23 - Sometimes There are No Answers

Dedicated to Jeff, JP, Bill, Reed, and all the others who couldn't find the answers they needed.  And to all those who  are still searching for answers.

 

TRANSCRIPT

 

Hi, it’s Mary Young, and currently the Lessons from Life podcast. In another 10 days, the name is changing to Like Driving in Fog: an Emotional Healing Podcast.

It’s December 22 as I record this podcast. I just came back from serving at my church’s Christmas services. I had planned that this week’s podcast would be continuing along those lines of having boundaries, or Christmas -- not going home for Christmas, taking care of you for Christmas, and then life intruded.

One of the people that came tonight is a friend who lives far enough away that she does not usually attend my church. She has her own home church closer to home, but her family was there tonight. Because her family goes to this church, because they live over this way. And they were there because...tragedy.

And the holiday seasons are full of tragedy, and we don’t think about it unless it happens to us. That may not be true for everybody, but it’s true for a lot of people. All holidays are happy happy joy joy, and it doesn’t occur to us that for other people the holidays can be sad. Lonely. Bittersweet.

I still remember 15 years ago, having Christmas with my family two weeks after my mother passed away, one week after her funeral. It was not a Merry Christmas that year. And this friend that I saw tonight, this family that came tonight, will be having Christmas less than a week after losing a very young family member. And there is nothing merry about that. I had another friend who told me one time she woke up in the hospital, in the recovery room after her miscarriage, and the room was decorated for Christmas. And she just looked at the decorations on the wall and thought how can I be happy. So I’m asking you: please think about other people this Christmas season. Bear in mind that not everybody sees this as a season of joy.

For a lot of people it is bittersweet. You may be that person for whom it is bittersweet, or just flat out sad, or it just flat-out sucks. And I just want you to know: it’s okay to be sad at Christmas time. Don’t feel like you have to put on a mask for the rest of us.

Own your feelings.

Let yourself feel.

If Christmas is a time of grief for you, then let yourself grieve.

Grief doesn’t go away if you bury it. It only goes away, or becomes manageable, if you feel it. If you let yourself acknowledge it, and experience it. That’s true of most emotions actually.

So this Christmas, if a friend of your says yeah I’m just not really in the Christmas spirit, don’t try to jolly them into it. Respect where they are. Let them be where they are, and just sit with them. One of the best things a friend ever said to me was: sometimes when you’re sitting alone in the dark; you don’t want people to tell you where the light switch is. You know where the light switch is; you just want somebody to sit with you in t9he dark for a while.

If you have a friend that just needs somebody to sit with them, not trying to fix them, not trying to jolly them out of anything, not pointing out where the light switch is so you can bring some light into the room, be that person. And sit with them in the dark, so they know they’re not alone.

If you are that person wishing somebody could sit there with you in the darkness, don’t give up. I know sometimes things look like they will never get better. Things look like they will never change.

Everything changes. It’s the one great law of life. Everything changes. This too shall pass. If you can just hold on, and I know sometimes you can’t hold on... I know that. And I don’t have an answer for that.

Everything that’s in my mind wants to come around and tell people just hold a little tighter. Just reach out and call somebody. But if you are in the throes of depression, that’s the hardest thing in the world for you to do.

And maybe the answer is to just keep repeating to yourself this too shall pass. I’m not alone. There is a way out. I don’t know. I have never been depressed to the point of being actively suicidal, so I don’t know what that feels like.

I do know what it feels like for the people that are left behind. I know the confusion, and the anger, and the sorrow in the decades of loss though. Every year thinking: this year he would’ve been X years old. Every year thinking: this was the day that I lost him. I know that stuff, and I know that for people who are deeply depressed, it’s not even registering on their radar.

You know, I usually try in these podcasts to have some kind of uplifting, encouraging something, and tonight all I have is sadness and sorrow because a friend’s family is hurting. Because they lost a loved one way too young, way too soon, and it reminds me of all the other loved ones who’ve been gone too soon. Whether through miscarriage, through childhood leukemia, through crib death, or through suicide, there’s a lot of pain in the world. I don’t want to make light of that.

And healing through that pain is hard. It’s possible, but it’s hard. But please remember: you are not alone. I know it feels like you are, but you’re not. And even people that are not in the same room, not in the same state, not in the same country, can still be there for you. Over the Internet. Over the telephone, especially now with Skype and FaceTime, things like that. But even over the Internet.

That’s all that kept me going back in the 90s. there were nights where I would spend hours with online chat, talking to somebody because the memories were killing me, and the flashbacks were killing me, and I didn’t know what to do, and I didn’t know who I could talk to, and everybody in my time zone was asleep and wouldn’t understand. anyway there are people who understand, and I realize that when you’re in the deep throes of depression reaching out to somebody takes way more energy than you have, and that’s one of those things I don’t have an answer for.

I just have a hope, and a prayer, that nobody has to sit in the darkness alone, and that everybody can find the strength to reach out and ask for help.

 I don’t have any more words tonight. Thank you for listening.