Do I have your attention now? I frequently find random videos and images created by some quirky kid on my camera roll. This one cracked me up because there’s still a limit on how much TP we can pick up at our local grocery store, and what’s crazy to me is some single college kid has the same limit as I do – nevermind my monstrous grocery bill or the fact that we have seven people living in our house (including several liberal wipers). Thank God my husband installed a bidet way back in late March (true story).
Now back to the real point of all this… I actually don’t have any anxiety over toilet paper shortages. Woot-woot! Celebrate the small victories.
What I do have anixety about is, well, let’s just say it’s often along list.
So it seems fitting that I was invited to speak about anxiety, depression, and motherhood for the Catholic Moms Summit.
To be perfectly honest, I’d much rather talk about happy things or funny things or even not-so-personal, I’m-an-empowered-women things like body image, how to stop being martyr mom, or keeping a sense of humor in the trenches of motherhood. But anxiety and depression? Nah. No thanks. Let’s keep pretending I’m a shiny happy blonde who loves every moment of life, always sees the glass as half-full, and who doesn’t bite her nails. Okay? Because that’s so much easier.
But easier isn’t always better.
It’s taken me years – with the help of an amazing husband, some therapy (which I have difficulty admitting to), a handful of close friends, and prayer and meditation – to realize and open up about the fact that I struggle with anxiety. That struggle has led to an eating disorder, postpartum depression, and a major depressive episode.
But my struggles have also led me to sharing my heart, writing books, speaking, ministering, and being a mom who is very sensitive to little and big feelings my children experience. It’s allowed me to grow and to claim a new level of empathy for people who – through no fault of their own – struggle a bit more in the mental health department.
God has not wasted my pain. He’s used it to help fine-tune me to be an instrument to love and serve others. What we might perceive as an error, failure, or deeply-rooted flaw within us, is so often a gift – if not for ourselves in the moment then for others down the road.
I don’t have this anxiety or depression thing figured out. In fact, last week I was a big jumble of nerves and a whole lot of “what-ifs” were churning around in my overactive brain. I had to keep telling those voices to be still, to be quiet. We all have anxious thoughts, but people with anxiety often don’t know how to silence thoughts and keep them from taking over their lives. People with anxiety also tend to have shame about their feelings and how they handle them and handle life. Rather than recognizing the feelings and even embracing them, I have too often judged them and told myself if I were a stronger, more faithful, less broken person, I wouldn’t be this way. That shame is insidious. It seeps into your life. It robs you of joy and peace. It slips you into the murky darkness of depression where a haunting question surfaces, “What’s the point?” Of me? Of life?
Then more shame because you shouldn’t feel this way…but you do. Stop fighting the feelings, and accept them. Then move on. So often we believe something is inherently wrong with us because we don’t think we should feel the way we should – whether it’s angry or scared or even happy.
After a long history of ignorance and shaming, we are finally beginning to understand mental illnesses. Depression, anxiety, eating disorders, bipolar disorder, self-harm, suicide, addictions – these ought to no longer be taboo topics that people attempt to hide from the public eye, confuse for weakness or a lack of faith, or blame on a lack of holiness or bad parenting. Christ took on all human suffering on himself – including mental health burdens.
I’ll be sharing more of my heart at the Catholic Mothers Summit (you can register for free here; an all-access pass is also available). I hope my talk will not only minister to anyone hurting from anxiety and depression but also reach those who love people who struggle with these crosses.
Nearly every person knows someone who suffers from anxiety and/or depression (or some other mental health illness). If you do not think that you do, someone probably hasn’t disclosed that information yet. It’s time we practice compassion not only with ourselves but with others as well.
What are we so afraid of? Why don’t we want to admit that mothering is sometimes hard, that we struggle, that we have anxiety, or even sometimes clinical depression? Even in less dire situations, I am still sometimes afraid to let anyone in on my big, scary secret: I am not perfect. I am far from it. But the irony is, we all share that same secret!
In our joy-filled, first-world, blessed bubble where Christ is at the center of our contentment and food is in no shortage, it often doesn’t feel acceptable to talk about sadness, anxiety, or the fact that life can be painfully difficult. What’s more, admitting that motherhood (something that is supposed to bring us joy and fulfillment) is sometimes heart-wrenching can be even more taboo. There is tremendous pressure for Christian moms to be perpetually joyful, and when you don’t feel that way, there’s the understated but very real message that it’s your fault for not being a better Christian or a stronger person.
Since we rightfully see children and motherhood as sublime blessings, we Christian moms are deathly afraid of admitting that we sometimes feel lost, sad, desperate, anxious, and overwhelmed.
But just like Michael Stipe of R.E.M. croons, “Everybody hurts sometimes.” (Especially during a freaking pandemic. Am I right?) It’s no big surprise that this song is one of my Eeyore-self’s favorites. Yes, everybody hurts sometimes—even mothers with lovely children.
So let’s talk about that hurt, how we can cope with it in ourselves as well as reach out to others who are hurting.