Note: I originally wrote this last November. I sat on it for a couple months partly to decide if I actually wanted to post it, and partly because I forgot about it for a wee bit. Of course, life continues, so there is more to the story, but I don’t want to change any of this. I think it’s important to hear stories about the time before there’s a little bow to tie everything all up neatly.

Aaron and I have officially been in California for five months, and I have been at my job for three and a half months and counting. Yes, we have been to Disney more times than I can count, yes, it is equally exciting and fun every dang time (for me, Aaron would probably beg to differ). The beach is about a half hour away, and I am typing this from a coffee shop where I can see the ocean—and not bundled up in a parka and beanie! It is a very foreign concept, and I have to say I would love to be parked in a teeny little coffee shop at Cannon Beach with my hot chocolate, but I am working on appreciating this season for the new and different experiences it is bringing while still missing the familiarity of home.

I have decided to dip my toes back in the waters of processing through writing. I am certainly not committing myself to doing this at a consistent pace, because that is a little something I’d like to call ‘unrealistic.’

I will preface all of this by saying: for any of you Pacific Northwest folks who are reading this, know that Aaron and I miss you all like crazy, and will take visitors whenever we can get you. We are praying for you often, and I’m sorry I am a terrible texter and don’t talk to y’all quite as often as I’d like to.

Alright, here we go.

The last month and a half or so have been really hard. To be more honest, the last five months of being away from home and our people has been difficult for all the typical reasons—I want to be in my familiar places, with my familiar people, doing things that feel familiar.  When I have the choice I base most life decisions on what makes me feel the most secure (where my Enneagram 6’s at?!), so moving to a new state did not make my list of top things I wanted to do in my life. But we stepped out in faith, and this has certainly become one of the hardest and most refining seasons for me.

Most of this writing is rooted in my current work situation, so here is a little context about what I’m doing down here. I am working as a clinical home visitor for a maternal infant health program that subcontracts with DCFS (California’s child welfare system) to prevent child abuse and strengthen families. I am home and community-based, so most weeks I am running all over the place to different visits and meetings, which is sometimes exciting and other times, well… LA County traffic can be a bummer. I also get to work with mamas in our residential substance use treatment program, which for the next couple months looks like teaching workshops on infant massage with mamas and their younger kiddos during their lunch break, and doing one on one sessions doing parenting support, some mental health/trauma work, etc. The privilege that we have to come into these spaces with families is not lost on me, and it is one I want to honor.

Every one of my families I work with has pretty extensive trauma, so especially as I do assessments I spend most of the day talking about that trauma. Childhood sexual abuse, physical abuse, significant addiction/ substance use, gang violence/participation, sex trafficking, domestic violence, mental health issues, PTSD, incarceration… You name it, I’ve talked about it with a client, and the number of traumas each of my clients have experienced in their lifetimes is staggering.

I feel very lucky to be in a position to build relationships with the families on my caseload. They are strong. They are resilient. They have come from hard places and are committing to build a healthier life for themselves and their children. They also bring so much joy into my life. I genuinely just enjoy getting to spend time with them each week! Truly truly, I am so grateful to walk with them for however long we will be in each other’s lives.

With all that said, it is a lot of trauma. The weight of the work we are doing feels really heavy more days than not, and I am worn down. For those who know me, y’all know it’s easy for me to feel worried, think of worst-case scenarios, what ifs, etc. At the same time, historically I have been able to manage it without any impairment in functioning (clinical language because it helps me feel slightly detached and less stressed about laying all this out for people to read lolz, but moral of the story is I cope with it just fine for the most part).

Social work PSA: Vicarious trauma is a process that happens when we work with people who have experienced trauma, and we engage with empathetic attunement, to that traumatic material. According to research, the effects of trauma are kind of “contagious,” and by that I mean when we spend time listening and talking with someone about their trauma, we can start to experience symptoms similar in nature to PTSD symptoms. Not every time, not all the time, and of course there are many variables to take into account, but generally speaking we as humans are impacted by the trauma of those around us, even when we haven’t lived it ourselves.

I think a lot of times we hear people talk about how a particular season is “hard” or some other equally ambiguous statement, but we don’t hear much about what that really means. I am going to skate the line between over-sharing, and sharing enough of my experience to hopefully be encouraging or help someone feel less alone in what they are struggling through.

My anxiety has been off the charts this past month and a half or so. I have spent more days driving home in tears than possibly ever before because I’m stressed, worried, sad, you name it. I have a general sense of panic frequently. I feel sick to my stomach, my heart races, my limbs feel tingly/numb, and I feel like I can’t catch my breath or get a deep breath to save my dang life. I feel like a failure, or like I am not enough or not capable of what God has called me into. Not all the time, and not necessarily for long periods of time, but enough to make things difficult.

These are pretty typical anxiety and panic attack symptoms, so I am just going to say if you are experiencing any of these things (whether you can name a trigger or precipitating event or not), it would probably be helpful to talk to someone you trust and get some extra support. I have found that naming the scary thing, just giving voice to it, automatically starts to take away its power. Even better, I will always be a strong advocate for therapy. *Later editing note, my top resolution for the year is to find a therapist for therapists, don’t worry Mom lol. *

Aaron and I have a really incredible small group that we meet with each week from church, and it has been one of the spaces that has helped me not completely fall apart to be honest.

A couple weeks ago I was journaling and praying during the group, and here’s a little peek of what I wrote: “God I don’t know how to break out of the lies I am telling myself about work. I feel like I can never do enough or be enough. Even things that are out of my control I take on as a personal failure, and it makes me want to withdraw and isolate.”

I want to take a minute to say to any of you who are feeling something similar to this, whether it’s work or something else: You feel like you’re failing. Like you’re not enough. First, I know that feeling well, and it is brutal. Second, it is not the truth. It just isn’t. It is a lie that we can replace with truth. That you are made in the image of a good God, that he equips us when we don’t feel capable, and He is with us in the broken places before things start to feel better.

I don’t have any magic fixes, I am still in the middle of walking through this anxiety, and I don’t feel like it would be helpful to try to give a bunch of advice. I do want to be able to tell the stories of God’s faithfulness, which is why I’ll share the rest of the story after I wrote that prayer during small group.

While I was praying I felt like I had no conceivable idea where to start in order to shift these narratives, and felt really lost and unsure of where to go from there. All of a sudden I felt like God was suddenly reminding me that the starting point was worship. Taking the pressure off of myself, re-orienting the brokenness I felt to awe of the ways God is faithfully working through every circumstance. The song “Living Hope” by Phil Wickham was on, and we were singing the line “then through the darkness your loving kindness tore through the shadows of my soul, the work is finished, the end is written, Jesus Christ my living hope.” None of the work felt finished in my brain, my mind was still racing thinking about interventions I could do with clients and paperwork that needed to be finished ASAP.

I started flipping through the back of my Bible, which I haven’t done in forever, looking for verses about darkness. My eyes caught the section of the concordance titled “failure,” and I thought well shoot let’s see what we got (since that was very much how I was feeling). I picked a random passage from 1 Chronicles (28:20) that was listed, and here’s what I read: “David also said to Solomon his son, ‘Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God, is with you. He will not fail you or forsake you until all the work for the service of the temple of the Lord is finished.” Granted, I did a quick fill in for my work, cause Lord knows I ain’t building a temple, but I was blown away by how Jesus was quick to speak into the brokenness I was feeling, and give me hope to continue to sort through my anxiety and continue in the work set before me.

One thing this season has taught me is that God wants to speak into my brokenness, and show me the ways in which he is already working toward healing outside of anything I can do to “fix” or strong arm something into happening. He is quick to remind me of my true identity, the calling He has placed in my life, and the goodness that can be found in shitty situations before it seems like things are getting “better.” He is not bound by my limitations, my anxiety being completely resolved, or any other outcome I am hoping for right now.