Faithfully Frazzled

Yesterday marked the 40th day after my mom died. Even after 40 days I’m still receiving cards and letters from people who loved mom, people who’ve never met her and notices of memorial offerings made in her honor. It will take me quite some time to thank everyone for their kindness and condolences but these 40 days have been something of a trial. I had planned to go over to her gravesite yesterday but we’ve been in the single digits this past week so I chickened out. I’m thankful my husband was able to honor this spiritual milestone with a brief panikhida or memorial service this past Saturday. To be honest, I’m amazed I made it to church at all.

During this past month my health has taken a not-so-sudden nosedive. I say ‘not sudden’ because I knew my body and brain were in fight or flight mode since mom first went to the hospital in November. If you’ve read any of my previous posts you’ll perhaps remember my several chronic illnesses, one of which is called POTS, or Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome. I’ve had low blood pressure for most of my life but starting back a few years ago, after my first hip replacement surgery, my nervous system went haywire. Most likely teased out of me by Covid, I began to collect autoimmune diseases like they were going out of style. In this past month I’ve had increasingly regular episodes of presyncope and syncope. This past week alone I had an episode almost every day. An ‘episode’ involves my blood pressure, blood oxygen, and pulse to go all out of whack and I either pass out completely or brown-out where I can hear everything around me but can’t respond verbally. My awesome family has gotten better at seeing the signs and immediately begin plying me with salt and electrolytes as is the protocol during a POTS flare. I’m so thankful for my husband, daughters and cousin Tom but I’m beginning to feel like a burden, if I’m being honest.

As you may recall from previous posts, I’ve also battled depression and anxiety for most of my adult life but my new conditions sent everything into overdrive. I went from chronic low blood pressure to hypertension almost overnight. I’ve since gotten officially diagnosed and was being monitored by the Cleveland Clinic until they sent me on my way and said my PCP could provide ongoing care. Never mind that he had never even heard the term Hyperadrenergic POTS until I told him about it. His first response was, “that’s a British term”. “We don’t use that in the States”. 😳 I love my doctor but I didn’t feel comfortable having him monitor my complex condition so I’m in the process of finding a qualified physician. But I digress…

I’ve had a rather eventful life but the last few months tested my mettle more than almost any other time in my life. I say ‘almost’ because the single hardest experience of my life is when I was first diagnosed with Major Depressive Disorder and Anxiety while pregnant with my first daughter, Nina, in 2002. This was the first time in my life my nervous system failed me and it was utterly traumatic. Everything in my life had changed in the space of a year – I met my husband, attended grad school, dropped out of grad school, got married , moved three times, got pregnant….the list goes on and on and my brain said, GIRL! No more!! One of the only things that helped calm my frazzled brain, other than my steady, patient husband, was my mother flying out from California to scenic Carbondale, Pennsylvania to help get me through the next four months of my pregnancy.

I haven’t ever shared this publicly, because honestly, it’s nobody’s business, but in the interest of sharing more of my incredible mother with you all I offer this memory to you. Husband Keith and I had moved to a new seminary after having met at a different one in NY in 2001. 9/11 had just occurred after having just sung a concert on the Promenade of the World Trade Center on 9/9, I and my classmates at seminary were understandably uneasy. Add to that losing my maternal grandfather the next month it’s no wonder I fell in love with my soon-to-be husband during this fraught time. He was an Ohio boy and that felt calming to me as that was where my grandfather was from and where my mother was raised. Keith expressed to me that after my concerts in the city and the events of 9/11 we might be happier starting our new life together at the seminary in rural Northeast Pennsylvania. I agreed and we proceeded to upend everything familiar and start anew in 2002. (I’m a poet 😝)

How was I to know that abandoning everything and everyone I knew would send me into a tailspin? (I know, I know…obtuse, thy name is Elizabeth!) I was naive to think all that upheaval wouldn’t have an effect on me. When I was about 5 months pregnant I began to have fairly regular panic attacks and my fight or flight reflex was fully engaged. I would have to leave my apartment and go for a frantic walk up the side of the mountain we lived on or drive out to ‘civilization’, i.e., nearby Dickson City, the closest Starbucks back then. It was foolhardy to be sure but at the time I had no way of recognizing that I was a total wreck. I had moved away from all family and all my best friends. Gotten pregnant right away, began a job I hated selling jewelry at Kaufmann’s Department Store and stopped singing professionally. In hindsight, like, duhhh. 🤣 What was I thinking? I was literally not in my right mind. I was the perfect vessel for a nervous breakdown and break down, I did!

One day in April, I believe, I was so unnerved that I left the apartment in my corduroy pregnancy overalls and not-too-sensible shoes and high-tailed it up the side of the mountain. When I say high-tailed, it was more like penguin waddling as I was already pretty big at almost six months pregnant. I was just desperate for….something. What? I didn’t know but I just knew it wasn’t in that god-awful apartment. I made it about a mile up the mountain when my feet found a river of fresh gravel and I went flying up in the air and very firmly back down onto my back. It probably looked comical but I had the wind completely taken out of me. My guardian angel had been putting in an undo amount of overtime and right as I hit the ground a man in a big ol’ pickup truck pulled over next to me and screamed, “Ma’am! I saw what happened! You’re pregnant! Please let me drive you down the road to the ER!!” I was too hurt to and disoriented to decline so this strange gentleman helped heave my bruised body into the cab of his massive truck. True to his word, he drove me down to the local hospital just down the mountain and made sure I got checked in. As he left me there alone and aching I felt sure I had lost the baby. Idiot! How could I do such a thing?! What in the Sam Hill was wrong with me? I was terrified I had somehow hurt the placenta and worse, harmed my baby. This was the lowest I had ever felt in my entire life. How could I care for anyone when I couldn’t care for myself?! Enter, Jenny Peters.

My angel of a husband called my mom in California right away and don’tcha know, she immediately hopped on a plane to come visit. He told her he had no idea what was going on and why I wasn’t acting like myself. By the time she got to us I had undergone enough testing to be sure I hadn’t harmed my baby and that should have placated me. But, it didn’t. I had a full nervous breakdown and my very attentive mother and husband walked me through the next stage of my journey through mental health. I was almost unable to care for myself when she arrived. I was in constant tears and not taking care of myself. My poor new husband was a deer in the headlights, as any newlywed would be, but to his and my mom’s credit they continued to love and support me all they way through. They were able to get me into a psychologist who helped to diagnose me and reassure me that even though my nervous system was shot there was hope. Mom stayed longer than she should have but such was her way. I was in crisis mode and she was committed to nursing me back to health. Eventually she had to get back to work but, in July when it was closer to my due date, sure enough, she came back and mothered me through becoming a new mother myself.

I think it’s easy for those of us with excellent, attentive mothers to take them for granted. They do what they do almost effortlessly (although it is reminiscent of the proverbial graceful swan gliding on the water, while under the surface their little feet paddle hard against the current). She did this same mother-to-the-rescue bit a couple more times as my system regulated itself by way of SS and SNRI’s. Better living through chemistry, they say! I used to be embarrassed about what happened to me but now I truly see everything is to the glory of God.

Somehow in the past 50 years I’ve been asked to sponsor many people into the Orthodox Church and my grand total of godchildren currently stands at 22. 😱 I might check with Guinness and see if I’m in the running for Fairy Godmother yet. 😅 In all seriousness though, I consider the unconditional loving, steady hands of my mother to have been the best guide to motherhood a girl could hope for. She even encouraged me to meet my birth mother and be with her as she passed away! Who does that, I ask you? Jenny, that’s who.

Why am I sharing this? Obviously it isn’t glamorous. Some of you may even judge me for it but my heart is certain that sharing my pain will help others face their own. It’s worth it in the end if the goal is to glorify my creator and give thanks, not just on these 40 days but, for the rest of my life for such a godly woman’s love. Thank you, mom. May your memory be eternal. ❤️‍🩹

– Dedicated to my daughters Nina and Lydia and to my godchildren:

1. Jorge Luís
2. Miriam Elizabeth 
3. Jessica Elizabeth 
4. Miriam
5. Kristen
6. Brittany Maria
7. Serafina Isidora
8. (Anna) Beth
9. Brittany (Photini)
10. Edward Athanasius
11. Ambrose Lucian
12. Andrea
13. George
14. Aslan
15. Jennifer (Brigid)
16. Sarah 
17. Lakeitha Monica 
18. Hannah
19. Elizabeth
20. Paul
21. Umbriel
22. Emily (Mary of Egypt)