The Road to Heaven is Paved With Dolls:
The Story of Lisa's Doll Closet

by Lisa A. Lawrence

Every night, I lie in bed until 3:00 a.m. or later.  I'm usually crying softly and extending this plea to God: "Please, God, please, tell me why I am here?  What's my purpose?  Why are people so mean to each other?  Why are there so many starving children in the world?  Why do people abuse drugs and alcohol?  Why can't the world be a nicer place to live?  I am so unhappy.  I can't bear to know that other people are suffering so.  If I have a purpose to be here, please let me know.  Otherwise, I'd rather be dead." 

I am eight years old.

LISA, PART ONE

I was born in Green Bay Wisconsin in 1958, and the first seven years of my life were normal.  I had a very stable family life with parents who never divorced, and an older sister, Linda, whom I idolized.  At nine years older than me, Linda was like a second mother . . . only a lot cooler!  My brother Mark was three years older and too smart for his own good. 

The pain I felt didn't hit me until we moved to Concord, California in 1966. 

I didn't have a name for this pain but I was very careful to hide it from everybody.  To the outside world, I looked like a bright, happy, carefree child.  I got good grades and had lots of friends.  My favorite pastime was reading.  By age three, I could read simple Doctor Seuss books.  My father placed a lot of emphasis on reading and, to this day, my siblings and I are still voracious readers.

By 1967, we moved to Anaheim, California, where my family has since remained.  Because me dad kept getting promotions at work, we had moved around enough for me to see the effect it had on my siblings.  Being uprooted from junior high and high school didn't seem fun.  At nine years old, I declared to my parents that I WAS NOT moving again.  They could move, but I was staying put.  For whatever reason, I desperately needed the stability of staying in one place and growing up with the same set of friends.  Fortunately, I was able to do this.

I was fairly shy as a child but flourished academically.  In sixth grade, I did something that was to slowly, but considerably, help me out of my shyness--I started playing the French Horn.  This instrument is one of the most difficult to play, but fortunately no one told me this at the time or I wouldn't have had the courage to choose it.  I practiced incessantly.  I had little, if any, natural talent.  I thought all the other kids who were starting their own instruments were having as much trouble as I was.  They weren't.  In summer, I practiced up to eight hours daily.  I got good--quickly.  I started winning music awards, getting into honor orchestras, and getting scholarships to summer band camps that I hadn't even applied to.  I was even offered a music scholarship to Pepperdine University, although I had not applied there, either.  I was still pretty shy, but behind the French Horn, my confidence grew by leaps and bounds.  I even got cocky!  I ended up playing for ten years, all through junior high, high school, and my first year of college, even being a member of the famous USC Marching Band! 

By day, I was a bright, cheerful student, making excellent grades, working two jobs, and excelling at everything I did.  By night, I was still tormented by extreme sadness.  All these years I had continued my nightly prayer in tears.  Night after night, I got no response.  While I was raised Lutheran, went to Bible studies on my own accord, and completed three years of confirmation classes by age 15,  I wanted to die.  At that point, I had seriously been considering suicide for several years.  I didn't do it because it was a sin. By age 16, I was mad at God. I made two half-hearted attempts on my life.  I finally told God, "I've had it.  I've begged for years not to feel all this pain.  I've begged for you to tell me why I'm here and why I'm suffering so much. I've begged you to give me some purpose in life so I can at least help others be happy.  It's been eight years, and you haven't answered.  I'll make you a deal, You stay away from me and I'll stay away from you."  I kept this deal, pretty much, until I was 22.

I graduated from high school a semester early so that I could work full time (at Broadway Department Store) in order to save money for college.  I had been planning my whole life to go to college and I couldn't wait.  I only applied to two universities, UCLA and USC.  I got accepted at both.  USC is a private school and in 1977, cost about $25,000 a year to attend.  Fortunately, because of my grades, I got a full scholarship.  I chose USC over UCLA because its music department was far better.  I entered in the fall of 1977, planning on having a double major: music and psychology.

By the end of my freshman year at USC, I faced a huge dilemma.  While I had wanted to play someday for the LA Philharmonic Orchestra, I didn't have the innate talent to make it.  I knew that I had to choose between music and everything else.  Only by devoting myself full time to practicing the French Horn would I ever be good enough.  But my love of books and academics were also extremely important to me.  I realized that the sacrifices I'd have to make to be a professional musician were too much.  I chose "everything else."

Once I made this decision, I opened up the USC Course Guide and began looking for another major.  I still intended to major in psychology, but I was finding the classes too easy.  If I was lucky enough to have a four-year full scholarship, I was going to show my gratitude by getting the absolute best education I could.  I decided almost immediately to major in philosophy.  USC had no minors at the time so it was all or nothing.  Then, I decided three majors were better than two.  I ended up graduating with three bachelor’s degrees, in psychology, philosophy and religion.  I did it in four years. 

I was bright.  It wasn't hard for me to accomplish this.  I still managed to "party" a lot. But in retrospect, I now know the real reason I got three degrees.  I would do anything to keep my mind preoccupied so I didn't feel the continuing pain.  Philosophy and religion are fairly difficult subjects. Still, there came a time every day when my studies were done and the pain rolled in.  I still cried at night, most every night.  But I no longer talked to God.  Well . . . not very often . . . and usually with a disclaimer!

The last semester at USC, my depression was spilling into the daytime.  I was very upset that I was graduating!  I was terrified of being out in "real life."  I had decided to go to law school, but I was still shy enough that I knew if I went directly from college, I'd be eaten alive.  Instead, I decided to wait two years and get some real-world work experience, hoping that would toughen me up.  Nine months after graduation, I still couldn't find a job, so I enrolled at UCLA for a 16-week paralegal program.  Immediately after I got certified, I got a paralegal job.  I loved it.  I flourished.  I became cocky most of the time!  While the depression was still there, as always, this was a fairly happy time in my life.  I was still young, had an entire future ahead of me, and had a great hope that my future successes would make my sadness go away.

My goal at the time was to buy a new car with cash, go to Europe and save $10,000 for law school.  Well, I bought a cheap used car for cash, went to Europe, and saved $10,000 for law school.  Unfortunately, it took me three years instead of the two I had planned.

My trip to Europe (which was supposed to be a honeymoon, but I'm NOT even going to get into that) was amazing.  Seventeen countries in six weeks.  If you blinked, you missed a country.  It was fascinating enough to keep my pain at bay during the day—but each night, it returned.

LISA, PART TWO

I entered Hastings Law School in the fall of 1984.  Although I had a cocky new attitude from my three years of real-world experience, I was scared shitless!  Here I was at one of the top law schools in the country.  But I went back to my college study habits, and I graduated in the top 25% of my class.

So, law school.  It's a lot of work.  It wasn't enough to make the pain go away.  I needed more work.  I managed to get myself on one of the School's four law journals.  I was determined to publish.  I did.  It wasn't enough.  During my third year, which is easy as pie and basically a goof-off time for most students, I decided to write a 250-page research guide on the Right of Publicity.  It too was published.  While I thought I "needed" to achieve more than everyone else, what I was really doing was keeping my brain busy so I wouldn't feel down.  Still, every night, I had to put the books aside.  In rushed the pain.

I graduated from law school, took the bar exam in July 1987, and promptly took off on a cross-country trip.  My bar results wouldn't be available until November and I was determined to see as much of the country in the next three months as I could. I borrowed my dad's car and took off.   It was a wonderful trip.  Except for two weeks, I did it alone; my sister met me in New York so we could explore New England together.  But my pain was with me every step of the way on this trip.  I was often driving 12 hours a day.  Besides taking in all the scenery, there wasn't much to keep my mind occupied.  I cried a lot. And I was starting to talk to God again.  He still didn't answer.  No matter, this time, I wasn't going to shut him out again.  I'd wait as long as it took to find out my purpose in life and why I was so unhappy. 

I never, ever took for granted that I got to go to a four-year university and a top-notch law school, and to take trips like going to Europe and exploring the States.  Even while I was sobbing, begging God for answers, I was very aware that I "had it good."  I never wondered where I would sleep or where my next meal would come from.  I had easy access to medical care.  I got to go on trips of a lifetime.  Even though I was sad, I was grateful. 

I returned from my trip, got "the letter" welcoming me into the State Bar of California, and got my first job as a lawyer.  I worked for three years as a business litigation attorney.  When I started work, my bosses immediately decided I was a superstar.  They gave me the best and most difficult cases, telling me straight out that it was a test.  I was thrilled!  I was again scared shitless!  By the end of the calendar year, they gave me a $10,000 raise and a $10,000 bonus and FORCED me to take a vacation.  I LOVED my job.  I went on vacation to Israel and Egypt. Still, the pain followed me everywhere.

My trip to Israel was a turning point in my life.  I didn't fully grasp this at the time but I was hugely affected by what I saw there.  Seventeen-year-olds carrying Uzi's, filling their three years of mandatory service in the Israeli armed forces. Uzi's!  This was serious stuff.  While I choose to go to Israel because of its biblical significance, I was surprised to find that the soldiers were, for the most part, not religious.  This was a culture war.  This was a turf war.  Many didn't even believe in God but were still ferocious in their defense of the Israeli Jewish population and territory.

It's hard, for me at least, to be in Israel, to visit Bethlehem, Jerusalem, the Sea of Galilee, Megiddo, and not have a profound religious awakening.  While God still wasn't talking to me, I "felt" His presence.  I loved Israel and the intensity of "meaning" there.  I wanted to join the Israeli Volunteer Army for three weeks, but my bosses had made it clear that I had to return to the law firm when my vacation was over.  No extensions for me.

I returned.  It was the beginning of the end.  I felt that my life and my career were absolutely worthless.  Here I was making a ton of money, rapidly climbing the ranks in the firm, and it all felt meaningless.  How could I compare the value of my life to someone who carries an Uzi to protect the citizens of their land?  While I continued to be good at my job and make my bosses happy, I was increasingly miserable.  Now the pain and tears were even more frequent.  They were joined by extreme insomnia (I would often go five nights without any sleep) combined with recurring and horrifying nightmares when I did sleep.  On the outside, I held it together for about another year.  As the lack of sleep, the pain and lack of meaning in my life increased, my body and my energy were going downhill rapidly. 

During this time, however, I had a completely open relationship with God.  He still wasn't answering me but I got over my anger at Him and renewed my communications.  I didn't do it on the sly either.  I was honest.  I prayed, "God, I'm ready for our detente to be over.  I'll listen to you, if you'll listen to me."  I still wanted to know why I had the depression--why I suffered so much. 

God stayed silent.

Within about six to nine months, my bosses started noticing my change in mood.  Whereas I had been cheerful and sarcastic and often the first one to open the firm daily, I became quiet, withdrawn, and kept shorter and shorter hours.  The partners started to think I had an "attitude" problem. Somehow, the quality of my work remained excellent, even as I was dying a slow and painful death—and until I could "redeem" myself in the partners' eyes, I wouldn't allow myself to do anything but work.  Fortunately, my direct boss and a few other partners were very supportive of me, even as they were perplexed by my failure to be "fun" anymore.  But I was working myself to death.  Worse, I knew it.  I figured there were only two ways I was going to leave that firm:  in a body bag or being carted off to the funny farm.  My intent was to work as hard as I could for as long as I could so that no one could ever say I was lazy or didn't "try."  To me, in my screwed-up head, there was a certain nobility in working yourself to death.  Anything else was, quite simply, failure . . . something I had never experienced and never wanted to experience.  I was the golden girl.  I could NOT fail.

A year later, I finished a $10,000,000 arbitration against Merrill Lynch, and I was spent. The month of the arbitration, I billed 303 hours.  When it was over, my boss told me to take a vacation, but I said "no."  What I couldn't tell him was, I KNEW that if I left, even for a two-week vacation, I'd never come back.  I was beyond my breaking point.  Still desperate to keep my legal career, I insisted that I stay and that he give me some new cases to work on.  For the next month, my work was completely and utterly useless.  The firm had a bunch of problems going on and they realized they needed to do some major layoffs.  With some of the partners still thinking I had "attitude problems," I got thrown into the layoff pool.  I was angry.  I felt completely betrayed.

Financially, though, I was in good shape.  While all the other associates bought fancy new sports cars and expensive homes or rented over-sized apartments, etc., and urged me to do the same, I ignored them and socked away at least 50% of my salary every month.  Still, this was the money I was saving for a down payment for a home.  A modest one.  Not wanting to go through the money rapidly, I left my apartment and returned home to my parents’ house.  Being a lawyer was no longer an option for me.  Ever.  This thought terrified me.  I had years of schooling and work experience; I had put all my eggs into the lawyer basket.  There weren't any other eggs. 

LISA, PART THREE

I decided to try my hand at screenwriting. (Hey, I live in Southern California... everyone tries that here!)  Having anticipated the potential demise of my legal career, I was already reading screenwriting books during my last few months as a lawyer.  While at USC, I had several friends in the film school.  Right after I lost my legal career, one of their friends (from UCLA) sold the "Lethal Weapon" screenplay for a million dollars.  That sounded lucrative!

My best friend, Ann, and I decided to write as a team.  I packed up some clothes and my computer and moved to Plano, Texas, living with her family for the next three months.  This was the first time that I would see a psychologist.  I was a mess.  A big mess.  But I also had an epiphany while I was there.  Ann's daughter Emily was eight years old at the time, the same age I had been when the acute sadness and pain started.  This was the first time, as an adult, that I realized just how very young I had actually been.  I was shocked and I started to grieve for my lost childhood.

After three months of not writing a word, I returned to my parents’ house and enrolled in several screenwriting courses at various colleges, including the American Film Institute.  I got a new psychologist; he said I suffered from depression.  Now, I finally had a name for it.  Despite all the years of pain, I never thought I had depression.  I thought depressed people were bed-bound.  I thought they couldn't achieve anything.  My whole life, until my layoff, was one success after another.  Surely I didn't have depression!

My doctor wanted me to have weekly therapy.  He also suggested I take medication.  I was adamant that I would not take "drugs." I was probably the only thirteen-year-old girl in Jr. High Health Class who actually took those "drug addict" movies seriously!  At USC, no matter how much I partied, I never took any of the drugs that were available. Years later, I was STILL NOT going to do drugs . . even legal ones!

I got married to Aaron Doolittle in summer of 1992, a year and a half after my layoff.  Aaron is ten years younger than I am.  While we had been friends for about two years, we had never dated.  From day one of our meeting, Aaron decided he was going to marry me.  I laughed at him, and when he asked me if there was any chance I'd go out on a date with him, I replied, very sarcastically I might add, "Snowball's chance in hell."  That only made him more determined.  After the June 1992 Landers earthquake, which left us all pretty shaken up even though we only "felt" it, Aaron started asking me to marry him.  The more I turned him down, the more he asked.  We still had not dated.  Within three weeks, he had me so worn down that I finally told him I would marry him just to shut him up.  Oh, yeah . . . I had discovered during that time that I had fallen for him, but I didn't consider LOVE enough of a reason to get married!  Three weeks after I said yes, we were married.  To say this was a shock to my family and friends is a complete understatement.  I called my sister and said, "Guess what! I'm getting married."  She replied, "Who to?  You haven't been dating anyone!"

Marrying Aaron made a huge change in my life.  Aaron didn't know I suffered from depression.  I told him before we were married, in the fairness of full disclosure, but what I failed to realize is what impact it would have on him.  Up until this point, I had hidden my depression from everyone for decades.  NO ONE knew.  Stupidly, it never dawned on me that you can't hide something like that from a spouse. I had never been married; how would I know?  The effect on him was devastating.  Because he'd never seen it while we were friends, despite my repeatedly telling him this had been going on since I was eight years old, he blamed himself.  All he saw was that I was perfectly happy before we got married, and crying a lot afterward.  See, I play a good game.  When in the company of others, I can fake it . . . for a long time.  The problem was, Aaron never went home!  He lived with me and shared my bed . . . the place where most of my crying took place.

Now that I was married, I put even more pressure on myself to find a new career and to be a "responsible adult" holding down a decent job.  I couldn't do it.  As the months passed, my depression worsened.  I felt like a fraud.  Here Aaron thought he was marrying some big-time attorney who was happy-go-lucky, and instead he got this messed-up middle-aged woman who went downhill rapidly.  At 23, he was at a complete loss about what to do.  He did, however, insist that I tell my parents.  I was adamantly opposed to this.  Against my wishes, Aaron invited my parents over so that I would tell them.  I wouldn't.  I stayed in the bedroom crying.  Aaron took it upon himself to tell them.  I WAS pissed! 

My parents were alternately devastated and disbelieving.  My dad thought it must be Aaron's fault.  He had never seen me depressed, so in his eyes, it all occurred after I got married.  Because of my depression and the ten years difference in our ages, Aaron and I had a very rocky married life for the first year and a half.  To my dad, that had to be the cause.  In retrospect, what Aaron did by telling my parents slowly pushed me into leading a more authentic life.  Very slowly.

During this time, I set aside my screenwriting, realizing that I was far too fragile emotionally to actually write the kind of movies I wanted to write.  Instead, I turned my focus onto becoming an image consultant.  I loved fashion and had an innate sense of style. In junior high, when everybody else wore jeans, I wore skirted suits! (Actually, I didn't have a lot of choice; I wasn't allowed to wear jeans until I was 18.)  I decided to target the rich Newport Beach babes, but I was smart enough to know that I’d better "know my stuff" before I ventured out to get clients.  I bought a ton of books on image consulting.  I read all the various theories on color. I also spent about three years going through a dozen fashion magazines a month and cutting out all the designer pictures and articles that I faithfully filed away for reference.  I took a year of classes at the local college, including Textiles, Design and Line, Applied Color, Image Consulting, Fashion Illustration.  I made straight A’s. 

Then I joined the Los Angeles chapter of the Association of Image Consultants International.  I wrote one article for their quarterly newsletter.  Next thing I knew, I was editor-in-chief of the Newsletter, built the LA chapter's website, rebuilt International’s website, and started writing articles for the international newsletter.  Typical of my over-indulgence in work- related projects, what started out as an article, “Fashion on the Internet,” turned into a series of seven articles and eventually a 100-page guidebook before I even published the article.  I then did a single article on all the fashion internet sites there were (thousands!) and plugged my book, which I self-published.  One of the teachers of the fashion courses I took at the local college saw the article.  She called me up and asked me to teach a seminar to the fashion department teachers and to teach a nine-week Saturday class to the fashion students. 

When I got to the point where I was ready to work, I had a built-in clientele.  My husband's computer consulting business was thriving and he could get me all the CEOs' wives as clients.  They had money.  They attended all the charity functions that require new clothes all the time.  I was going to have it made.  My rate was $75.00 an hour for shopping.  What a way to make a living! 

The problem was, I didn't figure my depression into the equation.  After less than a week of actually doing my job, I realized that I didn't have the energy to run all over Newport and Huntington Beaches shopping.  Just a few hours shopping on one day would leave me exhausted for a week.  I couldn't do it.  I was distraught.  I was just starting to get my self-esteem back, and I was back at square one.

My depression worsened.  Aaron and my parents, as well as my psychologist, urged me to take medication.  I fought them until I could fight no more, and then I went on Zoloft.  Life started to get better.  Then, unexpectedly, my father died.  I was devastated.  I was also 35 and my clock was ticking loudly.  I had been told NOT to get pregnant while taking medication; I went off the medication so I could have a baby.  Aaron and I had planned to have a large family, starting with maybe two or three kids of our own and then adopting a bunch of kids.  Obviously, I did not choose the ideal time to go off the medication, but I wasn't getting any younger.  My depression rapidly worsened.  Aaron, my mother, and my two best friends begged to me to go back on the Zoloft.  I refused.  I knew that staying off of it long enough to get pregnant and have a baby was the only chance I had of giving Aaron his own child.   As the months went by, their begging increased. Aaron saw how bad I was getting and let me know over and over that he married me for me, not just to have children.  He wanted me to be better, even if it meant no kids.  Finally, after a year off the meds, I realized that I would never have my own children.  Looking at myself honestly, I knew I was completely incapable of raising a child.  I hoped that by going back on meds, I could at least stabilize myself enough to adopt someday.  I started on the Zoloft again.  This time, it didn't work.  For three years my doctors put me on various drugs and combinations of drugs, but nothing helped; I continued to get worse.  Finally, I took Prozac.  It changed my life. (To be fair to my doctors, they wanted me on Prozac from day one.  I refused it because of all the controversy about it at the time.)

After messing around with the dose for two years, along with adding and subtracting other meds, my psychiatrist and I found a dosage and combination that worked for me.  It isn't by any means perfect, but for the most part I can now control my emotions.  I still have depression.  I don't expect it will ever go away.  I am still very limited in what I can do.  I have NO energy.  I cannot get a job outside the house because I don't have the stamina.  When I taught that Saturday-morning fashion internet course at the local college, every Saturday night I'd be in bed crying from exhaustion.

So I am limited to doing what I can do from home.  I can work on a computer up to 14 hours a day because I'm at home, it's quiet and, whenever I need to, I can stop and take a nap.  Giving into my body when it is tired has been critical to the success of my stability.  Unfortunately, this means I can't have even a part-time job.  As it is, I usually only leave my house 2-3 times per week, for 2-3 hours each time when I need to grocery shop or do errands.  Anything more than that will be too taxing and I'll end up bed-bound for a week or more. 

After I acknowledged to myself that I couldn't be an image consultant, I contemplated what I would do next.  I badly wanted a new career so I could get my self-esteem back.  Although I was increasingly housebound, I still worked fourteen hours a day, seven days a week.  Until I could earn a living, I didn't think I deserved time off.   Also, it was still a matter of keeping as busy as I could to dampen the pain--a never-ending treadmill. 

Aaron was making lots of money.  I didn't need to work.  He begged me to stop pushing myself so hard and just "be his wife," but I couldn't.  He thought he'd married some go-getter and, until I could be that again, I felt like I was failing him.  I wanted to make him proud of me--proud to have me as his wife.  Despite his continued reassurances that he was already proud of me, I felt so bad about myself that I couldn't see it. 

GOD

I realized that I had just spent about nine years spinning my wheels, getting nowhere.  While I had worked long hard hours, trying to retrain myself for a new career, my lack of energy prevented me from taking that training and putting it to use.  I was very down, very discouraged.  I was at "the end of my rope."  After years of fighting to stand on my own two feet, I finally admitted I couldn't.  I told God, "OK, that's it.  I can't do this anymore.  I can't seem to find anything that I can do that will justify my existence or help me earn a living.  I give up.  You are now in total control of my life.  Everything I've done in the last decade has failed.  The only way I'm going to succeed at anything is through You." 

God waits for all of us to get to this point.  He waits for us to voluntarily submit to His will.  He'll even throw disaster after disaster at us to urge us to hand things over to Him.  He did this to me.  For ten years, I was determined to overcome each one by myself.  I was going to "prove" myself "worthy."  I could have probably saved myself ten years of grief if I hadn't been so stubborn.  But who wants to "give your life" to God?  I'm not just talking about believing in God.  I'm talking "walking the walk."  Doing what God asks you to even if you really don't want to (like writing this article, for instance!)  Each time I thought I had hit rock bottom, apparently it wasn't bottom enough, because I refused to "submit."  When I finally did, a HUGE weight was lifted off my shoulders.  I felt a sense of peace that God would take care of me.  Life might never be easy or fun, but I wasn't alone.  Also, God can be the ultimate scapegoat!  If you really do everything He asks and it doesn't work out, it's His fault, not yours!  OK, I guess that should be worded His "will," not "fault."  But I never said, in giving up my will to His, that I am not on occasion ornery about it!

The peace I have received in exchange for "my life" has been well worth it.  It's funny because no one wants to submit to God . . . it almost seems like our very personalities will be taken from us and we'll be nothing but automatons.  It's not like that, though.  Instead, you end up being the "best you" you can be.   And after years and years of struggling on my own to be successful, I'm totally ready for some peace.  I'm no longer fighting a battle, either with myself or by trying to prove myself to others.  I am what I am.  God loves me as I am (even though I swear a lot!)  And I don't have to justify my actions to anyone but Him. 

So it was time for a big change in my life, to match the big change in my attitude toward God.  I needed off the treadmill.  I asked Aaron if he minded if I took off a year and just read theology books. I wanted answers to life's major questions and I was willing to look at various religions to find the reason for my being here.  I wanted facts.  I wanted truths.  I didn't want propaganda and I didn't want dogma.  I started reading, and a year turned into two.  While I honestly didn't expect to find any answers, I found tons of them!  I was shocked.  After all my years in church and all my years in searching, I had never learned these very basic truths!  I was pissed off at the Lutheran ministers who had "educated" me on Christianity.  Why hadn't they taught me the stuff I finally found on my own?  My whole life would have been easier had I known. 

I've been studying for about five years now.   I have a mentor with a Ph.D. in theology.  I have built up a library of literally hundreds of graduate-level theology books on various religions.  I realize that most people don't have the luxury of spending so much time reading. God (and Aaron) gave me that time as a gift. I didn't want others who don't have the time to miss out on what I had learned.  I wanted to share these truths.

I decided what I really wanted to do next is build a free theology website that is nonjudgmental and factual, allowing people with questions on any of the world's major religions to find nonbiased answers. I'd like to state a religious belief and then compare and contrast it to the beliefs of the other religions. Like me, many people are searching for answers to life's major questions, often those of a theological nature.  Going to a church, synagogue, temple, etc. can be intimidating and even off-putting for some people.  I'd like my website to be a safe, comfortable place where people can get answers without feeling like they are being manipulated or preached at.  While I'm a Christian, I'm NOT planning on promoting Christianity as the only true religion.  Instead, I want to give all the beliefs, with supporting and negating facts, of all the world's major religions, and let people make up their minds for themselves.  Yes, I believe Christianity is the one true faith.  But I'm not going to convert people by jamming it down their throats.  I'm confident that if I am very careful and do the website correctly, people will reach that conclusion on their own.  If they don't, that's OK.  I tried.  Better people than I have tried and failed!  I'll be in good company.

I secured a website under the name Project Believe.  I expected this to be a lifetime project, and I still do.  There's too much information to provide for the work ever to come to an end.  But I haven't been able to spend anytime at all on the website.   God took me on a different path that has taken all of my time. 

I've been fairly stabilized for about five years now.  For the most part, I am happy.  I still fight my depression on a daily basis and live within its limitations.  But I've learned to let go of the many, many things I can no longer do, and be happy with what I can do.  I also know now that, unless I improve considerably in the future, I'll never be able to adopt kids.  While this is a devastating loss to both Aaron and me, we both agree that I simply don't have the emotional or physical energy to care for a child properly.  For those of you who have read my story about "B," on my website, maybe this will help you understand how important she is to Aaron and me.  Being older, B doesn't require the attention and care of a small child.  Anything I can give to B is more than she has ever had.  She can be our "child."  Even at my worst, I have something to offer her and can improve her life.

AARON

My lack of energy and inability to do much has completely ruined my social life.  I don't go out to the movies.  I rarely go out to dinner.  I never go to friends' parties.  I only go to family functions, and even then, I can't attend them all.  For a long time, I was bitter about this.  Life was passing me by and I couldn't join in.  Eventually, I let go of the anger and learned to live with it.  Aaron, however, has had a much harder time with it than I have.  After letting my parents know about my depression, I STILL didn't want anyone else to know.  Aaron attended party after party with friends and/or relatives, simply telling them I wasn't "feeling well."  Eventually, several people asked Aaron if I was avoiding them because I didn't like them.  Aaron was in a bad position; the excuses were no longer holding up.  After about five or six years of this, I finally let Aaron tell people the truth.  For the most part, people accepted it.  Still, Aaron suffers a lot from my failure to accompany him to events.  Aaron has the energy of three or four people.  He's constantly on the go and, in a perfect world, would love for me to be with him every minute of the day.  But I simply can't.

Aaron also loves to have parties.  While parties are just way too much for me to handle, I encourage him to have them whenever he wants to.  In preparation, I will clean the house and make tons of food.  By the time the first guest arrives, I'm beyond exhausted.  Within an hour, I have no choice but to go upstairs and go to bed.  If I don't, I'll end up sobbing uncontrollably, possibly for days.  If the party lasts long enough, eventually I'll be able to join in again and clean up when it's over.  Mostly, for me, parties are a lot of preparation and clean-up without actually getting to participate during the gathering itself.

My lack of energy is a huge loss for Aaron.  While he is married, he's always out alone.  He's had many, many people ask him why he stays married to me.  His answer, "Because I love her.  She's the kindest person I've ever met and I know she'll always be there for me."  Even with that answer, friends have repeatedly suggested to him that maybe his "marriage" isn't worth it.  People just don't understand depression and can't seem to grasp that it's a disease like any other.  He'll even reply to these suggestions, "Would you leave your wife if she had cancer?"  Aaron has lost a huge part of his life by staying married to me.  He's accepted that we'll never have children, although he feels that loss acutely every day.  He knows I can't "participate" in life.  He is desperate for me to be "whole."  Even after twelve years of marriage, Aaron still blames himself for my depression.  But the reality is, my depression started two years before he was even born.

The struggle we've gone through led Aaron to have his own breakdown two years ago.  He had a successful computer consulting business but he stretched himself too thin.  Between the stresses of trying to please his clients and his family and friends, as well as dealing with my ongoing issues, Aaron was breaking.  Every day, for weeks on end, he would come home around 3:00 p.m. and sob.  I saw in him a lot of what happened to me when I was a lawyer.  Hoping to catch him in time before he was completely broken, I made the decision to shut down our company and fire him.  He fought me on this, but I wouldn't budge.  He desperately needed a long vacation - which I considered to be far cheaper than the impending medical bills should he have a heart attack or some other medical crisis.  We pretty much got no support for this decision.  I was trying to save my husband's life and all anyone thought was that it was stupid to shut down a good business.  I didn't care who thought what.  It was my husband and my decision.  Aaron wasn't capable of making decisions at the time, so I did what I thought was best for him.  For months, I had prayed for guidance on how to help Aaron.  It was God who led me to shut down the business and send Aaron on vacation.  I wouldn't have had the courage to do it on my own.  It was too scary to think we'd have no income.

Aaron is a scuba diver, so I suggested he take trips to some of the better diving areas in the world.  His plan was to spend one month each in Thailand, New Zealand, and Australia.  He got to Thailand and fell in love with the fantastic diving, the people, the land, and the culture.  He never left for his other destinations.  He ended up staying there for nearly six months, and he flourished.  He lost about 50 pounds without even trying, he learned the language, he made friends, and he took some scuba courses, becoming a certified dive master.  He met B, the girl who did his laundry for him.  Over the months, B became his "daughter." He called me constantly about her, telling me that he felt like she was his child.  He wanted to bring her home.  I talked to B, in her very broken English, on the phone at least once a week.  I wanted him to bring her home too.  He couldn't.  B is Burmese, in Thailand illegally and has no papers.  Aaron contacted the various embassies in both Thailand and in the US.  He was repeatedly told "no."  Stupidly, Aaron even offered increasing bribes to one official at the US Embassy in Bangkok, making his way up to $30,000 before the official finally told him, "one more bribe and I'm going to throw you in jail."  Luckily for Aaron, this person was actually very kind and understanding of our plight, and let Aaron go.

When Aaron returned home in June 2003, while he was significantly better than when he had left for Thailand, he was so upset over leaving B behind that he was essentially too paralyzed by grief to work.  He spent the next six months moping, and gained back his weight. He did spend a lot of time fixing some major problems with our home, but he was not happy and wanted to return to Thailand.  The problem was, Aaron did something he should never have done without consulting me.  When he left Thailand, he promised B he would return in a few months.  I was NOT happy about this promise.  We'd had no income for nine months and I wanted him to start working again.  But I also understood that making a promise to B was something he could not go back on.  If I had told Aaron he couldn't leave, he would have stayed home.  Instead, I told him that, while I wasn't happy that he made such a promise without consulting me, B was such a fragile, tender being that his failure to keep his promise would crush her.  B wouldn't understand that circumstances change.  She would just know that the first person in her life to treat her with kindness had "lied" to her.  I couldn't let that happen. Again, I prayed for months about it.  Again, God made it clear that I was to send Aaron back.  We were not to abandon B.   Despite knowing that sending Aaron back was going to continue to eat up thousands of dollars of our savings, I sent him back in January 2004.  This time, he was supposed to be there three months, getting certified as a dive instructor and working.  He's still there.  That's where God wants him.  That's where I want him.  That's where he needs to be.

LISA’S DOLL CLOSET

I started collecting Princess Diana dolls about 1994.  I was never a big fan of dolls, preferring to read books than to play with any toys.  I never owned a Barbie® until I was 40.  The only collection I had as a child was about 15 or so Liddle Kiddles®.  I wasn't interested in playing with them, but I was enchanted by their tiny size.  I collected them, hoping one day to give them to my daughter.  My father made me a beautiful wooden and glass case in which I still display them to this day.

So it wasn't dolls I was interested in.  It was Princess Diana.  When she got married on July 29, 1981 (coincidentally, exactly 11 years before my wedding! LOL!), I was dying to buy the Danbury Mint Wedding Set.  I couldn't.  I was a poor college student.  In 1987, when Sarah Ferguson married into England's Royal Family, I was dying to get the Danbury Mint Wedding Set of her, Prince Andrew, and Prince William.  I couldn't.  I was a poor law student.  Finally, by the spring of 1994, we had purchased our home.  Now all the things I had passed up for many years were on the "can buy" list. 

As soon as Franklin Mint started producing their Diana dolls, I started buying.  One thing led to another, and I ended up getting their Scarlett O'Hara®, Titanic Rose®, Josephine®, and Jackie Kennedy®  collections too.  I didn't know that other fashion dolls existed.

About three years ago, I found people on the internet who made replicas of Diana's clothes.  I started buying them.  I soon had so many that I needed something to hang them on.  Diana's trunk was full and it didn't fit very well in my curio cabinet.  It took up too much space for the storage it gave me.  I went in search of a doll clothes rack.  There was nothing that was even remotely suitable, so I decided to design my own.  I also figured that if I needed one (actually, I needed about four!), so would other collectors.  I was determined to get my rack manufactured and start selling it online. 

Eventually, I noticed the people on the Diana boards talking about Gene®, Tyler® and Alex®.  I had no idea what these dolls were.  I saw someone mention Annette and Friends as a shop that carries these dolls.  I looked online to see if Annette had a website so I could see what the dolls looked like.  Not only did she, it turned out her store was twenty minutes from where I live.  I went to her store, just intending to check out the dolls.  I left two hours later--four hundred dollars poorer! Now I knew and I was going to find out everything I could about the dolls and their collectors.  I went online; I found more doll boards.  I went on eBay®; I went NUTS!  This was January 2002. 

I read that Doll Show Magazine was going to be debuting in June 2002.  While I'd never written a magazine article, I thought for sure I could do it.  I contacted the editor and asked if she'd be interested in an article on Vince Nowell.  I had just met Vince online while buying Gene outfits.  She said yes.  The next thing I knew, I was the couture editor for Doll Show Magazine (unpaid, I might add!), responsible for all the magazine's interviews of doll clothing designers, repaint artists, and accessory designers.  I planned out a whole year's worth of articles (six or seven per issue) and started writing.  Soon, I was interviewing everybody and got to know the people in the fashion doll world very quickly.  I met Vince in person that March, interviewing him and Denis Bastien at the same time.  By July, God had made it clear to me that I was to pick up Vince in LA and bring him to my home in Irvine (about 50 miles away) to live.  Vince was going through a very difficult time and was in a horrible living situation.  He ended up living with me for seven months.  This was the first assignment that God gave me in the doll world.  I knew helping Vince was what God wanted.  I didn't know it was going to change my whole relationship with the doll community.

At the time, I was trying to figure out what God wanted me to do with my life.  Learning to hear God wasn't easy.  It took months and months of practice.  When I finally started "knowing" what God wanted me to do, I was completely perplexed.  I thought it was totally off the wall and a waste of my talents.  God wanted me to start Lisa's Doll Closet!  For months, I kept asking, "Are You SURE?"  He wouldn't let me off the hook.  It's not that I've hated doing all this work, it's just that it wasn't what I wanted to do.  I wanted to work on Project Believe. 

God said, "No."

Lisa's Doll Closet was never started with the intention of making tons of money for myself.  My hope was simply to earn a modest income to pay our bills until Aaron was back on his feet and able to support us.  God has given him tremendous gifts and I know Aaron will earn way more than we will ever need.  Until he was ready, though, I wanted to take that burden off of him and do it myself.  My intent was to then turn Lisa's Doll Closet into a charitable organization, giving ALL profits away to the poor and needy.  I've spent three years on this project of God's.  At no point has it been profitable for me.  Everything I've earned, I've re-invested in more stock.  I asked several times if I could "get out," but He wouldn't let me.  He had me there for a purpose.  While I wanted to be out gently converting people to Christianity to ensure their eternity in Heaven, God wanted me playing with dolls.  Somehow it just didn't have the meaning and depth I was looking for. 

But then, after some months, I realized that there were people in the doll community that God wanted me to reach--to help them in their beliefs and in their lives, and to help them in their own doll-based businesses.  My "being in business" was just God's way of getting me to the right people.  He gave me specific "assignments" on specific people.  He used my writing talent (one of the few things left that I can still do) to help these people.  If you've read the prior issues of High Maintenance you know some of the names of the people I've helped:  Deb Simpson, Deb West, Patricia Seaton, Vince Nowell, Jean MaDan, and several others.  The amount of time I spent on helping these people with their lives, their faith, their businesses, was eventually, overwhelming.  I'm sure I put in at least one month of full-time work for Deb West, which involved everything from critiquing her outfits prior to publication and writing her article to building her website and keeping it updated.  These various "assignments" took away significant portions of my time to work on my own business.  It was OK though, because it was what God required of me.  For the most part, I handled it all with grace and charm (if you believe that! LOL!).  There were times, though, when the people I helped had so many successes related to my help that sometimes I just had to ask God, "When is it my turn?"  I never begrudged anyone their success; I just wanted a piece of the action.

God didn't give it to me.  I wasn't angry, but I was getting increasingly worn out.  I worked fourteen hours a day, literally seven days a week.  Until mid-spring 2004, I hadn't taken a full day off in over three years. Finally, after I finished the summer 2004 issue, God didn't give me any new assignments.  I think He knew I was beat and couldn't have done them anyway.  He gave me time off.  I took advantage of this and went to Thailand for six weeks to visit Aaron, whom I hadn't seen for seven months.  Fortunately, we still had enough frequent flier miles that I flew for free.  Aaron already had his apartment so my stay there didn't cost any extra.

While I loved Thailand, my time there was NOT a fun vacation.  I was so worn out from working for so long without a break that my depression was acting up.  The first week there, I ignored the signs my body was giving me and Aaron and I went out every day for several hours.  I can't do that.  The next thing I knew, I was in bed sobbing for several days.  Because depression weakens the immune system, I always catch whatever cold Aaron brings home.  He came home with a head cold, and two days later I got it as a chest cold.  I've never had a cold like this before.  My whole body ached.  I was miserable.  The good thing was, I hurt so much that the depression didn't have the opportunity to affect me for the week I was in bed sick.  It came back as soon as I was feeling better, however.  I hadn't had any assignments from God for a few months.  I was anxiously waiting to find out what was next.  I knew I was at a point where I could no longer continue to do High Maintenance and my website without making an income.

YOU

When I did my survey to see if my subscribers would be willing to pay for High Maintenance, I fully expected to get enough people who would.  I was shocked by the lack of response.  I received about 150-175 total subscriptions.  It wasn't even close to being enough, though I got some very nice emails from people, even from those who weren't subscribing.  I went on about a week-long prayer vigil, asking God what I was supposed to do next.  God wasn't answering.  I contacted some of my dolly friends who are willing to pray for me and asked them to pray that God would send me an answer.  I was staying up all night, searching the internet for jobs that I could actually do.  Mostly I focused on my writing skills, because I have to be able to work at home.  I watched many sunrises that week, searching but not finding.  Despite my numerous prayers, God was silent.

One night I got a lovely email from a customer/friend of mine, telling me that she loved High Maintenance but simply couldn't afford it because the cost of her and her husband's monthly drug prescriptions were so high, they had to "choose" which medicines they had to have and which they had to do without.  Sometimes the pain medications lost out for more important ones.  This broke my heart.  I instantly wrote her back and told her that she could continue to receive HM for free for as long as I published it.  About an hour later, I received another email from someone I didn't know so well.  She too praised HM but also couldn't afford it for very valid reasons.  This email upset me even more.  Here I'd just graciously offered HM for free to a friend because she couldn't afford it.  Was I now supposed to offer it free to a stranger too?

I thought about it and compared my business to Deb West's.  When Deb makes an outfit, it takes her many hours to complete it.  When she's done, she needs to sell it.  She can't afford to give it away to someone who can't afford it.  But High Maintenance is different.  No matter how long it takes me to write it, once I'm done, I'm done.  It doesn't matter whether five people or 10,000 people read it, it doesn't cause me ANY extra work.  Now, I'm not stupid, and having been a business litigation attorney, I know that, business-wise, you don't give away your product.  But HM and Lisa's Doll Closet were never really about me making money.  They were about me following God's will.  How could I be doing God's will if I gave HM away to a friend, but not to a stranger who was in a similar predicament? 

A light dawned.  I suddenly knew what God wanted me to do.  He wanted me to write this issue of HM, bringing it full circle by telling my own story.  Instead of charging for it, He wanted me to ask for donations.  I was greatly relieved that I didn't have to charge, because the number of people willing to pay wouldn't have covered the cost of getting my website set up to accept such payments.  I was also somewhat horrified.  Tell my story?  I didn't want to tell my story.  I didn't want to open myself up, exposing all my fears and vulnerabilities to people who could turn around and ridicule me--especially because my story includes following God's will, being His servant.  So many people don't want to hear about anything religion-based.  So, God's asking me to spend another couple of weeks doing work I won't get paid for (who’s going to donate? LOL!), AND I have to spill my guts.  Fun.

But I knew this was what I had to do.  I didn't bother arguing with God about it.  Lisa's Doll Closet and High Maintenance were never about ME.  They were simply God's vehicle to help others he needed to reach.  To God, my story isn't about ME; it's about someone sharing their faith and beliefs to show how God works behind the scenes.  From a impartial viewpoint, I get it.   From my viewpoint, it sucks. 

I have been dreading writing this article for weeks.  It's now Friday night, about 24 hours before publication.  I procrastinated as long as I possibly could to start working on this article because I knew all the pain it would dredge up for me.  Years of it.  For the last two weeks, I've been sleeping around 16-18 hours per day.  Usually, I'm an insomniac.  This time, my body shut down. I couldn't stay awake.  I think my body was gearing up, reserving energy, so I could get this piece written without it triggering enough pain to prevent me from finishing.

Cynthia Patton has been editing HM for me for the last few issues.  I wrote to Cynthia two weeks ago, letting her know both that a new issue of HM was coming up for her to edit and that I was going to be writing a very special article that I was going to need extra help with.  Usually, Cynthia just corrects my grammar and sentence structure.  For this article, however, I wanted her help in making sure I told my story in a way that would honor God without offending my readers.  I told her I was going to be an emotional basket case while I was writing it.  She agreed to help me.  Yesterday afternoon, I wrote to Cynthia to tell her I was about to start writing and asking her to say a prayer for me that I wouldn't cry.  Cynthia did.  However, prayers aren't always answered, or in this case the answer was "no."  I hadn't finished the first sentence when the tears started flowing.  By the end of the first paragraph, though, they were gone.  Only now are they back again.

I'm crying now because I'm afraid.  I'm afraid that I won't put down the right words on the page that will convey the message God intends for me to send.  If I fail, I fail God.  I also fail the people God intended to be reached by this message.

However much this hurts, I have to believe that God has a reason for it.  I don't know whom this will touch and whom this will offend.  Ultimately, I shouldn't worry about those things because I know it's God's will.  I have no idea what the future holds for me.  None.  I'm hoping that I will get to move to Thailand and live with my husband again, be a "mother" to B, and maybe, just maybe, finally get to work on Project Believe.  But, I'm fully aware that those are MY desires.  God may have completely different plans for me.  The thing is, my faith is strong enough to know that God's plans will be the right thing.  I can't see the big picture. God can.  What I may think sounds awful (like writing this!) may be the catalyst to something wonderful I can't even foresee.

While everything is up in the air and I have no idea where life is taking me, I'm actually very optimistic about it.  Excited, even.  I know God will be there for me.  I know no matter what He throws at me, it will be the right thing.  In my lifetime, I may not get to know the effect of my  obedience.   While I would like to do Project Believe, because in my narrow vision I see it as a way to potentially save thousands of souls, God may instead have in mind for me to only touch one person.  A person I may never even know about?  A reader?  A friend of a reader who just happens to look over the reader's shoulder at this article?  Maybe that friend of the reader is the one who will get my message and go on to be the one who is better suited to touch thousands.  I'm just a tiny link in the chain. On earth, when God expects it, I have to work in the dark and just trust that everything will work out as long as I'm following Him.  I know one thing, however.  I WILL go to Heaven.  Frankly, while I'd like insights into lots of different things, right now, that's all I really need to know.  I may cry.  I may hurt.  But God has given me peace. When I start to lose that feeling, I know I'm going off the path and I turn my attention back to God.  The peace returns immediately.  I feel protected.  I feel loved. I wish everyone could know that feeling. 

God be with you.