Tuesday, August 17, 2021

Dilley-Dalleying with Family History: Happy 161st Birthday, Jane Dilley!

 




Got a new alert from FamilySearch today and It pleased me that it was a female ancestor.  And not just any female ancestor, but one from my departed father’s side.  My great-great grandmother Jane - or ‘Jenny’ as she is often listed in records - Dilley’s birthday is today.  August 16th is two days after my first born twin daughters and makes another Leo to add to the celebrations that fill this month with eternal sunshine. Jane is the mother of my grandfather’s mother, Lydia Cornelia Price (1880). My father says Lydia (pronounced Līda) “spoiled him” as her first grandson.  Coincidentally my dad’s father is also a Leo (August 12!). Can you see how easy it is for me to dilly-dally my days away with family history insights?! 


While for some it feels like an indulgence and perhaps an escape from one type of mundane, modern day stress to another type of the mundane busyness- clicking through hints and old records- I find it very illuminating as to why I even exist and am where I am today.  I feel like I am uncovering others from my story- my unique history- who are actually very present with me and who get a huge kick out of getting my attention for a few minutes. And those minutes have now turned into an hour! Oh my!  But, boy did I learn new tidbits, even corrected errors and added some things in that span of time! I learned that (ready for my list?) Jane was born in Oldwick (then ’New Germantown’) and her father was a “boot & shoemaker”.  My younger sister and I loved the German folktale of The Elves and the Shoemaker as kids and this connection makes me smile. Their residence was right next to a “hotel keeper” so it seems that it would have been on or near a main drag.  I know this main drag because I grew up near here and would ride my bike around this area and later drive to look at the historic buildings, one of which has been turned into the Tewksbury public library (see old photo below - it's now red).  And I love libraries! So I have lots of memories in and through the land of my ancestors before I even recognized how rich and deep it was ALL AROUND ME. My mother’s side has lots of history in Tewksbury township but thanks to Jane Dilley and her FamilySearch page of attached sources (1870 & 1880 US Censuses) I now realize that my father’s side has a rich history here too (photo above is Oldwick in 1900).  In fact, a really valuable realization I had was how important it really was for members of my family to migrate westward out of New Jersey and marry non-Hunterdon-Somerset county natives!  It would only have gotten more convoluted and difficult not to inbreed if we had stayed here! Fortunately my brother, who actually still does live in the area, married a girl from England.  Oh and my sister did marry a New Jersian but his family wasn’t deep Jersey. So as much as I love my connection to this bucolic pre and post-Colonial quaintness and will always consider Hunterdon county home, pioneering west, I humbly realize, was also part of my destiny.  


Other “aha” moments were found in my unique ability to clarify some records and attach them to their proper relative  There are not many who would know that there were no “Alpauchs” in New Jersey.  Rather they were “AlpauGHs”! My first grade teacher was a Ms. Alpaugh who became Mrs. Cummings and she was the best! And of course that surname shows up in my lines as well here and there. That fact used to surprise me but few things do anymore when it comes to family history in my former neck of the beautiful NJ woods.  The spelling edit allowed me to attach a census record to Jane's grandson, Russell Alpaugh, who lived with them for a time after his mother Eva passed when he was around 13.


    Oh, and one last comment of interest with the Dilley family...some of the records show children of Dilleys having the surname Dalley.   At first, after looking into the Dilley name more I found that Dalley is a common alternate in UK circles, along with dropping the double ‘l’s’ after either vowel.  But what I really needed to do was slow down and look at the records more closely. FamilySearch has a feature where you can look at your tree in Descendancy format, seeing descendants of one common ancestor. From there you can chose to see record hints pop to the right of each descendant's name. What was really going on with my family was that a third time great aunt, Rebecca DILLey, married a John DALLy. So a bunch of descendants appeared who were Dalleys. The Dalleys were not an alternate rendering of Dilley. Rebecca just married a DALLEY. I had a friend in elementary school whose last name was Daly. She taught me how to appreciate and love pickles by showing me tiny cucumbers in her garden that they turned into (dill) pickles! At that age I never knew one came from the other! For some reason that experience and insight made them more tasty from there on out. I bet she and I are long lost cousins somehow...





Thursday, April 1, 2021

PMDD/PME: Circus Life

(originally written in April 2019)

 Had we gone to see Captain Marvel it may’ve been a whole different cinematic experience.  As fate would have it we saw the perfect movie for all of us: Disney’s 2019 remake of DUMBO. My girls (3 of my 4 were there) all had wide smiles on their faces as the end credits rolled and - as cheesy as it sounds- I wanted to gather them into one great big group hug.  So I did.  I’m sure Captain Marvel would’ve exercised its own brand of magic on our sense of superhuman empowerment, but this was “just right” in so many ways and they each felt it. Our spirits rejoiced. I shall explain.


You see all of my children were born into a circus just like sweet Dumbo, the baby elephant.  Aren’t we all in some way?  Certainly our world, our families and our own minds can mirror the variety of acts in a traditional circus meant to amuse, distract, educate and mystify.  And sometimes, like Dumbo in his premiere performance turned homicide case, an act can go wrong. Mr. Medici’s circus is a perfect metaphor for my life with premenstrual dysphoric disorder (PMDD)and premenstrual exacerbation (PME) of diagnosed anxiety and depressive disorder.


It’s interesting that in the beginning I kept identifying with Dumbo, the baby elephant. I asked my youngest daughter (age 13) the next morning if there was a character she most identified with and she thoughtfully answered with a nervous giggle, 


“Dumbo.  All of us girls are Dumbo.”  


All of my daughters struggle with something that makes them feel different and want to “hide” a part of their dormant greatness, not unlike Dumbo and his ears. I winced inside a little yet relished her intuitiveness.  That means I’m more Jumbo at this point in my life: the protective elephant momma with baby Jumbo Jr. in utero, who looks longingly and hopefully out of the caged bar window at flocks of birds flying freely.   I do have to admit - that part did completely sear itself into my heart as I thought how many times I’d felt imprisoned by my faults and yet hoped for so much more for my daughters.  Jumbo had just been bought by Mr. Medici from India; yanked into salvaging his circus and about to give birth to Jumbo Jr,  sure to be a crowd pleaser.  As for myself, one of the acts I’d been yanked into, at a younger age than Jumbo, was anxiety and depression. Later, it would take the PMDD turn and that same anxiety and depression would get worse cyclically, along with the strictly premenstrual symptoms of bloating, extreme carb-load cravings, foggy brain, irritability, tension, sailor-mouth and rage (at its worst.)  But the first intimations of just the anxiety/depression combo began at about age 9..  


The combination of anxiety/depression had a strange paralyzing power over my adolescence.  It felt like I was muted and keyed up all at the same time and I had a hard time, especially in social situations, just being myself.  I was much better with the anxiety at home but I remember wondering what was happening to me one morning over my Eggo waffle breakfast as I wished I could disappear and not have to endure another day at middle-school.  I was now 12.  And I had not yet started my period.


My period.  THAT was sure to be a great day!  Wait -who says that?!  I did.  I really did.  My mom had ordered some discreet, rectangular boxes from the Stayfree company for my sister and I and we had found them in the linen closet back when we were 10 and 11.  They were sealed only to be unveiled, we presumed, when one of us started “to become a woman.”  But this surely would not do! We both wanted to open them IMMEDIATELY upon discovery.  And so we secretly did.  It was a magical Pandora’s box full of teenage mystery.  There were pads, liners and a booklet on everything we needed to know to make “the change” effortlessly.  We read it aloud, forwards and backwards, and it seems we were actually performing the narrative booklet.  This menstrual circus act seemed manageable and maybe even fun as the kit designers and copywriters really knew their stuff!  I mean we were told we could even SWIM during our periods if we learned to use tampons!  What made these kits even more fun was the fact that, after each “period tutorial session,” we carefully repacked the contents and placed them back in the linen closet AS IF THEY’D NEVER BEEN OPENED.  It was a very clandestine operation and I don’t know how we contained ourselves.  It’s a little ironic to me how much I longed for the day when I would join Mother Nature’s Club of purse-toting young women.  Our older sister didn’t seem to enjoy her period much but that didn’t dissuade us.  We were armed and prepared; and a good thing too, because as it turns out, nobody really likes to talk about the menstrual cycle.  


Friends apparently passed me by.  My younger sister passed me by. I thought for sure something was wrong with me but all the teen magazines swore that anytime between 12-16 was “normal.”  So you can imagine the euphoria that was mine when a month before my 16th birthday I saw pink.  It was slightly anticlimactic but I was so relieved – and prepared!  



While I realized that my moods could vacillate and change as a teenager, I wasn’t really in tune to any cyclical pattern until I began wanting more interaction with boys.  Then I would notice that there were times when I felt more myself and comfortable socializing and then there were other times when I was frighteningly UNcomfortable and was almost rude in my aloofness.  It wasn’t that I wanted to be aloof.  I would actually force myself to keep up my regular schedule and be social.  What it did make me do was be extra hard on myself, extra sensitive to perceived rejection and judgment from peers, and go into protective and defensive mode.   This all seemed par for the adolescent course since every teen feels like “nobody gets me”.  At least I hoped it wasn’t just me.  I just continued to force myself to be where I wanted to be and do the things I really wanted to do even though they often scared me to death.  I was involved with my faith community and the youth group there.  I attended dances, early-morning scripture study before school and weekly activities.  In school I had a few good friends who enjoyed music as much as I did.  Choir class was a place where I found refuge and re-centering.  I tried out for the school musicals and got a solo singing part twice.  These performance opportunities were just enough to uncomfortably stretch me but thankfully not too main a part where I would implode with anxiety. 


College would bring another circus-ring-level of excitement and anxiety into my life.  I attended a large university with tons of students from all over the United States and world where 80% of us shared the same Christian faith.  That was an important factor for me because my spiritual relationship with God was an anchor to me; especially since I perceived my moods were often vacillating.  It was comforting that even though my social-anxiety made me feel very different than others, my faith was something I had in common with most everybody there.  I met someone right away whom I ended up having one of those “best friend/maybe boyfriend” relationships with.  We were together almost everyday which was really new for me. It wasn’t long though that my moods would begin unraveling periodically. One day I would be all in and another day I’d be irritated and disgusted with him.  I was quite confused and confusing. My second year I began dating someone else and we really seemed to click.  Again, I would start second guessing him and myself.  Though initially crazy about him, and he me, I’d suddenly get sad and forlorn about things.  We would be on and off again a few times in the next year.  Our first break up sent me into a tailspin.  I got super depressed and it was the first time I would seek professional help.  That’s when I got my first diagnosis of depression with anxiety, had a psychiatrist prescribe me Paxil (my first SSRI), did one-on-one counseling and also experienced group therapy.  Group therapy was a revelation to me; to see the things other peers struggled with. But the Paxil really did seem to save my life, as did my strong faith that I was a divine being having a temporary earthly experience.  This was temporary.


But let’s get to the good part. The BIG TOP performance of my circus life: motherhood.  See I had always wanted to be educated, find love, get married and stay home and raise my kids.  I figured there were always opportunities to be involved in the community, to hone my interests, serve others and develop my skills and hobbies, all while being there in my home for my family.  I did find my love and he saw the good, the bad, and the ugly parts of my mood disorder because I actually withdrew from my SSRI while we dated (philosophically, I hated the idea of being on medication.) That’s how I knew he was the one. He was steady and true. I actually worked full time our first year of marriage and then enrolled in massage therapy evening school while working days.  I had done a trial of regular birth control pills a year before, which is another story, that did not work out for my brain and sent me into a tailspin.  Since marriage I’d been on a once every 3 months DepoProvera shot and it was wreaking its own havoc.  Almost instantly I’d felt so depressed I wanted to melt into the earth.  Somehow I still got up to go to work and school but looking back I really don’t know how.  I couldn’t wait to get off of that.  I did, after a year, and - SURPRISE- we became pregnant. With TWINS. Mood-wise, it was a ring of fire in the beginning of the pregnancy, a walk in the park in the middle trimester (I felt really good), and a tightrope walk towards the end.  


But motherhood was where I really started to feel like a burgeoning freakish sideshow.  I feel like a variety of factors contributed to what would become the most trying years of my PMDD and PME (premenstrual exacerbation of my coexisting depression/anxiety).  These factors were the 3-ring circus of hormone changes (postpartum, nursing/weaning, menstrual cycles), sleep deprivation and special needs parenting that would intensely dominate my life for the next 16 years. 


 Please don’t read that and think  “Why did you keep having children?” But I get it if you do.


I have had 3 pregnancies and 4 children. I have found that life’s greatest joys also accompany life’s greatest trials. Just like in my marriage relationship, I knew I had something special to give and to receive, despite being imperfect.  Everyone has strengths and weaknesses. It is only in the worst parts of my dysphoria that my mind tells me differently; that I somehow have MANY more weaknesses than one should be allowed to have, especially when married and raising children.  That dysphoria is an awful, shame-loving beast, who, like Mr. Medici in the beginning of Dumbo, sees everything wrong with the way Jumbo’s “acting out” has affected his bottom-line. Jumbo, the mad-elephant momma, is whipped, shamed, chained up, boxed up and supposedly better off going back where she came from.  Things get even worse for her under Vandevere’s “care” where her life comes to be worth only what curious voyeurs will give to bask in her killer reputation as “Kali the Destroyer”- so beautiful yet so dangerous.  They know nothing of her tenderness and protectiveness for her child.  They don’t bother to ask “Why would such a gentle maternal giant go so rogue?”  Instead you can read the public’s minds…


 “Such a shame.” And shame is what keeps most women from seeking real help.


Unlike Jumbo, a.k.a. “Kali the Destroyer” in the remake of Dumbo, (a nod to the Hindu goddess of destruction in the fight for justice), who was chained and caged for viewers’ safety while on display at Nightmare Island, I used the tools of self-imposed isolation and a public mask of calm competence as much as I possibly could to spare myself and others.  This is like what a psychotherapist equates to holding a giant beach ball under-water.  Ever try that one for an extended  period of time? I fortified the physiological “human captivity” of PMDD by letting the shame of my biological/mental weaknesses prevent me from relating to and getting support from others.  For all I knew, I was alone. And a freak of womanly nature.


There is something in my American culture that rewards those who are able to “seamlessly” emerge out of oppression and handicap.  There is something even more powerful in my religious subculture that rewards those, especially women (because we are, by our nurturing nature, blessed with so many divine gifts and attributes), who can suck it up and persist through all manner of persecution, trial and natural disaster.  Notice those are all OUTWARD forces acting on a woman, who, if protected and shielded by her faith in God, should be able to come off unscathed and triumphant: a heroine for her offspring and posterity.  


But PMDD and PME act from WITHIN.  They use the very thing women celebrate- creative power- and I especially celebrated at the age of 15, and every time I conceived and carried a child, to shackle. Our feminine hormonal patterns, our reproductive powers, could somehow be turned on between 8-10% of cycling women, including me.  My greatest strength became my greatest weakness!  I could miraculously bring forth life but the lethargy, mood lability, and mental darkness up to 18 days of every 27-30 day cycle, and post-partum and post nursing would make it difficult to consistently nurture it, let alone my own life. How could this be? 


For me the answers would come slowly and gradually, sometimes with 2 steps forward and 3 steps back.  I have come to appreciate and acknowledge that it is, and has been, a lonely heroine’s journey. There is still so much to be learned about the forces that contribute to PMDD/PME.  How much better it would be to have medical and scientific companions in this cause! I was fortunate to have one physician’s assistant actually validate my struggles with my own hormones.  She was no expert but she was open and supportive and willing to systematically rule out any contributing factors such as insulin resistance (I did have that at this point) or thyroid imbalances ( I did not).  She gave me my first “Monthly Calendar of Menstrual Symptoms” in 2001 at the age of 32.  I had already been in “captivity” for at least 14 years.  Many years later social media would introduce me to the Gia Allemand Foundation, which is now IAPMD (International Association of Premenstrual Disorders) and the brave and vulnerable women who serve and find support there.  It would take the tragedy of Gia’s suicide during her luteal phase to propel a few women to organize, support and educate.


Like the movement to understand and advocate for the physical and mental health of elephants in captivity, the story of the PMDD Warrior has been one of first sympathy and then empathy.  For years small advocacy groups, who had sympathy for these very intelligent and social animals being broken by harsh treatment to make them trainable and able to “perform” unnatural tricks and tasks in close contact with humans, spoke for those who could not speak for themselves. The elephants themselves only got concern and attention once there were human casualties, such as what occurs in the movie DUMBO: a trainer or village person being killed.  What caused the animal to act out this way? From there, research was done on what the difference is between wild and captive elephants.  Carol Buckley, who co-founded a 2,700 acre natural-habitat elephant sanctuary in Tennessee, says this about elephants:


They are the same animal, in captivity and the wild. The difference is in their responses to experiences. Many captive elephants have been systematically brutalized by humans and, as a result, are shells of themselves. They are like prisoners of war, knowing that their day-to-day existence relies on their captors. (https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2013/02/07/life-for-captive-elephants/)


Yes!  Like elephants in captivity, we women with PMDD/PME are still women but often end up feeling like shells of ourselves!  We are beautiful and we are strong. We just have physiological differences in our responses to our own personal and hormonal experiences.  Over the years, as we vacillate between our productive and unproductive days and weeks, this wears on our health, our self-esteem, our careers and our most important relationships. 


Pretty soon, if legislative and social pressure continues, there will be no more elephants in circuses.  Because now scientific research supports that it is unhealthy.  And current ethics dictate that it is inhumane in a civil society. They will be freed, like the famous Ringling Bros. & Barnum and Bailey Circus elephants, after 146 years of their show, to proper sanctuaries, following the lead of 36 other countries (https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/05/wildlife-watch-ringling-circus-animal-welfare-photography/).  I hope that similar concern and measures will be enacted to protect and treat women whose brains are vulnerable to their own hormones and other aggravating factors.  Healthcare providers need to be educated and equipped to diagnose and offer helpful treatment to both younger and older women who show up in distress.  Funding for more research must go to women’s mental and reproductive disorders.  Women in distress need social support to keep their self-worth, jobs and families intact.  


To truly understand why an elephant in captivity might become destructive you need to know something of elephants in the wild and what human captivity and harsh training practices (in other words, a provocative environment) does to one.  This same scientific curiosity and humanitarian compassion should be extended to a woman with PMDD/PME before judgment is passed. In most cases, you will not see women like me with PMDD at our worst because we tend to self-isolate on our really bad days. But with support, curiosity and compassion from others and for ourselves we can see both our great humanity and our divine worth. Like Jumbo’s flock of free birds seen through her barred window, that is my great hope for myself and for our mothers, sisters and daughters.  It is why I emotionally hugged my girls after that movie and why I will warrior on until the prison doors are opened- and we find sanctuary.








Tuesday, December 10, 2019

“How did I get HERE?”

Seriously.  How did I get here?  I am sitting in the waiting area of a “Mercedes-Benz Campus”.  I feel very uncomfortable and yet so pleased at the same time.  But mostly horrified and not surprised by the voice in my head that says “You don’t really belong here.”  

But I LIKE it here. 

 Everyone should be able to come to a nice place to get their “home on the road,” or car, looked at.   We are all intrinsically worthy of this kind of treatment: complimentary snacks & drinks, a clean & bright atmosphere and courteous & capable employees.  My husband (My financial contribution to our situation is marginal.  My emotional and partner-empowering support, epic.) worked just as hard his entire life as he has in the last 7 years that our financial situation has gotten better. That means we can usually, at some point, afford the debt, be it medical or auto/house maintenance, that we get into. And we have no consumer debt because it has scared the pants off us in the past and we just really have made ourselves live within our means. And we can do some nice things with his employment perks. But let’s be real.  Despite the fact that my brakes have squeaked on and off for the last 4 months, I only came in today because I got a recall notice.  That means they will update something vaguely important for FREE.  I’m still a frugal chic with an eye for quality. We’ll see how frugally I get out of here.
 
See we bought this car used about 5 months ago.  It’s 9 years old and has reached 100K.  But to me it’s nice.  Really nice. And thanks to my husband’s Scout leader of ages past, we got a really nice deal on it too (we also traded in a car that we gratefully owed nothing on). So instead of the totally fine other cars that I drove that would have been really good deals too, we picked this Mercedes-Benz.  Because I dared to get in it. And our family will fit comfortably in it.  And the price was good and it was his parents’ car and they took really good care of it and you get the picture.  I needed several reasons to allow myself this luxury. But mostly my husband would not see anything else after it caught his eye.  So we took on a car payment  when we were really hoping not to. And here I am in the lap of a luxury waiting area for MY car. And I’m wondering how I - how we - got here.  

I think it’s pretty much a matter of work ethic and talents meets lots of personal life and family trials, meets economic setbacks, meets lots of humility, meets learning curves,  meets the divine scales of balance between justice & mercy, meets repentance and once in a while (lots if you’re lucky 😉), in this life, a tender mercy wins.  
That’s it.  Life is like a box of chocolates.  You never know what you’re gonna get so be grateful when you get some good stuff - some caramel filling.  

Monday, December 9, 2019

Adventures In Indexing: Pacifists & Studebakers & "Mormons" Oh my!


My Dad

 NOTE: All names of persons in indexed records will remain anonymous in these posts.

 Going through and indexing old vital and government records doesn't sound all that enticing to you? They are often hard to read and repetitive. Sometimes you get stuck and wonder if it's worth your time. Maybe it should be left in the hands of a professional archivist, librarian or historian? Maybe you think it would be really nice to have some formal training on this. What good does tramping around in the past do? Maybe the past should stay in the past? To that I can say, from experience, that people- dead or alive, past or present- like to be heard. And sometimes it's the trace records of their lives that do the first talking. They say "I was here. And I hope that my life mattered." It reminds me of one of my favorite shows I like to watch when folding laundry, The Story Trek. Does randomly picking towns and knocking on doors and asking strangers to tell their "stories" and getting a variety of strange looks and closed doors make for riveting tv? When somebody opens their mouth it does, as Todd Hansen from BYUtv's THE STORY TREK and fans know. Something about opening up your ears, eyes and hearts to the universe and saying "Here I am. What do you have for me?!" and cool things come forth. That happens to me all the time when I engage in the simple tasks that God has asked me to do.

 Sunday I was challenged by Tim to do a batch of WW1 draft records in FamilySearch's volunteer indexing program. I've been indexing for about 6 years now (by the way, the way that time flies really makes me feel like a time traveler. And old.) (USA)WW1 draft records are great to do for beginners because there are about 5 records in a batch and you can get used to how different clerks write the alphabet, whether in cursive or print. They come in all different states and counties, often show birthdate and place, current residence, marital status, whether they had kids and often the name of their nearest relative. They often list basic physical characteristics and whether they desire to claim exemption. Honing in on this last question for this one batch took me on a cool journey that actually intersected with my life. In elementary school they call this a "text to self" or even a "text to world" connection. I love when stuff I learned while reading with my kids feels relevant in the grown-up world! It's like everything I ever really needed to know I learned in kindergarten...or while my kids were in kindergarten. Motherhood has been good for me.

 Three records in a row, all with the same surname, listed being members of The Church of The Brethren as a reason for exemption from military service. This sounded like a cult or commune of some sort that I'd not heard of. What was it? I knew that Quakers and Mennonites were a few groups that because of their particular view of Christianity did not wish to use or support violence. What I found when I Googled that church was that it had roots in early 18th century Schwarzenau Germany and was an offshoot of the Protestantism of the time. Due to growing hardships and persecution, many emigrated to the American colonies and formed their first congregation in Germantown, PA in 1723. From that time, if there were wars and conflicts, the Brethren held pacifist leanings and resisted fighting and thus I saw these WW1 draft registrants claiming exemption for religious reasons.

 Looking a little more, I noticed that The Church of The Brethren (earlier known as German Baptists & called “Dunkers”) currently have a historical library and while perusing through some of their online articles I found the Studebaker logo!  My dad, who passed away almost exactly a year from now (see his pic above), loved cars and restoring them. His favorite ones were made by Studebaker (my personal favorite model was his gold Avanti.) The company was started by 2 brothers when their family had moved to South Bend, Indiana in the 1800s. These brothers were part of a large family who had been raised in The Church of the Brethren in Germantown, PA.  I also have family ties in that town. Brethren aim to follow the example of Jesus Christ as shown in the New Testament and interpret that in action by their baptism by immersion, daily service to others and non-violent submission. The Studebaker brothers made their living after the manner of their forefathers – in blacksmithing and wagon building before building automobiles. In 1857 they contracted with the U.S. government to supply them with wagons for their latest venture, The “Mormon Rebellion”, which required a long trip out west to the Utah Territory. This venture did not sit well with one brother, Henry, and his pacifist feelings. Opportunistically another brother, John, who had just returned from earning a fortune supplying wheelbarrows to California gold miners, decided to buy Henry out and invest $8,000 in the company. Henry and his father would live out the rest of their days in their faith. The other brothers did not.

Today some members of The Church of The Brethren do choose to serve in the military.  I wondered if my dad knew of this interesting connection to his favorite car company? I think he would have found it entertaining as he had joined the Mormon (The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints) faith as a young husband and father. I also live in a city that shares the same valley that United States Army camped (Camp Floyd) in during the “Utah War”. I never knew much about that until we moved here 19 years ago. Thus are the text-to-self and text-to-world gems  (maybe I should call them "index-to-self or "index-to-world" connections) that can be found when digging a little deeper and shining a light on history…through indexing.

Thursday, September 19, 2019

Medicated: “Seeing through a glass darkly”



I’ve been listening to a lot of podcasts lately,  searching out the stories of marginalized people who are overcoming life’s challenges and society’s prejudices. I am intensely curious about the individual human experience and have been since I decided to read every single book in the American Heroes biography series at Smoketree Elementary’s school library. There was a pretty broad spectrum of early American historical figures from Dolley Madison and Harriet Tubman to Paul Revere and George Washington Carver.  I was pleasantly surprised to learn about so many women from this collection.  Even as a young girl I felt a lack of historical representation and pretty much ate up the stories of these women who gained notoriety either on their own merits or through the position of their husbands.  I was touched by Mary Todd Lincoln’s struggles with grief and depression as she outlived her husband and three of her four children.  I admired Florence Nightingale’s compassion and her vision and drive to improve the care of wounded soldiers.

So what does this introduction have to do with being medicated, as the title of this entry suggests?  I went through a mini identity crisis last week.  I was pondering, perhaps for the thousandth time, who am I?  What do I really feel?  What are MY needs?  And, does anyone else really care? How much does my SSRI medication blunt me from the reality around me from day to day?  Would I be able to represent myself better if my brain wasn’t constantly infused with recycled neurotransmitters bathing my synapses?  Have I lost touch with my true feelings and passions and drives as this brain state has been my normal setting for over 19 years straight (with only a few switches in dose, formula and regimen)?  To reference Paul’s first  letter to the Corinthians,
12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.
How dark is my glass?  Does this medication make it darker?  Can my Creator see through whatever mists this medication creates and see the true desires of my heart even if I am not feeling “clear”?  How shall I “know even as also I am known?”  

I understand that this scripture is distinguishing between what I can know NOW and what will be made clear at a future time.
10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.
I realize through seeing the context of these verses that the answer regarding clarity is CHARITY- the pure love of Christ- the ultimate lens of true worth, experience and value.  The whole chapter is a treatise on charity and its ability to conquer all doubt and discouragement- in ourselves, in others and in doctrine- and to have faith in Christ’s mission, love and atonement.  

So I talked myself off the ledge with the Spirit’s help.  I am grateful for my treatment plan even if now it is only “part” and not “perfect”.  It enables me to hold on and continue to learn new things; to witness the lives of my children and to continue in patience in loving them and my husband as I love myself.  I may never contribute in a grand way worthy of an entire chapter book.  But I can, in a small and simple way, testify of what faith in the Lord Jesus Christ can do for an individual and a family.




Wednesday, April 24, 2019

"Such a Man!"

Fighting Back Harder: A PMDD Case Study from A Husband's Point of View

Updated: Mar 29


INTRO: A friend of mine sent this very personal narrative to me almost 5 months ago (on my birthday I might add). A few years earlier he had read an older post of mine about my own experience trying to make sense of my PMDD and promptly messaged me "SUSIE WE HAVE TO TALK!". We did. It was the first time I realized that sharing my experience could actually help another feel "NOT ALONE". It was so obvious that this guy loved and adored his wife. He had wooed and married her and had felt he'd gotten the far better end of the deal. He was ecstatic to be getting closer to the true character of his wife's mood disorder and saw the light at the end of the tunnel. Thankfully he is very expressive, and could barely contain himself to ask me if I could publish this for him, with the agreement that he remain anonymous to protect his wife's privacy. THIS IS NOT EVERY WOMAN OR PARTNER's EXPERIENCE WITH PMDD OR WITH GETTING A PROPER DIAGNOSIS & TREATMENT PLAN. I hesitated to go forward because light is still being shed on this disorder and every case is different in what can agitate it to the point of dysfunction and dispruption in one's life. There is definitely something going on with the woman's personal sensitivity to even NORMAL hormonal changes let alone when you add synthetic birth control or any hormone supplement or replacement. It could be the metaphorical difference between blowing gently on a flame and throwing kerosine on it. In any case, it is extremely rare to get the partner's point of view and experience. Most partners of women desperately trying to hold onto some semblance of normal, are being tossed in a sea of confusion alongside their partner. I admire how this friend "went to bat" for his wife, demanding that she and he be heard. To that I say: "What a man." Here are his words.
"Let me begin with the conclusion. PMDD(pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder) is a significantly underdiagnosed, misdiagnosed, and misunderstood medical condition that impacts far more women in the world than reported and it can be SEVERE. Here is the story.
My wife suffered from painful and long periods. They were just awful. On top of it she would have bouts of depression. As our marriage continued her depression only increased. Her gynecologist put her on birth control pills and told her to see a psychiatrist. The psychiatrist told her she had major depression and gave her lots of pills. Her depression went from mild to severe. During the severe cases she was hospitalized. She never tried to kill herself but she absolutely couldn’t handle her state of being and sometimes she would hurt herself just to feel something- ANYTHING. Some mental health programs were outpatient and some were inpatient. I absolutely did not accept the diagnosis of major depression. I explained that this is not who my wife is. I was looked upon as someone who simply didn’t want his wife this way; like I was trying to change her into something she is not. I explained that I know who she is and this is not her- something is causing it. Multiple doctors explained that the issue was psychological. None of the doctors could point to a reason or cause. Their diagnosis was based on symptoms. I was determined to find the cause. It was a broad search at first.
Her depression started to come on in her teenage years and it just grew from there. By the time we were married it started to get bad. A year or so into our marriage it increased to severe: inability to go out, to see people, to even shower. (This went on for years- and I refer to this part of our lives as "the dark ages"). I remember bringing her to the store one night and she had a breakdown in the ice cream isle because she couldn’t figure out which ice cream to get. That started off a very bad episode of “depression”. Depression is like a dark storm where you can’t see anything clearly and you are pelted with winds of self-hate, your future seems bleak and hopeless, and your past takes on the beauty of a mud puddle. I realized this was getting severe. She had many many many therapists; therapist in person, therapists over the phone, so many ways we tried to work with her but there was something inside of her fighting back harder.
Her periods were rough from the start but they also grew in severity. When her period started surpassing 30 days more than once a year I realized this was getting really bad. By the time she had her 3rd D&C I realized this was a severe problem.


The third time she was in the mental health hospital I was on my way to visit her and she called me and told me to pick up tampons. I didn’t even have to ask what flavor- purple, max, overnight with wings. I also got a small bag of gummy worms and started taking some of the tampons out of the box and filling them up with gummy worms- since she loves gummy worms and can’t have candy in the hospital- they literally check everything- so I thought it was fun to sneak contraband in there. As I am stuffing the gummy worms in the tampon box I realize I have been to this pharmacy 3 times now. Each time she was hospitalized I had to go buy her tampons. This is a pattern.

I started my research with 2 truths: 1. her depression is not who she is, it is caused by something. And 2: her lady plumbing is messed up. I spent years researching this. Many nights were spent with Doctor Google. I found a website that let me buy time to communicate with a doctor overseas. We chatted back and forth for a while one night, discussing hormones. Finally, after my wife had had her second dilation and curettage (D&C) and started bleeding again her doctor suggested a drug called Lupron. Lupron is administered through an injection and it puts a woman’s body into menopause for 6 months. You stop ovulating- no periods for 6 months. It is usually administered back-to-back with a compliment dose giving you a total of 12 months of no periods. Sounds like paradise, right? …lets see…

So she got the shot of Lupron. Within a few days she went nuts. As the days went on she went CRAZY. Crazy doesn’t even begin to describe her as the days continued. See if you can figure out what I am saying if I give you the words Batman, poop, and crazy (editor's note: I still haven't figured this out. Someone please enlighten me!) That’s the kind of crazy I am talking about and just a few weeks after the dose she had to be admitted to the mental health facility again. And she had art therapy and group discussion and psychology appointments and psychiatry appointments and she was getting “better” and then BETTER and then BETTER! And this time the facility really helped her! And she was doing GREAT! And she came home feeling great! And she just needed to get in touch with her feelings. And she was far more capable now. She was happier and brighter and more down-to-earth. And she got her second shot of Lupron and she was still fine and then a few months later she started to bleed. And it wasn’t just a little blood. It was a monsoon of blood that didn’t let up for over a month. Her body declared war on her for going so long without bleeding. Those friggin' ovaries, those “mean girls,” decided they were going to teach my wife a lesson once and for all. I really hate those bitches, I really do! And so this opened up a tidal wave of blood and pain that just wouldn’t end.
About this time my research came up with a very RARE diagnosis called PMDD (premenstrual dysphoric disorder). As I researched PMDD I came to a blog written by a very brave woman who explained her bouts with depression and her decision to have her ovaries removed to help her mental condition (https://msjekyllhyde.wordpress.com) And it worked. This was intriguing. And so now I had evidence of a patient who got rid of their ovaries and it greatly reduced their depression. This is something counter to what doctors had explained! My wife fit ALL of the symptoms for PMDD. And so I started running with the theory that my wife had PMDD. I started doing more research.
The research into estrogen was the big eye-opener. Estrogen is talked about a lot but understands a little. The FDA would never allow a doctor to prescribe the amount or estrogen a woman can get in a day. It's also so hard to measure hormone levels because they change so much over the course of a day. But estrogen is an interesting little hormone. You see it DIRECTLY impacts the serotonin in your head. Now serotonin is something I had read a lot about. Many of my wife’s pills for her depression were aimed at impacting her serotonin levels. When people take drugs and self medicate they are usually trying to alter the serotonin levels in their head. This is what changes how we feel. Let that sink in. And so I discover that serotonin is directly impacted by estrogen. So now lets run with the theory that my wife does not get a steady flow of estrogen. A more traditional cycle sends estrogen into the serotonin river like a hose pouring water. My wife’s estrogen is released like a firehose and then trickle and then a firehose and a trickle or anything but a consistent flow. This makes her feel awful. And then came the Lupron. It made her crazy…and then she was fine.
I discussed this with her gynecologist- he is a wonderful man who was fellowship trained but he had no idea what PMDD was. He dismissed it and suggested she try more birth control pills- "let's go ahead and double it- I dare your uterus to bleed through that!" (by the way- don’t taunt your uterus…ever) Birth control pills are frequently prescribed when not needed or prescribed for convenience and frequently they are OVERPRESCRIBED because they are very misunderstood. I finally begged my wife to see a professional who specialized in PMDD and she reluctantly agreed. I called UCLA in an attempt to get someone top-notch in the field. I screened them all to find a gynecologist who had a lot of experience with PMDD and bonus- the doctor was a woman! So we met with her and she was so kind and sympathetic and she prescribed my wife 3 birth control pills a day and insisted that would teach your cycle who is boss! And about 2 months later my wife's bleeding was so bad and her pain was so severe we returned to see that doctor and the doctor said my wife should not be bleeding. I volunteered that my wife had a hormone problem and it needs to be fixed. I stated the estrogen was making her bleed. The doctor lost it and she yelled out something like this- “Such a man! SUCH A MAN TO SAY IT'S ALL HORMONES! SHE ISN’T GETTING ESTROGEN SO IT'S NOT CAUSING HER TO BLEED!” I calmly explained that it was all hormones and that the only way a woman can bleed is through hormones and the mere fact that she was bleeding was proof that she was getting estrogen and that her body's ovaries are just on overdrive and they are spitting out hormones that are messing with her lady parts and her brain. I was now more convinced than ever that the ovaries were the main culprit for my wife’s gynecological issues and her mental issues. I begged my wife to get her ovaries removed. She would not. I respected her decision since they are her ovaries and I would not take kindly to someone telling me to lose my balls.
A few years went by and she started to have a lot of abdominal pain. Turns out she had a cyst on one of her ovaries. The pathology was a bit fuzzy and he recommended a hysterectomy. So she did it. A few days later, as she was recovering, she started to spiral out of control. It was horrible. Secretly I was so excited and happy about it! You see what was happening here? It was the same thing that happened with the Lupron. The Lupron shut her ovaries down- the hysterectomy takes her ovaries out! She was having the same reaction to the hysterectomy as she did to the Lupron. And then a few weeks later it was like the dark clouds of depression cleared and revealed a beautiful blue sky! My wife is completely different now. She is able. She drives places. She wrangles our kid LIKE A BOSS. She runs to Costco like a champ! She owns Target! She does the school drop off, pick up, handles appointments, and bathes daily! She still deals with depression but not a tenth of what she used to deal with. I have my wife back! And as for her ovaries….wherever her ovaries are, I hope they are rotting in hell.
The point of me writing this is to let you know that many women have this problem. There is a reason why so many more women deal with major depression than men. It’s because of the estrogen. Women who have painful periods and bleed heavily and have severe depression please take note. It’s not your fault. Your ovaries hate you. The way you test and see if you have PMDD is you ask for Lupron from your gynecologist. They will likely give it to you to see if it helps you stop bleeding. If you go crazy for the first month and then feel a LOT BETTER for 5 months then chances are your ovaries and you are not on good terms and it's either you or them in a cage match of death. Many women have committed suicide because of PMDD. It is a killer. Their ovaries drove them to do it. Their ovaries were pumping such massive and inconsistent quantities of estrogen into their serotonin stream that there was no recovery from the free-fall. There was no anti-depressant strong enough to counterbalance it.
Anyway, that’s my story. My wife has gotten so much better I now stick out as the crazy depressed one in our family and she helps me. A lot. I love her to pieces. I’ve always loved her, just not all of her. In truth, I never loved her ovaries. I’m glad she won that cage match. I wish the doctor could have given me her ovaries so I could throw them off the roof of the hospital, run over them with my car, stomp my foot on them, feed them to a colony of dung-beetles, and then burn everything with a blowtorch. That would have felt goooooood."



Friday, March 14, 2014

Happy Joy Joy!: Why I Am Skeptical of Happiness OR Welcome to My PMDD

I once got mad at an ex for using exclamation marks after every sentence in his letter to me.  It's sad but true that I am leery of overly enthusiastic sorts.

But today?  Today I am going to bask in the feeling that tiny little effervescent bubbles of quiet joy are rising to the surface :-).  The last 5 days or so I have felt unusually peaceful and not as high strung as I tend to be during this time of the month.  YES- THAT TIME; the week preceding my period where I usually want nothing more than to be left alone and if you know what's good for you, you would be more than obliging.  It's NOT typical.  It's NOT PMS.  It's much more debilitating than being a little more moody than usual.  It's an ultra sensitivity that some women have to their own hormonal fluctuations which manifests itself physiologically by way of overcompensating for the imbalances their bodies perceive are threatening their homeostasis.  It's called PMDD which is short for "pre-menstrual dysphoric disorder."   Less than 10% (numbers vary between 3-10%) of menstruating women have it which is probably supposed to make me feel special, but it doesn't.  Especially since I have never been a "typical" enough case to actually be diagnosed as such.  Without going into too much of the diagnostic aspect of it (go here http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0004461/ if you'd like to), I can have depression and irritability on days other than the typical week before your period.  But that being said (and it even acknowledges it in that link), there is definitely someone pumping up the volume dial of my symptoms those 7-8 days (anytime after ovulation really, i.e. second half of the cycle) before the relief that comes with my period.  Yes, the relief.  So if you're miserable when you start your period, you probably don't have PMDD.  Other unpleasantries and disruptions to your life?  YES. But PMDD? NOT SO MUCH.

OH MY GOSH!  I really wanted to talk about how good I feel right now!  But I always feel the need to give background information so you (really I'm writing for my own clarity but if this helps you that's awesome) can get the BIG PICTURE.   And there's a lot going on in this picture (maybe even enough to create my own IMAX movie).  Make no mistake, this is really personal stuff and not something I usually bring up in many conversations.  And it's taken me YEARS (I'm 44) to give voice to it.  This is me being almost as vulnerable as I can possibly imagine.   I finally have some time, with all my kids in school and working part-time at home, to work through this and allow God to bring everything together so that I can really begin to heal.  I wish it hadn't taken this long.  I have been trying to do the right things for myself, my body and my family all along but, alas, I am so very mortal- so flawed- and I need help and I need the faith and hope to understand that help IS available.  I have felt trapped by some of my life situations and I have felt extremely liberated by others.    What is this opposition that continually besets me? Why must my earth life be so RICH with this experience?  Well, there are a few scriptures that answer this for me: 2 Nephi Chapter 2 (The Book of Mormon) and The Doctrine & Covenants section 122.  You can Google them if you like.  But here is my favorite part where Jacob's father, Lehi, sounds a LOT like our Heavenly Father in addressing his children:
 I have none other object save it be the everlasting awelfare of your souls. 
I read a book this past week which may also have a LOT to do with why I feel lighter.  Now I've read MANY a near-death experience book before and I enjoy them much and they also create a feeling of lightness, love and eternal perspective for me that I crave.  This one left me feeling those things too but a little more earthbound.  It was not an NDE.  At least not in the near death of the physical body sense.  The woman was alive but so spiritually and physically exhausted that she thought she'd be better off dead.  She was a very prayerful mother of 4 kids going through some health struggles, financial stresses with their businesses and the stress of parenting.  She actually decided to get on her knees in her extreme distress and offer one last prayer to explain to God why she couldn't go on and why her family was better off without her.  According to her, an angel came and invited her to come with him.   In so doing her spirit did separate from her physical body and she had an experience witnessing the time before her birth when she was in an educational facility where we all prepared for our earth lives.  She met with Heavenly Father and felt of His confidence in and love for her as he extended an invitation to her to receive a special assignment should she so choose to accept it.  Her memories of her pre-earth life and how much she had already grown and become at that point amazed her.  Everyone there amazed her.  We were ALL amazing and on earth, with a more metaphorical STEEL than GUAZE like veil placed in our brains, only understand tiny glitches of how amazing we were -and are- in this life.   And she was amazed by how perfect Heavenly Father is and how he loved and deeply cared for each of us and how much we trusted and wanted to become just like Him.   It's called A Glimpse of Heaven: One Woman's Life-Altering Visit with God.  The rest of the book is about how she goes about fulfilling this "mission" despite many setbacks and some of the unromantic outcomes.

One of the interesting things that struck me about this experience was that, like many others who've had NDEs, the circumstances leading to and following such encounters were not always neatly resolved.   Like it or not, life has a natural form of resistance built into it so that we don't become complacent or negligent to character building experiences, even if we've seen God and know some of the switches and levers behind the Great Oz's curtain.    After reading so many different beyond the veil accounts I see how presumptuous it is to only know more of the plan through more of our senses.  We must experience it.  We must experience it IN a mortal body.  It is only through this very personal struggle that we come to truly know God and what we are made of and by whom we can be made whole again.  And WHY.  Why?  Here's another scripture from 2 Nephi 2.  Verse 25
tells us:
aAdam bfell that men might be; and men care, that they might have djoy.
I believe that JOY is the ultimate appreciation for and true understanding of real LOVE.   This kind of love can only be experienced between Creator and Creation.  We felt a portion of that before we came to earth.  Then we feel the distress that comes through separation at birth from all that we knew and loved (even though we forget everything, our spirit matter remembers and grieves) but we get to experience new connections here in families, friendships and communities; people we may have even known and been connected to before.  But our Creator is unseen; He who first created us and loved us. We can see evidence of Him everywhere in the other works of His creation (Nature, Space, others) but we miss Him and the Light and Love that emanate from his physical and spiritual presence.   There are limitations placed on us because of what Christians call the Fall.  We are now working our way back up-- the RISE I guess you could call it.  But, don't be fooled,  it looks more like a roller coaster than an escalator and there was a huge piece of track missing that only Jesus Christ could rebuild and has through a thing called the ATONEMENT: a sacrificial offering of love and Priesthood power.  I think my personal trials in life have done everything to illustrate and bring this concept home for me.  Being a woman and mother is no cake walk but I have come to learn something of the love my heavenly parents must have for me when I share tender moments with my kids.  My mental and physical health struggles challenge me to reach up and out for insight and the strength to forge new habits and solutions that will bless me.  Mostly I struggle with the patience it takes to serve imperfectly, realizing that God's grace is enough to make up for what I lack.  And I get discouraged and feel like God is ignoring my needs.

But He's not. That's why I wanted to write today.  I want to thank my Heavenly Father for inspiring me in all the little ways that seem to finally be making a big difference.  Those, I suppose, will be topics for future blog posts because I really need to get off this computer.  But know that I know He is helping me!  (yes, that is an exclamation point!!!)