Breakdowns to Breakthroughs

It's been a while since I've updated you, dear friends and family.  I know you are wondering how we are doing, especially since I wasn't necessarily in the happiest of places when I last posted.  I am happy to report that it was just a temporary slump.  It didn't take us long to see some progress, which lifted my spirits and I was back to my happy, faithful, usual self.  

Until things got bad again, and I had another "I can't do this!" meltdown.  

But things got better and we kept on plugging forward.  And then we would find ourselves beating our heads against the wall and crying into our pillows at night once again.  

I've been thinking a lot lately about the really cheesy quote I once heard,

"After the biggest breakdowns come the breakthroughs."  

I've been thinking about it because although it sounds so cliche it is absolutely true.  

We learned a little more about this in therapy a few weeks ago when it had become apparent that Chloe had turned a really huge corner and that we were heading for an upswing.  

Therapy sessions are so important for both Chloe and me.  They are so good because we are forced to communicate and by doing that we or the person helping us with the outside perspective, figure out patterns and hopefully how to change them.  It forces me to stop my daily activities for a second and just stop to take a look at the dynamics of what is really going on in with the behaviors in our household.  

The week prior to last week was a really bad week for everyone.  Chloe had seemed to be doing pretty well, then suddenly was shutting down, having panic attacks, outbursts, mood swings, you name it.  I was trying my best but really didn't know what to do because she has always been the "perfect kid", meaning despite the few normal kid mistakes and bad moods, she is the one kid I could always count on to be obedient, helpful, responsible, etc.  

(Turns out, that's bad but I'll touch on that later.)

I was done for the day, but luckily her dad had the patience to work with her for hours and long story short...this led to a major breakthrough.  Her dad helped give her the strength to do an exposure that she was REALLY afraid of, and then when she was able to do it, she was so proud of herself!  And now she is able to sleep in her room again, on her own.  It's a huge step forward.  

I saw this quote and thought it applied to our situation that week, and the following weeks as well:

The night of the breakdown, she and I were ready to give up, not knowing that the breakthrough was around the corner.  

It was an important reminder for both of us, and an important lesson. 

We had a fantastic week after that and as we talked about it in therapy, our therapist confirmed that the road to wellness will have major ups and downs, that if there is a straight line of progression going upward then something is fishy and real growth isn't happening.  So I guess....we're normal!  

I immediately thought about the talk I have been studying this week by the wonderful Sister Wendy W. Nelson given to the students at BYU Hawaii called "Becoming the Person You Were Born to Be."  It was a talk about New Year's Resolutions, and I highly recommend everyone read or listen to it along with Russel M. Nelson's talk about millennial Mormons.  Click here for the link.

In her talk Sister Nelson said,

"Think of the Savior’s disciples who, with life-threatening waves crashing around their small fishing boat, cried out to the Savior, “Carest thou not that we perish?”⁴

What did these people have in common?

They were desperate! Desperate for the Savior to heal them, help them, cleanse them, guide them, protect them, and save them! They were desperate for Jesus Christ to help them do things they could never do on their own. They were desperate to have the Savior’s strength and power in their lives. Do you know that feeling? Believe me, I do.

Well, here’s the good news: Desperation can actually be a great motivator.

When we’re desperate to be guided by heaven, we work harder than ever to tune in to heaven. When we’re desperate to be physically healthy, we eat and exercise accordingly. No excuses! When we’re desperate to have more money, we eagerly follow the Lord’s law of finances—which is, of course, tithing!"

"When we’re desperate to become the people we were born to be, our vision changes. We wake up from the spiritual amnesia the adversary so cleverly administers, and suddenly we see things about ourselves, others, and our lives we’ve never seen before. The world’s “fun” and “entertainment” start to look almost ridiculous, perhaps even spiritually dangerous. We begin to see the adversary’s tricks and traps for what they really are—temptations to make us forget our true identity and our destination.

We begin to spend our time differently. Time on Facebook doesn’t seem half as compelling as time in the temple. We experience for ourselves the profound truth taught by a wise temple president: “When we enter the temple, we leave the world of make-believe.”⁷We become much more interested in eternal truths the Lord will teach us in His holy house than in the latest sensational comments on social media, which can be so glib and brain-numbing."

She then challenged us to try a 30 day experiment:

"Daily kneel and thank your Heavenly Father for the scriptures. Tell Him the one question you most need to have answered that day. Plead to have the Holy Ghost with you as you read. Then open your scriptures anywhere, and read until you find the answer.⁸ Try it for 30 days and see what happens."

I have already learned that the answers are in the scriptures, and I frequently try this method when I have questions.  But I have never tried doing it every day.  Wow wowie wow wow....it works.  
Every single day I have been guided on the first try to the exact answer I needed or the exact scripture I have needed to read in order for the Holy Spirit to teach me.  Our family is greatly benefitting from this experiment!  Best science project we've ever done!

Even though there are ups and downs, and times when I feel very desperate, I think our family is adjusting to this "new normal" that life has thrown our way.  We are doing ok!

I asked Paul the other day, - "I talk to lots of people that say they had the same tendencies when they were a kid, they didn't do therapy, and they overcame it on their own.  Am I going overboard by putting Chloe into intensive therapy?"

Paul said, "Ask them if their anxiety level was at a 10 for several sustained hours, or all day long?  Because Chloe's was and still is sometimes.  Ask them if they had panic attacks to the point that their body shut down and they couldn't eat, sleep or even function? OCD sufferers experience all different levels of intensity, some can beat it on their own, some can do it with the help of a parent, but some need intensive help from a specialist."  It was a good reminder, and confirmation.

Current Goals for kicking OCD's butt:

1.  Communicate communicate communicate - Chloe has to break the habit of holding everything inside and has to tell us how she is feeling when she starts to spiral downward.  I need to say something like, "Your body language is telling me something has changed" and not accept any brush off's but really encourage her to talk.   Bring darkness to light so it no longer has power.

2.  She has to do more social things.  Her anxiety gets so bad she had stopped doing as much with friends, but she has been hanging out more with her awesome friends who are SO  caring, and she's remembering how fun it is to be with them!

3.  Exercise every day

4.  Practice exposures at home, never by herself.

5.  Paul wants us to enroll back into school part time.  Chloe is getting well enough that they want her to practice her new skills in a difficult setting.  Another huge step forward, earned after powering through a breakdown.

6.  This one is really important - she cannot be the perfect kid.  She has to drop the mask that everything is fine, on the days when it isn't.  I am learning in therapy that a perfectly behaved kid isn't a healthy kid, they are just learning how to play the game.  It is developmentally appropriate for teens to push boundaries, or have emotional outbursts from time to time.  So she is learning how to be a normal teenager and I am learning how to parent a new Chloe, the true Chloe with ups and downs, not the old falsely "perfect" Chloe.

I think our biggest assignment with this one is figuring out how to find balance.   Paul and Lynne are working with me on parenting a pre-teen, and helping me learn what is developmentally appropriate behavior for a teen versus what is OCD behavior, because they both require different approaches.  Paul will always advise me to be tough when disciplining, much more tough than I have been with Chloe, because she has been so emotionally fragile and I have a lot of sympathy for the suffering that OCD has caused her.

 I realized that this is because in my efforts to be Christlike, when choosing how to respond I would always choose the loving and caring approach because I thought it was what Christ would do.  Paul told me something that really helped with this, he said ( the best I can recall)

"When Christ was in the temple he wasn't kind and loving, he was firm.  He turned over the tables and cleaned out his Father's house.

You guys were recently in a car accident.  Heavenly Father could have stopped that from happening, but he didn't.  You suffered from it.  But I bet even just a few months later you are already better from it.  Whether you have more empathy for others, or something else.  Bad things happen to good people, and Heavenly Father allows it to happen, and many times he will allow us to suffer because...." and then I interrupted him to say, "I get it now," because I had already kept him longer with my questions and I knew he had to get back to the clinic.

 I wish I hadn't stopped him because he could say the next part so much better than I ever could.   But what I got was that,

Being firm IS being Christ-like.  Being tough on our kids (in a loving way), or allowing them to suffer consequences of their actions IS parenting like our Heavenly Father parents us.  Because He wants to make something out of us.  He wants us to grow and be the kind of wise and strong that only comes through suffering.

I have to be sort of like my kids' personal trainer, and since I watch the Biggest Loser, I know that personal trainers can be TOUGH if they want to get results.  This is so hard for me though!  It is not my nature to be that way.

I've also had to remember that Heavenly Father's house is a house of order.  When I am not firm and consistent, then they take over, and it becomes a house of chaos.

I decided to study this a little bit more and found a great talk by President James A. Faust that talks about disciplining in a Christ like manner.  The Greatest Challenge in the World - Good Parenting.  Some memorable quotes were:

"Among the other values children should be taught are respect for others, beginning with the child’s own parents and family; respect for the symbols of faith and patriotic beliefs of others; respect for law and order; respect for the property of others; respect for authority. Paul reminds us that children should “learn first to shew piety at home.” (1 Tim. 5:4.)

"One of the most difficult parental challenges is to appropriately discipline children. Child rearing is so individualistic. Every child is different and unique. What works with one may not work with another. I do not know who is wise enough to say what discipline is too harsh or what is too lenient except the parents of the children themselves, who love them most. It is a matter of prayerful discernment for the parents. Certainly the overarching and undergirding principle is that the discipline of children must be motivated more by love than by punishment. Brigham Young counseled, “If you are ever called upon to chasten a person, never chasten beyond the balm you have within you to bind up.” (In Journal of Discourses, 9:124–25.) Direction and discipline are, however, certainly an indispensable part of child rearing. If parents do not discipline their children, then the public will discipline them in a way the parents do not like. Without discipline, children will not respect either the rules of the home or of society.

"A principal purpose for discipline is to teach obedience. President David O. McKay stated, “Parents who fail to teach obedience to their children, if [their] homes do not develop obedience society will demand it and get it. 

"Elder Neal A. Maxwell has said, “Those who do too much for their children will soon find they can do nothing with their children. So many children have been so much done for they are almost done in.” (Ensign, May 1975, p. 101.)

I am working on it....each day getting a little better and then I will randomly have a bad day and fall right back into my old bad habits.  But I saw this little meme the other day and had to chuckle:

So I guess I'm not failing if I'm still trying?

So that is how we are doing with our OCD struggles.  Most people seem to be even more curious about how homeschooling is going, so I'll write a separate post about that.  We are definitely going through a huge life change on several fronts but it's all good stuff!

The kind words of encouragement keep coming and I marvel at goodness and kindness of those around us.  Thank you again for your love!