Dropping Anchors

I wrote this blog post months ago. I never edited or read over it after typing it out, didn’t really know if Dropping Anchors was the place for it even, so it sat unpublished for about six months. I pulled it open today and felt like I had just written it, mimicking exactly what I’ve been feeling in the past few weeks again. Isn’t it just like the Lord to bring us back, to show us to our own words as a reminder of his steadfast faithfulness? So because it’s still on my heart, and very much still true, I’m posting now. If you’re in a place that feels repetitive, like things aren’t moving, I hope this encourages your heart like it did mine today.

After a whirlwind season of 6 placements over the span of 6 months, during an especially hard evening of wrestling with myself through stress and seeking the Lord through prayer, I felt Him say, “it’s okay to rest.” I immediately felt the stress leave my shoulders and soft, releasing tears came quickly down my cheeks. Rest was so needed for all of us, so needed for me. The permission I felt in that moment to put our home on hold and hunker down as a family was a surrender of a heavier load than I had realized I was carrying.

We told our caseworker we’d be closed for a while, that we’d need to have our current placement moved, and shortly after, we were back to a family of 4. I was confident that a season of rest would be easy for me. I am not a doer by nature, but a ponderer. Rest. Yes. I can do that. But as my days ticked by in our new normal, I found myself filling up my “rest season” with more and more. Artwork, new clients, projects around the house, new ideas and plans. Running errands I didn’t need to run. My time of reflection and quiet suddenly felt very distracting and loud. I had pushed away the thing I was so excited to welcome in.

Like I should have expected He would, the Lord met me there in my clear choice to NOT rest, showed me grace, and gave me peace again. But this new peace was different. It was rest, yes, but also felt like revival. Like a new thing was stirring up. Rest and revival seem like opposites to me. If rest is making room, finding quiet space, allowance… revival feels more like filling up, an uproar and upheaval of the way things have been. But that’s where I was. There in my in-between of “foster mom” and “just a mom,” between the pull of rest and revival, I found peace. Both extremes in my heart simultaneously, both from the Lord.

So for now, I rest and while I rest, I prepare my heart for revival.

Sharing a small part of my foster story with a friend recently, I was reminded of my bout with post-placement depression. Several conversations with foster and adoptive mamas and a quick google search showed me I wasn’t alone in the struggle. Like postpartum, depression after the arrival of a new little one can happen to anyone, come out of nowhere, and feel utterly alienating.

When one of my boys came to us, my depression was a fog that I couldn’t wade through to figure out my thoughts and feelings. I couldn’t understand what was truth, what was the pure exhaustion that comes from the whirlwind of a new child in the home, and what was, well, anything else. I was scared and overwhelmed and I felt so incredibly alone.

Asking for help was a huge step toward healing for me. I began counseling, talked vulnerably with several friends, and prayed and read my Bible like my life depended on it. My life DID depend on it. In our Dropping Anchors crew alone, about half of us discussed that we have felt the weight of depression following a new placement.

I asked some friends to share their experience with post-placement depression because I think the solidarity is important, and knowing you’re not alone to carry the burden is huge. One friend said of her experience with post-placement depression:

“Our first placement was my first encounter with ‘post placement depression’. A big part of this was a very bad experience with a difficult case and our own naive thinking.”

“I had never heard of it before, and a few weeks in to this new experience I was scouring the internet for any sign of familiarity with other fostering families. I found out that it might not just be the stress, or the turmoil, or newness, or sense of isolation that I was feeling- but perhaps a culmination of those things that added up to PPD.”

“For me, knowing that I wasn’t alone and that I wasn’t imagining this fog that surrounded me was a huge weight lifted off of my shoulders. Yes, there were dark days- I still get a bit panicky thinking about that time. But for us, it was a season that we were able to get past.”

“I didn’t handle it with grace, but we persevered and we learned to do better. We know how to connect with others who are experiencing or have experienced. We know how others are supposed to treat us, and how we should treat others in this life of foster care.”

So if you’re reading this today and thinking that any of this hits home, suspect that you may be struggling with post placement depression, or realize that you have experienced this in the past, please know you are not alone! Feel free to comment below if you’d like prayer or solidarity-support. This foster road we walk can be really difficult, friend, and sometimes reaching out for help is the best thing we can do.