I recently stumbled upon an interview with KJ Ramsey which lead me to an article she had written entitled: "The Education I never signed up for".
"Sickness has an inelegant way of reversing relationships, and where I had previously played the role of comforter, I found myself learning the harder role of recipient." KJ Ramsey
This
was
me.
Two different times in my life, I have found myself crumpled on the floor of life, unable to function. My pain was in no way comparable to what KJ Ramsey suffers from with an autoimmune disorder called Ankylosing Spondylitis. But the pain was ... incredibly ... painful.
Both times that I encountered this horrific suffering, I've ended up in a position similar to KJ, however, in my cases, my suffering offered an ending. I was hopeful, in both instances, that it would not continue forever. KJ was not. Her suffering, most likely, will never end. That is incomprehensible to me. But it also indicates to me that if I am going to learn from someone, this is the person to learn from.
The first time my suffering brought me to my knees was when I was pregnant with the Pomegranate. My third pregnancy and fourth child, I had never had easy pregnancies, but this one was on a completely different level. I found myself nauseous nearly every minute of the day for the entirety of the pregnancy. Even worse: I couldn't throw up. No relief. Just dry-heaving. Nothing helped. I had to use medicine to sleep. And shortly after I found out I was pregnant, I began having panic attacks and then depression settled in. In the midst of it, I became nearly suicidal and truly did not know how I could endure nine months of this.
"In my life of daily pain, my body carries the inheritance of the education I never would have signed up for but have so desperately needed."
I was confident that when I delivered, the suffering would end. But my previous two pregnancies had included horrific bouts of post-partum depression. Would I trade in one set of suffering for another? Thank God that I did not. The moment she was delivered, everything left. The depression. The anxiety. The sickness. It was over.
This past February, a new level of suffering settled upon me. I found myself the recipient of, well, I suppose the old-fashioned word is a nervous break down. Maybe mental breakdown. I fell apart. I couldn't function. It started with anxiety. That was bad. But then as that dissipated, the depression that came upon was like nothing I had ever experienced in my previous fleeting bouts of depression or in the PPD I had encountered with my first two pregnancies.
I found myself, literally, on the floor of my closet many times. Absolutely unable to get up. I remember one day, specifically, that I needed to get out and do sheep paddock. The sheep had to move. I had to get up. And it took me a solid two hours to get myself out to the paddock. Thinking back to it now, I can't even explain that level of pain. Of suffering. It was horrific.
KJ talks of a similar experience. In the beginning of her illness, she would be unable to sleep from the pain, and eventually would end up on her floor, crying. One of her suitemates would often find her in this position. KJ says that, "Instead of turning the other way or quipping how early she had to get up for an exam, she would join me on the floor, massaging my aching hands as I sobbed into her chest."
"She would join me on the floor ..."
I love that statement. I love that statement for what it tells me to do for others and what it tells me that I need to do for others.
I had people that joined me on the floor.
And truly, that is what this post is about. This is about the willingness to join people in their suffering. Oh we need community! Oh we need to let that community support us!
"Receiving other's care means you're exposed And it means you might be hurt. It takes courage to let people see you in this position. It takes courage to receive their care."
We need to make the linkage between physical and emotional pain. Many people don't suffer from the physical pain KJ does, but many of us will face the emotional pain that hits this level.
We all have weakness. But most of us try to hide it. This is often subconscious because most of us are running around scared, hiding how weak we really are. "We try to project that we are strong and that others need us. That feels safe to our souls and our bodies," KJ says, "but when weakness rears its head, when depression strikes, when anxiety makes you feel like you are going to crumble, when your body fails you ... you are faced with a level of weakness that you can't ignore. You can't run away from your weakness anymore and you have to let it be by someone."
And it is perhaps one of the scariest scenarios we can imagine.
When I collapsed in February, I had to admit I couldn't function. I had to allow people to bring me meals. I had to let people take care of me. I couldn't help anyone. In fact one day I remember laying on the floor of my closet and realizing that I couldn't help anyone. I couldn't help my kids. I couldn't help my husband. I couldn't be there a single person. I could barely take care of myself.
The portion of the brain that registers physical pain is identical to the portion of the brain that registers emotional pain. My emotional pain is no less intense than when I break my arm. Society will reject emotional pain as real. But your pain matters! Your emotional pain matters! Sickness (mental and physical) forces us to be vulnerable which forces us to need other people.
"I was ashamed of my vast needs even as I realized I truly was inadequate to meet them on my own."
But even if our needs aren't vast, human beings tend to be ashamed of our needs. There is an essential struggle in every human heart to be more than God ever intended that we would be. Do we think we are supposed to be God?
We are frail.
We are needy.
And what we need sometimes it ... another person's care.
Will you risk receiving care from another?
One of the hardest things, especially during this horrific six months of depression was to be completely vulnerable and let people help me. I had to turn to my in-laws, my husband, and a few key friends and allow them to carry me. I said yes to people bringing me meals. I had to admit that I was completely incapable of taking care of myself and especially not my children.
There is something about being joined by another on our floors that is holy. It is holy because it is Jesus. He joined us on the floor of this earth. When someone is willing to join us on the floor, we experience the core of the trinity.
When someone is willing to join us on the floor, we experience the core of the trinity. Jesus. Me. And someone else.
Infants, instinctually reach both hands up looking for care. But grown people are weighed down by their grief coupled with the care that they haven't received. They often have a belief that no one will care for them. Faith looks like being little children who reach out for care in the needs they cannot meet on their own. Faith is the belief that making that choice will provide for us something that our soul critically needs to be whole.
When we reach out and those needs aren't responded to properly, that can hurt on multiple levels. "It triggers our core wounds of the way we were not adequately received in our family of origins and by important people in our lives. It reinforces this belief that we really are misunderstood and alone."
But the belief that we are not understood and we are alone is actually a lie. Because Jesus bore that scorn on the cross. We are part of a bigger story where God himself took on a frail body and had to feel our pain. That than changes how lonely we have to be when people don't respond to us. When someone minimizes our pain, we can remember that Jesus remembers our pain. And that can help us regain strength so we can try again.
My suffering has resulted in a newfound intimacy with Jesus. And every believer can experience this.
KJ's second article is entitled: "God Made Our Brains To Need Others."
In the exposure of learning to receive love in my most broken places, I have found the deepest joy.
We can allow people to respond to our pain even if they don't respond properly.
When I first came up upon this horrific beast of depression which gripped my in March of this year, my cousin Cara offered to sit with me in my pain. She fully committed. (And I've realized that full commitment is also really important. I couldn't afford for her to abandon me in the midst of my depression. I didn't realize that. But she did. So her saying "I'm in" meant she was in for the long haul. Daily texts. For what could be a year. Years.
Cara told me she'd be there every day. She texted me EVERY SINGLE MORNING. She encouraged me. She'd call and listen to me cry. She spent hours on the phone with me. Her presence became a balm to my incredibly depressed soul.
She stood next to me when I started therapy. She listened when I started revealing incredibly painful things about my past. She was kind. She was understanding. She looked at me in my pain and attuned with me. That's what we truly need. Someone who can look into our pain and say, "I see you. I see your pain. And that pain would hurt. I see that it would be painful. I'm sorry it happened."
I remember the first time she offered to let me chat on the phone. Cara and I weren't especially close, and I wasn't a phone talker. And when she suggested it, my bodily instinctively said I would never do that. I knew I would never call her.
But she called me.
And I answered.
And I sobbed.
Not just cried. Sobbed. Deep, awful, horrific crying. Painful. To the depths of my soul.
And she just listened to me cry.
Many times.
She laid with me on the floor.
Cara knew something in that moment that I had not come to understand yet. We need people with us in our suffering. I didn't understand that. I couldn't imagine suffering with people. I wanted to suffer by myself. In my closet. By myself. I didn't see how integral community was to my pain.
Pain demands a witness.
I had no idea. But through this season of pain, I came to understand how much I needed her. And how much we need each other as people. It is crucial to our healing journey to do this journey with people.
This post is two-parted. In other words, it has two goals. The first is to encourage you to allow people to lay on the floor with you. LET THEM.
And the second is, be willing to lay on the floor with someone. This means not fixing it. This means just saying, "This sucks. But let me be here with you."
I feel like this post could go on forever and ever and ever. God is doing such amazing things in our community. So many women finding the same pain and looking it in the face and needing community. I have so much to share.
Tune in!
