Comfort for the Neurotic in All of Us

Most of the people who used to read my original blog back in 2004 were drawn by the title because they, themselves struggled with some sort of depression. Misery loves company… so finding out that you’re not the only person that deals with dark days is comforting. Back then, it always felt like nobody understood and that made the darkness all the worse. Blogging helped shed light into my darkness.

Over the years I came to understand that while not everybody suffers from a mental illness, everybody has challenges in life. Some people will be motivated by the “Super Heroes of Adversity” — people who lose body parts and get movies made of their lives. While other people will be motivated by the lives of people like me — every day people who haven’t done anything spectacular, but who deal with life and all of its challenges in faith. It wasn’t until I attended my last Hawaii Writers Conference that I added the tag line (Comfort for the Neurotic in All of Us) because I finally realized that you don’t have to have a mental illness to take comfort in the things that God has taught me. I also realized that you don’t even have to be a Christian to take comfort in God’s truths because truth is truth no matter what you believe.

There are some things that I learned along the way that I’d like to condense and share now. Not sure if this is going to fully evolve into a line of thought or if it’s going to be a one hit wonder…. but for what it’s worth, here are some things I have found that comforted me through the difficulties of life; things that I think could comfort the “neurotic in all of us” and let’s face it… if we’re honest, we are all a little neurotic. Only thing is, some of us have to take prescriptions for it.

Comfort #1: Find an Outlet.

Not THAT kinda outlet.

For me, my outlet was blogging. I’d been journaling for years and had a mountain of journals to prove it. That was helpful... but there was still all this darkness bottled up inside me that was oozing out of my pores. I needed a safety valve to help let off some of the pressure.  I’d tried therapy for years and only had minimal relief. I was put on meds in 1998 and that helped some, but nothing helped me like being able to pour out my soul to a faceless, nameless audience of people who cared enough to read. There were no string attached and nobody expected more than I could give. The loneliness that had shadowed me around like a phantom would evaporate when I sat down at my laptop to express what was on my mind. I’m not trying to act like I’m the poster girl for Bipolar. I can only speak of my own experience, but having an outlet for what I was living and feeling had the biggest impact on my life. Blogging saved my life. Because of my depression and my basic personality, I leaned heavily towards isolation. And isolation and depression are a dangerous combination. Yet even in a crowd I could be painfully alone because I never let people in enough to know what I felt.

In my original blog I could just feel. I didn’t concern myself with what other people might think or what pictures to add or how to express my point so that people would get it. I just wrote what needed to get out. I still maintain that blogging is the best free therapy to be found. It offers something that journaling to yourself can never provide: other people. Real human contact with people who care enough to read. Personally, I think everybody should blog no matter what their writing ability is. We all have a story to tell. There are lessons to learn from every life that was ever lived so if you never take the time to record your story… who will read of it when you are gone?

Worried about what people will think? Blog anonymously. I did that up until 2009 then I started inviting all my friends and church family to read it. That was weird and still takes some getting used to especially since I’m pretty open about my struggles with mental illness, sexual addiction, and porn. But it’s weirder for me than it is for the people I know because not one of them treats me any differently now that they know. If anything it has taken a King Kong sized monkey of fear and shame off of my back.

Things bothering you that you can’t keep in your head?? Not able to express them to the people concerned? Find a place to blog and exorcise your inner demons. Why not?? It’s free. Don’t have time?? What about all that time you lose worrying and stressing?? Don’t mention names or details that will later come back to haunt you. And don’t tell your friends and family if you don’t want people to know… but holding it in and trying to be all stoic never really helped anybody. Is it really helping you??

Gone are the days where I needed to blog several times a day… or in the wee hours as I fled a nightmare. Now I blog when I feel like I have something I want to say. I am more the master of my own thoughts than I’ve ever been… and that right there gives me comfort.

 

 

Next time:

Comfort #2 ???

 

Commercial #968

My mind is still on overload… so it’s time for yet ANOTHER commercial. There’s no “Christian” content in it… but there’s a whole lot of wisdom to be found!

Enjoy “Things NOT to Say to Your Wife”....

 

 

Laughter… right up there with prayer as being the best medicine of all.

See the Fruit — Find the Root

Another session with the prayer counselor is behind me. The sessions, in and of themselves, have not been traumatic. The first one was positively benign. My big fear that it would be a  bunch of navel gazing and pointless emotional scab pulling turned out to be false. The books that she’d had me read to prepare for the prayer ministry created a lot of inner turmoil for me leading up to it and I still wish she’d have let me skip them… but the woman who opened the door that first session was not a quack. She was very professional, but I could also sense her commitment to the Lord and her desire to help me.

I did a lot of processing after the last session… but then I didn’t really want to consciously think about it anymore. My dreams and the busy-ness of my life forced all but the most intrusive thoughts on to the back burner. This week I am determined not to do that. I felt like I wasted an entire week… like God had graciously plowed the ground, planted seeds and then I went to sleep on the job. Like when I started playing Farmville on Facebook. I was TOTALLY into the idea of having my own cyber farm and growing stuff. Scripture is full of farming metaphors and since I am never going to live on a farm in this life time, I liked seeing little farmer me in coveralls planting and harvesting stuff. My crops looked so cool when they were ready for harvest — even if I had to get up at 3am to do the harvesting. Eventually, however, I lost interest. Who wants to get up at odd hours to harvest imaginary food? It was, after all, a fake farm and none of the growth was real even if the spiritual applications that I got from them were.

This week I did not spend hours seeking the Lord’s perspective on the counseling. Nor did I spend hours in my bible learning how to use my sword. I prayed to God all day because that’s what I do, but there wasn’t some big burning change in me. I was… well... still me. When will I learn that God is generally not in the business of morphing us into new people just because we ask him too? But the week was not a total loss. I might not have morphed into a better Christian, but I was chewing on the notion of soul ties that the counselor had brought up. And my dreams were making it pretty clear that something in my subconscious is just below the surface waiting for God to reveal it to me… but beyond that, I didn’t work the field.

That has to change if I really want all that God has for me through this experience. A relationship works both ways. I can’t tell God that I love him and then ignore him. Or worse, seek out other lovers! This week when the Big Bad Dreams came a knockin’ I didn’t cling to Jesus. I turned to masturbation and television to soothe my fractured nerves. How much did that grieve the Lord? If I had a real husband at this time and I told him I’d rather masturbate and watch television instead of spend time with him, how rejected would he feel?

When I was talking to my counselor today I told her that I kept having the same kinds of dramas in my life. Very clear patterns exist in the types of trials that I go through. I told her that if “all roads lead to Rome,” then my issues with incest issues, the porn, and the early exposure to sexual behaviors was my Rome! She said that she agreed with me and it was her job to look at the fruit and trace it back to the root. In seeking out the roots of what ails me she raised some interesting points. The biggest point was that I was a “burden bearer.”

I’d already decided that even if I didn’t immediately buy in to anything that she said, I was willing to concede that there was a slight chance that it might be true and that it wouldn’t hurt me to pray about things she suggested as long as I wasn’t in violent opposition. She read a description of a “Burden Bearer” and it was like that song “Killing Me Softly.” It was as if she knew me. I mean really knew me. Not just the me I let people see. She saw past all of that and was able to put this label of being a “Burden Bearer” on me. Now some people object to being labeled. I don’t. I’ll explain why in another post. Let’s just say that life is full of labels and they help the world run smoothly. As she described me to me, I was forced to sit still and say nothing.

This ministry has coined a lot of terms that I disagree with and do not think are particularly scriptural. I have been very verbal in my disagreement. But Burden Bearer? I know scripture calls us to bear one another’s burdens. I know that there are many other places where burdens are mentioned. I didn’t feel like she was taking a scripture out of context and camping there. What she was saying had that distinctive ring of truth, the kind of truth that sets you free. I came home and googled “burden bearers” and there’s actually an amazing amount of information out there on it (unlike some of the other terms the use). I’m too mind fried right now to research it, but I will. I believe what she said. I am a burden bearer. She said it was a gift that could become a curse if misunderstood. I think I’ve had enough of the curse part. Bring on the gift.

This week I am not going to bury myself watching episodes of “Numb3rs” on Netflix. There’s nothing wrong with it, but if I’m turning to television and fictional people to help me cope with my stress instead of turning to God, then it’s an idol. I need to push it off the thrown and spend time with Jesus first. Lord willing, I won’t have anymore bizaro sex dreams that prompt me to masturbate in order to cope, but if I do, I’m not going to let condemnation put me in another kind of prison. I will seek Jesus to the best of my ability and not harsh on myself because I’m not Susy Q. Super Christian. I will talk to God about what I’m feeling and thinking and then I will blog here. This journey is not for me alone. I know of at least one person who feels like God has me blogging for her. I am not the only person who has had to eat the fruit of a rotten tree. If healing is there to be had by me... it is there to be had by other people. If Jesus enables me to see the light and be healed by it… I want to shine my light directly into the eyes of people who have been blind, just like me.

So whatever fruit falls from the tree this week; whatever roots that begin to protrude from the soil… I’m going to experience all of it. No more pushing it down and denying it or trying to self-medicate my way  through it. During the session a thought just kept recurring to me, “I’m going to be ok. I’m going to be ok.” I know that was from God. And if God says it, he’s going to do it. Unlike with Farmville, I pray that I would continue to nurture my spiritual walk with Jesus this week. That whatever seeds he’s planting now he would show me how to water. This time next year I fully expect to be in a different emotional place… and for once in my life, I’m expecting that place to be a good place.

 

Bipolar Girl Interrupted (episode #96)

I’ve been pretty tightly wound for a few weeks now. The closer I get to this intense Christian prayer counseling the more buttons get pushed. The more of my buttons get pushed, the more I need to have a reality check. My reality check came in the most unlikely of places. I actually made reservations over a month ago not knowing that at just the right time with just the right person God would give me just what I needed most: the return of my sense of humor.

I have long since believed that as long as I could laugh I was going to be ok. Even when I was at my most suicidal, if I could find something worth laughing about I knew that things were not so far gone for me that there was no coming back. It was when I couldn’t find something to laugh about, when my sense of humor seemed to desert me altogether, that I became really afraid of the dark pit of depression I’d fallen into. Now that I’m not actively struggling with suicidal thoughts my lack of laughter hasn’t seemed so dire, but weeks and weeks of stress aren’t good for anybody.

My moodiness was interrupted by magic.

Seriously. God used magic to break up the monotony of all that stress by having me take a friend to go see a local magician by the name of Warren and Annabelle. Without ruining it for anybody who might like to go see him (I highly recommend it), the entire evening was wonderful. The food, the music, my friend’s company? It was all exactly what I needed. I’ve been holing up in my place by myself and not making efforts to get out and just have fun. I could say that stress was sucking the life out of me… but the truth is that I was sucking the life out of me. After years of struggling with Bipolar Disorder, I know that my choices are important when I’m dealing with a lot of stress. I can wallow in it and hide my head in the sand hoping it will go away OR I can be proactive. Maybe I can’t change any of the things giving me stress, but I don’t have to focus on them 24/7 and I don’t have to go it alone.

I’ve got some amazing friends that are voluntarily walking through all this counseling prep with me. I am eternally grateful for them. But if I allow this counseling stress to consume my life all day every day, what exactly am I accomplishing? One of those friends has pointed out more than once that I need to make time for fun in my life and I’m trying to take her advice.

My friend and I got there for a 5pm check in and after a really cool entrance into “Annabelle’s Parlor” we treated to a really awesome meal. I hadn’t actually planned on talking about the counseling, but since it’s pretty much been consuming my life, it was hard to talk about what’s been going on with me and not bring it up. During dinner I explained to my friend why I was doing the counseling and that helped remind me exactly why I’m doing it: God wants me to do it and I want to be obedient. One would think that bringing the counseling up would have tanked the evening, but it didn’t. My friend had some good insights and talking to somebody who is not deeply involved with this process was good. We talked about it and then stopped talking about it so we could focus on the fun. From dinner they led us into the theater where Warren was going to perform.

Warren is an amazing slight of hand magician/comic who was so funny my stress and depression died laughing. We were sitting up front at the table where he was performing, so I was close enough to stare (unblinkingly) at  his hands and, for the life of me, I could not figure out how he did what he did. I was amazed and I usually don’t get into magicians. I’ve never seen one live. The ones on tv always seem like so much hype and hot air. I know it’s fake so I don’t believe it… and I’m not interested. Warren changed my mind about magicians.

Seeing is believing? Even if you know it’s a lie performed by somebody trying to deceive you?? That concept gave me lots of food for thought to dissect later... but that night I didn’t care. It was good, clean fun and it was funny. It was enough for me that I couldn’t stop laughing. From start to finish he had me laughing so bad my chest hurt. I haven’t laughed that hard in... well... I can’t remember when I’ve laughed that hard. We both laughed hysterically all the way through it.

Consequently, we were both in a great mood the entire 45 minute drive home. When she dropped me off I was happily ready to kill any critter that might have been waiting on the floor inside my house when I turned on the light. I was determined that nothing would rob me of my good mood. I was also ready to deal with any response I might have gotten from the counselor.I was fairly certain that I’d pushed the edge of her envelop and she wasn’t going to want to work with me if I couldn’t tow their party line. Oddly enough, I really didn’t want her to bail. And something that I read in my Bible helped put her response in context for me. I read in the book of Luke where Jesus tells his followers that before they can be his disciples they have to count the cost.

After all these weeks and months of preparing for this counseling I have been forced to count the cost. Back in January I had no way of knowing exactly what God was asking of me when I said that I would do the counseling. Maybe in the beginning I was willing to consider it because my mentor had suggested it, but it’s probably pretty clear to most people who read this blog regularly, I am not easily led. I do not do things just because people tell me to. I am not easily led. As much as I disagree with most of the major premises, I’m supposed to do this counseling. If she declined to work with me I wasn’t exactly sure what I was going to do. I’d asked her to consider doing two sessions with me and seeing how they went. If it was too much either of us could throw up the white flag.

Jesus never promised that being his disciple would be easy. Personally, I think it is even harder for believers who struggle with mental illness because so much of our lives are lived in our mind. I know being his disciple has not been easy for me. It might get a lot rougher before it gets better… but I think now I’ve counted the cost enough to commit to two sessions. I don’t have to buy into their process. I just have to love him and want to obey him.

When logged on there was an email from the counselor. A few short sentences. She agreed with what I’d said in my email to her about why I should do the counseling despite my attitude towards their methods. She was willing if I was will and would see me in August for our first session. When I read that I felt relieved –not happy like earlier in the evening and I definitely did not feel like laughing... but when I read it I felt relieved and I smiled. Maybe after the counseling I’ll be smiling and laughing.

If Laughter is the BEST medicine... the Divine Physician prescribed it!

Is Too Much Honesty Bad for Mental Health?

The other day I told my boss actual details about my history with Bipolar Disorder than I’d ever planned to tell her. I felt like I needed to because of something that she is asking me to do at work. It has the potential to really set me off. Now she seems distant. Is it because of all the stress of ending our school year and sending the students home? Or is it because I shared too much information and she’s questioning her decision to hire me? I won’t have a chance to ask her until next week and it’s getting in my head. It feels awkward when I run into her. I don’t like awkward. I lose sleep over awkward.

Two days ago I told the Christian counselor via email exactly how her latest request made me feel. She wants me to read a  book by an author who does not adhere to secular labels like Bipolar Disorder. That was what upset me in my last post. I have had it with Christians who completely dismiss mental illness and say that if I just pray harder, repent more, or believe whatever Christianese jargon they are pushing that I will be ok. Been there. And I haven’t been ok afterwards. That kind of stuff has messed me up in the past and pushed my suicidal buttons. Such teaching is a dangerous road and being told that I need to face that road again before I do this counseling was the last straw. To come so far and then to face an immovable wall? I lost it. I am not reading that book. IF it were shorter I might just suck it up and read it, but it will take me over a month read it. One month where every time I pick it up my buttons get mashed. I’d be giving depression, fear, rage, and suicidal thoughts entry to my mind every day. One month where I’d have to struggle to pull myself together enough to try to function like a normal person. That isn’t even considering the other book on sexual abuse healing that she wants me to read. That one is sure to bring up issues.

Which brings to mind a question: should I have kept my mouth shut? Should I have kept my boss in the dark about work related triggers for my Bipolar? I’m not actively struggling with suicidal thoughts or really deep depression now. Maybe I would’ve  handled these upcoming triggers differently. And maybe I should have maintained a “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy with the counselor, because now she’s saying that maybe the counseling isn’t for now.

It’s like being prepped for surgery and then having the surgeon tell you just before the anesthesia that it’s a no go. I have no idea where to go from here. She hasn’t  actually said that she wouldn’t counsel me, but it put me in a position where I actually had to ask her to do it. How can I so vehemently want to do something that I don’t want to do?? Their process is driving me crazy. I feel like all my innards have been dragged out of me and placed on a table in front of me — so much of my baggage is laying open and exposed to the light of day that I have no idea what to feel, what to think, or what to do.

The whole social song and dance where people don’t say what they mean? I’ve never learned the steps to that dance and I appear to be singing off key. If honesty is the best policy why to do I feel so distraught now?

The Road to Spiritual Health…

is paved with potholes.

For the past week I’ve been noticing something when I drive to work: a small section of the winding road has been repaved for no apparent reason. Why not pave the entire road? The entire road is bumpy and it’s narrow. One lane in either direction that is made difficult and dangerous by the presence of bike riders. There’s no bike lane and annoyed drivers take their lives and the lives of others in their hands when they try to pass the bikers on these curves. Most days I leave early enough to miss the bikers and other drivers altogether. My road rage gets the best/worst of me and I am swearing like a sailor on shore leave by the time I complete my 8 minute commute. It is just easier for me to adjust my schedule and avoid them all.

It took me a while to notice that they had repaved the road. They’d been working on water pipes under the road for a long time, so it only makes sense that the new pavement was to cover the giant holes they had to dig. This made me think of the story about the guy continually falling into the hole in the road. I blogged about it a while back. After repeatedly falling into the same hole in the road, he decides to take a different path and avoid the hole altogether. I have always loved that story.

The other day as I drove over the nice new pavement it dawned on me that sometimes God has me on a pockmarked two laned road for a reason and I can’t take another path. There is only one road that I can take to get to my job unless I want to try off-roading it through sugar cane fields. There is only one way and that is to go forward. What do you do on the curvy road that is fraught with potholes, slow-moving cars, and bike riders who think a helmet is going to protect them from getting hit by a car? There are so many dangers on an 8 minute stretch of road. So many things that can trigger my temper to go from 0 to 75 in less than a minute. Since avoiding the road hazards is not possible, I need to start with acceptance. Accept that this is the path I must take. It is the only way.

It made me think of the path that God has me on leading to this aggressive Christian prayer counseling that I’ve been prepping to do. I’ve accepted it grudgingly. I still don’t want to do it but I’m going to. My prayer the other day while I was driving? God pave the road. If this is the road you want me to travel… God, please pave the road.

I hit a giant pothole on the road to spiritual health yesterday. They got my application, cashed my check, and called me yesterday. She wants me to read another book! As if the first two hadn’t made me mental enough. She also cannot fit me in during the two weeks the students are going to be gone. They advertized that they do one week “intensives” and I liked the sound of that. I don’t want to drag this thing out over weeks and months. There is no point in picking at this spiritual and emotional scab. Picking at scabs never accomplishes anything. Rip it off in one quick pull. I wanted to treat this like a stealth mission — get in and get out of there with the precision of a navy SEAL. She cannot fit me in until August. After the stress-filled build up to it… I have to wait another month. The temptation to cut bait is high. How much more of this can I take?

Lord, pave the road.

He has me on this path for a reason. He knew about the potholes, the people who would get in my way and make my journey difficult — the other people whose actions create very real hazards, as well as the people who are just moving at a different speed. He has me on this path for my good and his intention is not to harm me no matter how difficult traveling this road seems to be. I have to get back to the woman before Wednesday. For the life of me I do not know what to say. If I push for a one week intensive I’m looking at using vacation time because there is no way I can do three hours of daily counseling for a week  and still be able to function at work. If I go for the weekly counseling then I’m looking at having my buttons pushed and scabs pulled weekly for an indefinite time period–neither of which sounds appealing to me. I doesn’t surprise me that I had bad dreams last night. This road that I do not want to travel has been full of potholes and there is no other road to take.

Some might say to just stop. Give up. But that would be like getting three quarters of the way to work and then turning off the ignition in the middle of the road. Stopping is not an option. Turning around is also not an option. I have a destination and there is only one way to get there. Since I cannot pave the road myself by getting mad or resisting the drive… my best course of action is to continue to pray and ask God to pave the road. And once I pray that, I need to continue to trust him by moving forward.

I Am NOT a Rock. I Am NOT an Island

**Warning: Editing not included! I’m exhausted and am grammatically impaired.

 

The good moods bear noting. If I were to go over all the blog posts I’ve keep since I started blogging back in 2004, I would see that most of them were written when I was upset. If “misery loves company” is true, the one can say that misery is obsessed with the internet. So many people (myself included) sit down at the keyboard when they are alone, lonely, and feeling things bottling up that they cannot express to another person. Maybe there are no other people to listen. Years ago before I got diagnosed, I’d gotten to the point where I’d burned most of my friends out. They had tried listening to me and supporting me and got tired of having to go through the cycles with me only to see me repeat the cycle when they thought I should have gotten better.

I think it was back then that I started to think that being an island had merits. You can’t be hurt when people abandon you if you don’t let them in in the first place. And for me, being an island wasn’t enough. I had to go an move to an island, thereby making isolation a geographical reality as well.

Tonight I am reminded that isolation is not always good or healthy. I’m in a good mood tonight. I had a busy productive day at work — my supervisor even came in for an unscheduled observation. Normally, I hate being observed, but my class was on track. I was doing my best. I was cranked out when I got home… but when I walked into the door, I reminded myself that I wasn’t in a bad mood. I was just tired and hungry. EVERYBODY feels that at some point. Learning to differentiate between what is a mood and what is a cry for dinner is a good thing. I felt heaps better after I ate.

I could have happily watched videos until it was time to go to bed. Netflix has become a staple in my home.

Tonight I stepped out of  my norm. I didn’t watch videos and I didn’t put my earplugs in. I turned on my cellphone and called a friend who just moved to the mainland. The phone is a personal quirk for me. I don’t like to use the phone. I have 450 anytime minutes and free nights and weekends… and every month I use about 14 minutes. I hate talking on the phone and only have a cell in case I have car trouble or I get attacked by a biker gang or something horrible like that. My friends don’t even call me because they know my phone isn’t going to be on. Not using the phone that I have helps to keep the walls of the bubble intact. It also keeps people who I might want to let in, out. I used to blog because I’d kept people out for so long that nobody dared come near me.  I was lonely and I didn’t know how to change things.

Now? I realize I need more personal space than the average bear. I LOVE living alone and don’t plan on having another housemate unless I’m getting married. If I want people in my life I’m going to have to invite them in. The person I called tonight is very dear to me. I needed to talk to her because talking to her enriches my life. Would you believe that we talked for nearly an hour?? It was almost like she hadn’t moved an ocean away. Who knew that telephones could be so cool? I was on a natural high when we got off the phone. I was so buoyant that one phone call was not going to do it. I called another friend and made a breakfast date for Saturday. I ended up texting somebody ( I rarely do that) and we ended up talking on the phone for a while. It was awesome. Instead of feeling drained from the conversations I was feeling energized by them.

For so many years I have tried to keep people from getting close to me. I didn’t want them to see the depths of my mental illness or my sexual addiction. I was tired of fending off well-meaning advice from people who really had no clue what Bipolar was doing to me and my mind. I became an island like in the Simon and Garfunkel song:

Hiding in my room, safe within my womb.
I touch no one and no one touches me.
I am a rock,
I am an island.

And a rock feels no pain;
And an island never cries.

Right now with this counseling coming up and all my buttons having been pushed, I need a lot more personal space than normal… but I also need people. I wish I could have learned how to express my needs to my friends back in the day the way I’ve learned to express them now. All of my friends I called tonight know about my past struggles with Bipolar. They were there for me during the worst of it. But they also know that I’m not struggling with it anymore and they want to be a part of that part of my life as well. And since I live alone and never turn on my phone, it was up to me to reach out of my bubble and connect with people. I am SO glad that I did. Living alone is a good thing for me, but isolation is not. All week I have felt like something was missing. Today I realized that it was human contact. And not the kind I get at work. I needed to talk to people who really care about me and my well-being. People who I also cared about and had formed relationships. That song might have catchy lyrics, but being an island sucks.

I might not know how to relate to people yet, but I have to keep trying. My steps might seem small to most people — picking up a phone. But if you saw how stressed out I get when I have to use my phone, you might understand how big of a step that was for me. Not just one conversation, but three?? I am NOT an rock! I am NOT an island.

 

 

 

Brace Yourself

The physical therapist fit me for a customized brace for my thumb on Friday. My thumb was accidentally injured back in October of last year and I waited and waited… and kept waiting to get professional care. My reasons seemed valid at the time and if I had it to do all over again, I would still have to wait, but I wouldn’t have waited as long as I did. There are all  kinds of spiritual parallels that are pinging through my mind right now and I’ve started this post a few times only to hit delete. In fact, I deleted my last attempt and logged out because the words just would not come. All I could really get was “Brace yourself.“

When will I learn that when God speaks softly it would be in my best interest to just be still and listen?

Stillness is hard for me. Especially when my buttons are being pushed. I live so much of my life in my head that even when I’m sleeping, I am not still. My unrest of last Sunday followed me throughout my entire week. I could not make my mind stop obsessing over things I could not change. I also couldn’t make myself read that third counseling book, but decided that since it wasn’t actually required, I wasn’t obligated to read it. I came home Friday and typed a letter to accompany my application for counseling and then I fell into a weird, almost drugged state. I wasn’t asleep, but I couldn’t move. It lasted  until I prayed. I asked Jesus to help me fight this mental snare that I seemed to be caught up in and within moments I was clearheaded and able to move. Brace myself? Did God mean more than  just my new splint? I call it my “Frankensplint” because, while it was custom made for me, it’s not very pretty. Looks like McGyver made it…. but if it will do the job I will wear it no matter how ugly it is. I trust God to heal my thumb why do I struggle so much with how he’s choosing to heal my soul?

I mailed my application for counseling yesterday. I felt like I was putting a ball into motion that I wasn’t going to be able to stop. For months I have been grappling with the very idea of this counseling. Now my application and the check that went with it was out of my hands. I wrote a three page letter to go along with the 15 page application almost hoping that they will think I’m such a maverick that they don’t want to take my case. I would have done my due diligence. Not my fault if they don’t want to take me. What’s that scientific principle about there being an equal and opposite reaction for every action?

It has always seemed that every time I have tried to get close to the roots of my depression, suicidal ideation, and incest issues that the bottom would drop out of my world. I’d fall down the spiral staircase that is Bipolar Disorder and would  end up like poor old Mrs. Fletcher from those old commercials: I’ve fallen and I can’t get up!

It is this fear of falling into a mental abyss that stops me from wanting to pursue Christian counseling. Yet my secular therapist was never going to be able to help me go the rest of the way. Don’t get me wrong. It took a secular therapist to diagnose that I even had Bipolar Disorder. The church had failed me pretty miserable on that count. Christian counseling hadn’t yielded much success on either. God led me to a secular therapist because I needed medication much like my mom and my two sisters needed insulin for their diabetes. But, when secular medicine had done all that it could do, Jesus stood in the middle of my confusion, calling me to come and touch the hem of his robe like the woman who’d been bleeding for 12 years. Therapy is not going to help me deal with what ails me, the church is.

But somewhere along the line I began to despise the church for its inability to handle or even understand my mental health issues. I was frustrated and fed up with people telling me I just had to forgive or pray some new type of prayer or, worse, that I needed to let them cast some demon out of me. So much of what was wrong with me was chemical in nature and I needed secular medicine to address it. But what is left is purely spiritual in nature, and for that I need prayer. Hence, the intensive Christian prayer counseling.

God, in his infinite wisdom, called me away from secular therapy. There is only so much that secular therapy can do because it does not accept the truth of Jesus. I always felt like my therapists were humoring me when I talked about things of the faith. It was like they sought to treat my problems without fully looking at all of me. You cannot separate my mind from my spirit. And you cannot separate my spirit from the spiritual realm in which we live. Because I struggle with some excesses done in the name of “spiritual warfare” I always hesitated to bring up my belief in “spiritual attacks” to the people who were trying to treat me. Mostly it was out of fear of the rubber rooms they would have put me in if I said that Satan was attacking me. Even here, in my own blog, I’m not going to go all spiritual warrior on you because I worry about what people will think.

But it is enough for me to note that when I step out to take significant steps to draw near to God’s purpose for my mental health, there have been an equal opposite reactions. Brace yourself? Why was I not listening?

I’ve been tuning God out all week. I think I only opened my Bible a few times and only for cursory flybys. I didn’t do any serious bible study. I haven’t in a few weeks now. And while I spent time talking to God… it wasn’t anything of any real importance and I never stopped to ask him what he thought. I’d dump and then run, not waiting to hear his response. I zoned out in front of my laptop watching countless hours of television.

When I woke up this morning I’d dreamed. I felt that lethargy I always feel when I dream. Generally, I have no idea what my dreams mean and have to research dream imagery (yes, I do this). This morning, my dream was pretty clear: do not miss out on living today because I’m obsessing about baggage other people have dumped on me.

When I start this counseling, so much baggage is going to come up and it is not all mine no matter what the prayer counselor says. While I’ve been struggling to accept their process, I have missed out on the fact that God is bigger than their process. I just need to show up and trust God. It took a while for me to shake off the lethargy, but when I did I got ready for church. I didn’t particularly feel like going, but I knew without a doubt, that I was supposed to be there. I prayed and asked God to help me deal with whatever button pushing was going to ensue and I got in my car. I was edgy when I got there, but I was there. I had been obedient. And not just in going to church. Saturday had been a study in me being obedient.

I’d mailed the application and called my estranged sister yesterday. She didn’t pick up and I was happy about that. I haven’t spoken on the phone to her in over two years I think. When I told my mom about my sexual addiction she didn’t handle it well. She drew a line in the sand with “Crazy” written on one side and “Liar” written on the other. I wasn’t willing to stand on either side, so I severed our relationship. My mom got custody of my older sister.

Maybe having my sister re-enter my life just as I’m about to start this counseling isn’t the wisest thing I could be doing. I contacted her on Mother’s Day because she was more of a mom to me than my bio-mom ever would be. Part of me didn’t think she would respond. Now that she has, I wonder how I’m going to handle relationship with her when all the emotional scabs start getting picked during counseling. I have already told her that I do not want to talk about our family. So many of the roots of my bitterness and rage can be traced back to our family. Brace yourself? Why was I still not listening?

My buttons started getting mashed before I’d even sat down in church. I was about to get the bubble ready for the service when a guy comes and puts his backpack on the seat that I was just about to put my things on. I do it on purpose. I create a perimeter around myself in church. I sit on an end seat in the front row. That means nobody can sit in front of me or on my left. I put my bag, my bible, and my journal on the seat next to me to stop people from sitting next to me. This guys was planning to breach the bubble. He was not offended when I told him that I was going to use the seat, but he did move… all the  way to the other side of the sanctuary. That made me feel guilty, but not enough to call him back over. Then, Conspiracy Theory, the man from last week’s upset, came and sat a few seats over from me! I was ready to get up and leave. I could not take another run in with this weird man. I was feeling more and more on edge.

As the music started to play I felt like I was strapped into a roller coaster car. I hate roller coasters. Whatever peace I’d had when I left home was completely gone. It didn’t matter how many steps forward I’d taken yesterday… I was falling backwards and I couldn’t stop myself. I keep telling God that I wanted to leave. I knew that if I left, I was never coming back. I forced myself to stay where I was. I sat there silently crying in a room full of singing people. Then they had a change of plan and had an altar call. If anybody needed prayer for healing then they should come forward. Even sporting my new splint I could  not make myself go forward. Then the pastor said that it didn’t have to just be physical healing. It could be for emotional, mental, or spiritual healing as well. The part of me that hurt so badly wanted prayer… but I couldn’t make myself go up for it. I couldn’t move forward. 

I felt like the paralyzed guy in scripture whose friends cut a hole through the ceiling to bring him to Jesus. He was healed because of their faith. No mention was made of his own, but I’m sure he believed after the healing. I watched with a heavy heart and an exhausted mind as people went up for prayer. “Lord, I want healing but I cannot go up there.” I physically could not make myself move. I told Jesus that if he had healing planned for me then he’d need to have somebody come to me. I kept looking over as if my gaze alone could will somebody over. Nobody even seemed to be looking my way. Then, the female pastor (we have a husband/wife pastoral team) stopped praying with somebody, turned around, and started to walk back to her seat. She was abreast with me when she changed direction, sat down next to me, and said she wanted to pray for me!

God had not only heard my prayer, he gave me an immediate answer. She said a lot more than prayer, but it’s personal. It did confirm to me that God has not abandoned me to my circumstances and that he is allowing the button pushing for a reason. He sees my struggles and my obedience and his call to me is “Persevere.” I was a bawling snotty mess by the time she finished speaking to me. When she left me she told me to just receive what he was doing. Or at least that’s what I think she said. I was pretty far gone by then. I was writing something in my journal when I felt a tap on my shoulder. Before the service had started I’d written that I was alone and struggling and nobody knew. I wondered if the body of Christ even cared. Then God sent the pastor to pray for me. I thought that’s what I had to brace myself for…

When I looked up the light was streaming into the darkened theater where we have church, so that the person who tapped me on the shoulder was bathed in light: my mentor and spiritual mom was standing there!

She does not attend this church. She did not tell me that she was going to come. She had no idea that I’d actually be there. I had no idea why she was there, but she was there and apparently looking for me. I jumped up out of my seat during the middle of a worship song and just hugged her and sobbed. I couldn’t stop sobbing. I had told God that I needed him to send somebody and he sent the one person who could make me feel safe. Her presence assured me anew that I was on the right path. God has sent me to this church as a part of my healing. He knows that my buttons are being pushed. He is allowing this because he loves me. What secular therapy has been unable to do for me, God fully intends to do and the tools he uses are his people. She told me that this counseling isn’t going to be easy for me, but that God loves me. Even without such dramatic answer to prayer I know that he loves me.

Just as the service was about to close, a visiting pastor who works in the prophetic said that she had a word for someone. Normally, this kind of stuff seems like so much smoke and mirrors to me and this woman has always seemed a bit loosey goosey. But she said that she saw someone cowering in fear in front of an open door. She said that God wanted them to GO FORWARD because on the other side of the door was blue skies.

Sure, that could be anything about anybody… but I am choosing to believe that it was more confirmation that I am on the right path. There were other things that really spoke to me today, but one final thing that struck me was what I was writing in my journal when my mentor tapped me on the shoulder. God had laid a verse on my heart and I was copying it into my journal. “Isaiah 29,” was all he’d said to me, so I looked it up. I’d previously underlined the following verse:

Shall what is formed say to him who formed it,
   “He did not make me”?
Can the pot say of the potter,
   “He knows nothing”?

God made me. He knows what he’s doing. He knows exactly what I need in order to deal with the roots and be free. Who am I to try to tell him that his ways are too much for me to handle? This particular roller coaster ride is almost guaranteed to be difficult, but I’m forgetting who is on the ride with me. He will answer me cries even when I don’t even open my mouth to voice them. He is not going to destroy my mental health in order to restore it, so I need to stop resisting in fear. I need to brace myself and continue to go forward.

…Requires Being Still. (Part 2 of 2)

So there I was feeling trapped in the front row at church. I was seething inwardly and feverishly trying to write down what had just happened in my “Jesus Journal,” the hardback journal that I take to church with me. In it I write letters to Jesus, anything he might have said to me through the worship, or through the message, and anything else significant that had happened at church while it was happening. In later days, weeks, months, or even years I gone back and looked over these journals to try to connect the dots between where I was and where I am to see how I got there.

The words I was frantically trying to scribble down as the pastor started speaking were sloppy and rushed. I really couldn’t hear him because I really wasn’t listening. Then his words penetrated my anger soaked mind. He, too, was talking about distractions and how they stop us from hearing God. In my anger at this man had I even heard the first few words the pastor had said?? I had believed that if I didn’t write and tell Jesus just how mad I was about what had just happened I was going to dwell on it during the entire service and miss the point entirely. One point that I was missing (clearly) is that our omniscient Lord had already seen what had happened long before it had. He didn’t need me to write to him. He knew that I was going to react negatively to this man and that I would wallow in guilt and anger over my reaction. I am still, two days later, wallowing in guilt and anger And Jesus knew that too.

I am not sure exactly what the pastor was saying that finally got my attention, but I stopped writing and started to “consider carefully how I listen.” Maybe it was when he said that going forward in God meant being still! The similarity of his words to the ones I’d written in my blog didn’t escape me. But the fact that he linked going forward with being still struck me hard. In my mind I tend to link going forward with forward motion. It seems logical. But if I’m going forward without stopping to see what God’s purpose in everything is…  exactly how far am I really going to get? I was so intent on my purpose for going to church that I almost  missed God’s purpose for telling me to go.

Ever heard that song, “Killing Me Softly?” It’s an old song about a woman who goes to listen to a young singer. As she sat in the audience she got the shock of her life. It seemed like every word he sang was from one of her letters, and hearing her own words, her own life, sung about by a stranger was painful. It seemed like not only the Prophet Lady had eavesdropped on my conversation with Jesus, but the pastor had too. He said that he felt he had a word for people in the congregation, but didn’t know who. He said that maybe somebody was questioning why God even had them at that church in the first place because it was pushing their buttons and making them mad. That they had seen and experienced things there that they didn’t believe in and didn’t want to believe in. (*Gulp*). He said that perhaps there were some who had the gift of prophecy and didn’t want it… that they were content to just be teachers. (So what’s wrong with just being a teacher?? I like just being a teacher). Having a prophetic gift and a mental illness did not make for an easy walk for me.

He had no idea that I was coming Sunday. My attendance has officially crossed over into sketchy. Yet there he was giving a message that could have been lifted verbatim out of some of my recent blogs. I felt like God was talking directly to me.

As he spoke I stopped focusing on the guy behind me even when he would occasionally kick the back of my chair. I listened as the pastor pointed out that God wanted me to know that he works all things for the good of those who love him (I love him) and who are called according to his purposes. God cares about my purposes, but only one of us is in charge and it ain’t me. I have no idea what purpose God had for having that guy invade my bubble that way. One thing I know, however,  is that it got me to be still despite everything in me screaming, “LEAVE. GET UP AND GO NOW!” If I had left just because the guy mashed my buttons and then proceeded to sit on them, my show of “obedience” would have been religious grandstanding lacking all substance. If I was supposed to be at church “no matter what happened” then I have to believe that Jesus is big enough to handle whatever happened… no matter how small I acted.

I could have prayed for mercy and grace for the guy so I could listen to him. I could have tried to change the subject. I could have done any number of things, but I chose to set a boundary. Wasn’t my fault that he reacted in such anger. What was my fault is that I allowed his anger to fuel my own. Some people think that, as Christians, we have to put up with whatever people sling at us. I disagree. While I see some of that in scripture, I also see lots of other verses that tell us how to respond to negative situations in godly ways. I believe we can set boundaries. Boundaries are healthy. I politely set a boundary with this guy, but  it had a negative outcome. I do not regret setting the boundary. It showed me that I could actually set a boundary in a caring way. Maybe I need to work a bit more on the landing... but in the end, I’ve prayed more about this in the past two days than I would have if I’d never met him or, worse, if I’d faked like I was interested and listened. The snack break is only 12 minutes. We only had a few more minutes to go. I could have sucked it up and listened to him and never given him a thought.

Clearly, God had a different plan. He exposed some more issues in my heart that need to be addressed. Namely the way I respond to mental illness. He’s been showing me how much I have despised it in me. My reaction to that guy showed me that I’m pretty close to despising it in others. How can I expect anybody to understand me and what I’ve been through if I don’t try to understand and care about what other people with different mental challenges go through? Part of me is afraid that if I get too close to somebody with mental health issues  that I will get sucked in to their drama and end up as a full time resident of Bipolar World again. I let fear control my response to this guy and fear opened up the door to anger. And full blown anger can kill.

Lord, I’m sorry.

I’m so intent on protecting my mental health that I’m becoming a distraction. Sunday, God wanted me in church and I didn’t bother to ask him why. Good thing I finally stopped fretting long enough to hear my pastor speak: In order to go forward, I need to wait on God’s purposes and be still.

Going Forward…

Even though my buttons were mashed at church yesterday, I do not regret going. I KNOW that I was supposed to be there. And it’s weird, but when I KNOW that I’m supposed to be somewhere or be doing something, it makes it a whole lot easier for me to bear up under it when smelly brown stuff starts hitting the fan.

The minute the worship team started playing Jesus started speaking to my spirit. I felt peaceful. I felt still. My mind felt peaceful and still. The  most amazing part was when the in-house prophet (I call her “Prophet Lady”) started talking. She does that. Right in the middle of worship she’ll start declaring a message for God’s “Sons and Daughters” in a really loud voice. The worship team will continue to play, but they won’t be singing anything until after she finishes speaking. The first time she did  it, it seemed really weird to me because I’ve never been to a church that had a working prophet… but she speaks with such authority and insight that she stopped a cynic like me cold in my tracks. She doesn’t do it every Sunday, but when she does speak, I listen. She always seems to tell me exactly what God had told me in the minutes, hours, or days before we all convened in the church.

And this Sunday was no different. This is one reason I KNOW that I am supposed to be at this church in this season of my life no matter how many of my buttons get pushed while I’m there. She talked about crossing the Red Sea and not letting fear or anything else stop us! Yes. The Red Sea... like the “Trapped in the Middle of the Red Sea” that I had blogged about less than an hour before getting to church! She said so much of what I had written earlier that I was shocked. Then she boldly declares that we mush “GO FORWARD!” Had I not written in my last post that the only way for me to move past my issues was to go forward??? That was why I’d pulled myself out of my slump and gone to church in the first place. “Going forward” involves going to this church, reading these counseling books, and doing this counseling no matter what they make me feel. She talked about not letting distractions mess with us. It was amazing since I ALWAYS let distractions mess with me and take my eye off the plan. Instead of going forward, I reverse and backpedal my way further into the bubble.

While I was enjoying the peaceful glow after the worship I looked around as people were eating their snacks. Yes, my church has a snack break. They call it the “fellowship break,” but people with plates getting food equals a snack break. I was balancing my plate on my knee (minding my own business) when I was blind-sided by a distraction. I won’t go into the full conversation, but this complete stranger sitting behind me decided to breech bubble etiquette. Most people have figured out that I sit in a bubble. Nobody sits by me, in front of me, or behind me anymore. I like it that way. I prefer it that way. I actually prayed that into being. I know I did because people used to sit behind me and it would freak me out. I told God that I needed my bubble and he provided it. This guy evidently didn’t get the memo. Not only did he sit behind me, but he struck up an awkward conversation. I kept my responses brief hoping he’d go away. No such luck.

He launched into what had to be the most convoluted piece of hogwash on the market. It was fairly evident that he had mental health issues of the delusional variety. “REALLY LORD??? I didn’t even want to come to church because I was afraid my buttons were going to get pushed and you send me THIS GUY???” In all honesty, I was mad at God. I wished that I’d stayed at home. The guy was making me mad because he was siphoning off my peace. He was going on and on about some bizarre political conspiracy theory and I couldn’t take it anymore. I’m apolitical. Politics do not exist in Bipolar World. They never have. When my biggest concern was how to avoid taking an overdose that year… who got voted into office always paled in comparison. Most depressed and suicidal people could care less about politics. A lot of my conservative Christian friends get weirded out when I say that I don’t vote and I don’t care. I’ve gotten the guilt trips before. To which I say the following: The day they come up with a candidate who can fund a cure for Bipolar and stop suicides is the day that I will vote for such a candidate. Until then… keep your politics out of my bubble.

If I can’t handle regular old run of the mill political jibber jabber… I really had zero to no patience for this guy, so I politely stopped him mid-crazy. I told him  that I didn’t mean to offend him… but I wasn’t interested. Or maybe I said, “I don’t care.” Whatever I said it REALLY pissed him off. He reacted like I’d slapped his mother and said that his baby was ugly. Which immediately had me reacting. I apologized! I did something I just said in a blog that I would never do again: apologize for being who I am. I didn’t start that asinine excuse for a conversation. He did. And when I said that I wasn’t interested he got all huffy and said he was just telling me so I could pray about it. In the face of his anger, I was trying to defend myself. I’m like trying to tell him that I’m apolitical and that I don’t vote and that I’m sorry... and he just got even more offended and angry!  At that point all the gloves were off. I was livid. I wanted God to smite him or something. My peace, evidently, wasn’t tethered to anything because  it floated away like a little red balloon.

All this mere minutes before the pastor started speaking. Great. Church hadn’t even started and I wanted to leave.