Over the past few weeks I have been sliding down this mountain, sometimes slowly, sometimes fast, but sliding down just the same.  I felt for the first time today that I finally grasped something as I have been sliding, it feels like a twig. The twig is holding and for the first time in weeks I feel like I can at least get a breath.  I have been all over the map.  Deeply depressed, sad, despair, lonely, anger, very paranoid.  The emotions are all self explanatory but the paranoia is not me thinking that someone is out to get me, or people are talking behind my back or anything like that its more a case of love.  I know paranoia is not a product of love but maybe I should say lack of love.

Let me start back a ways to explain this.  A year ago or more when this all started, I didn`t know what was happening to me, my daughter who is 15, thought I was having issue with her, not the demons in my mind.  She thought I hated her and started to act out because of this misbelief.  Over time I told her what was happening with me, once I figured out what was happening with me, and as she became more used to me and my ups and down she began to see it was all me, not her, and she became more comfortable with her and loved herself more as she saw my illness progress.  In the end over the past few months, she has drawn very close to me.  She talks to me about everything, and hugs me endlessly, we watch movies together, and she has been a great source of love and it has been a great comfort to me.  My husband has been the same way taking over things for me, helping me, talking to me.  Both of them love me so much and have been loving me so much that I can’t believe how wonderfully blessed that God has been to me.

So my paranoia stems from my lack of love for me.  Around and around and around you go where you stop no body knows.  This is the problem; I feel good, I fall down.  I feel like I almost have things in control and them I don`t.  I feel like its my fault.  If the hand does not work is it my fault.  Well if I abuse it yes, but arthritis or something else; no, not my fault.  The mind is so personal, so close, I feel like I have let myself down, and its been a long time since I can say  I love myself.  It’s hard to fathom that a chemical imbalance can effect the personal relationship you have with yourself. I loved chemistry in college and when I think of the interaction of chemicals in a experiment, its hard to add soul, body and mind to a chemical, he I am.

I went for a run today, well its been a long time since I have run so I am back at the beginning again,  But I shuffled really fast and got a good work out.  In that mind clearing exercise,  the Lord popped a thought into my mind, well actually a bible vs.  I can`t name the chapter or vs but it goes like this.  “The Lord so loved the world that he gave his one and only son to die for us.” I stopped running started walking.  What did that mean?  God so loved the world, he loves each and every one of us way more than I can love my children or husband or best friends, because he created love and we are made in His image so our love could never ever be as complete and solid as His because we are also full of sin which He is not and therefore our love is tainted with imperfections. But the Lord so loved us, US because he created us that he gave his son, his blood, a part of his spirit, to die. For the purpose of us coming close to him.

I have been doing things over the past months, not because I love me, but because I hate me.  My family and friends love me.  As my best friend said today `I am a big fan our yours and you have  lots of fans` It dawned on me that when I have been doing things that I have had the mind-set of doing them cause I don`t love me.  Don`t eat fattening things or anything cause you are not worthy.  Not don`t eat fattening things cause you love yourself and it’s not good for you.   A glass of wine complements a fine steak, because you love the tastes.  Not, drink the bottle cause you are a mess and it soothes the pain, and in the end do not actually taste the food or wine and you miss the experience of a good meal.

God gave us so much, to love us.  Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice because he loves us, and for my mind cause he loves me.  How can I disrespect my Lord by refusing the sacrifice he made for me for the love of me, and not love myself.  It was a Gobsmacking thought.

Here is a good example of how far in left field that depression can take you, or the demons of depression can take you.   This is a gobsmacking thought!  When did I stop loving myself?  how did this happen?  I ran a half marathon, you don`t train up for something like that if you don`t like yourself.  I guess somewhere in the drugs and chemical imbalance it happened.  I can`t think when, but I know I am in the process of trying to correct this.  Today and right now I feel the love from my family and friends, and God, so distinctly that I can say for sure I like myself today.  Tomorrow maybe I will fall in love with me, maybe I will still be at like, I hope I don`t fall back into hate.  Cause hate gives the devil a playground and I am tired of those games.

God Bless