It’s Okay to be Okay
Well, it has been a hard year to blog. I’ll say that upfront. I mean there have been literal firestorms, and pandemics and all sorts. They’ve all been external though. Then there has been the internal stuff. Late last year, my husband and I published his story of surviving gay conversion therapy (also known as Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Change Efforts). I had intended to follow that piece up with a lot of stuff on mixed-orientation marriage, but something didn’t feel right. I’m glad I listened to that gut feeling. Because only a couple of months later, he and I would separate.
Fast forward to today: The ink is barely dry on the announcement of our separation. My best friend and her girlfriend came around to get the kids and take them out for a play because this covid19 lockdown has been hard on parents! Another newly single friend dropped around with coffee because we are allowed to now thank God! She and I sat on the couch with Patrick, who now comfortably inhabits the ‘best friend’ space, and we laughed. Like, belly-laughed. This is our life now: separated, best friends, co-parents, in lockdown until the pandemic passes and then living together by choice afterwards.
I didn’t think this would be how my life went. But it is. And every day I spend a moment in gratitude that this separation didn’t go the way of animosity and loathing.
There has long been a message out there in the ether about mental illness, saying “It’s okay not to be okay,” and it is. It 100% is. But I’m also learning, here on the other side of chronic pain, trauma, post-traumatic stress disorder, repetitive pregnancy loss, losing family-relationships, losing a community of friends who were supposed to be “covenant” and “forever no matter what”, having to leave a church that represented the only life I’d ever known, changing careers, deconstructing faith, reconstructing faith, having a whole town talk about my family’s dirty laundry, having my dad take to the newspaper to discredit us when it came out that we no longer go to his church, supporting my husband through a sexuality crisis and recovery from the horrendous damage of conversion therapy and a lifetime of internalised homophobia, separating from that husband because of his sexuality and reinventing our partnership – it’s okay to be okay, too.
It’s okay to be okay, too.
When I was diagnosed with PTSD nearly a decade ago, following a misdiagnosis of anxiety and depression, I wondered whether I would ever be normal again. I had been diagnosed with a mental illness that seemed to mean I had diminished coping skills. Counselling failed to dull the vivid flashbacks (thanks to an extraordinary ability to recall details in picture format). It seemed I would live a lifetime under the weight of past trauma. I felt the shame of that diagnosis, and within my social circle at the time where everyone knew everyone’s business, I had failed to find a feeling of safety. Instead, I felt exposed, ashamed and on-show every time I had an episode. I was finding it even more difficult to enjoy life. That was the unwanted gift my diagnosis gave me.
I was wearing the weight of stigma that often comes with mental illness. That made it hard to accept that for the most part, I was a strong, smart, worthy person with so much going for her. Sometimes I think we can have such a deep attachment to our trauma or to the diagnosis that explained our difficulty that it is difficult to lean into the beauty, strength and complexity of who we are.
Ironically, after my diagnosis, this made my condition worse: I would fear having a PTS episode, which would increase my ambient anxiety levels, which would mean my tolerance was lower and I was more likely to have an episode. Saturday nights became long, sleepless nights, which meant I would march into Sunday ill-prepared for the stressors I would face. Usually, this meant my body would burn through stress hormones and I’d crash on Monday’s with blinding migraines. My long-suffering (now ex) husband supported me through this beautifully. During this time, we also coped with the loss of four pregnancies before finally, our son was born. On the day I found out I was pregnant for the fifth time, Patrick knew it was time to leave the church. I would fight to stay for another few months before realising leaving was our only choice. We were about to plunge into an incredible time of upheaval. I was about to face more confrontation, stress, grief and loss than I had ever experienced before. But something unexpected happened: I stayed pregnant for the first time, and my PTSD episodes decreased to the point where the coping mechanisms I used to use daily are all but forgotten.
I went from having an episode once a week at least, to forgetting I even had the condition.
Despite all the heartache we faced, the years I spent married to Patrick were wonderful and beautiful too. We have truly walked through fire together, and we’ve laughed, lived, and created a beautiful family that remains and will remain the centre of our hearts and lives. But he is gay, and there’s just no way around that. I’m truly happy for him, and am happy that I reached a point of being whole-heartedly LGBTQIA+ affirming in my theology before our separation. That means I celebrate with him instead of feeling a whole lot of unhelpful, and in my opinion unbiblical, things.
After we made the call, I felt grief and sadness, of course. But the main thing I felt was “What on earth will people say? How will they judge us?” I felt this because I used to be the person who thought divorce was always the wrong thing. I had this naive idea that everything could be prayed away, or ignored away, and that which couldn’t be was a tragedy. Deconstructing my faith disabused me of that idea.
I don’t see divorce as a tragedy anymore. I see abuse as a tragedy, but if someone has walked away from an abusive marriage then the walking isn’t tragic! It is brave and wonderful.
I see mistreatment of a spouse as a tragedy. But I don’t see that spouse standing up for themselves and realising they are worth happiness as a tragic.
I don’t see dissolving a marriage because of sexuality as a tragedy. I see living a lifetime of repression as a tragedy.
I do see growing apart as sad. I do think marriage is to be fought for. I do see “til death do us part” as a beautiful ideal that I hope to experience. That I will experience (lets put that down as #goals here). But I am no longer naive enough to think that misery is noble and kids are better off with married parents even if those parents are miserable, depressed and at eachother’s throats.
Once I realised that this is what I really thought, I came to another realisation: its okay to be okay, even if you are divorced or divorcing, even if you have a mental illness (no matter if it is well-managed or not), even if life didn’t go the way you planned it would go, even if you’ve caught more curveballs than its really fair for life to offer up. You don’t have to feel miserable just because that’s what society expects of you. It is okay to separate and feel genuine love and happiness for your ex-partner, and geniuine optimism about what comes next for us as individuals.
Because I’m a woman and I can totally multitask, it is also okay to have moments of sadness, too. The existance of one doesn’t have to deny the existance of the other.
It’s like my friend Bridget told me: “Don’t let anyone shit in your peace bubble. You get to have the life you want.”
So here we are in the middle of a pandemic, locked down in our homes, feeling a little bit caged and realising the human spirit really isn’t made for captivity. This has been a time of upheaval globally, and mental illness has compounded this difficulty for many of us. I like to say that Patrick and I split “before it was cool” because you bet your butt there will be a spike in divorces post Covid19.
But I want to say this: if joy visits you, let it. If you wake up one day and you don’t feel depressed or anxious or caged or let down or beaten up by life, let yourself feel okay. Sometimes it’s hard to let ourselves be happy when we have been conditioned to another reality. Being happy, experiencing joy, doesn’t deny life’s hardships. It doesn’t mean you no longer have a mental illness, or that your life is suddenly easy. It certainly doesn’t mean you have to stay happy either. It just means that here, in this moment, you are okay. That is something you can lean into with a smile.
Why say all of this? I’ve been looking around at Christian messaging (and I still identify as Christian FYI), and I’ve noticed there is often a lot of emphasis on suffering. “When we suffer God is glorified.” “His strength is made perfect in our weakness.” “God disciplines those he loves.” “Let God heal you from your hurts and your wounds.” Also, pretty much everything about the Lutheran and Billy Grahamesque versions of Christianity. It all seems to tune us into our deficits and low points so that “God can be magnified”. That has been my experience, at least.
Here is my progressive Christian hot-take: we don’t have to hate ourselves, or focus on the bad things in us or around us. God doesn’t have to use every experience of our lives as a glory-grabbing moment, nor do I think miserable people bring all that much glory. You know? Happiness is okay too. Acceptance of ourselves in all our imperfect perfection is wonderful.
Over the last decade, I’ve spent a lot of time doing the hard yards when it comes to my wellbeing. I’m no longer the traumatised girl with the new PTSD diagnosis. Every now and then, once in a blue moon, I experience the taste of metal in my mouth and realise my pulse is racing and my cognition is a little scrambled. But now I know the sky isn’t falling; I’m just having a PTSD episode. I now know that PTSD isn’t shameful. Its a normal reaction to a set of really abnormal circumstances. Having spent a lot of time learning from experts and doing the work, I have built up some pretty amazing skills when it comes to resilience and wellness. I’m proud of that. And I’m going to say something pretty wild here – I’m not giving God the glory for it. He knows I did the work!
I’ve also learned something precious: I can’t control my life. I can live it. I can throw myself into it, make the best of it, and take responsibility for my own decisions and actions, but control is a myth because life is filled with other people and their choices and inner realities.
A couple of years ago, I got the first niggle that “til death do us part”might not happen for Patrick and I. So I did what I had learned to do – enjoyed every moment that I could, knowing I couldn’t change the inevitable but I could enjoy what we had. Those two years have been an absolute gift. We have loved to the best of our ability until we both knew it was time to love platonically instead. Now that time has come, our ability to accept the things we cannot change has meant we navigate our way forward as friends with a truly special bond. He cheers me on as a single woman in her prime. I cheer him on as the most fabulous Dad my kids could ask for, and I can’t wait to see how life unfolds for us in this unconventionally, wholly affirming post-separation family.
Sometimes resilience means fighting for what you know you must fight for. Sometimes it means knowing when something can’t be changed and accepting the outcome so that you can find your way forward.
I get that this is hard for some people to understand. I also get that this blog post is a little more rambly and a little less cerebral than my normal posts, but I just wanted to say: for my friends who caught a curveball and whose lives turned out differently to what they planned, for my friends who are struggling with lockdown, for my friends who have a diagnosed or undiagnosed mental illness – its okay to be okay.
If you feel good, that is a good thing. It doesn’t decrease your hardship. It magnifies your strength.
Be well, fam
Kit K
Good Morning 2020
It’s a brand new year. I’ve sat at my desk wanting to write so many times. But the truth is nothing felt right. I live in a local government area that borders East Gippsland. The last few weeks have been odd. Sad. Heavy. We are not a tiny town, but we are small enough to recognise when people aren’t local, when they’ve evacuated from or lost their homes in a Shire beseiged not only by firestorms but bad politics. You can kind of guess by their demeanor that they are nervous, or staying strong for their kids. You see car parks full of cars packed to the hilt. But this isn’t what the world is watching: they are watching political buffoonary as our PM blunders his way through his first major, record breaking national disaster. They watch as Australia, East Gippsland and Coastal NSW, become global symbols of global climate change.
I’m not sure how to blog about what I want to yet. I want to say things about mixed orientation marriage, sexual ethic in the post-purity culture church, dominionism as it makes an example of both the Liberal Party and of Christian minor parties in Australia, and of the way people take to social media without so much as a fact check to defend the idea that this *isn’t* a global warming issue. As if looking after your planet is somehow diametrically opposed to conversative Christianity in Australia. Its an odd juxtaposition. There is so much to talk about – and I will.
But for the moment, I have to sit with this feeling of heaviness as my country burns. I have to clear my mind of these things that beg for my attention and acknowledgement before I plunge on into the intellectual arguments surrounding the issues I mentioned above.
In the mean time, I’m organising myself. I’ve hired help to get me through the crazy amount of work piling up on my desk. I’ll be *finally* releasing those eBooks I talked about doing last year, and launching the podcast that I just can’t wait to start. It finally has almost a sorta-kinda name. The first ten episodes are planned. It’s nearly there.
But I can’t write or talk yet before I say this:
RIP to the fire-fighters and forest manager who perished in this disaster so far
RIP to those who got caught in a firestorm and didn’t make it out.
COURAGE to those who have lost everything. My heart and my prayers are with you, and I’m doing what I can to aid those who are supporting you.
COURAGE to those of us who are watching this in disbelief, feeling the sadness, feeling angry over the politics that surround human lives and a national tragedy.
May we emerge from this smarter, more informed, more ready to take on those who don’t want to stand up, take responsibility and fix what needs to be fixed. Australia has always had fires, yes. But not this many, not this early and not this volatile.
I’ll blog more tomorrow. I just had to say this first.
Wishing you peace, and love, and rain
Kit K.
Virtue Signalling Vs. Collective Outcry
Once again, 2020 serves us up a dumpster fire of epic proportions. The death ( *murder*) of George Floyd seems to have been the heartbreaking straw that broke the camels back. Riots, protests, looting, police stations on fire - it sure makes for a bleak Facebook feed. I'm not going to make this a big post today, because someone told me this week that the great rule of ally-ship is to say "Nothing about me without me." But I do want to say this:
There is a difference between virtue signaling and collective outcry. Now is not the moment to look at someone's Facebook page and accuse them of virtue signaling - of simply wanting to look like they care enough. When this type of systemic racism is called out, when injustice reaches a tipping point, we can feel powerless, angry, and confused. We can try to tune it out, try to be in denial, we can be triggered, we can stick our heads in the sand because it is all too hard and too far out of our control.
So some people fire off a Facebook post. It's the best they can do. It's not virtue signaling. It's just the best we can do given the information we can. Don't attack them. The fact is when we witness trauma, we can be traumatized too. And powerlessness is a common reaction to trauma. It's not a moment to argue with someone about their content, intent, or right to post. They're doing the best they can - processing a moment in history that is hard, so very hard, to witness.
But when injustice reaches a tipping point like it has this week, it is important to raise our voices - to join the collective outcry and call for change. So the big question remains, how can we do this constructively?
"Nothing About Me Without Me"
Like I said, someone told me this week that the great guidepost of allyship is to say "nothing about me without me." So whether it is feminism, LGBTQIA+ rights, or in this case systemic and horrific racism, it's a moment to pass the microphone. All week, I've been retweeting or reposting content from People of Color, both in Australia and abroad (because my goodness, Australia has its own atrocities - 400 indigenous deaths in custody in the last 12 years and not one charge laid. A considerable gap between indigenous Australians and other Australians in terms of educational outcomes and other wellbeing measures. We need to do better. Now should be a call to action to improve the situation for our own first people).
I got schooled this week in terms of allyship. And I'm thankful for the lesson. Perhaps it's timely, though, because I now see the importance of finding those voices who speak out against injustice from a place of personal experience. Find those people, and offer them a megaphone. Share their messages.
If it helps, I've been watching these, among others:
Kevin Garcia has been featuring a lot of key messages from people of color, and is also a person of color.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has been posting some great content on her twitter feed.
Bernice King, the daughter of Dr Martin Luther King Jr. has been posting some amazing stuff, and keeping the torch lit up.
I've also been keeping an eye on content from Stan Grant, The Age, and other reputable sources who have been adding to the information by shining light on the Australian situation.
Add Your Voice Where It Counts
It can be hard to do anything from where you sit, and even in the USA it can be hard to do anything if you don't feel safe going to a protest. But there are petitions you can sign, associations you can join, foundations you can donate too. Whenever there is a cause, there is generally a lobby group pushing for the betterment of that cause.
Change.org is generally a good place to start, or you can Google the foundations dedicated to the cause in your country.
We aren't as powerless as we seem. We should hope for, dream of, and push for a better tomorrow. It is certainly, absolutely, a good thing to acknowledge our own white privilege while we stand with those like George Floyd, and every person of color who fears for their safety because of the injustice of racism.
Now is Not The Moment for "All Lives Matter."
Yes, I've seen that counterclaim float its way around Facebook in response to the "Black Lives Matter" movement. Yes, all lives matter. But we whities - well our house isn't on fire. So let's not get in the way of the fire-engines or steal their resources. Let's grab our buckets and our hoses, and whatever we can do to help douse this inferno. Precious lives hang in the balance.
Just my two cents. For whatever they're worth.