss is supposed to arrive in two hours to pick me up on the way to the airport for our division retreat/work intensive.
But that's not what this post is about.
Not being able to sleep, even after multiple attempts, listening to both sides of my sleepy music cassette (yes, I still have a cassette player!!!), as well as 30 minutes of calm Pandora music that usually helps .... and talking to my insomnia buddy for 30 minutes ... well, it all reminds me of my first night in the psychiatric institution back in Dec. 2018, when I didn't sleep a wink. (I also won a game of Yahtzee against another patient by getting THREE Yahtzees!!! :O That was fun!!)
But to back up ......
Saturday, Dec. 8th, 2018 will be another day that I always remember, even though I had to check the calendar for that month to verify which calendar date it was.
It started the Wednesday or so before.
But that's a story that I tell in another blog post - one I have already written (back in Jan. of 2021) but that will not actually see the publishing "light of day" for a few more weeks at least. Because to write about why I actually went into the mental hospital, and then especially to share that with the "whole world," takes a lot of courage. Courage that I haven't worked up to quite yet.
For now, let's just pick up the story where that blog post leaves it off. I wound up at the house of the pastor from my host mom's church in a southern suburb of Portland. [As I write this post, I haven't written the chapter for Nov. 2018 yet, but I am sure I will introduce Jeremy & Sarah Sanderson in that entry.]
Judith took me back to her house, where I took my morning medication - and then Sarah came and picked me up and we headed to the emergency room. No, I wasn't physically injured or sick, "just" mentally/emotionally/spiritually distraught.
Little did I know then that it would be more than 12 hours later before I would be able to crash [metaphorically] into what would be my bed for the next week at a recently opened mental institution.
It wasn't a bad day, really, once I made the decision to go in. As I said in the entry that I wrote out by hand for my team leaders to post on my Facebook profile/timeline to sorta explain why I wouldn't be posting for a few days, "My support team here is amazing."
Sarah stayed with me for the first long while at the room in the ER (during which I called my parents & clued them in), then Yevette (one of my team leaders) came for a little while, I was alone for maybe half an hour, and then Mandee (the other team leader) came and stayed with me until I was transferred and did initial check-in up at the relatively new facility in Vancouver, WA.
{A tangent by way of filling in the story a bit more ... Back in November, on a day when I was doing well emotionally and my leaders and I were talking about my chances of going to East Africa with them, I told them "If I end up in the psych ward, don't let me go with you." And both of them heartily agreed! So that is part of the reason why choosing to transfer from the emergency room to a psych ward was difficult. (And the choice was up to me - the ER nurse/doctor said I didn't have to go in, that I could go back home. But by then I was rather afraid of myself and what I might be capable of.) When Yevette arrived at the ER to hang out with me, I was like "Well, I guess I'm not going with you then." She was like "Oh, do you want to have that conversation now?" And my response was, "We already DID have it!" Praise God for the fact that Paraclete urged me to say that to them on a day when I was doing well. So, my decision made the other decision that I had been trying to make my own way. It would no longer be about 'trying to make it work' for me to go to East Africa with the team. That door was now closed; I wasn't going.}
Whenever I think back to that week in the mental institution, the greatest feeling that I have is one of thankfulness.
It's gratitude to God for providing that loving, caring support team who rallied around me so well during my time of need -- both those present in the greater Portland area, and those around the country who I called and talked to by the hour from the landline phones at the nurses' desk. [I'm still using the journal Yevette gave me, that has a *long* list of phone numbers inside the front cover from that experience!!] [By the way, that in itself was a Godsend - because the journal Yevette gifted me for my birthday in Sept. 2018 is a unique one that has NO wires or staples. It's stitched by sections. Because of that "simple/accidental" fact, I was able to have my current journal - which I had started the previous month or so - without it having to be modified by the nurse staff. No metal was allowed in the psych ward!!! And usually I have journals with spiral binding or staples!!!]
This is going to be a long blog post - I'm probably not going to finish it tonight. {I know, I know, late warning!!}
Even though I didn't sleep a wink that first night (Sat.-Sun.) at the mental hospital, I was more at peace than I had been any of the three or four days before. Because there I knew I was safe -- maybe not completely safe yet mentally/emotionally, but I was in a safe place physically -- and I felt that quite tangibly.
A funny memory was meeting the doctor who oversaw patients' treatment on Sunday - and then "meeting" him again on Monday (I literally did not recognize him as the same man because I was so sleep-deprived on Sunday)!!!
Looking back to that experience almost three years ago, the things that stand out most to me are the people and God's faithfulness.
God was so gracious. He opened up a bed in a beautiful new facility right when I needed it, even though I thought I'd be better off at a different hospital where my Portland psych worked on the weekends.
He also drew me very near to Himself during that time. To be honest, I rather miss that dependence born out of desperation. {It's as I wrote that sentence that this post's second song started "randomly" playing on my playlist.} There are still passages in my Bible (that I've had since I was 10) that are marked and dated in pen from that week in Rainier Springs. [I normally use pencil in my Bible - but the institution didn't allow any pencils, just safety/"bendy" pens.]
{Breaking here to try and sleep the last available hour!!}
Here I am again, almost three months later, to try and wrap up this blog entry so that it's ready for posting. There's so much I could say about that first time in the psychiatric ward. {"First" because, spoiler alert, I've now been in a second time since beginning to write this post!}
In addition to God's faithfulness, I was so very grateful for His Body who were also faithful to me. Almost every day of my stay there, I had some visitor or other make the trek from Portland to Vancouver to come see me! That was a huge encouragement, especially since I had only started building my community there a couple months previously. In the midst of my own need, I don't think I realized at the time what a sacrifice that was! But now I certainly do.
I also had the privilege of getting to know some people who were in similar boats to my own. I felt like I was able to meet them where they were and even love on them some, without expressing some of the strong judgments that I would have tended to internally place on them outside in the "real world". None of us kept in touch after dismissal; but I do have their names written in that same journal and I sometimes think of and pray for them.
After six days in the psych ward, I was released back into the care of my host mom and team leaders, and just a couple days later I flew back to Dallas for the Christmas holiday. I was in a much, much better place, both sleep-wise and emotions-wise. Not to say that all my problems were over ... far from it. But now I knew what it was like to be in-patient, and that no longer scared me the same way as before I'd had that experience.
At some point during that time, some group of 'we' {I don't remember who all was in that group!} decided that I would come back to Portland in January to finish the Portland portion of the Servant Teams with the gals I had been with, that I would see them off to East Africa, and that I would stay in Portland another week or two after that to finish the Genesis Process group that I'd been doing with another church there since sometime in October. So that was our plan!
November 2018 was, as I said in the title, a month of major adjustments as my head wrapped around my probable diagnosis of Bipolar 2. I posted a lot on Facebook again: Many times about God's faithfulness and what He was teaching/reminding me of; but I was also listening to my mind/body about when I needed to take breaks from my busy schedule.
And God was SO very faithful in that month! In addition to being ever-present as I drew near to me in my distress, God also took the housing situation that I was not looking forward to and used it to bless me in multiple ways!
First and foremost, my hostess became quite the motherly figure to me - buying my groceries out of her own pocket, inviting me to the writing club she had with some friends, helping me through the ups and downs, etc! Secondly, after almost a whole month of not attending church for various reasons, I quickly fell in love with my host-mom's church.
Boy, did God use that!!! :D
The pastor had an old car (I forget what year of station wagon it was, but it was rather a clunker) that he was getting a couple things worked on. When that finally finished, the car became "mine" for the remainder of my time in Portland! It was SUCH an answer to prayer to have a car to use for the long commute to the Lahash office, rather than riding a couple buses!
Even more important than the car was my relationship with the pastor's wife. One Sunday, I felt impressed to go to another lady (the children's pastor) and tell her how much her sermonette to the kiddos that morning had encouraged me too. I admitted to someone I didn't know, I think for the first time, that I had been diagnosed with bipolar. And she immediately urged me to talk to Sarah, the lead pastor's wife, because Sarah also had bipolar disorder!
So, I reached out to Pastor Jeremy and asked if he could have his wife get in touch with me--and she did! I honestly don't remember how many times we met, but Sarah was someone I could share with about my condition, knowing that there would be no judgment but only understanding because she had traveled that road before me.
That was SUCH an encouragement! And I also took great courage from her willingness to openly live with bipolar. It wasn't a secret she felt she had to hide, even as a pastor's wife. PLUS, Sarah is a writer too!!! She definitely became a role model to me of how one can LIVE abundantly, even with bipolar--and how that journey can be shared. If it weren't for her, I probably wouldn't have ever started this blog!
And just last month (in Dec. 2021), when I had something come up in my work life about the bipolar affecting my ability to receive and process criticism of my writing, Sarah is the one I turned to. She fit me into her busy schedule that week, and we talked and prayed together about it. So even though we hadn't been in touch for quite a while, she is STILL a blessing to me!
As Servant Teams participants, we spent the month learning more about missional theology and raising funds for our joint expenses. And as I had seen so many times before, God blessed my part of that financially through His people! Our team's big push was on Giving Tuesday, and between all of our efforts, God brought in nearly $15,000 for our trip and expenses!
Finally, a month after I had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I summoned the courage to put that out there on Facebook. Some people, I'm sure, disagree with my decision to walk openly with this mental struggle/illness that I have. But for me, it's part of the authenticity. And through it, I hope and believe God has been able to encourage others as well.
That same week, I finally started the new medication that my new psychiatrist wanted me to slowly ease into taking (because of the serious side effect it can have). With that delayed decision, it also meant that I wouldn't be leaving for East Africa with my team in January. I would need a few more weeks to be monitored on the medication. So after long discussions with the Lahash director and the Servant Teams leaders, we agreed that I would go a month later than the team. That wasn't my preference, and I questioned my decision to drag my feet on the medication front. But I was still ok with it. I even began to make tentative plans to visit Uganda and New Hope over Easter!
But there were still more changes that were ahead, as is usually the case. December would be one of the hardest months yet, with at-the-time devastating consequences.
In God's mercy, I didn't know that yet :)
This song came up on my randomized "Refocusing" music collection list as I started writing this blog post. And it's so very true and fits in with the theme of this post!
I think I'll always remember that day, even if some of the details slip my mind.
After two full months in Portland, OR, I needed to see a psychiatrist if I was going to continue taking medications for the complaints of the past nine months.
In hindsight, that was a gift of God's Grace right there. I could have let that date slip by, let the prescription go unfilled, gone off of the medication cold turkey. But I didn't. I wanted a doctor's opinion, probably because I didn't trust my own fully. I wanted someone outside of myself to tell me I was doing better, that the depression had subsided, that we could try tapering down the medication and see how I did.
Spoiler Alert: That's not what I got.
I spent the morning at my host mom's house rather than at UGM as I normally would have on a Tuesday, because I felt like God was calling me to work on my New Covenant Vow that morning and do some self-care rather than go into the internship and potentially have challenging situations before my appointment.
Because I had no car, I had to ride a bus or two an hour and a half or so to get to the appointment. I had found this psychiatrist in downtown Portland, not too far from my internship location. I chose her because she identified as a Christian on a website, and I desperately wanted a doctor who would not disregard the spiritual side of my story.
Her office was one room on the fourth story of a building of offices. No waiting room with chairs, just an anteroom and then the office itself with a big desk and the doctor's chair, two patient chairs, and a wall of glass windows.
We talked for two and a half hours that first day, so there's no way I can remember or record all the details. But one thing stood out to me at the time and still does today: I was so nervous talking to her - I had updated and printed out a timeline of the events for the past nine months. She asked me why I was nervous, and I said something about telling her everything that had happened (going back over it all again). She was picking up on something there that I didn't even see.
I think after a while she asked me something along the lines of "what do you want from me?" To which I responded that I wanted help getting off of my medication. And that's when she dropped the bombshell:
"I think you have bipolar disorder."
It shouldn't have come as a complete surprise--the doctor in Uganda had mentioned it as a possibility as well months prior--but it was like a bucket of ice cold water nonetheless.
Looking back, I can see how I was probably experiencing hypomania in the days/weeks leading up to my appointment. I wasn't sleeping so well, was writing voraciously, and there was the nervous energy the doctor had commented on.
But in the moment, I did NOT want to accept what she was telling me. She tried talking about a treatment plan involving weeks of gradually increasing a medication that would counteract the mood swings. My plans, however, were to get back to East Africa with the Servant Teams program sooner than that!
She kept talking to me, including telling me that she'd have to see me for a year in order to confirm the diagnosis--but my mind was trying to digest the ramifications of that initial assessment:
"I think you have bipolar disorder."
Finally we finished and I left. It was like the whole world looked different than it had before. I had gone into the appointment with such high hopes that the worst was behind me, that I could start getting back to "normal" life. But with this diagnosis??? I was viewing it almost as a death sentence of sorts.
I remember needing to think and process, so I looked on Google Maps and located a park not far from the doctor's office. I headed there, sat on a bench, and called one of my "safe people" - a lady who I had gotten to know during my time at JBU, from my church there. For reasons of my own, I didn't want to call family or anyone from Dallas.
I sobbed on the phone to her as I tried to let that initial diagnosis sink in. And then we prayed. I remember praying to God, declaring that the enemy couldn't have me--that he couldn't hold me in defeat because of this diagnosis.
Eventually we said goodbye and I made the trek back on the bus/buses to my host mom's house.
The next day I finally called my mom and emailed the couple who had walked with me most closely in Uganda. And slowly, gradually I began to absorb the possibility that I have bipolar disorder and that I would probably deal with it for the rest of my life.
One final comment here: Before I was diagnosed with this disorder, I used to think and say that a person was bipolar. But now, being one of the crowd, I don't anymore. People are not bipolar. People have bipolar, just like people have diabetes. It's something we live with, not something that defines us.
As I thought about writing this chapter of the story, this is the song that came to mind--especially the bridge that starts at 3:00.
It's kinda overwhelming to know what all to say about Sept. 2018.
I just read through ALL my Facebook posts from that month. I had so many joys, so many new adventures in Portland, getting into the new grove of life as a part of Servant Teams, AND time with extended family in California which was wonderful! Mood-wise, it was up & up for the most part! I did get a cold at one point that put me out of commission for a couple days, but that wasn't too bad.
As part of my role in Servant Teams, I started interning/volunteering at the Union Gospel Mission in downtown Portland. I continued that for the next couple months. If you happen to want to read more about that experience in particular, you can check out the post about it on my other blog.
I enjoyed meeting new people, having a purpose to my days, positive things to work on, etc. It felt GREAT to be consistently excited and motivated again!
At first, I stayed with the host family where my team leader Yevette also stayed - though I was made to understand from the beginning that was a temporary solution (the family had three kids under the age of 7 trying to sleep in the same room so that I had a bedroom to myself!). In the meantime, though, I became accustomed to riding the bus from their house to the office, or driving in with Yevette which was even more convenient! Although there were stressors in that situation - mostly having to do with storage space i in the kitchen and the aforementioned children!
As the month drew to a close, Yevette reminded me that the housing situation was temporary, and that I should be ready to move by the end of September. She and Mandee were working hard to find a new place for me to stay. There was one option available, but it was clear down in Gladstone - an hour to an hour & a half bus ride, compared to the much shorter one I had become used to. Then another housing opportunity became available, in the same neighborhood as where I was already staying! I was so very excited for this possibility ...
Then I found out the bad news: Since the family had a foster child, I would have to go through a DHS screening process which could take up to THREE MONTHS.
And .... well .... I threw a hissy fit.
Internally, mind you. I didn't understand why God was allowing me to be so much further away from everyone.
And then my birthday came. And that night, thanks to a big free frozen coffee, I didn't sleep a single wink.
But rather than send me completely spiraling downward, these circumstances were opportunities to practicing trusting God, even though I *didn't* like it or understand.
And He was faithful through that for sure!! As you will see in the next chapter or two :)
I didn't have any idea of a song to put with this post. This is an "oldie but goodie" as some say that I shared on my Facebook page that month ... so I'm going to use it!
