Today I am grateful.
It has been a while since I have been really truly grateful or really believed that that the kind and loving God that is so often spoken of in church and by friends and who I once had a very close relationship with still existed or cared that I existed.
I think it started because of the depression, I felt like I couldn't do enough to make God happy with me, and over the years it has become much worse. I offer not-heartfelt prayers because I knew God didn't want to hear from me anyway. I only did it because I was supposed to and I respect the fact that he could make things in my life so much worse. God didn't care about me, I was bad and nothing I could do could make it better. I stopped trying hard to be good because it didn't matter anyway. If I was good, awful things happened. If I wasn't so good, awful things happened. Why bother making myself more sick trying to please a being that would not be pleased. It wasn't worth it and I didn't have the energy.
It has been this way for a long time now, my heart kind of frozen against anything I used to be; happy, spiritual; creative, all of it. Even with the medication that has slowed my mind and helped me drastically, I am still not that girl. I am jaded, cynical, "realistic".
Then there was last night.
I ran out of my lithium prescription and haven't been able to get my refill. With a lot of drugs this isn't a problem but the lithium has basically no half life. If you don't take it one day, you aren't ok. Actually, if you are like me and take it twice a day, if you only take it in the morning, you don't sleep because your mind won't stop. This is what happened yesterday. It is hard to explain what my mind does without the lithium, it is like a spinning carnival ride that is ok at first but just gets faster and faster and keeps going and going and you are starting to get sick but you can't make it stop and you don't know when it will stop or if it will ever stop. I was laying in bed, not feeling well, sick husband, stressed out about school and a wedding cake and I felt that ride switch on. And laying there in bed I said loudly,"Heavenly Father, My mind won't stop and I can't do this anymore. Please make it go away!"
And it did. The ride stopped.
I have begged and plead for 2 1/2 years for all of it to go away and nothing and in that moment last night when I couldn't handle it anymore I found my God again. I found the God that cares that I am here and wants to help me, who loves me when I feel so alone and understands when I am broken and there is no one who can help. I found the God who loves me even with my broken thoughts and spinning mind and messy house. A God who thinks I AM good enough.
And for that, today I am grateful.
Thank you for sharing your experience. I would assume anyone who suffers from depression like us, has felt that despair, but it's hard to talk about it.
ReplyDeleteBeing in a slump, and hearing that some else is making it gives me hope. These feelings won't last and I'll have peace again...just have to endure right? Eventually EVERYTHING won't be so hard.
Your post is a good reminder...so thanks.