Rest

I'm standing all alone in the middle of nowhere. The sun is beating down on me and the ground underneath me is parched, with deep cracks in it. I'm standing strong as the heat and the wind beat about me, but I'm tired. So very, very tired. I'm standing tall, but I feel as if at any moment I am going to fall. My legs are shaking and I'm exhausted. Then all of a sudden, out of nowhere, He comes. I can't see His face, but I know it's Him. He's big and soft and oozes warmth and peace and kindness. I fall into His arms, bury my face in His chest and cry. We share no words. I just stand there, supported by His love and I feel His strength pouring back into my veins. I know it's still hot and parched all around me, and I know there will come a time again soon when I will have to stand strong, but right now I am a pile of mush in my Daddy's arms and I savor it. I breathe in deeply, thankful that right now, He's carrying it all and I rest.

WOW! I don't even know where to start, or how to word what it is that is going through my head right now. I'm sitting here, staring at the computer not knowing what to say because tonight, I made a life-changing realization. It's funny because it's one of those things that I probably would have told you I knew before tonight, but tonight the reality of it hit me and I'm sitting here feeling light, and free, and, well, sort of unsure of what to do with myself without the heaviness of the burden that has been weighing me down for the last two years. Let me see if I can explain.
I am naturally co-dependent. It requires effort on my part to not feel responsible for other people's feelings and for the circumstances of their lives. However, I usually make a conscious effort to remind myself that I am not responsible for other people's happiness and do not allow their unhappiness to ruin my life. For some reason, however, I missed it in one of my friendships. I just didn't see it! I took upon myself my friend's happiness and set out on the roller coaster ride of my life! We'll call this friend Hank for the purposes of this blog because I don't actually know any Hanks in real life. Oh, wait, yes I do, but he's just an acquaintance that I see only every few months, so you can rest assured that I'm not actually talking about Hank. Or maybe I should call her Sophie. Why Sophie? Well, I don't know. Why not?
For two years, when Sophie (aka Hank) was happy, I felt content and happy and satisfied. When she was upset, angry, lonely or sad, I felt responsible, down in the dumps, inferior and a failure. I cannot tell you what it was about tonight that made me finally see that her loneliness/unhappiness is not my burden to bear, but for some reason, the blinders just fell off my eyes and I became aware of the fact that HER choices that have led her to where she is now and I cannot change those, nor can I live her life for her. She decides if she wants to get close to other people or would rather isolate herself in her work and ministry. She decides if she wants to spend her evenings alone or with friends. She decides if she wants to trust others and open up or guard everything she has close to her chest. I cannot change her, and I cannot cure her loneliness no matter how hard I try because her loneliness is of her own making. I will always be her friend, but I've finally realized that I CANNOT be her savior and what a freeing realization that is!

New Beginnings

An unexpected result of recovery has taken place in me. It has created a certain restlessness, a searching for something, anything to occupy my mind and my time. For the last year, I have been attempting to survive, to make it through the day, to talk myself into living. I had no healthy dreams and no goals. My mind was so trapped in unhealthy thought patterns.

Now, as I heal, I find the obsessive thoughts calming down, and the desire to really LIVE again rising to the surface. With this comes a sense of bewilderment, of loss, because I don't really know what to do with myself. I have energy. I have time. I have dreams. I have interests, but all of these seem foreign to me and I'm not sure what to do with them right now. I want to go somewhere, to do something, but I don't know which direction I'm heading!
So for now, I'm pursuing the interests I know are real and genuine, like my desire to learn sign language. I'm diving into that, signing every chance I get, carrying my flash cards in my purse and signing to the kids when I know the signs of the words I'm speaking. I have no idea why God has placed this desire to learn in my heart, but it's strong and has been building over time, so I'm going with it :-). We shall see how He chooses to use it.
I'm also looking for social outlets. Church in the Park was my life for the last two years and while I still am incredibly passionate about CITP, and throw myself into it every chance I get, I am no longer in leadership there. I stepped down from clothing when I got sick and have opted not to take back my position in clothing because I feel God leading me to serve in other areas of Church in the Park. The fall back of that decision, however, is that my work in clothing provided me with my mid-week social contacts, when we sorted clothes, and when I did clothing pickups. Now I need to find another way to fill my need for social contact. I'm hoping to join a mid-week Bible study at either Big Valley Grace or Shelter Cove, but I'm not sure yet.
Right now, the world is my oyster, so many opportunities to choose from. Life is exciting and inviting and full of joy and beauty. Praise the Lord for second chances!

WOW! I came on here today because I wanted to type a new blog post, and instead ended up reading my last two posts. I sit here in awe because I was feeling really frustrated that I had slid back some, back into my anxiety over the last week, but then I read those posts and realized how far I have come in the last month and I can't help praising God for His goodness and faithfulness! I can't believe that only a month ago, my body was still giving me fits and I was unable to drive. Today, I don't give a second thought to whether or not I'll be able to walk, or whether I will go into a seizure. I am completely med free (except for a sleeping pill I took last night and the night before), and even though my depression and anxiety are still a huge part of my life, I am functional and can shove them aside for awhile when life demands it. Yesterday, I realized that a feeling I used to have regularly had returned. I don't know if I can describe it well enough for all of you to understand, but it's a feeling of restrained laughter, that at any moment, the laughter that is welling up inside my chest will come out in a full on burst of giggles :-).
It's funny, really, to look back over the last year and a half. If I had met me a year ago, I would think of myself as a very sad and depressed person, but truly, at my core, I am not. I love life with everything in me. But this year, the pain, guilt, shame and stress of life piled up on me so heavily that the laughter that lives inside of me got smothered. It is so nice to throw off the bricks of depression one or two at a time and give that joy some air again!

The flip side

I'd like to sit in my quagmire of anger and depression. Not sure why exactly. What the appeal of that is. Perhaps I feel entitled to a pity party for myself. Perhaps I just don't want to muster the strength it takes to reshape my thoughts. But whatever the case may be, there comes a moment when it is time for me to put on my big girl panties and get moving again.
Today, I physically can't. My body is reeking havoc on me, and mentally, it was a doozy of a day too. I just didn't want to go on. What was the point? But I have decided to look at the good that this illness has brought, because as much as I don't want to admit it, it has come with some decidedly good things.
First, it has brought our family together. Because I can't go anywhere without someone taking me, we have had to do a lot more as a family than we used to and this has already allowed for a couple of really good memories already. Because I can't drive, we have to go everywhere in one car, creating more family time with all four of us.
Secondly, in our marriage, it has reinforced the knowledge I had that Jason will stick by me through thick and thin. The man has been tender and loving and incredibly supportive and I know he loves me unconditionally.

Thirdly, we have reached our family medical deductible so all medical expenses from here on out are fully covered, LOL!! No more stress in that regard :-).
Fourthly, I have learned to cherish the little moments I get with the kids. Instead of stressing about getting them to bed, getting the dishes done, etc, Jason gets to stress about that (just kidding), and I get to value the few minutes I get to snuggle with them in bed, to stroke their faces and let them know how much they mean to me.
Fifthly, (and I struggle with this blessing still), this illness is teaching me to look at my life, keep what is important, uplifting and wholesome and get rid of the activities and relationships that didn't need to be there. I struggle with this one daily because I like things to be "normal" and when the apple cart gets upset, it is challenging for me put back the pieces, but good definitely does not mean painless, so this one goes on my "good" list.
Sixthly, past friends have come out of the woodwork and old friendships have been renewed. Blessings that were there all along, but just hiding around the corner.
Seventhly, my larger family, as in my sisters, brothers and parents, has show way more support than I would have ever deemed possible! I have been very loved and supported.
I could go on, but my body's getting mad at me for sitting up for so long so I must go lay down. Until next time :-).

DABDA

In one of my college courses, I learned the acronym for the five stages of grief: DABDA. Denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance.  Currently, I sit at the first A. Anger. I am mad as a hornet right now. My denial stage ended Tuesday of this week when I tried to scale back on my meds, hoping that all of this would have just been a fluke, a bi-product of the antidepressants I had been taking or something. I cut back by only a third and that night I was convulsing again. Stubborn as hell, I decided "FINE! I'll take the meds but I'll be damned if I sit back and let this illness take over my life!" I took the bus. I walked in the heat. I went to coffee. I made dinner. Next day, my legs didn't want to work, but I forced it and went to farmers market, then to coffee with a friend. I pushed and pushed and pushed because I was NOT going to sit back and accept my limitations! A few minutes ago, I had several major convulsions, like the ones I had before I ended up in the hospital. The kids had to call Jason home from work and I am pissed as hell!
I missed my daughter's field trip last week, the first of my kids’ field trip I'd ever missed. James has had an incredibly poor school year because I've been so messed up with one thing or another that I haven't taken the time to figure out what's going on in his classroom and now I look back over the year and CRAP! What a mess! These stupid convulsions have taken away my ability to drive and therefore to shop by myself, or even drive around to blow off steam. I've lost friendships because the only thing that was keeping them alive was my ability to drive and now that I can't, they have fizzled into a shell of nothingness. Because I physically can't handle the demands of clothing at citp, I have left that role and the hours of social contact it was giving me, not to mention the self-esteem boost of being in a position of leadership. Yes, I do see how God is using all of these things to refine me, to point out my flaws and make me a better person, but it definitely isn't pleasant! I feel so out of control and mad, mad, mad!!! The crazy part is, what difference does all this anger make? None whatsoever. Absolutely none at all. And I despise anger with a passion! I hate the feel of it. I hate the sound of it. I hate the existence of it. I wish there were some miraculous pill they could give to take all that anger away. I can understand the appeal of drinking and drugs now, the ability to forget, to deaden the pain just for a little while. However, one of the things I also learned in college, along with the DABDA acronym, is that if a person does not work through the stages, they will get stuck somewhere in them. Sometimes people get stuck at that anger stage their entire lives, but I'm determined that I will not fit into that statistic and instead will look forward to the day when I reach the final A of acceptance.

Medical update

I have so many blog posts floating around in my head, but I'm either too busy or too exhausted to post them most days. Today, I thought I'd update what we know medically, since that's what I seem to get the most questions about. Some of this may be duplicate posting because I can't remember what I have posted already and what I have only thought about posting and I don't feel like reading back over my older posts to find out :-).
Currently, I am taking medication that keeps my convulsions under control, so I am no longer struggling with that aspect of the illness. I do have tremors at times, and get easily exhausted, but seem to be doing physically better and better. Emotionally, I'm struggling. Some days are better than others. I'm not sure how much of that has to do with my illness and how much of it has to do with the myriad of other things that have seemed to all hit at the same time, but I try to remember that this too will get better. One way or another, it will get better. As I peel each piece of the emotional onion away, eventually the pain will be gone and there will be victory and confidence in its place. Baby steps.
Back to the physical part of my life. One of the possible culprits we are looking at for my symptoms is MS. There are 3 tests that typically determine whether a person has MS or not. I've had all three, but am waiting for some of the results back. The MRI says I might have MS. So far, the results that have come back from the spinal tap (they come trickling in, every couple of days) are all negative for MS indicators, meaning my levels are normal in all areas tested so far. The third test is the Visual Evoked Potential. I had that done in Sacramento on Monday and do not have the results back yet.
I have an appointment with my neurologist on Wednesday the 16th to discuss whatever the results may be. If the VEP is negative for MS, I have no idea what our next step is. She wouldn't say last time I was in the office. She just said "Let's wait and see what the tests show." So we are waiting and looking forward to seeing :-).