Crazy Is as Crazy Does

            I don’t feel crazy.  I feel a lot of things, but none of it feels like crazy.  I feel scared, angry, hurt, sad, worried—but not crazy.  My parents brought me here because they think I’m depressed and at risk.  Am I at risk?  At risk of what?  My roommate is afraid of the dark, and she leaves the door open at night.  I hate having total strangers walk past my open door.  Everyone here is so much older than me.  They have children my age.  I don’t feel crazy, and I don’t feel like an adult, so what am I doing in a psychiatric ward for adults?

            I check in on a weekend.  Not much happens in psych hospitals on weekends.  The therapists are all home with their families.  It’s just the aides, responsible for keeping a bunch of crazy people safe for two days.  It’s Christmas time, and there are poinsettias decorating the day room.  Aren’t they poisonous?  Aren’t they afraid someone will eat too many and die?  The plants are gone the next morning.

            My mother comes to visit.  She noticed the piano in the dayroom, and brought duet music so we could play together.  We haven’t spoken civilly to each other in a long time.  Playing with her feels comfortable, easy, like I felt when I was little.  We forget to be mad at each other for a while.  My brothers play pool behind us, and the clicking balls are a counter-rhythm to the music. 

            On Monday, my parents come to meet with a counselor for family therapy.  I am too angry to speak.  My parents are too angry to look at me.  The therapist struggles to make us understand each other.  I am glad when the hour is up and my parents go home.  Then I can go back to staring out the window.

            I am angry that the doors are locked.  I want to go home.  I don’t like the eerie sound of the quiet here.  I don’t like being locked in.  It feels weird to have people I don’t know asking me to talk about my feelings.  I don’t want to stay, so on Wednesday I check out, barely five days after I checked in.

            I am glad to be home, even though I still won’t talk civilly to my mother.  I vow never to show I need help ever again.  I hide the monster in my head for years, pretending it doesn’t exist.  I think I can ignore it forever, but one day it tries to kill me, and I know I can’t hide it anymore.

Epilogue: The monster in my head is severe clinical depression.  I recognized the need for help decades ago.  Thank goodness for modern psychiatric medication.  I am no longer angry or scared, and I’m trying not to feel guilty about being depressed and showing symptoms (although I treated my parents abominably, it was the disease, not me).  The memory of the psychiatric hospital is pretty fuzzy in my head—I don’t remember many details of what happened.  But I sure remember how I felt.

Birth of the Mother-Self

            I was born the same day my daughter was.  My self-as-mother didn’t exist before Amy entered the world, but “mother” suddenly became the most important part of who I am.  In 22 years I’ve learned a few things, lost a few things, gained a few things, and made a few mistakes.  I have been changed forever by the experience.

            She came into the world screaming at the top of her little lungs, fists clenched in indignation and blue eyes wide open.  She had a full head of dark hair, round pinch-able cheeks, and skinny little arms and legs.  The nursery was down the hall, around the corner, and down another hall—a long way from my hospital room.  I could hear her wake up, hungry and not afraid to let the world know.  When the nurses brought her to me, she had a little pink bow stuck in her hair and a killer appetite.  I learned what it feels like to have my heart moving around outside my body, in the palm of this tiny girl.

            Amy and Alisha (who lived across the street) were inseparable.  They thought they looked exactly alike, and used to tease me about which one would live at my house and which one would go across the street.  They wanted to be together all the time.  I lost my spot as Amy’s best friend when she was still in preschool.

            I once said to Amy’s dad, “Amy and I get along so well.  We won’t have any trouble getting through her adolescence.”  And then adolescence hit, like a brick wall falling on our heads.  The first time she screamed, “I hate you,” as she slammed the bedroom door, I cried.  I wanted my sweet little girl back, not this monster teenager.  Before a girl can become herself, she needs to become not-mom.  She needs to rebel, to test boundaries, to try on other personas and ethics to see what works for her.  Luckily, adolescence doesn’t last forever, and I gained a good friend and respected hero in the woman she is becoming.

            If I had the chance to do it over, I would be more nosy, ask more questions, set stricter rules, and follow her around more.  I would laugh more, play more, and talk more.  I would be kinder, more patient, less punitive, and more spiritual.  In spite of my mistakes, Amy has become a woman I am proud to know.  My mother-self is only 22 years old, and we’ve both come a long way.

Religion and Science

            In doing my class evaluations for spring semester, I discovered my science professor also holds a degree in religion.  It made me think about how I merge my faith with scientific knowledge.  Do these two disciplines work together, or are they widely disparate?

            I am a devout Christian.  I believe in God, creationism, and Grace.  I also possess an analytical mind.  I value critical thinking and logical processes to reach conclusions.  I am comfortable in both areas.  In fact, I don’t see much difference between them.

            Religion tells us why things happen.  God had a reason, a purpose for creating the universe.  We are here to learn and do certain things, to be tested and to learn to be ethical, moral, faithful people.  God the Father loves his children, and wants them to be happy, hence the beauty of nature and variety of landscapes on earth.

            Science tells us how things happen.  It is illogical to believe that a God who created an ordered universe, one that follows its own laws of physics and chemistry, could have created without careful logic and scientific thought.  Evolution and creationism can both happen in the same world.  Divinely directed formation of the universe and everything in it makes perfect sense to me.

            In some part of my mind, I believe the power of God lies in one perfect, beautiful, mathematical formula.  The Grand Unified Formula of Everything allows for the creation of the entire world.  In fact, when I die, I fully expect Heaven to be a room with a large white board and a little man who looks very much like Einstein.  He will explain the GUFE to me, and I will understand it.

            Of course, since my husband is an English teacher, that same vision is his idea of Hell.  My own personal Hell will be sharing the room with a bunch of mathematical idiots who keep asking dumb questions.

Advice for Young Friends

For Time, For Eternity

            Lots of little things can add up to a great marriage, or a failed marriage.  Start with the people you date.  Date people you could talk to over the breakfast table even if you were both old and fat and wrinkled.  Date people who share your values.  Date people who have goals similar to yours.  Date people who are smart and funny and happy and motivated and enthusiastic.  Date people who meet many of the criteria on your list of the “perfect spouse.”  If you date someone you like emotionally and intellectually, you will find that person physically attractive.

            The funny thing about love is that it is so similar to fire.  Winds of challenge blow out candles, but fan big fires into raging forest fires.  And like fire, love can be helpful or destructive.  The key is all in how you use it.  Love should never be coercive or manipulative.  You should never feel taken advantage of or mistreated. 

The family unit, beginning with a couple, is the basic building block of our society and of the Celestial Kingdom.  No couple is perfectly aligned in goals and desires.  There will always be conflict and disagreement as long as we are imperfect, mortal people.  Accept that there will always be some work to be done and compromises to be made, and you will not be surprised when these things arise in your own marriage.  Usually that happens about 10 minutes after the marriage license is signed.

People say it’s nice to have a shoulder to cry on.  And they are right.  It is nice.  But it’s better to have someone to laugh with.  If you can laugh together, you can work out just about anything.  Someone to share little triumphs and tiny failures is infinitely valuable.  No one but a spouse will ever care that you found your favorite pen on sale, or that you lost a lucky penny.  Find someone with whom you can share the big things and the little things. Find someone who makes you happy.  Find someone you want to be with for all eternity, forever and ever, amen.

Lessons from Ms. Rowling

Life Lessons from Hogwarts

·         You don’t always have all the details about another person, so it can be hard to judge the good guys from the bad guys.

·         Really obnoxious kids can grow up to be decent adults.

·         Anyone can move beyond bad circumstances to become something great.

·         The most powerful wizard in the world can make mistakes.

·         Kids have great power and can do amazing things if they work together.

·         Chocolate is an excellent remedy for fear.

·         Kissing can have dire consequences.

·         Not everyone in prison is guilty.

·         Some people truly are evil.

·         Some people truly are good.

·         Prophecy has direct bearing on our lives.

·         True friends always watch your back.

·         Rereading a favorite book is like reconnecting with an old friend.

Powerful Earth

            The theory of plate tectonics says that earth’s crust is made up of several plates that move in relation to each other.  Magma, or liquid rock under the crust, moves according to the rules of thermodynamics.  Hotter matter is less dense and lighter than cooler matter; cooler sinks as hotter rises; magma moves in vertical circular patterns.  The plates of the crust float on this moving magma, pushed and moved by the currents of convection.

            Along the boundaries between these plates immense pressure and force is at play.  More dense oceanic plates dive under lighter continental plates where they move together, displacing magma and forcing it up through the spaces between plates, which we see as volcanoes.  Where plates are moving apart, magma flows up and fills the space between divergent plates.  All of these tons of rock moving with such incredible force creates pressure, which can bend or break the rock, shaking the earth under mighty strain.  Vibrations move through the rock, which we feel as earthquakes.

            The very land we live on moves in ever-changing patterns.  The continents that rise above sea level seem to fit together like puzzle pieces, suggesting a newborn earth with one giant continent.  As some plates diverge, or move away from one another, plates on the opposite side of the globe must move toward one another.  They must buckle or fold or move over and across each other to accommodate the movement. 

            In some places, pockets of magma flow up through the crust in a place stationary relative to the center of the earth.  As the plates move over the magma, hotspot island chains can form.  This is how we get places like Hawaii.

            Earth has powerful muscles.  She moves with vast resources of thermodynamic power.  As residents, we disregard her at our own peril.  She is just as capable of destroying life as she is of sustaining life.  This destruction is not malicious or personal.  It is a law of nature.  Natural disasters are only destructive if humans happen to live where the forces of earth are shown.  As we learn to understand and respect her, we may learn to tap into her energy for constructive human use.  Patterns of earth’s behavior show us what to expect.  The task remains for us to learn to read the signs and work with instead of against her.

Stop Hate Language. Stop Hate.

The ancient Hebrew text, the Tanakh, teaches “As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.”  All action is preceded by a thought—we do what we think about.  I believe the words we choose and the symbols we expose ourselves to directly affect the way we think and thus, the way we behave. 

In 1989, a woman was raped in Broward County, Florida.  Her attacker’s defense was, “She asked for it.  She was wearing a short skirt.  I’m a guy.  I can’t help it.”  He was acquitted.  If I allowed my sons to say things like, “I can’t help it.  I’m a guy,” am I setting them up to be rapists and attackers?  The words they choose will affect the way they think, and the way they act.

In 2010, Sarah Palin displayed a map of the United States on her website.  She showed crosshairs on congressional districts of politicians she disagreed with or felt embattled with.  One of these districts was in Arizona, where Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords was shot.  Crosshairs is a powerful image.  When we see something in crosshairs, it’s because we want to kill it.  Hunters, bad guys in James Bond movies, and soldiers center their crosshairs with the intent to kill.  Can Ms. Palin be held partially accountable for this shooting because she put this powerful image in the public eye?  I believe she can and should. 

In March of 2011, the Mayor of West Valley City declared war on the city of Taylorsville.  Mayor (Mike) Winder wants the Texas Roadhouse Steakhouse to move to West Valley.  In jest, Mayor Winder suggested that, while Taylorsville has baseball bats, West Valley has guns.  This is extreme language.  Warmongering, even as an April Fools’ joke, is a serious matter.  A teacher at Hunter Junior High talked to his classes about this joke.  Several students in each class had balled fists, ready to literally take on a neighboring city.  The language and the images of war caused violent reactions in these kids.

On March 3, 1991 Rodney King was brutally beaten by police officers who should be protecting Americans.  A bystander caught the beating on video, and the footage was all over the news for several weeks.  At first, we were all horrified by the violence and inhumanity.  We sat glued to our TVs in shocked disbelief.  After a couple weeks, after seeing it over and over, we stopped being so shocked.  We saw the footage, again, and failed to be horrified. 

We can become desensitized to any words or symbols we put in our thoughts.  Eventually, hateful language leads to hating thoughts, and hate crimes.  I suggest that we all, as humans who desire to be more and better than our basest instincts, must stop using words that promote hatred.  We must choose our language with care, and stop our tendencies to racism, sexism, and all the other isms that affect our behavior.  Stop hate language.  Stop hate.