A few years ago I went to this lovely place I call Depression Camp because, well, I was depressed. I had just come back early from my second assignment to East Asia because of what our staff counselor called an "acute depressive episode" which is basically where you turn into a Cymbalta commercial overnight.
I don't recommend having one of those.
But my wonderful agency recommended I go to Alongside for a couple of weeks, and I eagerly trotted off to Michigan. No, of course I didn't. I was depressed. I somewhat less morosely than I had been doing anything else managed to get my sh*t together enough to get on a plane and go to strange place with strange people to learn about how to deal with some of the hardest, darkest stuff I'd ever faced. And there was group therapy.
However, it wasn't all group therapy (praise the LORD!) and I LOVED Depression Camp. I had a cabin on a lake all to myself. We would go to classes in the morning where I learned sooooo much about myself and about why and how I ended up where I was. And then there was group therapy, so it couldn't all be perfect. But then it was lunch, and a nap, and a walk, and a one-on-one counseling session. And then reading. And more sleeping. I couldn't believe how much sleeping I could do in a day.
And I learned. And I healed. And I stood up for myself. And I began to recognize where my theology had gone so terribly, terribly wrong. And I rested without the pressure of a thousand different expectations and obligations (real or imagined). And did I mention that I learned so stinkin' much?
One of the things I learned was how I had been wearing myself ragged fighting battles I was never going to win. All new missionaries hear that team is hard. Ya'll, I'm here to say that team is the most rewarding and the most devastating thing I've done. Some of my very truest and deepest friendships are former teammates. However, I learned that I spent my time and energy trying to change the things (ahem, people) that were entirely beyond my power to change. I wore myself out and broke myself to pieces trying to please and trying to appease and trying to arrange my life and the people in it according to my preferences. So much energy wasted on trying to change what was beyond my control instead of trying to change the things I actually had a modicum of authority over in my life.
We had this worksheet at Depression Camp that was a wheel and it was divided up into all the different facets of your life that could influence depression. Suffice to say I was a mess in just about all of them. But the first one we talked about, and the one that's stuck with me the longest, was about your home. The counselor explained that we were designed for paradise. We were created to dwell in the Garden of Eden, which was an eternal feast for our senses, so our homes should seek to replicate that.
Say what? I'm a missionary. It's supposed to be about deprivation and making do and suffering for the Lord, right?
Well, let's just take a little tally of how well that philosophy worked out for me. I had a little apartment and after a year and a half I had finally gotten it all nice and cozy (especially at Christmas, which may be why I kept my Christmas stuff up for a quarter of the year). But then, my apartment started to rain down raw sewage and since the lady above me refused to fix the problem that meant I got to move. 2 days before Christmas. Into a bigger apartment. Which everyone said like it was a good thing. It had taken me 15 months to finally get my little apartment somewhat homey and now I had to start over with an entirely new, 3 times bigger place (with a couple of rooms that I couldn't use because they were storing the belongings of the Korean teacher who used/still did? live there). So here's what my Garden of Eden looked like.
1. Hearing - first floor apartment meant that I could hear everyone in the building clomping up and down the concrete stairs. Also, I lived on a main walking path of our campus, so I could hear vendors walking by hawking their wares throughout the day. So relaxing.
2. Seeing - Concrete walls that were nigh impossible to hang anything on. Nothing worked on these walls. It came with less than stellar curtains. A friend was looking through pictures on my phone once and said "why did you take a picture of this ugly bathroom?" So that about sums that up.
3. Smelling - That ugly bathroom? Also smelly. There was no bathtub so the shower water just drained down into a grate in the floor which conveniently allowed all sorts of smells to drift on up. I pressed a kitchen pot lid into duty to try and stem the aroma and lit my biggest, smelliest Bath and Body Works candle whenever I was home and still it was a good idea not to sit downwind of the bathroom. Which was the entire apartment.
4. Tasting - Ok, this was not too bad because I did have a little control over this and I liked the local food and there were import stores for fun American products. But my fridge, toaster and microwave were in a different room than the sink and stove. Super convenient. Plus, it just took so much extra time, energy, money to make things that were familiar.
5. Feeling/Touch - I had one of those ubiquitous IKEA rockers and that was my reading chair. This country isn't really known for its super plush, comfy furniture. Also, the apartment came furnished so I didn't get to choose anything except my IKEA chair and bookshelf. It was OK. What was not OK? When the rat fell out of the water heater inches from my face.
So all of that added up to a home that was not in fact a garden of Eden. It was not a place of rest and respite. It was, in fact, one more place to struggle against. However, what I didn't realize at the time (and honestly, in all likelihood, it was probably too late in the game for it to have made much of a difference) is that my home was one of the things that I COULD do something about. Maybe not fix everything, but there were battles that I could fight and actually win in my own home but I spent all that energy trying to change other people's behavior , or even more effective, trying to change the culture of one of the world's oldest civilizations. That was super productive.
So this is a super long post about the positive effects of taking the time to evaluate whether or not your home is a place of renewal and refreshment for you. Ok, so it's actually more like a cautionary tale of what happens when you don't do that, but still, you get the picture. And hopefully soon I'll do some posts about how I've incorporated what I've learned into my life now.
I do want to emphasize that this is one facet of what I learned about my depression. I'm not saying people fall into clinical depression because they don't have pretty homes. I am saying that having a restful home was more important to my emotional health than I realized.
These are lyrics from I song I love called "Gentle Arms of Eden" by Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer and whenever I hear the song, it reminds me of how we were designed for Eden.
Ok, so the song is actually about evolution and there's this Goddess referenced, so it's not for everybody, but the spirit of the song and most the lyrics (if you just change Goddess to God in your head - or your blog) totally embody what I feel when I think about wanting my temporary home to reflect my eternal home.
I don't recommend having one of those.
But my wonderful agency recommended I go to Alongside for a couple of weeks, and I eagerly trotted off to Michigan. No, of course I didn't. I was depressed. I somewhat less morosely than I had been doing anything else managed to get my sh*t together enough to get on a plane and go to strange place with strange people to learn about how to deal with some of the hardest, darkest stuff I'd ever faced. And there was group therapy.
However, it wasn't all group therapy (praise the LORD!) and I LOVED Depression Camp. I had a cabin on a lake all to myself. We would go to classes in the morning where I learned sooooo much about myself and about why and how I ended up where I was. And then there was group therapy, so it couldn't all be perfect. But then it was lunch, and a nap, and a walk, and a one-on-one counseling session. And then reading. And more sleeping. I couldn't believe how much sleeping I could do in a day.
And I learned. And I healed. And I stood up for myself. And I began to recognize where my theology had gone so terribly, terribly wrong. And I rested without the pressure of a thousand different expectations and obligations (real or imagined). And did I mention that I learned so stinkin' much?
One of the things I learned was how I had been wearing myself ragged fighting battles I was never going to win. All new missionaries hear that team is hard. Ya'll, I'm here to say that team is the most rewarding and the most devastating thing I've done. Some of my very truest and deepest friendships are former teammates. However, I learned that I spent my time and energy trying to change the things (ahem, people) that were entirely beyond my power to change. I wore myself out and broke myself to pieces trying to please and trying to appease and trying to arrange my life and the people in it according to my preferences. So much energy wasted on trying to change what was beyond my control instead of trying to change the things I actually had a modicum of authority over in my life.
We had this worksheet at Depression Camp that was a wheel and it was divided up into all the different facets of your life that could influence depression. Suffice to say I was a mess in just about all of them. But the first one we talked about, and the one that's stuck with me the longest, was about your home. The counselor explained that we were designed for paradise. We were created to dwell in the Garden of Eden, which was an eternal feast for our senses, so our homes should seek to replicate that.
Say what? I'm a missionary. It's supposed to be about deprivation and making do and suffering for the Lord, right?
Well, let's just take a little tally of how well that philosophy worked out for me. I had a little apartment and after a year and a half I had finally gotten it all nice and cozy (especially at Christmas, which may be why I kept my Christmas stuff up for a quarter of the year). But then, my apartment started to rain down raw sewage and since the lady above me refused to fix the problem that meant I got to move. 2 days before Christmas. Into a bigger apartment. Which everyone said like it was a good thing. It had taken me 15 months to finally get my little apartment somewhat homey and now I had to start over with an entirely new, 3 times bigger place (with a couple of rooms that I couldn't use because they were storing the belongings of the Korean teacher who used/still did? live there). So here's what my Garden of Eden looked like.
1. Hearing - first floor apartment meant that I could hear everyone in the building clomping up and down the concrete stairs. Also, I lived on a main walking path of our campus, so I could hear vendors walking by hawking their wares throughout the day. So relaxing.
2. Seeing - Concrete walls that were nigh impossible to hang anything on. Nothing worked on these walls. It came with less than stellar curtains. A friend was looking through pictures on my phone once and said "why did you take a picture of this ugly bathroom?" So that about sums that up.
3. Smelling - That ugly bathroom? Also smelly. There was no bathtub so the shower water just drained down into a grate in the floor which conveniently allowed all sorts of smells to drift on up. I pressed a kitchen pot lid into duty to try and stem the aroma and lit my biggest, smelliest Bath and Body Works candle whenever I was home and still it was a good idea not to sit downwind of the bathroom. Which was the entire apartment.
4. Tasting - Ok, this was not too bad because I did have a little control over this and I liked the local food and there were import stores for fun American products. But my fridge, toaster and microwave were in a different room than the sink and stove. Super convenient. Plus, it just took so much extra time, energy, money to make things that were familiar.
5. Feeling/Touch - I had one of those ubiquitous IKEA rockers and that was my reading chair. This country isn't really known for its super plush, comfy furniture. Also, the apartment came furnished so I didn't get to choose anything except my IKEA chair and bookshelf. It was OK. What was not OK? When the rat fell out of the water heater inches from my face.
So all of that added up to a home that was not in fact a garden of Eden. It was not a place of rest and respite. It was, in fact, one more place to struggle against. However, what I didn't realize at the time (and honestly, in all likelihood, it was probably too late in the game for it to have made much of a difference) is that my home was one of the things that I COULD do something about. Maybe not fix everything, but there were battles that I could fight and actually win in my own home but I spent all that energy trying to change other people's behavior , or even more effective, trying to change the culture of one of the world's oldest civilizations. That was super productive.
So this is a super long post about the positive effects of taking the time to evaluate whether or not your home is a place of renewal and refreshment for you. Ok, so it's actually more like a cautionary tale of what happens when you don't do that, but still, you get the picture. And hopefully soon I'll do some posts about how I've incorporated what I've learned into my life now.
I do want to emphasize that this is one facet of what I learned about my depression. I'm not saying people fall into clinical depression because they don't have pretty homes. I am saying that having a restful home was more important to my emotional health than I realized.
These are lyrics from I song I love called "Gentle Arms of Eden" by Dave Carter and Tracy Grammer and whenever I hear the song, it reminds me of how we were designed for Eden.
"This is my home. This is my only home. This is the only sacred ground that I have ever known. Should I stray in the dark night alone, rock me, God, in the gentle arms of Eden. "
Ok, so the song is actually about evolution and there's this Goddess referenced, so it's not for everybody, but the spirit of the song and most the lyrics (if you just change Goddess to God in your head - or your blog) totally embody what I feel when I think about wanting my temporary home to reflect my eternal home.
I've never thought about how important our homes are! Thanks JAM!!
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