Blessed be your name

Habakkuk 3:17-18

Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines,
the produce of the olive fail
    and the fields yield no food,
the flock be cut off from the fold
    and there be no herd in the stalls,
¹⁸ yet I will rejoice in the Lord;
    I will take joy in the God of my salvation.

 

 Philippians 4:11-13

Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content. ¹² I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound. In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need. ¹³ I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

Feeling challenged today to focus on God and praise him, regardless of how I feel or how I am doing with my mind and my health. He remains the same and deserves to be praised. Whether I am ill or whether I am healthy, I wish to praise the Lord every day. Regardless of how I am, blessed be the name of the Lord.

Isaiah 26:4

Trust in the Lord forever, for in God the Lord we have an everlasting rock.

Deuteronomy 33

The eternal God is your refuge,
    and underneath you are the everlasting arms;
He will drive out the enemy before you,
    and will say, “Destroy them.”

Psalm 146

Praise the Lord!

Praise the Lord, O my soul!

² While I live I will praise the Lord;
    I will sing praises unto my God while I have my life.
³ Do not put your trust in princes,
    nor in a son of man, in whom there is no help.
⁴ His breath leaves him, and he returns to the earth;
    on that very day his plans perish.

⁵ Blessed is he who has the God of Jacob for his help,
    whose hope is in the Lord his God,
⁶ who made heaven, and earth,
    the sea, and all that is in them,
    who keeps faithfulness forever,
⁷ who executes justice for the oppressed,
    who gives food to the hungry.
The Lord releases the prisoners.
⁸     The Lord opens the eyes of the blind;
the Lord raises those who are brought down;

Who understands?

I sat in my bed and cried last night. I cried because I screwed it up with my therapist. I cried because I miss him. I miss having someone in my emotional corner. I miss feeling like I have hope to make progress. I cried because it has been a really long hard journey. My mental health has been tough for a very long time. I cried for the years of this struggle and for the fact that it still goes on and on and on….

I don’t know if anyone really ‘gets’ it. Has anyone ever understood? For twenty five years to thirty years I have walked this journey alone. Does anyone really understand? Who was there when I used to try to break my own bones? Who was there when I felt sick with anxiety? When I lived in fear and shame? Who could I tell when I felt suicidal? Who saw when I lived a mask, hid ny shameful self, created false identities? Who but me carried the fear and shame of believing I had nits for two years and having no one to confide in? Who knows who I really am, in my true identity? Who supported me when I felt scared I was going crazy? When I felt crazy? Who knows what it is like to have images in your head of yourself dead in a bath of blood? Who knows what it is like to feel like you need to sleep or sit on your hands to keep yourself safe or that you must go out and engage with others as you can’t be trusted alone? Who knows what it is like to not know what is real and what isn’t? To question one’s own experiences/memories? Who understands what it is like after decades of hiding this crap and trying to manage it alone to finally open up and start to trust people?  Who else can understand the depth of longing, the depth of pain, the insatiable need that just can’t be satisfied, the hunger and longing for emotional care and kindness that turns me into some sort of monster… desperate for more. Who knows what it is like to be consumed with that and thetefore battle and push away the very people who try to help, when that is what you want more than anything. Who knows what it is like to live in different worlds, an emotional world and an everyday world and to feel crazy in one but strive to be normal in the other, to want to give up and die in one but love life and people in the other….. My emotional world/my mind has had enough. It’s had enough of the crap. It’s had enough of the battles. But it can’t give up, because my everyday self has built a life with children and a husband who I love. So instead I remain trapped, wondering where the hope is. Wondering of anyone can ever really know how fucking hard it has been to walk this journey of emotional and mental struggles for the past few decades. Who really can ever know just how hard it has been.

“I have loved you with an everlasting love. I have drawn you with my loving kindness.” I look to God for hope, to a God who has always been there, always seen, always known and always loved me. I look to him and ask him to help, to bring hope, to bring change.

 

 

 

 

I’ve realised this week I need to stop looking for a professional to ‘fix’ me. I am how I am. I have talents and flaws but I am loved. I want to learn to accept myself as I am,in this imperfect state, and learn to live with myself. I am and always have been loved. “I have loved you with an everlasting love and drawn you with my living kindness.” I have always despised my mental health struggles and found them so hard to accept as a part of me. But everyone has weaknesses. I am inperfect. But I am also loved. I can live with that.

Change in perspective

I’ve realised today that my mindset needs to change. I was so geared up for my appointment with the psychiatrist today, really hoping it would bring hope for change, that he would have a plan for a new way forward. I felt disappointed after my appointment, because he didn’t really say much at all and there was no talk of future treatments. But my husband came home and brought with him some wisdom that was a significant moment of realisation for me. I need to stop striving to find the answer of how to get better. I need to stop looking for the person or thing to bring hope. I am who I am. We all have our weaknesses, me included. I may always have to take medication. I may always struggle with mental health issues. But that doesn’t have to rule my life, define my identity or who I am… I can learn to manage it, master it and try to avoid the pitfalls and can still live a happy and fulfilled life, with my warts and all.

Hoping to start afresh today, not as someone new, but as me, accepting who I am, warts and all.

 

 

Are setbacks part of the journey and how do I keep moving forwards?

Journey to Shalom. It makes it sound easy doesn’t it… as if I start at a and travel to b in one short and easy journey, gaining more and more peace on my way. It hasn’t been like that unfortunately. I start to feel like I’m making progress, then I get hopeful, then I hit a blip, then I screw up big time and I find myself in a mess… and so the cycle continues. At least I hope so… I hope that the setbacks are part of the journey and that I am still en route. It doesn’t always feel that way. Right now it feels like I have screwed up and lost my chances of moving forward as a result. I look to therapy as my agent for change, so with that gone I wonder how change will happen. But maybe this difficult ending with my therapist is part of me moving forward. It doesn’t feel like it, but maybe, as hard as it is right now, there are lessons in this that are part of my journey. It isn’t good for me to get too dependent on my therapists. It is a temptation for me and in some ways it brings me comfort, but it brings a lot more heartache and pain and unlocks longings that can never be satisfied but threaten the good things in my life. It brings out the worst in me, an ugly obsessive side that I hate. It is a dangerous minefield that I have to avoid. Can I avoid that in future whilst also gaining the hope for change that therapy provides? I hope I can still have therapy somehow. I hope I can find a hope for change without screwing it up. I hope this is all part of my journey and that one day I will still reach shalom.

Can leopards change their spots?

Well, here we go again. The shit has hit the fan as they say… and I’m right in the midst of it. Probably my biggest weakness is the way I get dependent on people, even obsessed. It has happened before and caused a mess and it has happened again this week.Unfortunately the consequence of that is that my psychotherapist who I was overly attached to has been forced to finish sessions with me suddenly. That is something that causes me great pain and has triggered my worst responses. At first I was angry and was pretty horrible to him, I considered committing suicide to make him feel bad, then I apologised and was rational about it, then panic and grief overtook me and I struggled with hyperventilating, screaming and sobbing. I emailed him four times yesterday and rang him twice. I know it needs to stop. It is also very hard. My husband said you would think someone had died. I did feel like I was grieving and felt very panicky about the end. I’d been struggling with a two week gap and suddenly I am faced with a never again situation. It almost felt too much to hear. Self harming thoughts flooded my brain and whereas I usually push them away I began to dwell on them, wondered in what ways I could hurt myself without impacting my children or without everyone knowing it had been on purpose… but as a cry for help. Thankfully I voiced this to my husband before I acted on it and his heartbroken response was enough to bring me back to sense.

So, I had hoped therapy would be my agent for change, my means of hope, but instead it became a part of my downfall through no one’s fault but my own. I’m trying to keep busy, keep distracted but I am very scared I am spiralling down hard and fast. Yesterday as well as self harming thoughts, I had a panic attack and screaming tics and sobbed as if someone had died. Last night I went to a pub and felt very panicky in case the therapist might be there randomly,had some small tics and had to check the whole place before I could relax. I’m right in the midst of this mess and am so aware of my weaknesses, failings and flaws.

I prayed with my friend last night and her encouragement was, there is a phrase that ‘leopards can’t change their spots’, which would suggest that there is little or no hope for me, that I have been in this situation before and I will be in it again, it is a destructive pattern that I consistently follow. But her encouragement was that with God things are different, a leopard can change it’s spots, supernaturally with God’s help and intervention. So that is what I cling to today, it is  with God where my hope lies, always has been, always will be. It’s still hard, don’t get me wrong. Today I am aiming to make it through the day without contacting him, an urge I have to fight regularly and it makes me really sad that I am in this situation, sad that I couldn’t just have managed it normally, sad that it has had to end. But as another friend reminded me, endings are a part of nature, a part of life. As the sun sets, things come to an end. I just hope that after the ending with the despair and sadness it brings, comes a new dawn, full of hope and new mercies.

Goodbye my therapist, the sun is setting. Goodnight. Our process was dear to me and I valued your care. The end came too soon for me, it feels. But now I fix my gaze on God and await the new dawn.