What a difference a few hours makes in my world. After the sadness that stemmed from my loved one’s “Get Out” post, things turned around yesterday. Sort of.
Again, after about 5 days of not communicating, not smiling, not even looking at us, yesterday, our loved one came out of the ‘episode’, and asked again if we were going to make a video for mental health awareness month. They were a little flatter in affect, still no eye contact, and it felt to me a little more frail. But they’d surfaced. They returned to some normal behavior during the day, including asking to be accompanied to the grocery store, and then buying mostly good food, and getting back on lengthy calls with a few long distance friends they’d met through social media.
As fleeting as the manic good mood was of a week ago, so was the deep funk of this pat week. Yesterday, they were able to look back on the darkness and with some clarity about it. To be clear, things were not normal yesterday. But boy howdy, they were better. And to be clear, that isn’t indication of a linear improvement. And by the end of the day, they'd again decided they didn't want to a video with me. But perhaps it was building our capacity to deal with the ups and downs of mood disorders, partnered with the brain dysfunction. Practice makes perfect? Or at least better.
By the end of they day, they were outside on the patio happily talking loudly to no one in particular wrapped in a blanket. Talking about social media hashtags. At one point, they’d struck up a conversation with a couple walking by, and they were charming and asked their names, and when they left, said farewell to these new friends by name. I know this is how it went down because we could hear the past 30 minutes of talk, from inside upstairs. Did I mention they were loud?
I’m not one to cry out, with my hands in the air, that “it’s a miracle”. And I don’t think my loved one was cured. Yesterday, I read that Paul was attributing to the devil some pretty nasty stuff, but that God can beat the devil. I believe that. And as I mentioned I struggled with what does it look like for God to beat Schizophrenia. Paul continues today, explaining that God makes us alive together in Christ. Maybe that’s what was missing in yesterday’s reading, the together part. Whether it’s together in prayer (thanks to everyone for their prayers and supportive comments), or just a sense of being in community in the midst of this illness and stupid pandemic, this morning is way better.
I attribute all of this to God’s love and grace. My loved one has a brief reprieve from their darkness. I have a reprieve from my funk. I find something to hold on to in this morning’s readings. And in addition to God’s grace, I attribute this change to the ‘together’ notion mentioned by Paul this morning. We are made alive together. Not by myself, willing things to be better. But together, with all of the communities in which we find ourselves.
This morning I’m thinking about how grateful I am to again be reminded that we are, indeed, all in this together. We cannot survive as a lone ranger. It’s dumb to act as if we are, because we are never alone. Or at least we should know that God’s put us in community for a reason. God made us alive together, with Christ.
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