When You Feel Emotionally Schizophrenic

I’ve decided sending a kid to college, as far as how moms and dads handle it, is a lot like a pregnancy.

For a woman, the entire duration of pregnancy is all consuming. We feel the physical effects from the onset, which bring about many emotional effects. We obsess over everything from the growing fetus inside us to the details of the nursery to the adjustment of having a new baby in our homes. On the other hand, the nine months of pregnancy doesn’t translate into reality for most men. Sure, they see the physical signs as the months go by, but it’s not really real until delivery.

For me having a high school senior was no different. From the end of junior year through graduation, the fact my child would be leaving me for college was like a cloud hanging over me at all times. At any given moment I could well up with emotion. Senior pictures, yearbook page submission, ordering caps and gowns, college visits, applications, acceptance letters, graduation parties and presents, dorm purchases – something in front of me all the time to remind me the time was drawing near.

Fast-forward three months and just like that the much anticipated delivery day has come and gone. Our baby safely arrived into her college dorm yesterday and, Oh, how real it now is.  Not just for me anymore, but for my husband, our boys and even our dog – who we found curled up next to her bed in her empty room last night. One minute I’m filled with excitement over this new chapter in her life. The next minute I’m worrying over the required reading for her Humanities class, her money management system, and a better way to organize her drawers. I want to text her my suggestions. But then I remember she doesn’t need (or want) my input on all these things. And that makes me sad. So I think talking to her would make me feel better, but now she’s busy all day with sorority recruitment… and I’m alone. But she’s meeting new people and that makes me happy because when she’s lonely I get worried…

Thinking over this I realize I sound emotionally schizophrenic – which is exactly how I feel. And I think my husband is experiencing ‘postpartum’ depression.

So how do we cope? Where is our hope?

What comes to mind is King David and the Psalms where his emotions are all over the map. Anger, sadness, frustration, loneliness, fear, insecurity, joy, thankfulness, delight – it’s all there. He doesn’t hold back from talking to God about any of it, which tells me neither should we.

God knows already how we feel, but he wants us to pray our pain, confess our honest thoughts, share our deepest longings and find solace in him. Even when, like King David, sin is all mixed up in it. This is because in the person of Christ, God fully experienced every emotion we do so he knows what it’s like. He gets us and has compassion on us. And since he does, he enters in and promises to be with us. 

King David knew this. It is the reason he pours out his soul, psalm after psalm, in the way he does. But what I find fascinating is how often David’s negative feelings and sinful thoughts lamented about in the beginning of a psalm shift to thanksgiving by the end. For this to happen a reality bigger than his present circumstances or feelings has to come into play. Something that reorients his mind and anchors his soul.

“We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever…” Hebrews 6:19-20

Only the deep, abiding love of the Man of Sorrows who became our Savior has the power to move us from drowning emotions to giving thanks. When we fully see him through his Word – who he is for us and who we are in him – there is hope. Hope for the emotionally schizophrenic (mom), the depressed (dad) and the seemingly stable  – for He promises to sustain all who find freedom through a dependence on him. His strength for our weakness. His grace for our groanings.

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