So I have had a bad week.  Spent most of it on anxiety meds and curled up in a ball at night.  I haven’t eaten most of the week and I have managed to get to work, and do what I have to do.  We launch a huge web based project next week for the next 2 weeks, and I have been coordinator for it,  so if this launches well– I am a hero at work!  I have been working out (exercise)  as a punishment to be honest.  I do a Beach Body insanity work out and its pretty high impact and I was really pushing it last night.  Today my husband who has been freaking out cause I have been so low made an apt for us to go to pray with my minister.  The anger flairs up again… what good does it do, just a burdon on a friendship, how stupid of me to need this type of care, people must be tired of this — I know I am.

How is that for a list of negativity.  I desperately want to be well, I feel like i need something to fill a void.  I search for God to fill it but nothing does.  Is this just the illness space, the devils space, Gods space, a prayer space or a space that needs attention – vain space . Or just space that is there created by chemical imbalances and can never be filled.  I don’t know.

I am trying to do right– I haven’t eaten for a few days that is wrong, I have been taking my anxiety meds that is good– had some wine.   Ok I guess I am not doing right.  But this prayer thing tonight is right and I am angry about it.  I know its the devil – its just so hard to separate the heart from the mind.

till next time…………………

I shared my poem with my husband.  He liked it, it expressed alot of feelings that we have felt as a family dealing with this tragic event.  My husband expressed that he was concerned that I felt responsible for my friends son’s death.  I don’t feel responsible, I am sad I didn’t talk to him that day.  That moment was pre depresson for me, or at least I though it was.  My husband made the comment that I was suffering then but I wasn’t aware.  WHAT! I asked him directly if he thought I was showing signs of my depression even before the death of this boy.  I always figured that I started suffering months after that.  So now I am left wondering —how long have I been  screwed up?  Then it begs the question when did my mind start to fail? and it also leads to —  could it ever been trusted?  I believe it was good at one time.

I know that maybe it doesn’t really matter but it makes me question me. It makes me embarrassed, it makes me feel very uncomfortable.  I know this may be vain, but what did people think of me before.  Did people think I was going crazy?  Or how far in the deep end was I before I realized I needed to go to the doctor, before I knew I needed to start the meds.

Stability is a hard thing to grasp when you are suffering from depression, most of the time I am fighting it.  Most days, I am trying to resist the devil and his ways.  My base line is shaken.  I have a base line in my head when I think I was normal.  When I think I remember what it was like not to struggle.  It is the place I hope to get back to.  Like a person who learns to walk again after some tragic accident.  One day it is my hope I get back to a life without meds.  A day when I wake up from a full 8 hours sleep and felt refreshed and don’t have to pop meds to keep things undercontrol.  Could cry because you are happy or sad but a fleeting sadness. To relax and feel normal– I know what is normal?  What is the truth of normal?

It is a confusing day.

till next time…………..

730 days  was about my friends son who took his life 2 years ago.  He was 21 from a good family full of love and God and all things good and right.  His depression got the better of him.  The last I saw him was 3 months before – my family and his family were camping – I watched him sit in the rain with a book a umbrella  – looking so sad, and I walked passed himthat day more than once – he looked like he needed some space.  I will never forget that day– the look of loss on his face, the look of pain.  At the time I had no idea what he was fighting, I hadn’t travelled down that road at that time.   I figured he is 21 and a man he didn’t need his Mother’s friend needling into his business.  I know that one moment if I had stopped might not have made a difference- but it does make you wonder.  Today he is in God’s hands, and my family help his family try to heal.  Jesus said when the people murdering him were nailing the nails into his hands, He prayed “Lord forgive them for they do not know what they are doing”  I think that prayer was also said for this boy/man.  He was a man with an education,  great job, and a life time of future and hope in front of him but he was a boy who suffered from depression was embarrassed and didn’t know how to handle it and in the end followed the dark voices to the grave.  Jesus conquored the grave.    It is another reason I started this blog, to share the pain the defeats, victories and all the ups and downs that come with this illness.   Thank you for reading.

till next time……………….

730 days, I have been thinking your name.

There is a dark spot on my heart.

A sadness that will never go away

We miss you each and every day,

since you threw a life away,

stuck in the darkness of the grave.

I understand the lonely road you walked

In silence you fought.

The pain so deep, so hard,  you could not escape.

I’m sorry that rainy day, I didn’t stop and stay.

I’m sorry I didn’t take the time, to talk and listen by your side.

How alone you must have been, with no friend.

I once passed you by – I didn’t know you would be soon out of time.

I see you in my dreams in that chair, with your book, and that look.

I didn’t know you were walking a line .

I passed you by.

Its been a busy week — into lots of new things at work I have never done before, its been exciting and I am loving my job.  The kids have been good, my husband too, I can’t say anything has been wrong.  Working at work — working at home, putting patio furniture away and cleaning leaves the usual fall stuff.  Last Saturday was a sunny 10 degree Celsius day and I worked outside all day long.  The sun lifted my spirits so high, it was unbelievable.  This week we had a few dark days like today but Tuesday was a sunny day and I went to our public library which has a huge bank of chairs facing a west window.  I sat there like a cat in the sun.  Soaking up the sun and the view and the moment.  I don’t know why but I have been very sensitive to the sun these days.  My skin is a mess right now.  I have psoriasis and photo therapy is the best thing for it.  My dermatologist says no sun screen and in the sun for as often as I can (of the effective areas) I go to a tanning bed in the winter – so bad for you yes ( I throw a towel over my face and chest) but for my legs and arms I need it.   I wrote a while ago about how my pastor was praying for those who suffer from seasonal disorder syndrome.  Lack of Sun.   I had made the connection that hey you know what ! that is me.  But I sorta half believed it.  But after Sat in the sun all day and how lifted, on top of the world I felt.  It is very real to me that lack of sun has a very huge effect on me.   I have always loved the sun so truly it’s not that new of  a thing.  But the way the lack of sun has effected me — well its understandable but a small part of me is like ” great something else”   to know and understand is more important to me than adding something else to my list of ailments.

A friend of mine puts a bible passage on Facebook every morning and sometimes I swear he is creeping me, or reading my mind.  The one morning he wrote ” God is spirit , and those who worship him must worship in spirit and in truth”  As I meditated on this God very clearly spoke to me and said “I will fill your spirit,  trust me” A sence of peace fell upon me when I told God I will trust him.  But at the same time I could feel that old familure struggle inside.  I have been trying very hard for the past few days to feel positive.  I am not in a depressed hole, but I am resisting the temptation of darkness.  I have spent a lot of time meditating with music – praising God — I have spent time when I wanted to sit and hide, to put myself out there.  When God spoke to me that morning I had the feeling that I wanted to take my anxiety drugs and curl in a ball and hide.  To hide is a great temptation.  To pull away and not be with people pulls at you when you are not 100 percent.  And how easy is that to do.  Everyone is busy, shut off the phone and crawl in a hole and think this will be rest.  It is anything but rest.  It is a hole of hell, screaming voices and attacks on your soul — the devil trying to undermine everything you have ever thought and felt.   When I read in the bible about the 40 days that Jesus spent in the desert being tempted by the devil – I wonder if this is what it was like.  When I read these words I can almost hear him. Using the bible words to twist them into worship for himself.  Being sly and clever to throw Jesus off guard to trip him up.  I trip over my own feet, without much effort by the devil. There was a time that I felt I could stand on my own two feet, solidly.  I will admit as things have progressed this week and I try to keep myself on track– (please note the phrasing of that last line– try to me MY self on track)  The more I concentrated on Gods words and Gods spirit within me.  The more I was able to pull away from wanting to hide in darkness and hide in the light in the softness of Jesus’ own lap as a child of God.   I wonder if Jesus got tired of the fight against the devil.  The fight against depression wears me out, sometimes.

The other verses my friend wrote this week Bear one another’s burdens and so fulfill the law of Christ–Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding—-

Think God is trying to tell me something???? For my own mind or understanding is not normal,  My own mind or understanding is compromised  who’s understanding can I really trust? Why not the creator of everything.

Till next time………………..

Suffering today — and its self inflected too… Its not what you think — I haven’t been drinking or such –I just  too many chocolate covered peanuts.  Halloween.  I love chocolate and nuts, yum yum and I have no control or limits for them and of course I usually don’t eat sugar so I have a sugar rush.  Oh there could be worse things.

I have been doing well this week except for the chocolate over indulgence.  I had a doctor’s apt yesterday which followed up on one previously.  My doctor feels that my diagnose is not correct and wants me to go to for a consultation and diagnose.  First off there is no such thing in mental illness as a consultation, it really is consultations, plural.  I had a chance to think about it read a lot of information and make a decision.  My Doctor feels that I suffer from Major Depression with psychosis.  She is not qualified to make this diagnosis,  so thus the referral.   I refused.  She tried to talk me into it.  I still refused– it’s the first time her and I have ever stalemated over something before.    Am I better, am I cured…. no.   I am just done with the doctor appointments,  maybe that is the wrong attitude,  I do know.  If you are a follower of my blogs,  you know,  that I do have times when I am in trouble and times when I need people to be close me.   However, I am not willing to change drugs anymore.  I am hanging in as is for the next few months till June. Depending on what is what, by then I may start to decrees and go off the drugs.  It will be almost 3 years of drugs- $1450.00 per year.   The adjustment period is so hard when changing antidepressants.  I do not want to fool with them.  I would rather struggle with the darkness than go through the horrible experience of changing or adjusting drugs.

For today — cause it’s a good week– I feel that I am coming more comfortable with my illness.  I still have issues with the “illness” word    It’s the pity in other people’s eyes or the challenging look that tells you to snap out of it and be happy, that bothers me more.  Personally in my heart I am feeling more comfortable and isn’t that half the battle with any illness.

As I said I am good.  I have been spending a lot of time with God reading and meditating.  God has been talking to me through those around me and I feel at peace – its nice to be at peace.  My friend wrote on face book  “beloved, do not believe every spirit but test the spirits whether they are from God ,”  It struck a deep chord with me.  If you suffer from depression or know of someone,  you know of the dark spirits that are around you.  They are knowledgable of God and his words and can twist them like a piece of wet wood in the sun.  The  less aggressive spirits that sound like God,  but are not – they are sly and sneaky in how they approach you.   It all comes down to two things, the peace factor, and the truth factor.  If you have peace and it stands up to the truths of the bible its is a true spirit of the Almighty God.   It is that peace that I have been bubbled in these days.

I have been trying to use a new thought process to cope with things.  I have been trying to not control myself.  I know this sounds weird because its is the lack of control that is taking over my life.  I have been spending alot of time reading the Sermon on the Mount.  Its starts with Blessed is the Poor, and those who mourn, persicuted etc etc.  I am not going to repeat it if you want to know more read Mathew 5.  As I spent time concentrating on these passages it is those who are down and out. It is about people losing, lost, giving away.  It is about not having-and God giving.  God has shown me how through this illness I have been poor in my mind, through this illness I have mourned what I used to have.  I have mourned my stable mind. I have mourned my own determination to handle things.  I have mourned my control over my thoughts, where I go, how I feel,  what I do.  This illness has taken a lot of that from me.  God has been there backing me up.  God has shown me through my weakness how I can be strong through him.  Through my mourning he brought me tears of joy as he fills me with his peace and strengthened our relationship.  God has shown me that through  the loss of control that I gain his control.  The lost is found, the weary – rest, the hungry are fed.

These are my thoughts this week …next week I could be in a bad place, who knows one step at a time

till next time……………………….

I am coming up for air after a week or so of drowning in the dark mist of the mind.  At least for today that is how I have been feeling the past few days.  Today I feel like the vice on my heart is gone.  Today I feel like I can lift my head.  Today I can feel like I can talk to God.  I have been fighting the past few weeks.  It has been a frantic battle.  Today I feel a little peace and today I feel like I can actually Praise God.  Feel like I have been through a war, and can relax cause the enemy has been pushed back far enough to relax a little.  I can breathe. 

God of course has been talking to me– mind you,  so have the dark voices but today God has made it clear what he wants.  It’s funny how God talks.  For the past weeks I keep coming across the same two bible vs.  God put them in a book I am reading,  God put them in a TV cop drama show,  God put them in last weeks sermon,  God put them in a conversation I had with a friend.   God put them in Facebook.  (who says God doesn’t use multi media – funny) It was then I finally thought OK I will sit down and study this.  I’m a little thick sometimes God has to repeat himself to me.  It was the sermon on the mount that he kept referencing and the camel going through the eye of a needle.  Both, I believe are in Matthew. Both repeated several times.

In particularly God has shown me part of the Sermon on the Mount with the verse Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the kingdom of heaven, Blessed are the pure in heart for they will see God. 

I have been feeling poor, I have not felt pure in heart. I have felt everything has been taken away from me. My mind, my spirit, my carefreeness, my humour, my memory, my character.  I feel a shell of my former being, an  abandoned  container, empty except for the nasty voices that scream destruction and the soft whisper of my God– when I take my hands off my earsonly then do I hear the whisper. Jesus said those who have ears let them hear.  Today I can listen.  To be poor means to be without, to not have.  My spirit has been poor and when I read this vs and thought about it,  I saw my heart, dark and small with me crouched over it,  trying,  with all my might to protect it from the dark dirty place I was.  God showed me I needed to stand up and open my eyes and ears and arms upwards.  He gently urged me and as I did the light from above came down and the light showed not a dirty dead-end ally,  but a clean, warm room.   My spirit is not something I can possess or fix or do anything with to be honest.  God is the keeper of the spirit I just need to open the door and see and hear.  Jesus said “whoever keeps my commands will be great in the kingdom of heaven. ”  Those who are pure in heart.  Who can be pure– no one.  Again God is the keeper of pure.  Jesus is the gate.  If I allow God Jesus and the Spirit access to my heart they can clean me to be pure.  Through Jesus and the Spirit I can come close to God. The more I pondered this the more I could feel my body relax.  You have heard the phrase hold on to the seat of your pants—I have been gripping my heart so hard to protect it from the darkness and the harassment it has been given in the past few weeks that I was suffocating it.  My arms felt drained. I feel like I have been running for the past week or so.  Depression is physical.  I have come to realize it more and more.  My body hurts for no reason some times.  I get headaches,  I get dizzy sometimes.  I can’t hold things sometimes.  These are the things I hate for the make me feel less than I am.  But Jesus says all things can be gained through him.  That is not an answer to a wish list.  God has, dare I say today made me understand that—-this illness is a blessing — for if my mind had not gone crazy I don’t think I could have comprehended how much I need and how much I understand about the Kingdom of God.  Through the desperate times God has shown me so much for me to understand, there is no way my faith and trust of God could be so great otherwise.   This freedom is available through Jesus and yet are not us humans like stupid sheep.  We forget where we are and what is good.  Sheep wander behind what ever is in the lead,  are we not just like that?  Following fads, trends, electronics, must haves of this world.  We remember the worst things.  We do not forgive the most important things.  We forget the most important words from God that would set us free.  We panic when we should remember to pray and give it to God for we are not in control.  The mind is a funny thing it comprehends so much but knows so little. 

A week ago I said to my best friend I feel like God is punishing me — but I also know he is not, it just feels that way sometimes.  My friend who I love so much reminded me he is not, but to think of him as my Father.  She was right. It is through being poor we learn to be rich. It is being poor we appreciate the sacrifice God has given us-to bring us closer.  It is through being poor that we receive and understand all the things that Jesus is telling us in the Sermon on the Mount.  I believe that is why that is at the first of the sermon – to be poor sets up to hear the rest of it.   At that time it was was backward thinking for the people sitting on that mountain listening – they wanted a physical victory over oppression of the time.  But Jesus talked of a victory over a spiritual battle.  The demons he fought then are as real now.  They do stock you and I have become very sensitive to them as this illness has progressed.  These are the things God has talked to me about.

As I sit in this light — I am off to the Doctor next week.  She is sending me to be for an assessment.  She has diagnosed me with depression, she suspect major depression psychosis.  The depression episodes I suffer from are not being treated effectively by antidepressants I am taking,  so its been 9 months of the same pills so she is sending me to an expert and evaluation.  (the diagnoses can make you depressed)  I will know more next week.

In the mean time I look forward to a Sunday service where I can lift my hands and praise the Lord.

till next time………………………..

Having an argument with myself yesterday.   Iwas feeling down and out of sorts.  I am trying to move forward. I am trying to ignore the chemically manufactured voices i was hearing.  That had been slowly getting louder this past week.  Reading this makes me sound certifyable.

I feel exhausted today.  I hurt like I have had a wicked work out yesterday – and I did not- its been a couple of days since I did a good work out.  That is tonights plan- maybe.  Depression is a full body work out.  It effects the brain the body and all the rest of it.   How is my mind today.  It is better I am still a little off – I am more angry with myself for some late night texting to a friend.  One of my rules is when I am out of sorts I do not text at night.  The problem is I don’t remember stuff.  I  woke up and realized that I had text my friend and for the life of me I could not remember what I said.  So you can imagion how frightening it is to read your texts from the night before and wonder what the heck I said now! 

On the other hand – I am lucky to have friends that care. 

Oh Lord help me cope, help me to relax and not panic, help me to hear your voice and help me to carry on each day to your Glory.

Amen

till next time………………