Laughter

I was helping the kids get ready for crazy hair day at school this morning, when suddenly it hit me. I was laughing. Not the "I am your mom so I have to pretend I'm enjoying this" kind of laugh, but a true, from the heart laugh, and then another and another. And I realized that I was thoroughly enjoying my children.
When I was going through the depths of my depression, I truly believed I would never come out. Everything was so dark and heavy. I thought I would never get better. But yesterday afternoon, I lay on my bed after picking up the kids from school. I had completed a tough emotional exercise that morning (Neil Anderson's Seven Steps to Freedom) and was exhausted. Yet as I lay there, so tired I could barely move, I thought: "I made it. I actually made it through! I survived this storm. Thank you, Lord, for seeing me through."
I do not kid myself in thinking that life will be smooth sailing from here, because I know there will be more storms to come. But I survived this one. God carried me through and now, I want to help others who are walking through similar storms so that they, too, can come out on the other side...and LAUGH!

Sammy

5 years ago, October 2006, I found out I was pregnant with our third child. Three weeks later, I found out that child had died and I miscarried. For the first time in my life, I experienced true, inexpressable grief. I had felt sad before. I had felt grief and depression before, but never in my life had I experience the gut-wrenching, heart-breaking agony of losing a child. The pregnancy was unplanned and unexpected, but that didn't change the fact that I loved my child the instant saw the two lines on the stick. And when my child died, I remember falling to the green carpet in our master bedroom and screaming because there were no words to express the intense pain I was feeling in my heart.
At the time, and in the months that followed, I didn't think I would ever heal from that pain. I didn't think that anything could ever fill the emptiness my baby had left behind. I truly thought I would live the rest of my life in agony and I definitely could not understand why God would put us through that anguish. I gave my baby a name, Sammy. Since I didn't know if it was a boy or girl (although I always think of him as a boy), I picked a name that could work for either. And I got a pendant with October's birthstone for the month I lost him and June's birthstone for the month he was due. I vowed never to forget my son and I haven't.
But I have healed. 5 years later, I wonder, every now and then, how life would have been different if Sammy had lived. I wonder what it would be like today with a four year old in tow. I wonder if we ever would have made it to Modesto, or if I would have survived having a baby, a one year old and a three year old. But I don't cry over Sammy anymore. And looking back, I do see how God used our child's brief existence on this planet to affect change in our lives.
I look forward to the day when I will get to meet my son face to face. I picture him playing in heaven, blessing people up there with his beautiful spirit. And I want to encourage those of you who may be experiencing the pain of loss that healing does come, little by little, over time, but you never do forget.

A miracle!

The news came down today that Jason will not be losing his job after all. For the last two weeks, we knew it would take a miracle for Jason to keep his job. Last night, I read the kids the story of Jesus casting the demons "Legion" out of the man and into the herd of pigs. We talked about the incredible power Jesus had to have to do something like that. A few minutes later, I walked into James' room and he was praying out loud. Now James doesn't usually like to pray at night. He almost always says he has nothing to say. But last night he was praying as I entered the room. He said amen then turned to me and said: "Maybe it'll work, Mom!" I said, "What will work, honey?" "My prayer. I prayed that Daddy wouldn't lose his job and that he wouldn't get a pay cut but that he'd get a RAISE instead!" I smiled at my boy, who understood that if Jesus could throw a legion of demons out of a man, He certainly could save his daddy's job and get him a raise to boot! We talked about the fact that God was more than capable of that, but that it might not be His will, but that no matter what, we knew that whatever God had in store was the best for us, even if it was hard.
Today, God decided to give James a yes. Well, not to the raise part, as far as I know, but to Jason keeping his job and I am stunned. Stunned, not because I didn't think God could do it. I knew without a doubt that He could, but I really thought that this was a time when God had something else in store for us and that we were about to face some really tough times. And so I sit here dazed. I do not understand why God has decided to bless us so incredibly much, but I bow my knees before Him and sing His praises. I am so thankful on so many fronts, thankful for the little things, like the fact we won't have to move to a smaller apartment, and that I won't have to tell Gabby she has to give up gymnastics. And I'm thankful for the big things, like the fact that I can continue my mental health treatment, that I can see a doctor about my PMDD and that we have some time to put our financial house in order. I pray, oh, Lord I pray, that we will be worthy stewards of the tremendous blessings God has bestowed on us! Every dime we have and every breath we take is something that God has granted us and I pray that I never forget that. Everything I have and everything I am, I owe to Him. May I use it all for His glory!

Eight weeks

Eight weeks. Eight weeks ago, I was locked up in a psychiatric ward on a 72 hour suicide watch. Eight weeks ago today, I had lost my will to fight and my desire to live. Eight weeks ago today, my world as I knew it changed forever.
It's been a rough road. A road of heartache, shame and brokenness. A road of panic, darkness and depression. A road of rejection, uncertainty, and fear. But here's some of what I learned. Through all of the pain, the tears and the heartache, I learned that my God loves me. Not a distant "I made you so I kind of have to love you" kind of love, but that He DEARLY loves me (Ephesians 5:1). I learned that no matter what people do to me, no matter who leaves me and forsakes me, God NEVER will, ever, no matter what. (Hebrews 13:5). I have also experienced Proverbs 18:24 first hand, that indeed, there are friends who stick closer than a brother. I now KNOW what it means to have this Treasure in jars of clay (2 Corinthians 4:7). And I know that I know that I know that there is NO condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus (Romans 8:28) and that includes certified nut jobs like ME!
Because I ended up in the looney bin, I learned not to hang my head in shame. Because I felt the shame of the psych ward, I discovered the pride of being a daughter of the High King. Because I hit rock bottom, I learned to sore on wings like eagles (Isaiah 40:31).
While I never in a million years would have asked God to put me through what I've been through, you couldn't pay me a million dollars to give up what I've learned through the experience. I now know who I am in Christ, and that, my friends, is worth every single tear I shed and every heartache I felt. I would go through it all all over again if I had to because there is nothing in the world that can compare with knowing the love of my Savior.

A visit to the psychiatrist

I had my second visit with the psychiatrist this morning, after a month on Effexor. It went ok, I suppose. She told me to continue on Effexor and up the dose once a month when my depression worsens due to my cycle. She also prescribed Xanax on an "as needed" basis to help with any reoccurrance of panic attacks.
I don't really know how to feel about all this. I'm really overwhelmed right now, with the likelihood of Jason losing his job, yet knowing that God has it all under control. I'm not afraid that we won't be ok, but I don't even have a clue what next week will look like, let alone next month or next year and the unknown has me unsettled.
And I'm tired of this journey to mental wellness. It's exhausting. I'm tired of fighting every day to retrain my thoughts, to reshape my thinking. I'm tired of never knowing from one day to the next if it's going to be a "good" day or a really hard one. And I'm SO tired of the negative voices in my head telling me I am worth nothing, that I am a burden to my friends and loved ones and that I am not worth the air I breathe. I am so tired of having to fight those thoughts over and over and over again.
I know it will get easier. I know that the more times I put the Truth to the lies, the fewer times the lies will return. And I will continue to fight. I will not quit. And I will come out of this valley stronger than ever, with a deeper and better knowledge of my Lord and Savior and that is worth all of the struggles in the world!

Love

Yesterday was a tough day for me. After my anxiety attack on Sunday, a lost friendship and other things that happened over the last few days, I was feeling beat up and useless. During this journey over the last few months, God has blessed me with an incredible amount of support and locally, He has given me four people who have known every sordid detail, who have witnessed every single crisis, and who have chosen to walk through it all with me. For that, I am immensely grateful! But yesterday, feeling so unworthy and unloveable, I began to wonder why. Why have they stuck by me? Why didn't they run away when others did? Why didn't they throw me away when I had nothing left to offer them? I asked one of them that point blank and the response I got was short and to the point. "Because I love you and nothing's going to change that. Now quit over-analyzing, k." I've thought about this comment quite a bit over the last twenty-four hours (yes. I do see the irony in analyzing that comment, lol.) What is love? I'm not talking about romantic love. I'm talking about true love between friends. I truly believe that true love is a commitment, a commitment to walk beside someone on their good days and their bad, during their mountaintops and their valleys. Right now, I may have little to offer my friends, but there will come a time when our roles are reversed and I will be there for them. True friendship, in my opinion, isn't about what you can get from the relationship. It's about commitment. And that's what love is all about.

A poem

You said you loved me once
by Rebecca Herring

You said you loved me once.
Why?
Was it because you thought I was someone I wasn't?
Was it because you thought I would become someone I didn't?

You said you'd stick by me forever.
Why?
Was it because you didn't know the road would get this rough?
Was it because you didn't realize where it would end up taking us?

You said you looked up to me once.
Why?
Was it because you thought I would never fall?
Was it because you put me on a pedestal too narrow for my feet?

I told you sisters forever.
I told you friends into eternity.
And I meant every word.
I meant every hug.
I meant every laugh, and every look, and I miss you.

Someday, perhaps, our healing will be complete.
Someday, perhaps, you and I will again walk this life together.
And in the meantime, I will pray and hold you dearly in my heart.

Panic attack

I had my first public panic attack today. What a humiliating experience! I've had MANY panic attacks over the course of my life, but none of them have been in a public setting. I have always been at home or in my car, alone or with Jason. But today, I had no such luck. And the crazy part about it was that I totally didn't see it coming. It took me completely by surprise. I was cheering, laughing, having a great time at the softball game after church and the next thing I knew, the tremors in my hands started. That wasn't that big of a deal to me. I have had a lot of tremors in my hands over the last month. But the odd thing was that this time, instead of calming down, they got stronger and stronger. My arms started to shake, and then my head. I laid down on the blanket to try to calm down and curled into a ball, but I couldn't stop the shaking. Bree, a twelve year old girl who's like a daughter to me, drew the attention of my friend Sonja. I could hear Bree calling Sonja, but I couldn't respond. I couldn't make myself move. I just laid there. Sonja drew close to me and I started to cry. She told me to stop crying, that it would only make it worse, but I just wanted to weep. I was scared, terrified really because I couldn't understand what was happening. Nothing had taken place, or so I thought at the time, to trigger this. It didn't make sense. Sonja tried to get me to drink some water, but my hands were shaking so hard I couldn't get the cup to my lips.
The softball game ended right then. Even though I was in the middle of a panic attack, I knew enough to realize that everyone was going to by heading my direction, since I was sitting where we pray after the game. I told Sonja I needed to get out of there and tried to walk away. I made it a few feet then sunk to the ground and started to weep. Sonja called Jason to let him know what was going on and put the phone to my ear. I had Jason talking to me on the phone, people talking and praying all around me and I gradually calmed down enough to be able to speak. Jason said he was heading back to the park and we hung up. My panic attack was over, and the humiliation set in. I could hear someone trying to reassure James and Gabby that I was ok, and I felt terrible that my kids saw me that way. I felt terrible because I knew they were worried, and kept asking why Mommy was shaking, but there was nothing I could do to change what they had just witnessed. And I knew Bree was shook up and even though I knew that nearly every person there loves me healthy or ill, I was incredibly embarrassed to have completely lost control in front of so many people.
We headed back to the car and I started helping a friend unload some boxes out of my car and into hers when the shaking started again and again, I couldn't stop it. Sonja held me for awhile, then my friend Stephanie and then Dean. And as Dean held me, I continued to shake and I was sobbing uncontrollably. I said: "I'm scared! I'm soooo scared!" "Scared of what?" Dean said. "Scared of this! I don't understand this! What is going on?!" Dean didn't have an answer for me, and Jason arrived. Jason gathered me in his arms and I wept and wept and wept some more. And then I started talking. And as I talked, I realized that a fight that had gone down right next to me that morning at the park had shook me up way more than I realized, as well as three other fights that went down that day, a group of rowdy twenty-somethings and events over the last four days had all led to my breaking point.
What I still find most interesting in all of this, however, is the final trigger for the panic attack. It was nothing. It was so small and insignificant that I NEVER would have thought I would have had the reaction I had to it. I suppose you could say it was truly the straw that broke the camel's back. I had been trying to play a joke on a friend and play a MOO over the microphone while he was up to bat, but I couldn't get my phone to work properly. No big deal at all, but apparently the frustration of that, combined with everything else up to that point, led to a massive panic attack.
*sigh* Can I dig a great big hole and hide in it until I get this insanity under control? I feel so insecure right now. So embarrassed. The funny thing is I know my true friends will love me just the same and will stick by me, but it is the others that worry me. It is the ones that used to look up to me because they thought I was a great Christian lady who had it all together. Well, I don't. And rationally I know that if they can't love me hurting and broken, their love wasn't genuine to begin with, but emotionally, I'm scared to lose yet another fantasy, yet another friendship that I thought was more than it was.

Musings

I'm in a pondering mood today. You know, one of those what is the meaning of life kind of days. Well, not exactly to that extent, but I am deep in thought. What I don't understand, what frustrates me today is how I can truly think I believe something only to have my feelings and actions deny what I thought I believed. Take, for example, my belief that my value lies in God alone, in the fact that I am a creation of God, bought by the blood of Christ, completely and fully forgiven and adopted into the family of God. I believe that with all of my being. So why, when someone makes comments that put me down, when someone tells me that I am inferior, not up to par, less than perfect, do I get upset? Why do I doubt myself and who God made me to be? Why do I put that person's opinions above those of the God of the Universe? I truly do not understand that. Perhaps it is because the idea that my value lies in Christ alone is a new one to me. Perhaps it is because for my entire life I have tried to measure up, to live up to what I thought other people wanted me to be, to fit in and so even though I have finally realized the futility of that, my initial response is to respond negatively to criticism and to believe it.
I realized something very interesting today. For the entire duration of my marriage, I have always seen Jason as superior to me. Not because he acted like it, or told me he was by any means, but I always felt really small, especially at times when we disagreed. So today we talked about it. Jason views me as his equal and he wants and values my opinion on everything so why do I feel inadequate? Why do I feel like I have less to offer than he does? I finally realized why today. God made me a very emotional person. I feel things with such intensity that it can be overwhelming at times. I will cry with a complete stranger because I truly do feel their pain. Many times, I have opinions about things because of how I feel. It may not always be logical or rational, but it is very real to me. Jason, on the other hand, is incredibly logical. Everything is part of a puzzle and one just has to make the pieces fit together. Everything can be understood logically and when it can't, he will study it from every angle until he can make it logical. Neither approach is right. Neither approach is wrong. We are just opposites and end up complementing each other beautifully because where he is weak, I am strong and vice versa. I realized today, however, without even knowing it, I had given logic much more value than emotion. In my mind, I was defective by being emotional and he was superior by being logical. When I finally realized this, we were able to work out a way to discuss things that works for both of us and I was able to remind myself that God made me this way, just as He made Jason the way he is. My emotions, my feelings have just as much to offer the world as Jason's logic. What a freeing concept!

Unannounced storm

One of the survival skills I have learned in dealing with my depression is to identify upcoming triggers and prepare for them, be it by journaling ahead of time, asking for prayer support and/or slating out time in my day to process whatever is going to occur. I've also learned not to walk into situations full of triggers without a "safe" person, someone who knows me completely and still loves me, right by my side. Sometimes, however, storms can come up out of the blue, grab you up in the whirlwind and spit you out on the other side, leaving you to wonder what in the world just happened.
Yesterday was one of those days for me. I was just going along with my day, thankful for all of the healing and change that has taken place since my jaunt in the looney bin when suddenly, out of nowhere it seemed, an old wound was ripped open, a new wound created and I was left a weeping mess wondering how I got taken so off guard.
Last night, I was thankful for sleeping pills. Not to ignore my problems, but to put them off long enough to get the sleep that I need to face the after-effects of yesterday's storm. This morning, I am thankful for lazy Saturday mornings that allow me to pray, to journal, and try to make sense of the renewed pain. *Sigh* Sometimes I get really, really tired of this journey. Today, I'm holding to Matthew 11:28.
"Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light."

Lies vs. Truth

I had an interesting, eye-opening experience yesterday. In order for it to make sense, I need to share some of what I learned in Victory over the Darkness. One of the chapters I read dealt with spiritual warfare, how the enemy places lies in our heads and the only way to fight them is with the Truth. Neil Anderson wrote:
"Because Satan's primary weapon is the lie, your defense against him is the truth. Dealing with Satan is not a power encounter; it is a truth encounter. When you expose Satan's lie with God's truth, his power is broken." p.162
He goes on to talk about how many of us hear voices in our heads but don't admit it because we don't want others to think we're crazy. Now, I'm not talking about other people voices. I'm talking about thoughts that although they sound like ours, do not come from us. I thought about that and found it interesting, but did not see myself as part of the "voice hearing" group.
Fast-forward to yesterday evening. I got into my car to go visit a friend. As I was thinking about this visit, a thought I had triggered some guilt and immediately my brain was filled with: "You are EVIL, EVIL, EVIL!" I was taken aback by it because in that moment I realized that yes, indeed, I do hear "voices" in my head that are filled with lies. I remembered what Dr. Anderson had written and responded: "Actually, the Bible says there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, so you are WRONG!" To my astonishment, the accusatory thoughts stopped and I proceeded along on my way. Just a few days ago, I would have been a basket case by the time I got to my friend's house because I would have continued to beat myself up over and over and over again. But this time, the Truth set me free! Praise the Lord for freedom in Christ!