Category Archives: stress

depression, stress

How to handle getting back in the groove

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We are back from vacation and I am looking at mounds upon piles upon loads of things that all have to get done RIGHT NOW. Everything is a priority when you get back in the groove of things. As I have started to work through the piles on my desk, the books in my “to read” stack, and all of the stuff in my various inboxes, my general inclination is quite simple:

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HIDE!!!

I don’t think this is unique to those who suffer from depression, but that does make things worse. When you have a lot of things to do, with many different responsibilities that often compete with one another, it is very easy to go into shut-down mode and not be able to get off the ground.

How do you move forward? Here are a few things that work for me:

1. Recognize what’s going on and be honest about it.
2. Try to gather everything that has to get done into one place, one list, so that it is all there and there aren’t any loose ends niggling at your mind.
3. Try to prioritize as much as reasonably possible what has to get done when.
4. Work it down to manageable chunks of what you can actually DO.
5. Start on the list.
6. Breathe and remember that you are one person, not a god. You can only do what you are able to do.

That’s what comes to my mind. What’s in yours?

depression, stress

Post performance blues

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Every year for a while in the summertime I take my pastor hat off and put on my “Kathryn’s husband” hat on. My wife is the artistic director for an arts organization called SouthEast Wisconsin Performing Arts (SEWPA). Their flagship program is called Opera ala Carte, and involves about 30 high school and college students, 30 elementary students, a dozen dancers, and about a bazillion volunteers. This year they did an amazing production of The Fairy Queen by Henry Purcell and The Pirates of Penzance by Gilbert & Sullivan.

It pretty much consumes the Peperkorn household for about a month and a half. It is also more fun than one family ought to be allowed to have. Between building sets, singing, working on publicity, parades, and heaven knows what else, we all get in the act somewhere.

But it’s all over now. The kids are heading back to school or off to college. Things slowly return to normal. The sets are struck, the paperwork is coming, etc., etc., etc.

How depressing.

This has also gotten me thinking of how much this mirrors the life of the pastor. We go through cycles and periods of intense work and preparation, where it culminates and is then over in a short period of time. Lent. Easter. Advent. Christmas. VBS. This is interspersed with the daily work of the office that never ends (calls, weekly services, bible class, etc).

How do you manage these cycles so that they can have their own fulfillment, yet at the same time continue to look forward to what is coming next? I have a pretty obsessive personality, so it is easy for me to immerse myself in an event or an emergency or a place. What is hard for me is the daily grind. If I don’t have some big thing coming, I get bored, which makes me depressed.

How do you manage these fine lines of time and energy? Do you think there is a comparison here?

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stress

The Things in My Head

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One of the things that I struggle with is how to not stress and freak out about all of the little tasks that run through my head all the time. It seems as the piles of tasks big and small continue to crop up and have a tendency to overwhelm me, so that I go into “shut down” mode and just stare at the wall for a while. Now where there is some benefit to staring at the wall, I don’t think that’s where I generally want to be as a pastor or a person.

So how does one Get a grip on all of the stuff of life so that they don’t fill your mind up? Overstimulation is one of the big causes of mood change for me, and there’s no doubt that if I am weighed down and anxious about the growth of the physical and mental piles building up, something has to give in the process.

So to that end, here are a few tips. I’ve gleaned some of these from David Allen’s book, Getting Things Done, and others I’ve picked up along the way:

  1. Write it down. God gave us paper and computers for a reason. There is absolutely no need to try and juggle everything in your head. Why waste energy on remembering WHAT to do when you could be actually DOING it?
  2. If it takes less than two minutes, just do it. This one has become completely liberating for me. My general mindset has been “if it takes less than 2 minutes, I can do it anytime.” The problem is, you don’t do it anytime, and so what really is a little pittance becomes a great mental debt.
  3. Don’t allow the tools to become the craftsman. This is really important for me, since I am by nature a techno-geek galore. It is very easy for me to sit and fiddle and tweak and stare and doodle on the computer, and forget that I have certain things to do. The tools are there for me, not the other way around.
  4. Schedule relaxation time. This is really, really hard. I can pack every waking moment with stuff to do, but if there isn’t built in time for playing with my kids, watching a movie, golfing, or whatever it is, then the little tasks become the sole reason for existence.
  5. In the same vein, schedule time for prayer and meditation in the Word. Sometimes I am tempted to use my freedom in the Gospel as an excuse for not praying. There are a lots of reasons why it is hard to pray (there’s a nice section in the book on this, btw), but if I schedule it so that this is a part of my identity as a husband/father/pastor, then it works its way in as a habitus that will have staying power.

That’s what I’ve got for right now. How do you stay ahead of the piles?

-DMR

depression, stress

After Easter

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We are now in the afterglow of the resurrection of our Lord. It is a good place to be.

For many pastors, Lent represents a trial of time, emotions, energy and just plain work. It is the six weeks which are both wonderful and incredibly taxing. Not to mention taxes coming right after Easter this year! So In the midst of all of this hoopla, I always find myself reveling in and enjoying the joy and festiveness of the season, but also breathing a little easier that the toughest six weeks of the year are behind me.

Of course, we put so many expectations on ourselves during this season. Easter sermons are the toughest to write and preach for me. A part of it is that I feel like I have to put on an unnaturally over-happy face on in order to get it “right”. This year I tried to embrace the challenge of Easter a little better, preaching the text (Mark 16:1-8) without using unnatural preaching styles for me. I think it worked pretty well.

So what do you do after Eastertide, oh pastors and people? Is it a time of relaxation, a time to return to “normal”, or something else?

-DMR

stress

Pastoral Stress

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Pastors are under a lot of stress this time of year. The added services, plus the stress of helping people with job loss, plus taxes, plus anything else that is going on within the congregation, all of these add up to a very difficult picture sometimes.

What do you do to relieve stress? Do you have a release valve somehow? Do you internalize it? Exercise? Play? Talk? Find some other distraction?

One of the things I have been trying of late is praying. Yes, I know, this isn’t that complicated. But verbalizing the things I am stressed about to our Lord in prayer is tremendously helpful. I am not alone with my problems. God is with me, promises to hear and to answer my prayers.

But I still get stressed.

So what do you do?

-DMR

anxiety, children, depression, family, stress

Watching the Kids

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I told my wife a few weeks ago that I thought watching and taking care of children was way harder than being a pastor.  She then told me it was the nicest thing I had ever said to her.

I wasn’t actually trying to get points mit my frau.  I really think that’s true.  Certainly some of the time, maybe even most of the time.

When I was at the height (depth?) of my sickness, it was our children that I couldn’t handle more than anything else.  I’ve blogged a few times about my travails with shut-ins, but really it is children that require a lot more emotional energy, I think.

I bring this up because today I watched our kids.  All of them, for about 4 hours.  I know, that doesn’t sound like much.  Some of them were napping for part of the time, and they were all there and full bore for a little more than an hour.  The thing is, I’m not certain I have watched all of our kids on my own since I came off of disability.  Maybe I have.  But I was glad to be able to do it and not have a complete meltdown in the process.

I love our children.  That isn’t the issue.  The issue is one of responsibility, stimulation, and the ability to process and do on-the-spot problem solving.  None of these things really go well with sufferers of depression.  So I counted today a great victory.  Yes, it was just four hours.  Yes, my saintly wife does it for about 20 hours a day every day.  I don’t know how she does it.  But today, I’ll rejoice in what healing God grants, and prays that it may continue.

Mothers of the world, I salute you.

-DMR

anxiety, children, depression, family, stress

Watching the Kids

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I told my wife a few weeks ago that I thought watching and taking care of children was way harder than being a pastor.  She then told me it was the nicest thing I had ever said to her.

I wasn’t actually trying to get points mit my frau.  I really think that’s true.  Certainly some of the time, maybe even most of the time.

When I was at the height (depth?) of my sickness, it was our children that I couldn’t handle more than anything else.  I’ve blogged a few times about my travails with shut-ins, but really it is children that require a lot more emotional energy, I think.

I bring this up because today I watched our kids.  All of them, for about 4 hours.  I know, that doesn’t sound like much.  Some of them were napping for part of the time, and they were all there and full bore for a little more than an hour.  The thing is, I’m not certain I have watched all of our kids on my own since I came off of disability.  Maybe I have.  But I was glad to be able to do it and not have a complete meltdown in the process.

I love our children.  That isn’t the issue.  The issue is one of responsibility, stimulation, and the ability to process and do on-the-spot problem solving.  None of these things really go well with sufferers of depression.  So I counted today a great victory.  Yes, it was just four hours.  Yes, my saintly wife does it for about 20 hours a day every day.  I don’t know how she does it.  But today, I’ll rejoice in what healing God grants, and prays that it may continue.

Mothers of the world, I salute you.

-DMR

Pastoral Office, stress

The fall rush and doing good

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I want to commend an article to you I ran across recently.  It is in the newsletter for Doxology, and is entitled A New Beginning.  Please check it out. Here’s one of the opening paragraphs:

There is a bit of a buzz surrounding the season, we all detect it. Several pastors told me, “Here we go again.” One man reflected with a sigh of resignation, “Sometimes I wonder if I’m just doing the exact same thing for the 14th time in my life.” Another pastor with a large elementary school observed, “Take a deep breath; here it comes.”

This is me.  Well, not literally, but you get the point.  I am inundated with the fall.  School, Sunday School, Bible Class, Adult Instruction (Catechesis, whateveryouwanttocallitthisyear), it all starts in the span of about two weeks.  GOOD GRIEF!  Haven’t we ever heard of pacing, people?

This year, though, overshadowing all of it, is that basic question: is anybody listening? I feel like I am doing the same thing year after year after year, and that nobody is listening.  The excitement, the interest is gone.  I’m not the new pastor with the great ideas to save the Church.  I’m the pastor who has been around here for a while.  I’m predictable.  People know my strengths and weakensses.  They know what to expect.  There is nothing new under the sun.  I think that’s in the Bible somewhere.

So how am I to move forward?

As of this moment, I don’t know.

So my answer for now is, focus on the doing and less on the gradiose strategizing and theories and plans.  I don’t know where this will go, but there can be some satisfaction in worker harder to do a good job, regardless of the measurable outcomes.  St. Paul put it this way:

“And let us not grow weary of doing good, for in due season we will reap, if we do not give up. So then, as we have opportunity, let us do good to everyone, and especially to those who are of the household of faith.”
(Galatians 6:9-10 ESV)

Have a blessed day in Christ.

-DMR

anxiety, pharmacology, stress

One Down, Two to Go, and Panera

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I’ve been off clonazepam for a week now, and things seem to be going pretty well. It seemed to help me in the past with stressful situations, excessive noise, and either visual or verbal clutter. After a week, I seem to be able to manage these things fairly well.

One of the signs for me that things were starting to resemble normalcy was Panera. I love Panera. Half of my sermons are written at Panera. But that has not been the case for some time. I just haven’t been able to handle the hustle and bustle one finds there. It’s really kinda driven me crazy.

So Monday I went to Panera, and after being there 45 minutes, I noticed that I wasn’t having the huge desire to run and hide. I know, that sounds a little silly, but it’s true. Sometimes victories may be found in very small things. Being able to drink a cup of coffee in peace, for example.

Hopefully getting of Welbutrin will go s smoothly. But we’ll try one step at a time for now…

-DMR

depression, stress

Time on "The Most Depressing Day of the Year"

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Time/CNN online recently posted an article on the most depressing day of the year. Apparently a Dr. Cliff Arnall of Cardiff University published a study indicating that the third Monday in January is the most depressing day of the year.

According to Time, the time of year when they monitor the most internet searches for depression is in mid-November. Continue reading Time on "The Most Depressing Day of the Year" →