7/12/16: Pregnancy Details...

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. Winter semester got a little crazy, and then I got pregnant, but I didn't know that was what was happening at first, I just knew I felt nauseous and exhausted all the time. Once we found out (relatively quickly, working with a fertility doctor) the nausea was full-blown and I was basically couch-ridden for a month there in the first trimester. Not sure why it was so intense, but all I know is I was immensely grateful it was Spring semester and I could take the time I needed to just rest and recover every day.

I keep trying to think about what else to write about first, but I'm struggling because it just feels like being pregnant is dominating our lives and thoughts right now. So I guess I'll just stick with the pregnancy strain for now until something else comes up. And I'm sorry I'm not writing about how the recent news events are impacting me. It just feels a little overwhelming to try to dedicate a post to articulating all the feelings right now, but that's definitely never far from my mind right now either.

So...pregnancy. Since I haven't blogged since we found out, I wanted to document how it's been for us. It's been wildly different from the miscarriage last year, in a great way, yet I've been surprised how quickly complaints fall out of my mouth about the physical effects of pregnancy on my body even in the aftermath of the pain of infertility struggles. I have so many friends struggling with fertility and who would give anything to feel as sick as I did, so I try not to complain publicly at the very least, but Dave has definitely gotten earfuls about the seemingly endless vomiting, the peeing every 5 seconds, and the general fatigue that's making it difficult to function. As frustrating as these symptoms have been, though, I haven't stopped feeling overwhelmingly grateful and humbled for the opportunity to grow and eventually raise a healthy baby with Dave.

Last year when we saw the positive pregnancy test, I was filled with fear and trepidation immediately. I was afraid of a miscarriage happening, yes, but mostly I was overwhelmed by the idea of becoming a mom. I didn't feel ready at all to be raising a little one, and I didn't feel like I had worked through enough of my emotional stuff to not pass on some pretty intensely unhealthy patterns I had developed (Remember, I was finishing a master's program that had taken it upon itself to point out to me all of my flaws and weaknesses). I felt like I was doomed to fail as a parent and that I would inevitably raise a broken child who would struggle to succeed in life. Sounds a little dramatic, I know, but when I finally processed what the negative feelings surrounding the pregnancy were about, those were the fears that surfaced.

I don't know when that all shifted exactly, but over last year I've been able to work through the fears by honing in on who I really want to be, how I want to treat people, what's important to me and what's not, and learning how to truly unconditionally love and be loved. I feel like I'm in such a different place in my life than I was a year ago. I feel centered, strong, capable, kind, compassionate, empathetic, and loving. I feel like it's okay that I'll make mistakes parenting and I'll accidentally hurt my children sometimes--because I know how to say sorry, I know how to repair a relationship, and I know how to acknowledge that I'm not perfect and address it when I need to. Not that any of this is coming easily to me yet, but I have a really amazing husband encouraging me along the way and helping me recenter when I feel like I'm losing those pieces of myself. I've surrounded myself with friends who know what we call "Core Erin" and love her and support her when she chooses the harder right. And I feel like I've really got some amazing people who love me and want me to succeed. That brings a whole new level of confidence about this whole mothering thing I've never felt before.

So this time, when we saw the positive pregnancy test, I felt a little bit of fear that I might be miscarrying because I was spotting like last time, but as soon as we confirmed that things were normal and healthy, I didn't feel any more fear--just excitement and love for our little bean!! It's been entirely different this time around and I honestly can NOT wait to meet this little babe in December.  I wish it was December right now (and not just because I'd be one semester closer to graduating...)!! I never thought I'd be this unabashedly excited without the nerves when I was pregnant, but I really feel like, we can do this, and if it's too hard, we'll find help, and we'll survive.

Now, that's how I'm feeling emotionally. Logically, on the other hand, I definitely struggle when I think about the logistics of birthing a child and returning to school about a week later full swing with the hardest semester of my program yet. It's a little scary trying to predict how much my arms will be able to take of holding, nursing, bathing, rocking, and loving a baby, when right now just cutting out pictures for our Sunbeam lessons on Saturday nights have me icing my arms and wrists every Sunday...But we're trying to figure out carriers and find the lightest version of everything possible to help make the transition as easy as possible on my arms. And we know that during school we just might need some outside help because physically I may not be able to do it all. Also, it's always an option to delay a semester of my program, but I really would rather not do that if I can help it. Any delay of graduation makes it all the more likely that graduation will never happen, haha. I'm not the first, and I won't be the last MFT PhD student to have a baby during school, so I know it can be done, and I have some great friends helping me along the way already with it all.

So overall, I'm almost at week 16, the second trimester has been significantly better than the first, but I still have some random rough days, and I'm just getting more and more excited about meeting this little one!!

10, 14, and 15 weeks! And I LOVE maternity clothes already. :) 

3/20/16: And I Thought I Loved You Then...

"They...They wh--*sob* wh-what...? No...no...oh...no..." These were the words that escaped Dave's lips two Sunday mornings ago almost involuntarily in between sobs as he collapsed onto the side of our bed--his face wet with immediate tears and contorted in agony and grief. His Dad had just called to give him the news that his 27-year-old brother, Bryan, had been found by his faithful home teacher and bishop dead in his apartment that morning and that was all we knew. I was in the middle of waking Remus up for the morning at the time and mentally running through my 3^rd hour combined lesson for the day on marriage and pornography for the ward. In a matter of seconds, nothing else existed for me but my husband’s tortured face and his heaving sobs. As soon as I ran to physically support him, he relayed his dad’s message to me and my heart stopped for a few terrifying seconds. I couldn’t breathe and I didn’t know what to do, but I felt my hands instinctively reach for Dave’s and pull him into the strongest embrace I could muster. When the smothering was too much (after just 30 seconds or so), Dave began to pace—fervently. He walked back and forth from the tissue box on my nightstand to Remus, to his phone, looking expectantly at it as if if he looked hard enough, his dad would call back to tell us this was all a horrible mistake and his brother was actually alive and well and we could go back to our happy Sunday without a second thought about our mortality. 

But the call never came. I propped myself up against the wall of our bedroom, shaking slightly, aware of silent tears streaming down my cheeks, mindlessly petting Remus, to keep him occupied long enough so he wouldn’t have an accident, as Dave kept pacing the room. Painful thought after painful thought kept intruding and we both spoke them aloud as they came, to no one in particular. “Oh Lysa...She’s alone in Italy, this is going to destroy her.” “That poor home teacher and Bishop…I can’t even imagine.” “Your poor parents…they’ll have to call everyone one by one and relive this conversation so many times today…” “Stasi…Oh Stasi…I don’t even want to think about how she’s feeling.” “Chris is alone in Jersey right now. He doesn’t have anyone to process this with.” And on and on, until we realized it was 8:55 and we needed to decide if we were going to church or not. We decided it wasn’t a good idea to try to handle sunbeams and a lesson about emotional regulation while experiencing major shock and grief with no time to process anything, so while Dave began working on a way to get in touch with Lysa’s mission president for his parents, I began making the calls to let the bishopric and primary presidency know what was happening and we spent the rest of the Sunday just holding each other, crying, and letting ourselves do whatever we needed to do to get through this at home.

* * * * * *

Two weeks later we’ve had time to begin to process and grieve and we feel more stable about the situation, but it wouldn’t be honest to say we’re not still in shock and disbelief. We held the memorial services this weekend in Rigby, Idaho and we were surrounded by family and friends who loved Bryan and love the Rackhams. I sang a song titled “My Little Child”, which was essentially the soundtrack to Merrilie and David’s journey to adopting Stasi and Bryan from Russia so many years ago. It was one of the most difficult performances I’ve ever given, because looking over to find Dave’s father trying with all his might to hold back sobs almost broke my heart right then and there, but with the help of the Spirit, and by some miracle, I actually got all the words out without tears and almost did the song justice for Merrilie. Dave spoke not too long after I sang and he was the picture of emotional vulnerability as he taught about Christ’s beautiful example of mourning with those that mourn how they need to be mourned with through the story of his teaching Martha, and weeping with Mary when their brother Lazarus had passed. It was a beautiful and inspired talk that brought peace (and tears) to us all, I think. I was so proud of him as I watched him proclaim his love for the Savior and his faith in the Savior’s love for Bryan and each of us while standing next to his brother’s earthly remains. What strength and courage.

No father or mother should ever have to bury their son. No brother or sister should ever have to bury their brother at such a young age. But bury him we did yesterday, and I couldn’t help but reflect on how this all has affected me as an in-law of a few years to the family. I was lucky in that my relationship with Bryan was uncomplicated, sweet, and simple. My experiences with him have always been pleasant and he has always been very complimentary and kind to me ever since I joined the family. He struggled with addictions of many kinds, mental health issues, and past traumas from his childhood in Russia that would affect even the healthiest of individuals. I never knew him pre-drugs and alcohol, but what I knew of Bryan was endearing, inspiring, and joyful. The rest of the family was not so lucky. They were with Bryan through the good, the bad, and the ugly of his integration into the family at age 12. There was trauma that Bryan inevitably brought into the family because how could he not? As such, their relationships are a blend of incredibly joyful memories and horribly painful ones, and this makes the grieving process infinitely more difficult, I’m sure.

Yesterday, I missed Bryan, and I was grieving that he was no longer with us, but even more difficult for me was watching my husband shovel a scoop of dirt gently into his brother’s grave as his shoulders heaved with sobs and he looked up to the sky with a face that seemed to plead, “Why?”. More difficult than realizing that I would never see Bryan again was hearing his brothers speculate about what more they could have done and wonder if they had put more effort into the relationship how things would have been different. Watching Dave’s parents wrestle between the pain of losing their son and the relief that his physical suffering had come to an end here on this earth was equal parts heart-breaking and tender.

I titled this post, “And I Thought I Loved You Then…” because I thought I knew what loving Dave was after almost 4 years of marriage, but these last two weeks have taught me that I have more capacity to shoulder my husband’s pain than I ever thought was possible. His contorted face from that first phone call has haunted me every day for two weeks now and it visited us in person again yesterday at the burial, and I couldn’t help but want to run to him and completely take this burden from him. Of course, I could only hold him while we cried together, but there was something comforting in just that small gesture for both of us, even if it didn’t relieve the pain completely. I imagine this is how the Savior feels towards me when I’m struggling to find peace, too—he would rush to me and take the pain away if it would help, but we know that part of this life is to “learn, grow, and come to be”, as my song yesterday said. So as painful as the last few weeks have been for us, I’m grateful I’ve had the opportunity to love Dave as I’ve never loved before, and to feel his (and his family’s) pain more intimately than I thought was possible, because it has reassured me that I love this man I call my husband more than anyone in the world, and reminded me that I will do anything I can to ease his pain. And in knowing how I felt towards him this weekend, I got a brief glimpse of what he feels for me when I’m in pain (physical or emotional), and I think I got a sliver of the Savior’s unconditional love for me and his perfect empathy for my pain and these are all wonderful things to be feeling as life moves forward.

Rest in peace, Bryan Sergei Rackham, you were so loved and will be sorely missed. <3

11/2/15: With Gratitude...

I've been feeling an overwhelming sense of gratitude for my life lately.  I know this sounds weird since I'm on the "can't eat anything fun diet", as my doctor calls it, but really, I just keep reflecting on how lucky I am to be in the place I'm in, doing the things I'm doing, with the support I'm getting.  I feel so blessed, and I honestly feel like Heavenly Father has placed angels in my life specifically for this time when he knew I would need them most.  

I'm grateful for:

Friends who live thousands of miles away, but still text almost daily and check in on my emotional and physical well-being.  Who know my deepest flaws and insecurities, along with my greatest strengths, and never let me forget either of them ;) 

Siblings who keep me in the loop about their lives and spend some of their precious time looking up ways I can sweeten my food with natural sweeteners allowed on the Candida diet.  Who've been kind and compassionate towards me about all of the pain I've been in the last 2 months.  And who even from miles away have supported me emotionally this semester.  

Classes that invigorate me and remind me why I love what I do.  

Clients who teach me more about pain and suffering as well as love and healing than I ever imagined possible.  I've been particularly blessed lately with a great batch of clients who have opened my eyes to some deep and powerful spiritual truths in addition to temporal ones.  

Friends who live close and walk with me, who aren't afraid to be authentic as we talk about hard and important things together and try to be better every week.  

Ward family who keep checking in on me--even though I'm over in YSA-land for the time being.  And who banded together to support me with cookbooks, recipes, supplements, and ideas on how to manage the candida diet last week when I reached out for help.  

Chronic pain sufferers who provide the outlet I need when things get to be a little too much, and who understand when I can't manage to find any hope that things could get better.  Their strength is a constant inspiration to me, and their empathy and understanding are irreplaceable.  

Professors who care about me, my life, my pain, my growth, my thoughts, my ideas, and my aspirations.   Who tell me, "Take care of your health first, school will work itself out." and continue to support me and believe in me when all the evidence says they shouldn't.  

Utah with it's beautiful rivers and colorful mountains in the cool, crisp, fall air that rejuvenates my soul.  I live in such a beautiful place, sometimes I think I forget that.  

Dave, who committed to eating only things I could eat while I'm home, to make this all easier for me.  And who cooks for me when I'm too tired, and tells me to stop when I'm pushing myself beyond my energy capacity, and who reassures me that I am not too much for him because he loves me, even with all the caretaking he's had to take on.  (and about a million other amazing things about him)

Young Single Adults who give me the opportunity to feel like I can make a difference when I teach them about marriage and relationships and build friendships with them.  And who also rallied around me in an overwhelming way when I asked for help with the candida diet.  

Doctors who have been my angels through all of this. I am so lucky to have more than one doctor who is genuinely concerned with my recovery, who listens to me when I have ideas and thoughts, and who crafts my plan of care to my specific needs and lifestyle.  

Hope.  For the first time in years, I have real hope that this might go away.  That I might have a chronic pain-free future someday.  As terrifying as it is for me to write that sentence, I've been carried this week by the feeling of hope that this doctor is right and that we might have finally found the underlying cause of all of this.  

And finally... 

Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.  I have never felt their influence in my life as strongly as I have throughout last year.  I know with a surety that my Father in Heaven and his Son are aware of my every struggle, and that they are directing my path and others' paths to create the most supportive environment possible right now.  I have felt their love for me more strongly than I ever even thought possible this last year, and without their unconditional love and acceptance, I don't know how I'd be managing the emotional roller coaster of this life.  I'm also incredibly grateful for the Atonement and the opportunity it provides for me to change and grow and become a better person every day.  

***********

Life hasn't been perfect or particularly easy lately, but I've been overwhelmed by the support I've felt whenever I have reached out for help, and even when I haven't reached out.  So thank you for being a part of my life, and thank you, friends, for lightening my load a little bit with your empathy, meals, conversations, cookbooks, comments on my posts, text messages, phone calls, or whatever other way you've touched my life.  It has not gone unnoticed, and it has helped me more than you know.  

In The Spirit Of Authenticity...

Guys, I have tried to start this post like a hundred times.  It's been 9 months since I last blogged and I feel like I'm a completely different Erin now than I was then.  I share relationship posts on Facebook at least 2x a week, but I'm sad that I haven't found the courage to really share my personal thoughts and feelings with everyone over the past 9 months.

It's been the hardest year of my life (#understatement) even though the pelvic pain has gotten miraculously better with the help of my new medicine.  It sort of feels like God gave me a reprieve from the chronic physical pain so I would have the energy and strength to tackle the emotional upheaval to come.  And tackle it I did, haha.

I really want to get on with blogging about the here and now and sharing what's happening in my life with you all, but it feels inauthentic because I really feel like before I do, I need to share the most vulnerable and painful experience of this last year.  It's changed me, and it's important to me that I don't pretend that it didn't.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

In February of this year, we found out we were pregnant.  I was immediately overwhelmed with mixed emotions.  I was excited and surprised, but also filled with a huge sense of foreboding and fear that I might miscarry, or even if I didn't miscarry that I might be in chronic pain again as I'd have to stop my medicine.  And it definitely didn't help that I didn't feel at all ready to be a mom!

We only knew I was pregnant for a couple of days before I went and had a blood test done to make sure everything was alright.  As I'm sure you can guess, everything was not alright.  My numbers were incredibly low--too low to really hope that this would be a viable pregnancy.  But we just watched and waited for almost 10 days because they were slowly rising.  Dave and I were on the biggest emotional roller coaster we'd ever been on (which is saying something after the last couple of years we've had) alternating between feeble hope that everything might be okay, and suffocating fear that I might be miscarrying.  Once the numbers seemed to plateau (still in a nonviable range), my doctor did an incredibly painful ultrasound to make sure it wasn't ectopic and finally ordered a D&C.  This all happened within the span of about two weeks, but felt like a lifetime for us.

After the D&C, it was impossible to ignore the intense feeling of loss and I didn't know what to do.  I wasn't that far along because I'd found out pretty early that I was pregnant, so I felt dumb feeling the grief so intensely.  Was this even considered a baby this early?  My best friend had just had a miscarriage a few weeks earlier and she'd been MUCH further along and I didn't want to add to her pain, so I didn't tell her.  I've hated myself ever since for not telling more people.  I needed support, but there was a strong feeling of, "It wasn't that big of a deal, you were only so many weeks along, and you don't want to make it uncomfortable for everyone around you."

So I pulled back.  I told my family, one of my professors, one other friend and then I shut off my emotions so I wouldn't burst into random tears throughout the day.  I completely lost all motivation to go to class, to be present when I actually made it to class, to be present with my clients, to emotionally engage in their pain, to attend choir rehearsals which I usually LOVE, etc.  It wasn't until about 2 weeks after the procedure that I fully let myself grieve the loss.  It was one of the most painful, yet bonding experiences Dave and I have ever had as a couple.  We had so many questions:  Was this considered a baby yet?  Will this baby be part of our family in the eternities?  Does this mean miscarriage is going to plague our childbearing years?  Was this because of the endometriosis?  Is it normal to feel this much pain and feel it so intensely about this? And there were so many feelings:  Sadness mixed with peace, relief mixed with guilt, fear mixed with love, anger mixed with hurt and confusion, and the list goes on.

I just sort of channeled my pain into really really working hard on my thesis so I could graduate in April and have a break as soon as possible.  It worked.  I got my thesis done, and it was a miracle, but I was broken.  I was so broken when I graduated.  I felt like a champion that day.  Like I had overcome so much and grown and changed as a person like I never believed I could, but I was hurting inside, and I was still healing.

When Mother's Day came around, I couldn't do it.  I really thought I'd be fine, but just an hour before I was supposed to run a choir practice, I fell apart--I couldn't stop sobbing.  I felt the loss so intensely--all day at church I was weepy and sad and confused about still feeling pain about this 3 months later.  Luckily Dave is super tuned in to my emotions and was able to just hold me and remind me that it's okay that I was still hurting and I didn't have to go to church if it was going to be too painful, and that there's no time limit on grief.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

It's been 6 months now since the miscarriage and I regret every day that I didn't tell more people when it was happening.  Even before I was pregnant, I was personally against waiting to tell people until your 2nd trimester because it doesn't make sense to me.  Don't we need support the most in the first trimester when we're vomiting all over ourselves and can't keep saltines down?  And don't we absolutely need support if we're in the process of losing a baby?  Anytime I've shared that I had a miscarriage since then, most women have responded with their own stories of miscarriage and how it was difficult for them too and how they understand the pain and grief.  It's SO comforting to not feel alone in this, so why did I keep it to myself for so long?

I said that this has changed me and I believe it has.  I think I'm exponentially more empathetic--meaning I understand better what it means to hold someone's pain with them and show them that they aren't alone in it.  I'm more sensitive to infertility and issues surrounding motherhood in a religious culture that celebrates motherhood.  I also took the time for myself to heal, which required some intense therapy and soul searching about how I want to be as a mother and how I can love fearlessly in this terrifying world.  I worked to surround myself with people I knew I could be vulnerable with because I trust that they love me and will support me.  I feel like I'm in a good place right now thanks to Dave, Heavenly Father, and other people who have loved me through this, as well as reading a WHOLE bunch of Brene Brown :).  But I still struggle to understand what exactly has kept me from telling my closest friends about the miscarriage until I felt like I could present it all tied up in a neat little bow through a blog post.  Any thoughts on what holds us back from being vulnerable with those we love even when we know they'll be there for us?

11/2/14: Self-of-the-Therapist--Family Style...

I don't think life as a therapist is ever going to be easy.  I think I had this naive hope that there would just be a huge start-up cost of figuring out my own issues and working through them and then from there it would be easy.  I mean, I understood that it would never be easy to listen to people's most difficult struggles in life and it would never be easy to stick with them even when everybody else had abandoned them.  But I think I hoped that the emotional journey would at least slow down at some point.  But maybe that's part of what's made the last few months so difficult--they were unexpected.

The rest of this post is sort of a compilation of a lot of the self work I've been doing this semester and it's personal and also irrelevant to most people, but I wanted to be able to put into words for my family what has been going on for me all semester and why they've been peppered with questions nonstop since September.  Feel free to keep reading, but I don't expect most people to get all the way to the end :)

*******************************

So, we're in a few classes right now that have really delved into our families of origin (the family we grew up in) so we can relate to our clients better.  The first project was about facing our adolescence and understanding the parts of us that haven't healed yet from the pain (because any way you put it, adolescence is painful--from school, to work, to home, to extracurriculars, to social lives, etc.).  I thought I would go into this project and it would be a breeze.  "No problem", I thought, "I had a pretty happy childhood/adolescence!"  I didn't expect to start writing my paper and feel emotionally transported back to the stress of high school and navigating the social dynamics there, and I definitely didn't expect to feel so sad about realizing, once again, that I'd struggled with bouts of minor depression when I was younger and that none of us really knew what it was at the time.

So that first project brought up some pretty strong emotions for me, but the hardest part wasn't the painful emotions themselves--it was my questioning them.  Was this really how I felt when I was younger?  Am I imposing my adult self onto my child self right now?  How do my parents see how this all went down?  Siblings? etc.  It was kind of like a knife to the heart to realize that I didn't even trust my own experience of things, and I didn't know why it felt like a knife at the time--I just knew it did.  Needless to say, that presentation was severely interrupted by tears upon tears and I think my professor just gave me a pity grade because you couldn't really understand what I was saying at all when I was presenting, haha.  There were just a lot of powerful, raw emotions I had never addressed before that were coming out before I was ready for them.

So I sort of put this project out of sight out of mind when it was over because I didn't really want to think about it again, but I did go back to therapy to start working through it all with someone.  (This was important because I can't really help my adolescent clients if I'm too scared to go near my adolescent self emotionally.)  But then in another class shortly thereafter I had another family of origin presentation to do!  This one was more from the lens of gender and ethnicity in my family.

I already knew I didn't trust my perception of things from my project before, so this time, I sent an email out to all my siblings and my parents and asked them the questions I had to answer for my presentation--How were women treated in your family?  How aware was your family of privilege?  Did you experience any oppression due to gender or ethnicity? etc.  I was pleasantly surprised by the responses of my family and also intrigued by the fact that everyone had a slightly different experience of things.  I think I obviously expected this, cognitively, but somehow I still felt like my perception was the "wrong one" and reading everybody else's would clear it up for me.

Only my two oldest siblings and my parents responded because I think my other sisters didn't really want to engage long enough to come up with well-thought out answers (I don't blame them).  But I was surprised to see that my experience was most similar to my brother's and then not completely different from everyone else's, but there were subtle differences, and certain things that stood out to each person that the others didn't even mention.  My mom wanted to read everyone's responses at the end and I was nervous to let her because everyone had written knowing that I was the only person who was going to see them.  But they all said I could share them so we all read each others'.  When my mom was surprised by some of the things we'd said about emotions being handled at a pretty cognitive level, she explained to me that with 6 kids (5 girls) it was a necessity to keep things even-keeled--especially when she was pregnant for most of that time.

Her comment really caused a break through for me.  Not because I needed to understand why emotions were handled the way they were--I was kind of already past the point of curiosity on this front--but because when she said that, I realized my immediate reaction was to get defensive and invalidate her experience.  I hadn't ever understood before that to feel like my experience mattered, I needed to invalidate everyone else's.  I mean, I had understood this last year after some feedback I'd gotten from friends and supervisors and I had put it into practice obviously a lot with my clients and with my friends and things, but I had never applied it fully to my family because I hadn't even realized it was happening in that realm of my life.  I think I've been fighting so hard to prove that my experience matters in my family that I've been shutting everyone else's out.

It was a really liberating moment to realize that before I can validate my own experience I have to validate other people's.  It helped me 1) recognize maybe why I'd had such a hard time accepting my emotions surrounding my adolescence, and 2) actually listen to what my mom was telling me about her experience because I was listening to understand, rather than to retort.  It's mostly liberating I think because now I don't feel like I have anything to prove to anyone.  I can live my life how I want to live it and I can think and feel what I want.  It's okay if someone else has a completely different experience.  That's because everyone is different and sensitive to different things.  They don't have to be right or wrong, and neither do I.

^^Reading that last sentence it sounds so obvious and simple, but I can't figure out how to convey the import of that realization for me.  Life affects everyone differently.  It doesn't mean someone is right or wrong.  This was huge.    

*****************************

Just in case anyone but my family actually did make it to the end, I just want to clarify that nothing really bad ever happened to me in my childhood or family.  I had a ridiculously blessed and privileged life with little to no trauma and amazingly committed and talented parents, as well as connected and engaged siblings.  Which is why I'm able to focus on such seemingly tiny things like validating my own experience--I don't have trauma I'm trying to work through simultaneously.  And for that I am incredibly grateful.  So please don't walk away from this thinking there was some huge thing wrong with me or my family.  It was just day to day stuff I'm talking about here and just differing experiences of it.  

To Dave...

Well, I've been pretty MIA on the blog lately because of a few reasons; 1) We've been in and out of family vacations all over the country, 2) I've been busy trying to finish this huge paper before Fall semester starts so every time I start to write a blog I'm wracked with guilt, 3) I usually feel like writing, and then when I sit down to do it, I'm over it, and 4) There just hasn't been that much to write about.  But today is Dave and my's 2 year anniversary.  It seems like such a tiny little number when I write it down after seeing so many couples who are decades into their marriages in the clinic, but still, these 2 years have been packed with more joy, pain, growth, learning, and love than any other 2 years in my life so far, so I think they're worth celebrating.  Of course, our relationship wouldn't have been possible without my incredibly loving and supportive husband, Dave, so this post today is a letter to him.  (I figured I'd get his anniversary card and my way overdue blog post done in one go--two birds?)

Dear Dave,

       Happy anniversary!  2 years, can you believe it?  Sometimes it feels like it's been lifetimes, and other times it feels like we were just living in Condo Row watching White Collar together, doesn't it?  I never used to believe it when people said, "I'm more in love with my husband every day..." or "We're so much more in love today than when we said 'I do'".  I thought these were just sappy romantic phrases they used to convince themselves that they were happy with their lives.  But I get it now.  I mean, I really get it.
      Getting engaged to and marrying you two years ago made so much sense when I made those choices.  Everything was so easy with you and I just felt like with you by my side I could do anything in the world.  But I didn't realize yet what that meant for the rest of my life.  I think that Heavenly Father knew how lucky I was to be married to you and he's now requiring more of me than he's ever required before because he knows that with you, I can handle more than I was ever capable of before.  (What a compliment to you from Him!)  Sometimes as a couple we hate this, of course, because it means a lot of outside stress on our relationship that we could obviously do without, but I think we're both growing together as people who are going to become better able to be the hands of God and serve his children than we ever thought we would.
      I'm forever grateful for your incredible (sometimes unbelievable) work ethic.  I don't get how you can work a full day at the MTC, come home and grab a quick bite, then work at least another half day well into the night on school or your start-up projects.  However you do it, it's allowed me to feel stable and secure in our finances and our future.  I never worry that you'll be able to provide for us and a future family, which is pretty amazing, because I worry about everything, haha.  Having the financial security we have right now and you being able to keep moving up at the MTC has also been a lifesaver with all the medical expenses that are just through the roof right now, and I love you for never making me feel bad about incurring them.
     Sometimes I think about the way we function and I'm just baffled by how strong you are.  Literally.  I don't understand it.  On days when I'm too beaten down to get out of bed, or I'm hopeless about the pain ever going away, or the program has just become too much for me to handle, you're able to keep your spirits high and lift me up as well.  Again, I don't get how you do it, but I don't know what I'd do without it.  You have a gift for helping me see the good things about life and pushing me to keep going with hope for the future.  I can't wait to see that gift put to use with our kids.  I'm so glad they'll have a rock of positive support and love to come to when they're feeling down.
     I love that you love to teach.  Whether it's teaching your siblings to fly-fish, teaching me how to do things on my computer, teaching lessons, or wherever you use that talent, I love it!  You're so generous with wanting others to succeed and you're so patient with people when they don't quite get it.  You have a gift for making learning interesting and fun, and it's so obvious to me why you want to go into that for your career.  It's fun to watch you be so passionate about how others learn and how you can make it the best for them.
     Of course there are other things I love about you, but these are the few that have been rolling around my head for the past little while.  The biggest one, as always, is your commitment.  There have been a lot of reasons and excuses for you to walk away from this relationship the past two years--whether emotionally or physically--and you never have.  You've stayed on days when I've done nothing but sleep because I'm in pain, you've stayed on days when I didn't have the emotional or mental capacity to listen to you at the end of my day, you've stayed on days when I wanted to give up, you've stayed on days when this chronic pain seemed to be ruining our lives, and you've stayed on days when I thought I was completely unlovable and someone would have to be crazy to stay with me.  Your sweetness and tenderness with me during my hardest times have helped me truly believe that I'm worth loving and that life can be a beautiful thing, regardless of whatever trial we have at the current moment, especially when we lean on each other.
     I don't think I believed people before when they talked about falling more in love with their spouse everyday, because I didn't understand that to weather life's storms and come out happy, you have to lean on your spouse and let them into the most vulnerable parts of your soul so they can help you heal them.  And after having such an intimate experience with each other, how could you not be more in love in the end?  So I can honestly say to you today, "I fall more and more in love with you every day since we got married.  I never could have imagined the kind of love I've experienced with you, but it's so much more than my imagination was capable of!"

I love you, sweetheart.  Thank you for always standing by me and loving me more than I ever could have believed.  Happy Anniversary!!

Love,
Erin :)

2/4/14: 80 hours--Learning to Find Joy in the (torturous) Journey...

Sometimes I think God is just waiting until I have two solid feet on the ground and I'm feeling pretty stable with life and then he says, Now!  Throw something new at her!.  I'm being slightly facetious, of course, but this last week felt like one of those times--apparently I'm not allowed to just float along or be complacent with my progress as an MFT right now.  If I'm not growing, something hard happens to ensure some personal growth.  I sort of have a love/hate relationship with this new pattern in my life because I like growing and becoming a more complete person, but it's also painful and if I had a choice, I think I'd settle for complacency once in a while.

This last week I hit 80 hours and started to really feel my hope in my clients disintegrate.  I thought if I was a better therapist (or knew what the heck to do at all), they would be improving faster and they'd have some chance of getting better.  As it was, I felt like I was impeding their personal growth and they had no hope for recovery if they stayed with me.  They're all so motivated and they're working so hard, but I just can't give them the tools they want and need.  I told my supervisor that I didn't think I was really cut out to do this because I haven't seen my clients improve very much yet and she decided this was a moment for some self-of-the-therapist work (of course...).

She asked me why I expected my clients to improve after 2 months when they've been struggling for 5-10 years on average with what they're coming in with.  I couldn't answer her, except that I just wish I could help them get out of their pain as fast as possible.  She dug deeper and told me that I am too achievement oriented.  For example, I'm taking extra clients to finish my hours early, I want to be a great therapist already after only about 10 weeks, I want depression and anxiety to just disappear as soon as clients decide to come to therapy, I expect the outcome of something I'm working on to be excellent--regardless of how hard it is to get it there, I'm not happy unless I'm working towards a goal and making good progress, and I can't feel good about myself if I feel like I'm not living up to my standards for myself or succeeding at my goals.  She concluded by telling me that until I figure out how to relax and enjoy the journey, I won't be able to help my clients very well.  I need to be okay with ambiguity, okay with this all being a process, and okay with things not getting "fixed" immediately.

Little did my supervisor know how deeply this runs for me.  I mean, I literally feel helpless and hopeless on a daily basis about my chronic pain and I'm frustrated that there doesn't seem to be an answer or a fix to all of this.  I just want it to be black and white.  Either you can make the pain go away, or you can't.  Either I can have kids or I can't.  Either I'll be dealing with this my whole life, or I wont.  I'm tired of the ambiguities.  I'm tired of the endless doctor's visits and tests.  I'm tired of being tired.  And I want it all to come to a nice neat conclusion tied with a bow.  Unfortunately, this seems like it's a lesson I need to learn--that life doesn't come with nice conclusions tied up with bows.  And that's okay.  

Every day I'm learning more about myself, my husband, my relationships, my family, more than I even care to learn, to be honest.  And I think that's what life is about.  It really is about the journey, as cliche as that sounds.  It's not about the destination, because there is no destination in life.  There's just trial after trial and joy after joy and it's all meant to be enjoyed :)  So that's what I'm working on this week--trying to find joy in the journey, in spite of temporary bouts of hopelessness.  Wish me luck!

1/18/13: How therapy has affected me thus far...

"Think of your head as an unsafe neighborhood; don't go there alone."--Augusten Burroughs

This is exactly what comes to mind when I think of my experience of offering therapy so far.  I've completed about 35 clinical hours now of my own--almost 60 if you include my observations of others' cases--and it's been a little rough, to say the least.  

I never thought I was all that sheltered or caught up in my own little happy bubble--but man, was I sheltered and caught up in my own little happy bubble.  As soon as my clients started opening up about their past traumas, severe struggles with self-esteem, unbearable pressure on themselves to perform, and basically all that is wrong with the world we live in today, I went home and told Dave, "I think anyone who goes into this field with even an inkling of what they're getting themselves into must be a masochist."  And I meant it.  As much as we're supposed to be able to compartmentalize work and home to keep them separate, some stories are just going to stay with you.  How can they not?  And sometimes it's not even the stories that get to me.  It's the pain, the hurt, the sadness, the grief, and sometimes even worse--the apathy.  I just hurt for these poor people who's lives have been so traumatizing that they've had to resort to turning off their emotions to be able to function.  

Don't get me wrong.  I am absolutely loving it.  There's something incredibly rewarding about shutting out my own life for about 10 hours a week to solely focus on someone else's pain and really empathize with them and help them heal.  (Except, I have yet to feel like I'm actually helping anyone heal..)  I find it easier than I thought I would to empathize with my clients and enjoy listening to them and talking with them.  My favorite is when one of them says, "I don't know if I've ever thought about it like this before, but..." or "I never realized how much..." or something else that helps me know that at the very least I'm helping them explore parts of themselves that have been ignored their whole lives.  

But with the good also comes the bad.  Some nights I come home and I just want to curl up in bed under the covers and have Dave hold me because I'm afraid to bring children into a world like this.  Some days I can't think of anything else except how desperately I want my clients to realize how strong, competent, and innately good they are.  Sometimes when I'm driving home I just have to cry, because I don't know what else to do with the powerful emotions I feel after a particularly painful session.  And sometimes I question whether or not I can handle this roller coaster ride for the rest of my life.  

I think it's good that right now as I'm just starting out I'm so strongly affected by my clients' struggles.  I think if I wasn't there might be something wrong with me.  But I'm really hoping that sometime soon I figure out how to take care of myself in a way that will help me stay emotionally healthy and positive about life in spite of all the bad I see.  

My supervisor was watching one of my sessions the other day and she told me that I needed to stop skirting around my client's pain.  I needed to get them to feel it, be there with them, and just let them stay in it, feeling whatever emotions came.  I told her I didn't really want to, because it was just too hard for me to go there.  It was too painful.  So she gave me this analogy.  She asked what the main character did in What Dreams May Come when he found out that the love of his life had been sentenced to Hell while he was in Heaven.  He journeyed all the way to Hell to save her and while he was there he experienced the grief and loss she herself experienced before they could be reunited and travel back to Heaven together.

So basically, that's my job.  I see people stuck in the torment of their own hell, go down and be there with them there for a while, and then try and pull them out of it.    

Now, that makes it sound like I'm super important and without me these people would be stuck forever.  That's not my point at all, and that's definitely not true.  I just mean to illustrate that I'm beginning to understand what it means to truly empathize with people in their darkest moments and still maintain the positivity that comes with knowing that there's something better out there for them to experience.

As hard as it is on me right now just starting out, I know that this whole process is making me a better person and has the potential to make a difference in the lives of so many people who didn't deserve the bad that life has thrown at them.  And I know I'm in the right place because I can just feel it, but I needed to process some of my emotions about my experiences so far through writing today.  Thanks for reading!

Sometimes I Feel Bad...

Sometimes, I'm too rash.  My family has come to expect only extreme reactions from me in ordinary circumstances.  For example; if it's too cold in the car, I frantically twist the air control to all the way hot, full blast.  Then, when I inevitably get too hot, I frantically twist it back to all the way cold and full blast, or turn the air off completely.  While I recognize that there's a better way, I can't help it!  My body only knows how to tell me things in extreme ways.  I personally think the problem is that what others feel as simply "a bit chilly" I feel as "I'M GOING TO LOSE MY TOES IF WE DON'T TURN ON SOME HEAT RIGHT NOW!!!!!"  It's weird, and I know it.  Sometimes, things are just black and white to me and I completely miss the gray.

I think the first time Dave ever saw an extreme situation with me was when I was furious with my landlord over her incompetency.  I believe he sat in the car and listened to me rant and rave for 30 minutes straight.  He'd never seen my face so red and my body so riled up.  I was ready to run miles and miles or smash things (and if you know me, you know running is a completely drastic response).  Anyway, the point is, the first time this happened, it scared him.  He was literally in shock I think.  I wasn't the girl he thought I was--I was irrational!

I used to pride myself on my extreme emotions and ability to get so passionate about something I lost all inhibition.  Since meeting Dave, a calming influence in my life, though, I've tried to change that.  I think I've succeeded mostly (the car temperature still gets me, I have to admit), but last night, when I was casually checking on my grades for one of my classes I noticed that I had close to failed an assignment.  I was livid.  It's a class I don't put much time into because I feel like it's not that difficult.  Most of the students in the class are young English Majors or non-English Majors, so I feel pretty confident in how my writing should compare.  Anyway, I pretty much failed this assignment and I was so so upset.  I tried to go back to sleep, but I just was so furious.  I couldn't stay calm lying there as the rage was coursing through my veins.  How could this professor tell me, as I'm getting A's in most of my other classes right now, that my writing is worthy of a D??  And this is the second assignment I've done terrible on!  What the heck!?  Does he hate me?!  Is he just out to get me?!?!

I couldn't sleep until I had sent him an e-mail, so after writing and deleting one that wasn't appropriate, I wrote a very calm e-mail asking him to meet with me today about my grade in the class.  He responded this morning (and by this time, I had calmed down significantly and, to be honest, was over the entire situation) and I went in to talk to him.

It turns out that for the first paper I hadn't done well on, we reread it together and he decided he would change the grade because he must have been in a very bad mood while reading it through the first time.  We then read the second paper I wrote together and he absolutely loved it and told me to expand it into my final paper.  As for the grade that started all of this, it turns out it was a misunderstanding and all I need to do is submit a different thesis and I'll have full credit on the assignment.

Of course, I feel foolish for reacting so harshly last night and spending the majority of this morning wishing ill-will on my professor because he was actually incredibly nice and helpful when he met with me.  Not to mention, he spent about an hour with me working on my writing, which I always appreciate.  I just wonder what it is about my genes that makes me so prone to overreacting.  I blame it on my genes, even though I'm the only one in my family who reacts so strongly.  Will I ever be able to stop the intense knee-jerk emotions that drive all of this?  Or is this just one of those things that'll be a life-long challenge?

All I know is, I better figure it out soon, because I definitely can't teach others how to control their emotions and problem-solve in healthy ways if I myself let my emotions rule my life, right?

On Rejection...

So, my application for BYU's Master's in Marriage and Family Therapy is due tomorrow and I am overwhelmed.  Don't get me wrong, I haven't procrastinated this one.  I have secured 4 excellent letters of recommendations from my favorite professors, I took the GRE more than a year ago, I started my letter of intent about 4 months ago, I've had about 6 drafts of it since then, and my bishop came over to our house last night to interview me for an ecclesiastical endorsement.  I am just struggling to put the finishing touches on my letter and click submit.

Maybe I'm just scared.  It's been a long time since I've done something with so much uncertainty. I really don't know if I even have a shot of being accepted to BYU's program as it's one of the best in the nation.  My GPA is less than stellar, while not horrific, and I am desperately hoping that they take into account that I am an English major and have taken difficult professors but have come out a better reader, writer, and critical thinker because of it.

I think it's just a difficult thing to come to terms with.  There may be a huge rejection at the end of this long road.  I may have to tell all 4 of my professors that I wasn't accepted.  I may have to face the fact that I am graduating with an English degree and no idea what to do with it.  I just might not be allowed to do the one thing I have been so incredibly inspired to do over the last few semesters--help people with their families and relationships.

The problem is, I'm emotionally attached to this.  For once, this isn't just about the degree, or doing something just to keep moving forward.  This is about feeling called to help people and feeling like I have been given a gift to develop and use.  This rejection will be much more to me than just the fact that my GPA wasn't satisfactory; it will feel like the rejection of my hope for my future right now.

Anyway, now that I've procrastinated, I think I better get to work on finishing that letter.  Pray for me please!!

apathetic.

Apathy: lack of interest in or concern for things that others find moving or exciting.

I feel like for the past week or so I have been in a state of apathy. I wish I knew what exactly it was that has put me in this state of non-emotion. It's strange because all of a sudden I have gotten really passionate about the book I am reading in my writing class. It's the novel East of Eden, written by John Steinbeck and it's a retelling of the fall of Adam and Eve in modern day California. It is so great and very insightful! I am loving it so much and it's reassuring me that English is the right major for me. So while I have been reading reading reading and been so excited thinking and talking about the novel, it's like the emotion I use for every other part of my life has been sucked out of me.

Maybe I'm burnt out after having an incredibly crazy week of midterms and essays a few weeks ago. Maybe I'm worried about my sister and her surgery and my nieces. Maybe I'm exhausted from work. Maybe I am just in a funk and I'll be out of it before I know it. Maybe I need a change of scenery to meet new people and go out of my comfort zone a little more than I'm doing right now.

I don't know what it is.

All I know is that today:

-I stood up after eating at the Cougareat and buttoned my entire coat only to realize that I had buttoned it wrong. There was an awkward bump in the coat from the missing button at the top and it was all crooked. However, I didn't even think twice about it! No feelings of embarrassment. No looking around awkwardly noticing that the guys at the table next to me were snickering at my expense. (I realized later that this must have been why they were giving me weird, semi-flirty looks and giggling like girls...) But there was no emotion. None. I simply unbuttoned all 6 buttons and slowly rebuttoned them all before turning to head on my way to class. It took me like 5 minutes of thinking about nothing while walking to class to realize that normally I would have been rather ashamed to have done something like that in public and I might have even blushed. In this state of apathy, however, these small embarrassments turn into nothing. It's not that I all of a sudden have the self-confidence to not care what anyone thinks. It's more like I just don't want to spend the energy thinking about what other people are thinking.

...and...

-I walked around campus for 2 hours today before noticing that about every fifth person I saw had a bright blue balloon tied to their wrist. Where I would typically stop someone and just ask them what was with all the balloons, I hardly noticed them and I still feel no curiosity as to why our campus was randomly infested with balloons today...

I don't think I like this apathetic mood I am in. It's atypical for me. I very much enjoy being passionate about things and getting excited about life. Does anyone have any ideas to help get me back into the emotional swing of the super-exciting life of a BYU college student? Please?

...at least I'm not apathetic about being in a state of apathy right? I cared enough to blog about it :)

Little things aren't always so little...

Things that added up to equal the best Valentine's Day ever :)


-Deciding to wear festive colors (see red ribbon below...)

-Scott Mosley (cousin) being the sweetest person on the planet and getting Annie and I both a dozen roses!! This was such a sweet surprise to come home to in the middle of the day. I've never appreciated flowers more and I think it's because I just didn't expect them and he did not need to get them for me. My friend says flowers on Valentine's Day have lost all charm because they are expected, so to receive some unexpectedly was so awesome :)





-Honestly, I feel like I was vicariously giddy this Valentine's Day through the couples all around me being so happy with each other. I thought this would have the opposite effect on me, but for some reason I loved watching my brother and his girlfriend have a lovely day, I loved seeing Scott bring flowers for Rachel, which we added to the roses to make a sweet bouquet...notice the picture at the top...and I just loved seeing all the happy couples and flowers around campus :)

-Halfway through my day, I was in the library trying to write a paper (keyword being trying) I got on facebook, it was inevitable, and one of my best friends had written me this sweet note telling me he was so grateful for my friendship and how he was thinking about me and wanted me to feel loved on Valentine's Day especially! It was so thoughtful of him!






-Sierra and Jeremy coming over at night to bring me a flower and talk to me and show me Sierra's beautiful dress :) It was so nice to see them and I just felt loved that they thought of me and came over to see me!


-My friends. After all these nice things having been done for me, I was feeling rather selfish having not done anything extraordinarily nice for anyone myself, so I went around and visited a lot of my friends and it was just so nice to see them and catch up with them all.


This lovely day overall made me realize how incredibly lucky I am to have such a charmed life. I attend such a great school. It is absolutely beautiful, I have awesome friends, I love my roommates, and I am loved by and love soo many people! Ultimately, this was an amazing Valentine's Day thanks to so many people going out of their way to show their love for me. I was so touched!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I am not one to hate on Valentine's Day. I'm really not, I promise. I have had very nice Valentine's Days the past few years seeing as I have been lucky enough to have people who care about me very much around to make the day special for me. This year, however, I have not been looking forward to Valentine's Day very much considering the one person I would like to be spending it with is far far away and not able to do even so much as call me.

So...I have spent the last few days gearing up for the inevitable challenge this lovely day of reminders that I miss him will be. I have been telling myself, "It's okay, you've been really lucky the past few V-Days; just think about that and don't focus so much on this Valentine's Day...".

Yesterday, I even had friends try to tell me "It's fine, you don't need to celebrate Valentine's Day if you don't want to. Just pretend it doesn't exist!". I don't know how well this will work at BYU...I'm pretty sure the red and pink everywhere will serve as a blatant reminder of this holiday meant to celebrate our love for one another. Not to mention the absurd amount of couples that crop up around this time of year on campus.

But it's okay, today I received a package from my family (okay...just my mom,

if we're being honest) and it was a great reminder to me that Valentine's Day isn't just about the romantic kind of love. It can be for anyone we want to remind that we love! How cute is this package?? My mom must have known exactly how I'd be feeling this weekend. She even sent thin mints! My favorite!! They're soo delicious :) So overall, this Valentine's Day, I am grateful for those people in my life who are just always there for me, even when I don't know I need them to be. Especially my family who have helped me through a tough last couple of months :) I love you all!

P.S. Look! Rachel and I made a cute Valentine's Box for our door for people to drop Valentine's in for our apartment! We are soo getting into the spirit of this thing <3 data-blogger-escaped-div="">