Tag Archives: Sadness

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Contemplation


I was sitting at lunch today reading a book on anxiety, and how to deal with it. There are no good books out there that I have found dealing with depression. What I have found; christian or otherwise, are books written by educated people, giving advice on a something they have never experienced.
It has been a difficult month. I have been down most of it, with no rhyme or reason. Today I was shopping at Costco, going along no problems, then as I was contemplating my list of stuff, I could feel my heart start to race and my spirits sinking. It was like stepping out in the rain. One second dry; one step soaked.  It makes no sence.

Philippians 4:6-9 NIV

6 Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. 7 And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

Our reaction to problems should be first thankfulness and honour to God. To create right thinking and right praying. Depression takes away right thinking, and creates prayers of desperation. When you are trapped in the dark how do you see the light?

1 Corinthians 10:13

13 No temptation has overtaken you except what is common to mankind. And God is faithful; he will not let you be tempted beyond what you can bear. But when you are tempted, he will also provide a way out so that you can endure it.

The question I can not answer. This depression has led me to depths I could have never fathomed. Where does depression fit in here. Could the chaos of my mind be related to the lack of trust I have in God, I can’t trust myself, I sometimes don’t know what is truth, so what do I trust? Is my lack of trust a sign that I have little faith? This is the great question. How do you reconcile the light and dark of the mind, to the promises of God. Is it wrong for me to assume that with my depression that I can not feel at peace? Or is my peace dependent on God givimg it to me and if I do not feel it – is it because I am doing something wrong.

till next time……

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The truth of pain.


Lord do not forsake me, for only by your hand is there clarity. For my mind is a jumble of mixed up thoughts. A pile of mixed up words. Darkness of confusion. As I sit in church and look at your cross I want to see the clarity your word. If God is reaching for man and man is suffering in a pain that the painkillers won’t heal and the doctors do not know how to cure, that the wine does not numb, how do you look at God and see his love. Do I not believe in it? My head says yes I believe in his Love but the pain of suffering can not help but make you think that you are being punished. Forgive my unforgiveness and unbelief, for the pain of the confused mind overshadows truth and love and creates a sink hole of darkness. As I take the body and the blood and kneel at the table of God, my mind is a swirl of light, dark, You want to trust but you feel punished, yet you ask for forgiveness. I do not ask for God to take this pain anymore, I have asked and it is still here. I don’t ask cause I fear disappointment. I know in my head that God’s timing is not mine, but God what ever I am to learn from this, how thick am I that I have not learned it, so this pain can be taken from me. A swirl of thoughts as I kneel at God’s table ….I eat, I drink, I ask for forgiveness, repent, yet when I leave, I do not go in peace. Its no where to be found, and that is the pain. A tight heart of hurt, a grip that never loosens, Drugs that numb you and a mind that thoughts are blank.

till next time……

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Post # 40 “just saying”


Shaky shake.  I have been riding a good wave. Feeling good haven’t really exercised I have put on a couple of pounds all my troubles are far behind.  Then yesterday happened.  I went for apt # three with my therapist.  I felt like I was slipping early in the day.  I felt like I wanted to cry but could not.  I got to my apt and we sat – I sat on the couch again- she beat me to the chair.  Darn! We talked for a bit.  I had printed an email I had sent to my pastor describing what I go through when I start to slip, and the depression hits.  I wanted him to understand my progresson and understand how I fight and how hard it is, I also figured as a pastor it would give him insight into the secret world of the mind during depression.  I had homework to do from when I left last time; to gage my sadness and there wasn’t much to say cause I felt good last week.  However she asked me to read the letter.  I did, then I started to shake, I started to cry and freak out. I don’t know if it was a panic attack or anxiety or what it was.  I do know I lost my composure, had to look into those puppy dog eyes and try to pull it together. I didn’t happen.  We talk some more I get my next assignment and sent on my way.  I don’t go back for two weeks.

So what do I think of this?  I don’t know what to think.  Part of me feels like a failure, I know that is the dark voices talking.  Part of me says I am doing all the right things just hang in there.  Part of me feels embarrassed and less than who I used to be.  I haven’t eaten in two days.  I cook but to look at food makes my stomach turn, I go for a walk. I forced  myself to eat an egg tonight.  Tomorrow – who knows.

The sadness creeps in, the loneliness just sweeps my heart away.  I don’t want to feel this way.  The darkness is closer this time it hasn’t been for a while but it is tonight.  I feel empty.  When I feel like this I think of my friend’s son who killed himself a year ago now.  How empty he must have felt that night.  How lonely was his heart. How sad his soul.  I can feel the path he traveled to get to his end.  I also know that Jesus was there to hold him and save him.

I have hid myself in my room tonight. Reading, some yoga which stretched some muscles but gave me no peace.  So I write this blog and pour out my pain.  Today I shake badly, I haven’t shook that much in a while and it was never-ending.  I could feel it come from the centre of my being.  I was very anxious and a little snappy at people.  People that came to my desk I was ok with on the phone was a different thing.  I email my husband who is on the road.  I text my best friend who is a very busy person and doesn’t need to be bothered at work I don’t want to be a burden but I just want to have someone care.  I feel like no one cares- that is the lie that the devil wants me to buy.  I resist but its hard.  I know the Lord has blessed me with wonderful people in my life.  This weekend I am going away with my best friend from school.  It will be wonderful I have not told her about my depression, so as we do a wine tour in Niagara and sit up all night in our hotel room talking and talking I will confess my downfalls.  But all in all God has been good to me.  Even if my heart cry out in pain and opposes what my soul tells it. My mind hides in the darkness with its hands over its ears so it can’t hear and hands over its eyes so it can’t see while the heart and soul fight for victory over the body.

So where is my God in this.  Where he always is.  At my right hand at the ready when called upon to help me.  So I Praise the Lord for he is Love and Good.  I denounce the devil and all his ways in the name of Jesus Christ the son of God. And I ask that my shepherd keep me in his pen so I can be safe from the wickedness that taunts me and ask that Jesus keeps calling my name so this sheep can hear him and follow.  Amen

r

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June continued


The darkness prowles, But the light shines.

The darkness is quiet, The light is bold.

The darkness whispers lies, The light shouts truth

The darkness trys to steal; bit by bit, The light holds a loving embrace

The darkness slips here or there, The light stands for all to see.

The darkness is hate, The light is love.

God always hold me in your love and protect me from the darkness.

Journal entry June 8, 2011 ” Being dragged on down, I am still unsettled I am not sure why, but it is a constant fight between heart and mind.  I hear the negative voices reoccuring, voices that will not let me go.  Eight track tape going on and on.  I am trying to get it to let go.  Sometimes it works, sometimes not.  I walk and listen to music to drown it out.  I am feeling hasselled I can not get it to stop. Lord help me.  “

June has not been an easy month and its only the 25.  I had another panic attack this week. It was building all week.  The week before I was just sad.  Sit like a lump sad.  I think the people are realizing at work that something isn’t right- my greatest fear.  This week it started to build Sunday, and I slipped each day slowly untill I was having a panic attack in my doctors office.  I was there for 40 minutes.  I felt foolish. insaine.  But it was good.  As I stated earlier, I have a great Doctor I completely trust her and she knows me well.  So this was an eye opener for her to see me in such a state.  The result. Drugs.  I am not entirely comfortable with them. She upped my anti-depressents and perscribed anti-anxiety (incase of emergency break glass) drugs.  I went to the drug store bought them, went back to work stared at them for an hour and took one. I was anxious, I was coming down from the panic, but was trying to get it together, it was an emergency.  It worked.  I came down, could concentrate, finish all I had to do and go home feeling better.  I woke the next day calmer. Praise the Lord.  Now they are my security blanket.  I carry them around in my purse, just having them near makes me feel better.  But the rub– there always is isn’t there.  They are very strong and powerful and addictive. This last event with my doctor, makes me more concerned about my mental state. I need to seek a counciler, I need more than to bother friends and read some excelent books on how to cope. I just have to ask.  I have been carrying around with me all week a EAP pamflet from work.  I have great benefits and free counciling.  But I want to go to a christian. I can’t pick up the phone and call stranger.  I have tried several times this week. My doctor told me to go to my pastor.  There are christian agencies and I maybe able to go there. 

The thing of it all.  I need to talk to someone, I talk here to you, I talk to God. God listens- he talks to me. I don’t like the drugs but they are working today, so I am happy.  But a line was crossed this week that made this  mild case of the blues to something more.  Maybe its part of the depression but it frightens me more. But that is a huge part of depression. Fear. Sadness.  Anger I have been very angry this month.  My bible study was studying the fruits of the spirit, gentleness, kindness, self control.  I felt none of these, it made me more than angry.  I lashed out at a friend who was giving me a wonderful birthday message earier this month.  She said I didn’t she didn’t take it that way.  But I was angry over her encouraging nice words. I don’t feel them.  In this wave, I have felt pathitic, and ashamed, resentment, extreem jealously, fear- scared out of my wits is better discription. So where is my God in all of this. He is there.  He promised he would be.  In the book I am reading it says Though we break God’s heart sometimes, he loves us still. That promise goes back to the beginning when in the garden of Eden and Eve disobeyed God when she ate the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil and shared it with her husband, Adam, we lost our place in Paradise.  Sin became our birthright.  But God in His grace and mercy promised deliverance before he Banished Adam and Eve.  We are travelers through this world back to our Paradise with God.  We have storms to go through, this latest wave is yet another storm.  But God is holding me. Giving me people to help me.  Helping me to realize what I need to brave the storm and to put me in a cleft to ride it out.  The last couple of days have been good.  I practiced with my youth band today and sang my heart out in praise, and ment it. Tomorrow I deliver the children’s message- a little nervious. But feeling stronger, and I will be standing in God’s house so where better to feel his strength surrounded by people who love me, and God himself. The darkness may have been dark. But Gods light is always bright.  He is leading me on this journey – its becoming a journey of discovery. I have been realizing just how much God is there for me, the control freak and he is in control- I have just been discovering how deep with in me he lives.

Peace to you from this week talk to you later….

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Then Christmas was over


I was feeling better, it seem to be over, the darkness, the hole seemed to dry up and all was ok, for a while. Jan came and was almost over I thought, wow I must have just had a bad season, The death of my friend’s son maybe over showed Christmas or something, but I was ok.  Then the darkness came back. It was different this time it didn’t swallow me, it slithered around my ankles and attempted to pull at my pant legs to pull me in. I didn’t fall into a hole, it came upon me like a smoky fog. The depth of the darkness wanted to drown out the light.

Here is an excerpt from my journal Jan 12 2011

“It’s a sad day, not sure if its hormones though I suspect they are, or its that devil
of depression sneaking around me. It is seductive depression, it’s a itchy coat
that completely envelops you.  Joy on the other hand is a fancy
dress. You wear it on special occasions not wanting to get it dirty or messy,
always aware that you are in it for a short time, never really believing that a
fancy dress could be worn always. Why can’t joy be like a comfortable pair of
jeans always ready to wear no matter what you are doing, where you are going,
always feeling good. Never worrying it will end, or never come again.

The darkness of depression swallows like pin the tail on the donkey it binds you,
spins you ‘round, and you can’t remember where the light is.

I am fighting. It sneaks around me but I fight. I cannot reconcile things in my
mind. The devil confuses me. I know God is powerful, creator, my heavenly
father, my source of love, my savior, the I am- God! But What about those who do
not find God. What about my friend’s son who took his life? What about my
brother, who turns his back on God, thinking me a freak for loving the creator
of the earth. We pray for these people, we pray for their souls their minds
their hearts. But the son is dead, the brother unchanged. Did we pray wrongly,
or is free will stronger than prayer, than God. Right now this is the thing I
cannot reconcile. This is what haunts me and keeps me up at night; I think this
is what is at the heart of my depression. Maybe I believe in a touch by an
angle type of God or magic God. One that saves in the nick of time and in an
hours time with commercials. “

God is not that way. What the devil likes to do is confuse you. Depression is caused;
for me anyways, by a biological chemical reaction in my hormones. When you are
not at your best the devil prowls around like a lion seeking to devour you.
What I learned through this bout of depression, my grief was not the source of
my depression, my sorrow added to my sadness, but when I could separate that I
felt sad, and confused from my faith. I soon realized I was not having a crises
of faith, it was a distraction, I could separate faith from sadness and I was
lifted up. God rescued me. I saw that faith did not cause depression and faith
helped me ’cause I could give my grief to God, he reconciled it for me in the
poem I wrote in the previous blog. I felt better and I thought Great making progress
I should have this thing licked! No God had other plans for me. In the mean
time, I went to my Doctor. Even though I figured things out as to what my
depression was not, I still could not function in the state I was in. One
Saturday I had a break down. Full on my face stretched out on the floor break
down. In front of my kids, in front of my husband, and totally freaked them out.
Then I went to my doctor. She is Great! She put me on meds to help. And they
did help keep me from the extreme but they did not stop the depression and here
is where the rub is. You will not cure it by meds they help but there is a
lot of stuff you have to do to help yourself, to heal yourself. But with God’s
help I am getting stronger. With some amazing friends I am coping and that is
how I am handling it for now. More on my journey next time. Come back and read
more. GW

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in the beginning


I have been suffering from depression for apx  a year now.  I didn’t realize it at first.  Some days were great, some days I was sad. I would be angry and then ok again.  It wasn’t till November 2010 that I realized that I was not in a good place.  At first I thought that I was sad or angry because I was too busy.  I am a mother of two teens, I work full time, husband, house, I volunteer at church doing Sunday School music, I play in a worship band. I work out, run,  I thought it was burning a candle at both ends.  Some nights I didn’t sleep, some Saturdays I slept in the afternoons for hours. I got hot flashes in the night.  Ya menopause and all its glory was reaking havic on me.  I have been getting the hot flashes since my first child was born. He’s now 18.  They never really bothered me that much you just get used to them.  But then the emotional things started happening.  I would feel sad for days.  I started having a never ending dialog running through my head, about how I would handle some situation that really made me angry, sometimes how I would put someone in their place who disappointed me.  These dialogs ran on and on.  At one point I was out for a run and the angry voices in my head arguing over what my mother-in-law had said to me were so loud and making me so crazy; I physically stopped in my tracks and yelled out loud for the on going tape to “stop”, and turned around and ran in the other direction.  There were cars on the road they must have thought I had totally lost it, and I felt as if I had.  In my journals I wrote about searching for joy and peace and never finding it.  I could not figure out why.  Did I doubt God was there to look after me? Did I not see that he loved me more and more and I needed to cultivate this relationship and make it grow.  I was reading my bible, praying, meditating but I did not feel peace.

Then Christmas started to come near.  A time of year all Christians rejoice and enjoy peace on earth to all men.  I was just mad! Then my friends son committed suicide.  He was 22 a wonderful, funny, brilliant artist.  He grew up in a good home, good parents, great grades in high school, but suffered from depression, deeply, deeply.   He believed the lie presented to him in his mind.  I am unworthy, I m better dead, I am unable to go on one more day.  – – – – all lies – – – – – over 300 people came to his funeral. He was not unloved, he was loved.  But unlike what you see on TV when they talk about depression — people sitting staring out like they are spacey or something, but depression is not quiet.  It is not just sadness. There is a storm going on in your mind.  Dare I say voices? Your voice arguing with the demons that are in there wanting to convince you that you are worthless and no one cares, and you are nothing but a speck of sand.  The lies scream over and over and over they make you doubt everything you believe, they make you question your life your direction, the power of your God. You know that the storm is not right, and then you get scared.  What is happening to you? what will people think? You want to cry for help, but you can’t.  I belong to a church where I have people there to help me,people to talk to, my pastor and friend would listen to me counsel me but I am in a worship band, I sing and praise God in front of everyone, I lead Sunday School music.  If they know the depth of my illness the depth of my depression, they will think I am crazy- I am not crazy, I want to help people I want to be a useful member of church, my work place, my home.  But I am falling into a hole that swallows me up and I am not sure if I can get out of it.

Christmas was aweful.  I tried to make it best for the kids my husband, but I couldn’t stomach it.  I put 1/2 of the decorations up- I go nuts usually with decorations even in the washrooms. Not this year.  I couldn’t cook.  Praise the Lord for cooked chickens at Costco! and the 101 things you can do with it.  My Mother-on-law thought I was just being a snob, and called me a “poop!” cause she was disgusted with me.  I couldn’t tell her that I was in a dark hole the I was trying to get out of.  She already doesn’t like me I couldn’t give her another reason to think badly of me.  I struggled through.  And then I got better I felt happier for a while.   I am going to stop here in this journey for now.

I guess the point of this post is that as the realization hit, that I was going through some troubling times, God was near. I felt that I was alone from him.  I felt as if there was a cloud between us –but that was my own mind creating it, when I was at my most down He drew closer. But the lie likes to take these moment when God draws near and try to confuse you.  Its the lies  way of doing things, confuse, distract, hurt.   The more I felt down the more I meditated on Gods word and I felt relef, not peace but a little better.  Our God is  a Mighty God, and when I was lowest He showed me His Great love, and Grace that is so abounding , these simple words can’t not do it justice.  Just know He is there for the asking.  Ask and ye shall receive seek and ye shall find knock and the Lord will open the door.  You will find Him and the love, joy, and peace that goes with it.  More to come next time please come again and read.