Stuck Deep...

I am feeling stuck.  I am stuck deep in this overwhelming feeling of sadness, but it is a sadness without tears.  The medication has muted the ability to cry.  I am left sad and without tears.  My counselor asked me to journal this week when I started being negative about myself.  She wanted me to journal it and then talk to myself about the positives, to negate the negative thoughts.  There aren't really thoughts that come with this sadness though, it is just there.  Present and nagging.  Tugging at me all day long.  It is oppressive and heavy.  I feel as though I am clothed in concrete. Each step is weighed down and difficult to make. 

I wish I knew why I was sad.  I wish there was something that I could pin point and journal about.  Something that I could speak happiness into, but there are no words, just feelings.  I journaled a month ago about this feeling.  It is in my personal file, not one that I have shared and can link you to, but I will share part of it with you now.  It was/is my prayer.  I entitled it "when?"  Here are the opening and ending paragraph's of it:
.......................................................................................................................................................................
When is it all too much? When do I get to say I have fought hard enough, long enough, I am done fighting? Where do I go, to whom do I show my white flag of surrender?



Lord, I want to find You, but the road is daunting. The clouds have set in and I can no longer see your towers of strong refuge. So where do I go Lord, who do I turn to? Please send me a guide to show me the way.

......................................................................................................................................................................

I know that the Lord is there, holding me, but He  is not always easy to see and feel though, through this fog of sadness and hurt.  It is not a lack of faith or of desire and want, it is just a fact.  So, today this is my struggle.

Escaping Repunzel's Tower

Our family went and saw the movie "Tangled" tonight.  It was really cute.  Surprisingly, I found a bit of myself in the character of Repunzel.  I could relate to being locked in a tower, afraid to leave, but not wanting to stay.  Unlike Repunzel though, my captivity is of my own making.  My walls aren't made of mortar and bricks like hers were they are walls that I have made from years of silence.  Carefully I have laid brick on top of brick to keep myself safe and locked away.  An unknown heart can't be rejected.

I don't have hair to let down and escape my towers with, but I have words.  I have words that need saying and writing sets them free.  For years I would hold a pen to paper and nothing would come.  It is like I was looking out the window of my tower and waiting for my hair to grow before I could escape.  So, now I sit with pen in hand - tossing my hair out the window if you will.

At this point in the movie as Repunzel slid down her hair she paused.  She paused just inches away from freedom.  It wasn't enough for her to slide down her hair, she had to go beyond that and set her feet on unfamiliar ground.  She had to let her toes meet and mingle with what the earth had to offer.

I, too, am dangling inches from freedom.  Holding tight to the escape of written word.  Words that are said in writing can only go so far though.  My "earth" is that of speaking and being heard.  I need to let my voice meet and mingle and see what listening ears might have to offer.

My time for isolation is over.  I need to drop into the unfamiliar and set myself free - words made with sound behind them.

In many ways, Repunzel was her own hero.  It was her hair that set her free and her courage that gave her strength to touch the ground.  She wasn't alone though, she didn't do it on her own.  Being a Disney movie she had her little constant companion.  Interestingly it was a chameleon.   It could change colors to reflect its surroundings.   Along with her companion she also had a guide to help her travel this unfamiliar road. 

I am wanting a hero, but I think that I am going to have to be my own heroine.  It is going to be my voice and my voice alone that can rescue me.  I don't have to do it alone though.  I prayed for God to send me a guide.  Someone to help me navigate this strange new tower-less world I am entering.  In many ways, I guess I could say that you all are my companion.  You match your support for what my surroundings need at the moment.  You are here to cheer me on and help give me the strength to keep on going. I also think that my new counselor will help to be my guide.  I think she will be the one to help me find my way "home"* and keep me from getting lost in the woods along the way.

It is still hard for me to talk.  I still struggle with "putting word on top of word with eyes that are looking"**, but I have a plan.  I have bought a microphone and I am going to start recording myself reading my blogs.  I am going to try and familiarize myself with my words being spoken.  Hopefully this will stop the words from getting frozen in my throat as I sit and look into eyes.  I am ready to escape from Repunzel's Tower.
*Ripping Away the Band-aids Part One
**Ripping Away the Band-aids Part Two, Section B

Hiding, Heroes, and Death

I find my mind racing again and I am unable to sleep.  So, I am up and trying to stop my mind by putting word to thought.

I am so afraid to talk and I am trying to figure out why.  Why am I so afraid to talk?  And the words I wrote in my final bandaid blog keep haunting me.  "No hero to rescue me, no shelter in which to hide."  Am I looking for a hero?  Why do I want to hide?  I am an adult and yet I keep finding myself in fetal position under blanket hiding at the thought of talking.  Hiding, always hiding.

Trying to step back and look at myself analytically I think I am piecing together what might be going on.  I could be way off, but this is my take on it.

I think that this current depression has opened up old wounds and let out the shadow that my mind has tried to keep hidden for so long.  Whatever happened to me way back when was so traumatic that my mind tried to block it out for protection.  The shadow has been un-loosed though and is trying to come back.  My mind is fighting to keep it back, keep it away.  Hide me from it and protect me from that memory. 

I know that many of you think that it is Satan whispering to me of death, and it may well be, but as I lay in bed with my mind racing this morning I was thinking that maybe the protection of that memory is so great that as a way to save me from the pain, death or the thought of death is my minds way of protecting me from the memory.  Leaping from a rail is preferrable to facing the shadow. 

Before when suicide beckoned it is because I saw no hope for love or a future.  This time I have no desire to leave my family.  I have love and a future.  I was so confused by the thoughts of death and dying, because I have so much.  So much to be thankful for and to love and I know that I am loved.

If this memory is so traumatic that my mind would find death preferrable to remembering, it would make sense that I am looking for a hero, to be rescued, and why I keep wanting to hide.  When I was little I couldn't save myself, I needed a rescuer, but I am guessing there was no rescue and so I tried to hide. 

I am back there again, trying to hide as adult.  Covered in blanket, looking for someone to rescue me.  And I am terrified.

Watching Fezziwig Dance

If you have seen A Christmas Carol you may well remember the scene in which Scrooge is visited by the ghost of Christmas past and taken to a happier time when he was a boy.  He was working for Mr. Fezziwig who was hosting a dance for his employees.  Scrooge was there watching those happy times, but he was unable to interact in them.  He had to watch as happiness played out around him. 

I think I can best describe Depression like this.  Only instead of the past it is my life and there is only a ghost left of my happier me and I am locked somewhere inside watching life play out around me, unable to be a part of it's happiness.

I laugh and my laughs sound hollow.  I smile, but the smiles seem so shallow.  I am left watching Fezziwig dance and I want to dance with him, but I am but a shadow and our arms can't link.

I forget sometimes.......

Oh

how I hurt.

Hurts so deep that my skin is

bruised and tender.

I get stuck in the hurt.

I get stuck

and

I forget.

I forget the song that I used

to sing to myself.

The song I sang when hurts were being

shoved deep into my

soul

like thorns.

The words tender and sweet.

Melody soft and simple.

Like a soothing ointment with promises of love.

Love

 from He who wore thorns shaped like crown.

Who knows how deep they pierce.

Promises that His scarred hands would touch me

and cause my eyes to see.

And these words that I forgot
fly to me
fresh.

Beautiful, Beautiful, Jesus is Beautiful

and Jesus makes beautiful things of

my life.

Carefully,

touching me,

 causing my eyes to see.

Yes, Jesus makes beautiful things of

my life.

linking up with Emily and her imperfect community today

Let it Snow...

The pellet stove decided to stop working today. 

Thankfully it did so before my husband had to leave for a school on Sunday and he was able to fix it. 

 We have 11 bags of pellets standing by and I am ready for snow! 

I am still a big kid at heart when it comes to snow. 

I LOVE it! 

 Currently we just have rain and drizzle. 

 I am okay with that,

 but after listening to Christmas songs this afternoon

I can't help but look out the window and hope to see little flakes of white falling down. 

They don't have to stick, just watching them is fun! 

 Is anyone else hoping to see snow or is it just me?

Damaged Goods

I am a ponderer, a wonderer, and a questioner.  I am analytical to a fault and often wonder who I am, what am I all about, and why am I here?  Answers to those questions don't come easily.  My search to answer them has spanned the last 20 years or more of my life.  The reasons behind the asking have changed with time, but the questions still remain.

I can remember when I was in Jr. High and High school.  Those were rough years for me.  I considered myself damaged goods and the general populace of my peers did nothing but reinforce that notion.  I can remember distinctly in my Junior year of high school sitting in class.  One of the boys next to me who I considered a friend of mine turned to me and said, "Why don't you just do us all a favor and kill yourself."
I can't remember what I said in reply, but he may as well have stabbed me through the heart.

I am amazed that I made it through those years.  I used to beg God to kill me.  To let me die.  I knew I shouldn't kill myself but I wanted nothing to do with living.  In those years I had no answer to why I was here, who I was, and what I was all about.   I just knew that I was and I didn't want to be.  I felt completely damaged and like no one could or would ever love me.  I certainly did not love myself.

Time marched on though and life and my future became a less scary place.  I wish I could say that my self worth was never again questioned and that I never struggled with hopelessness, but it wouldn't be true.  I know what it is to sob on a cold linoleum bathroom floor staring at the toilet and wondering if the water is deep enough to drown yourself in.  I know what it is to feel as if you can't go on and that you aren't worth the air that you are breathing.  Fortunately, God is good and I have gotten through those times. 

I still question who I am, what I am about, and why I am here.  I still see myself as damaged goods, but recently I have realized something.   I have realized that everyone is damaged.  Everyone has been hurt, has a past, has an issue.  I am not unique in that way.  I am not the only one.  Sounds pretty basic doesn't it.  It is amazing that it has taken me so long to grasp that.  What really is most important about this realization though is that even though I am damaged, my worth has never changed.  In God's eyes I am still His creation.  Tattered and torn though I am, I am just as precious and worthy to Him as the day I was born.  Nothing has changed in His eyes.

I think I have heard this illistration before, so it is not uniquely mine, but if you have a twenty dollar bill and you crumple it up, step on it, throw it in a mud puddle, and pick it back up it is still a twenty dollar bill.  Its edges may be rough, it may be dirty and damaged, but it is still worth the same amount. 

I am crumpled, have been stepped on, and thrown in the mud (sometimes I even wallow there), but God  picks me up, unfolds me, and washes me off.  My value hasn't ever changed.  I am worthy because He made me and I am here because He wants me to be.  I was worthy when I was new, I was worthy when I was crumpled, I was worthy while I was being stepped on, I was worthy when lying in the mud, and I am worthy when I am washed. 

I just want you all to know that you are worthy too.  Damaged or not.  Dirty or not. Whether you are still lying in the mud or not, God created you and you are worthy and valuable to Him. 


*As you read these postings of mine I hope that you never feel preached at.  Lord knows I am not one who can preach.  If anything, I am really "preaching" to myself, because I find myself needing to be reminded of who God is and how much He loves me even when I can't find any love inside of me for myself.*