Good morning, Lord. Thank you for the good night's sleep. Sunday morning. Looking forward to going to church. Me and Gage outside. When I woke up I chose positive thoughts and held them for 17 seconds. Lord, please lift the depression and anxiety. Please send an angel to destroy it. What can fill my time? I dreamed a boss was trying to get rid of me. I don't have much to say. I had a good time with my family yesterday, going to Chloe's marching contest. Thank you. Protect me, shield me from the enemy. Raise my vibration, please. I am so disappointed in the agency. Disappointed I won't get that pay check. I don't want Patrick to feel the brunt of responsibility for finances and insurance for the rest of our lives. That's a depressing thought. I FEEL LIKE I WILL LET US BOTH DOWN. I pictured being the provider after he retired. Now I face a great unknown and another career crisis. 
I see many people working so hard, no matter what the job is. Why can't I? Why do I fall into anxiety attacks? Even in my first job as an elementary school student. (I didn't fall apart at Lifeway or Incentive or Ingram though). I need your guidance, plan and simple. I need your guidance.

"The Lord will work out his plans for my life." Psalms 138:8

"You chart the path ahead of me and tell me where to stop and rest." Psalms 139:3

Good morning, Lord. I don't feel like myself. Lord, I need your help. I'm in the pits. I'm tired of it. I feel like I'm in a vast, empty field. It's scary and dark. Even though all the windows are open. Thank you that Patrick is home today. Lord, I can see nothing on the horizon. I can see nothing on today even, except maybe cleaning the floors and I have no motivation for that. Even if there was something, I doubt I'd have motivation. Please help me. I know you love me. I left that job.

"Blessed be the Lord, who did not let their teeth tear us apart! We escaped like a bird from a hunter's trap. The trap is broken and we are free! Our help is from the Lord, who made the heavens and earth. Psalm 124:6-8
I backed up to read the previous verses. "The waters would have engulfed us; a torrent would have overwhelmed us. Yes, the raging waters of their fury would have overwhelmed our very lives." Psalm 124:4-5.

This imagery is what I pictured when I looked ahead in that job. I could feel the water up to my neck already.

Lord, let me have quietness and peace. Psalm 125:5

Lord, thank you for my good, good friends. Thank you for Patrick.

How do I keep this domain name, if I'm not counseling? "Counseling With Catherine." Here's how: God is the wonderful counselor [Isaiah 9:6]. He counsels me. And I am starting now to share this. God counsels with me, Catherine. He is redirecting me from pursuing state licensure, at least for now. He used pain to get me to stop my stubborn adherence to my decided upon path. Then He stayed with me, comforting me, and guiding me through the stages of grief.

Through a series of blogs under a category called "Folded Corners," I want to share what He has done for me. I am weary of holding it in [Jeremiah 20:9]. Every morning for years I have kept a prayer journal. Each page begins, "Good morning, Lord." At the end of writing, I open my Bible and read, sometimes randomly, sometimes the next Psalm. When a verse directly addresses something I wrote or asked, I would fold the corner. This blog will take from pages starting in September of 2017.

At this time, half way to LPC licensure despite a concussion, then a broken arm, the panic attacks hit. These were partly due to an unnoticed, inadvertent doubling of my thyroid medication. The attacks coincided with the  start of a new, full-time position at a state agency. The agency didn't provide counseling, so much as turn-and-burn sessions, collecting fees from state funding as fast as possible. Enter depression. This was usury and the energy there went straight into my sensitive being and contradicted every reason I got into counseling in the first place. If I could only get through this, though, then I'd be licensed and have my own practice where I could give full and ethical sessions. 

I lasted three weeks. 

The day I quit, I expected the panic attacks to stop. They did not. They continued daily, lasting all morning, for a period of six weeks. I got medical attention and finally they began to decrease, at an agonizingly slow pace. I could no longer stand to be alone while my husband was at work, so I stayed with my parents during the week. I attended therapy and worked hard and prayed harder. I did not hide my pain from friends or family. I asked to be put on the church prayer list. I needed and asked for all the help I could get. 

The journalling became more important: An anchor to grab, upon waking each day. For 30 years I lived for the thrill of professional pursuits, though looking back the path is riddled with falls. Now, all this came to a screeching halt. The lasts seven years were devoted to first, post-graduate work, then satisfying state licensure, and acquiring near 6 digits in student loans  I had no idea what to do with myself. I wanted to die. But I still had my faith. Thank God.  As I journalled, and wrote to Him, I would fold the corner of any page containing what can only be His replies. 

Though the acute panic attacks were finally reduced to anxiety, this and the depression lasted for four months. 120 days. Usually, in the Bible, trials last up to 40 days. Except for that 40-year journey in the desert. These four months felt like an eternity. He had rescued me repeatedly [2 Corinthians 1:10] and I knew He would again. But when? 

I am eager to share how He "refined me in the furnace of suffering." [Isaiah 48:10]. He has given me a new heart. I wonder how many new hearts he gives us in a life time. Because this isn't my first. How many more? Because, "He will fulfill His purpose for me." 

I have had two months with no symptoms. I work two part-time jobs that pay my student loan each month. And I am content. I have no more desire for earthly gains. (This started with shoes, to my dismay... now, finally, my expensive taste in cars). 

Glory to God, in the Highest. Please, allow me to share.

While I work mostly with individuals, I do value the importance of relationship and family. I am interested in you and in the roles you play at this point in your life. Due to the incredible stress currently placed on our youngest generation, and by default, their parents, I offer the following as an optional preliminary to therapy.

​                        Adults WITH School-Age Kids, Including Teenagers

I have found that the mental health of parents can be greatly impacted by the school life of the children in their charge. Some of the educational options available are well-known, and some are not. If your child's current learning arrangement is a major stressor for you, I offer a quarterly workshop where participants can share what isn't working and identify blocks that are preventing change in the educational environment of their sons and or daughters. Various methods are introduced, and in some cases, reviewed:

• Public school and navigation
• Various home-schooling approaches
• Private school
• Unschooling
• Online education
• Any combination thereof
• Switching between any of the above

Many people find that once daily life is improved as a result of finding their best way for their kids to spend their days, then they have more energy to attend to their own well being and growth. Kids reap further benefits from this, too.

"Nothing has a stronger influence psychologically on their environment
and especially on their children than the unlived life of the parent."
-Carl Jung
 
Support and Training for Exceptional Parents collaborates with parents and public schools to advocate for students well-being and success.

Texas Unschooling is a great source for the unschooling alternative to learning.

Adults WITHOUT School-Age Kids or Teenagers

All adults come with an inner child who can keep us very busy. Additionally, those of us without children often become aunts and uncles--biological, and otherwise. Another way we experience this role is by listening to grown sons or daughters, friends, and siblings who are struggling with a child's or teenager's unhappiness or failure in an educational environment. This struggle often shows up as behavioral issues, and the niece, nephew, or grandchild being described may sound like a completely different kid from the one you know.

For more information, please see the "Consulting" tab.

This article is intended for those who work full-time, (or more, including parenting of course, maintaining relationships, elder-care, and -- now entering our vocabulary -- self-care), and who get 2 weeks of vacation, plus holidays, per year.
 
Here is the scenario:
 
You have next week off. You combined a few vacation days with a couple of holiday days to create 9 days off, counting the weekends on both sides. Today is Friday, and relief is in sight. Regardless of your life circumstances, a welcome interruption of the daily routine lays gloriously before you.
 
Depending on your life circumstances, certain people may come into or go out of your life…

PERHAPS THERE ARE:

Also depending on your life circumstances, certain factors come in or go out of your life…

THAT is A LOT of change! “Hurry up and shift gears, from stressed to carefree!” Whether travel is at the beginning, the end, or all of the vacation, there is that one point, maybe a space of a day or two, when the the neurotic day will threaten to hit many of us.

This is the day when we are between… the day we attempt to slam our lives
 from drive to park,
without even first decreasing our speed.

The kids that live with us are on the plane. Company is either gone, or still two days out. We are alone. We are with a spouse. We have plans with friends. We are home. Here come the symptoms of the Neurotic Day.
 
Let’s review.
 
Neurotic Day -- the day following four or five days of listening to other voices out in the world, while working to be a productive citizen and contribute to the common good;
Involves self-doubt, fatigue, lack of direction;
Looks like laziness, wandering around;
Feels like discontentment, fear, dissatisfaction, discouragement
 
Last month, the Neurotic Day within a weekend was the focus. In this segment, the Neurotic Day is within a vacation when combined with a holiday. This calls for additional symptoms, which may include:
 
Missing the child from whom you looked forward to being temporarily relieved;
Realizing the disappointment that maybe there isn’t enough time to start and complete the things you couldn’t wait to get to “during vacation;”
Learning someone else already had an agenda for you
 
A commonly quoted truth is, “Nature abhors a vacuum.” We don’t know what to do with ourselves. And oh yeah, we may look around and notice our living environment needs all kinds of attention. We can hear the painful sound of gears grinding. We hurk and jerk, then either stop or keep grinding. Meanwhile we ask ourselves, by the way, “Can’t you please hurry up and relax? Why can’t you be happy?” We may accuse ourselves critically with statements like, “You are ruining your vacation!” Or, “If you are going to be miserable, you might as well be at work, getting PAID.”
 
How will you come out of the hurking and jerking? Will your engine die? Will you disregard the transmission grinding until you find a gear, ANY gear, that will take you out of this awful place? Or did you plan for this?
 
Can you recall that your foot must come off of the accelerator in order to sequentially downshift?

THIS
 
TAKES
 
TIME
...if we aren’t going to turn to chemicals for assistance!

Guess what. The Neurotic Day has now chosen its rightful place. To fight it means further damaging expensive parts: Our self esteem, our peace of mind, our relationships. Critically questioning what is wrong with us that we can’t be happy is one level of damage. Pressuring ourselves to hurry up and relax is an additional level of damage.
 
OF COURSE you are questioning!
 
Ahhh, that is self-talk that feels different.
 
Of course you don’t know what to do with yourself. You have been working! And, you have been giving to that child, and that one. And to that relationship. And maybe to aging parents too.
 
Sit down. Take a breath. Let the questions come. The reminders, disappointing as they may be, come to say that this time is limited, and so you too have human limitations and might not get the fence stained, or the photos framed.
 
Are you looking forward to going back to work yet?!
 
Nah, this is just the Neurotic day… a necessary part of adjusting to so many changes at once. The kinder we can be to ourselves, the fewer hours this has to take. This is your chance to cry while missing a loved one, to put your projects back into a stack, and sigh at the chores coming into view…

and allow all of it,
without judgment.

You are not wasting your time. You are decelerating. Soon enough, the time to get-back-in-gear will arrive…

until then,
you are
coming
to
a
stop.

You are showing up for unstructured time, and allowing yourself to shift, to coast into enjoying the vacation you were so looking forward to.