We share the same hands
Elegant fingers
Nails so tough they’re brittle
One ruby-encrusted, one with a single sapphire
One as yet unadorned
Except for the chipped plum nail varnish
Our hands have
Brushed away tears
Smashed stained-glass windows
Thrown broken heart pebbles
Coloured and stitched
Finger painted and planted seeds
Sliced and stirred a thousand recipes
Held on tightly
Held tightly on to each other
You may find this post contains heresy and/or madness (depending on your perspective). Consider yourself warned…
So God created human beings in his own image.
In the image of God he created them;
male and female he created them.
Genesis 1: 27
I want to tell you about my psychosis. Uniquely female, a psychosis triggered by pregnancy and childbirth. It’s not unusual for people experiencing psychosis to have visions of the ends of the earth, and beliefs about their own messianic qualities. Yet I know that my thought-processes during psychosis were wrapped around my growing struggle with the church and gender politics. My beliefs were shaped by the visceral experience of giving birth and its powerful sense of womanhood.
What to the outsider looked like jumbled stream-of-consciousness had an intense sense of clarity for me. Everything made sense. I had it in my mind that as the end of the world drew near, God was seeking to bring the maleness and femaleness of himself back into unity in the world. The beautiful (and of course to my loved ones terrifying) thing was that I would be the vessel, the girl-messiah who would bear the unbearable of losing my child and my husband. I would be obedient even unto death. I would submit, as the weekly-beaten doctrine of the past few years of church had instructed me. And yet, in the submission there would be power. Power to bring those in my life with terrible illnesses into their new bodies, into eternity, into the great Wedding Feast. I even saw the feast, it was beautiful, and feminine, and filled with joyous reunions. Everybody, everybody, everybody was there. God, it was beautiful, I can’t really begin to express it. But it was not to be.
And yet… I probably shouldn’t get into a discourse here about what I perceive as the liminal space between psychosis and prophecy, madness and shamanism. Maybe I will blog about it sometime in the future, but it feels too raw, too frightening in many ways.
What I can say is that after the long depression that followed my season of visions and dreams, I couldn’t stay in a church that sublimated women and did not allow them to preach, teach or be an Elder. Nowadays I see all around me women becoming their True Selves through some truly unbelievable suffering. I’m humbled to be the mother of two daughters who are unashamedly authentic, open and vulnerable. May they celebrate their femininity, its strength and its power to bind up the brokenhearted.
The illustration at the top of this page was part of an art project in collaboration with Action on Postpartum Psychosis. I love the Triumvirate somehow all wrapped up in the shape of a mother and baby. I still believe the best is yet to come.
Be the kind of woman you want to be. Regardless of doctrine.
Sun sinks pink and amber into the horizon
Pale moonrise beyond the cliffs
Duck-dive just to feel the cold exhilaration of sea-salt tangled hair
Sea, moon, you and I
Thank you, beautiful world and
Thank you, swimming companion –
A friend through ebb and flow
I’m done with the simplistic answers and platitudes often offered up by Christians when faced with suffering. So many of us feel pain tonight after the senseless events in Manchester, attacks on innocents in the name of religion.
I can’t answer the questions – how can God allow such heartbreak, such suffering for the families and loved ones of those who lost their lives on that night? As people of faith I believe we shouldn’t even try. The only response I can offer for such horrific events is something I heard from a vigil held today – “hate will never overcome love”.
The love and solidarity of the Manchester community has been something to behold today. People of faith we would do well to follow the example in times of suffering. We need to stand alongside, allow for the grief, allow for the questions. Refuse to let hate overcome love.
If you’ve been journeying with me for a while, you may remember that one of my hopes for the gap year was to decorate the girls’ bedrooms
Wow, that was almost two years ago. That’s the thing. Sometimes you have to have a lot of patience to realise your hopes and dreams. Guess what? During March my consultancy work enabled me to pay a decorator to bring Eldest’s Ravenclaw themed bedroom to life (I really didn’t have the skills for a dark blue feature wall!) Eldest and I sat at the kitchen table in April and made a decopatch Harry Potter lampshade inspired by this one from Sunshine Sings on Etsy. She loved choosing her favourite quotes from the old copy which was falling apart, and it turned out pretty beautifully!
Today I’ve been listening to Noah and the Whale in Little One’s room. Sugar soap and sponge in hand, sandpaper for the woodwork. I’m finally doing it! I’m enjoying the metaphor of cleaning, smoothing down rough edges, creating a little friction in order for the new and the pretty to emerge. She’s chosen a lollipop pink to go with her 1970’s inspired IKEA duvet cover which has brown, orange, yellow and pink birds and flowers. It’s going to be gorgeous and funky, just like her.
I’ll leave you with some thought-provoking lyrics from Noah and the Whale’s Life is Life
Well he used to be somebody
And now he’s someone else
Took apart his old life
Left it on the shelf
Sick of being someone
He did not admire
Took up all his old things
Set em all on fireHe’s gonna change
Gonna change his ways
Gonna change
Gonna change his waysAnd it feels like his new life can start
And it feels like heavenLeft his house at midnight
Resolute and young
In search of something greater
Than the person he’d become
Threw his bags on to the back
Of his run down eighties car
Headed out to god knows where
The distance is too farHe’s gonna change
Gonna change his ways
Gonna change
Gonna change his waysAnd it feels like his new life can start
And it feels like heaven
And it feels like his new life can start
And it feels like heavenAnd it feels like his new life can start
And it feels like heaven
And it feels like his new life can start
And it feels like heaven
Once again I find myself speaking through the lens of Nashville, but really – this says it all for me at the moment.
(In the spirit of avoiding plot spoilers I have chosen to share a cover version of this beautiful song. If you’re in the UK and haven’t watched season 5 of Nashville, promise me you won’t Google it or follow any of the other YouTube links in the sidebar!)
As a mother, I’m finding myself in a season where I need to be a sanctuary for my girls, and especially for Eldest to be her safe place. Being a sanctuary calls on me to shift my priorities, to seek the way of peace in my own life and to bring beauty to a very ugly situation. Protection, justice, compassion.
I’ve cancelled work this week
I’ve bought mini-Oreo’s for the walk home from school this week
I’ve wept this week
I’ve taken Eldest with me to swim in the sea this week
I’m so thankful for the space to find my own way to be a refuge, and I guess I just wish that all kids had a safe place to fall.
Flat, still sea blends softly into the horizon
Tingling hands, catching breath
Coolness and deep surround
The sea, the sky, and I
Run gasping into the breaker spray
Full of power the sea pulls us
Tumble of white
Icy cold exhilaration
Skin pricked with goosebumps
Delicious salt-sting as I pat with my towel
Quickly into my down jacket
Smoothed stones & hot mint tea
Give thanks to the sea
Readers of the last few months may have gathered… I am a huge Nashville fan. I am committed to not giving away any series 5 plot spoilers for my friends on this side of the pond, so let me just say that Rayna is one of my heroes (and I do know that she is a TV character – but she’s my hero anyway!) I love the way that we have seen her grow as a mother as her girls have entered turbulent teenage years, I love how passionate and open-hearted she is, and I love the way that we’ve seen her struggle to balance her career and her dreams with her life as a mentor, mother and lover.
There’s a scene in Nashville a few years back where Rayna has to play at a Country Club benefit. I remember her raising her eyebrows and assuring her band leader, “These are not ma’people” (try and imagine a lovely Southern drawl)
But here’s the thing, Rayna grew up with those people. Yet the comfortable world of the elite wasn’t for her. She knew they weren’t her people.
Ever since we moved from a cosmopolitan, diverse Northern city to a sleepy market town in the South West, I’ve been searching for “ma’people”. The direction life took us when Eldest was born meant that our local conservative, evangelical church began to feel less and less like home. We had too many questions. One of the reasons I left Facebook earlier this year was because I felt so aware that the views of many mainstream Christians just don’t reflect mine. These are not ma’people.
When life throws a lot of crap your way, it’s interesting how it can help you find your people! Over the last ten years or so, my friendships have deepened with other people who know what it is to feel broken. My little WordPress community is full of amazing people who are learning to live with limits. Next weekend I’ll be meeting up with the other mums from the ‘Head up, Heart strong’ film who have all battled postnatal illness. We will be sharing cocktails and stories of relapse. These are just some of ma’people.
This week I took a new step to reach out and find ma’people. I joined Team East Devon Swimmers for an evening swim in Sidmouth. The water was 12 degrees C and the swimming was magical! It was a special thing for me after a number of years living with mental illness to meet people based firstly on a shared interest, rather than on a shared experience of suffering. I learned a new word – Thalassophile – meaning someone who loves the sea. These too, are ma’people… and I can’t wait to get to know them better.
Here’s where we will be swimming. Just beautiful.
April has been a testing month at times. Challenges have come and gone in lots of different aspects of life. For a little while I had a blog post entitled ‘parenting on the edge’ formulating in my mind! Maybe I’ll still write it some day…
One of my first tasks of the day in my support worker role is to ‘wake up’ my friend’s living room. I let the light in as I open the curtains, I fold blankets and straighten the beautiful sofa cushions. Next to the hand-knitted yellow cushion is a simple cotton cushion that reads “Do small things with great love”.
I’ve been musing on the cushion a lot this month. I’ve been finding myself at my happiest when doing the small things. Trying to do the big, scary things (like training courses) perfectly gets overwhelming. But with the wisdom of the cushion I can remind myself to do a small thing, like encourage a participant with an affirming smile.
I can do a small thing like change Little One’s toilet-training accidents, with great love. It might seem like such a small thing to be packing spare knickers and jersey trousers into a schoolbag, but for us it’s a huge, incredible step forward.
I sometimes feel I can only do such small things to protect and support Eldest as she walks through this horrible bullying at school… But I can talk to the headteacher with great love, rather than demanding punishment or exclusion of the child involved. I can let my fierce love for my child motivate me to keep doing the small things that help her feel safe. Cups of tea, late-night cuddles in our bed, sitting at the end of her bed reading a chapter of “Divergent”, baking together.
The wisdom of a cushion has kept me going, kept me grounded this month. I’m realising just how important the small things are, as they contain the greatest love not just for others, but for myself. Small things allow me to be limited, to not have all the answers, but to know that I am loving greatly nonetheless.
