by
JC Schildbach, LMHC

September 13th marks the anniversary of the death of my father. September 13th, 2017 marks the 46th anniversary of his death.

A rural Nebraska town. A young man running a stop sign. A wife and six kids left without a husband/dad. A small congregation left without a Pastor.

The subtitle of this blog used to be “Missives from an Insecurely Attached Therapist”. But I changed that when I moved away from doing therapy proper, and moved away from trying to focus all of these posts on mental health issues (as much as anything can ever be divorced from mental health issues).

Still, my attachment issues have remained, although awareness of those issues has helped me manage them.

It’s odd to have almost no conscious sense of loss when a subconscious sense of loss pervades your entire existence and informs far too much of your behavior…forcing you to rein in your immediate reactions in favor of more rational approaches to, well, most silly little situations that are often no more than the day-in-day-out ins and outs of life.

It’s like having to constantly remind yourself that bumper cars are fun, and not an affront to your personhood.

It’s like forever being on alert that your friends might not really be your friends, that everyone is potentially just messing with you…that any positive is about to be clobbered by a ‘however’.

Or, to be even less mature, it’s feeling that any time you’re feeling a bit of joy, a big ‘but’ is gonna get shoved in your face.

It’s wishing you had lashed out and punched a LOT of people in the face when that was an option, and realizing you didn’t, because living with confusion rather than violence was more your style…and maybe something that Jesus demanded of you.

Or did He?

Did I mention I stabbed a classmate in the back with a pencil once?

It’s being angry with Jesus for not equipping you with the appropriate skills and permission to beat the piss out of your enemies, because that was what was ultimately right and good…right?

It’s recognizing that everyone is always looking out for everyoneself.

It’s measuring whether or not any of those everyones are capable of/interested in looking out for anyone else, and knowing that’s always a risky calculation.

It’s knowing that figuring intent and motive is forever a frightening measure…one that assumes a skewed calculator…and a bullshit answer, regardless of what you punch in.

So you move on in your own tightly-wound world, having faith where you see fit, often recognizing that faith falls where you wouldn’t expect.

It’s knowing that faith is stupid.

It’s knowing that faith isn’t making the appropriate calculations to provide you a safe path.

It’s knowing that a safe path isn’t really that interesting.

It’s knowing that “faith” is a loaded word, a word in which you lack faith.

Sorry if I’m not on your same page, faith-wise, dad.

Now to get back to my Bowlby reading.

Happy death day, Pops.