Listen Up!

This mainly goes out to all of you so-called "normal" people. You know who you are (at least in my life). It also is addressed to the family or friends of all those who read this blog who for some reason think that people who deal with depression or anxiety, or WHATEVER it is they deal with are somehow damaged.

Some people come from horrific backgrounds or have suffered tragic losses. Those folks are often bruised, dinged, a little sad and a whole lot pissed. You may wonder why they can't just let it go??? You try living through it, then ask them that.

Now onto the families/friends of people like me who suffer from depression for who knows why. WE ARE NOT WEAK MINDED! If anything it's the opposite. Our minds are on overdrive all the time. Thoughts are like waterfalls and all we can do is hope the barrel we're in doesn't hit the rocks below and shatter. If we're lucky we'll hit smooth water until next drop-off. If one more person gives me a pitying sigh when share a triumph, or worse when I share a fear, I may just slap you. Might be the best therapy I get all week. Please stop treating me like my brain doesn't work well. It just doesn't work like yours. I get emotional, I feel other people's pain, I have fears and hang-ups I can't even begin to explain to myself, much less you. I don't WANT to be like this, I am working to control it, but my brain will NEVER work like yours does, and NEWS FLASH: I don't WANT it to. There is some crazy stuff that goes on in my head I'll grant you, but you will never have my imagination. You can't touch my ability to empathize with others, and you'll never know what it feels like be aware of every heartbeat. Don't pity me. I don't need your pity. If being understanding is too difficult, too annoying, or too dramatic for you, then I don't need YOU. Go be "normal" elsewhere. You bore me.

Huh. That sounded like a rant didn't it? Well, it's my blog and I'll rant if I want to.

Till next time, all my hyper-aware compatriots, be weird, laugh often, and know God loves the crazies too.

Attacked

Why is it that every time I feel myself being drawn toward God, my anxiety increases?? I went to a pretty amazing concert that had my heart soaring with worship. I left feeling renewed. I hadn't even pulled my car in the driveway afterward when the anxiety began.

"What if I'm too late?"
"What if God's already made up His mind about me?"
"What if he isn't even there?"

Thoughts that have haunted me along with reoccurring dreams and themes of dying. Now, after a good and productive day, when I felt like I conversed with God more than I have in months, I sit in a quiet house and silently begin to unravel. It's hard to describe if you haven't experienced it first hand, but I'll do my best. Try putting a cat into a paper bag and stapling the ends shut. Imagine the commotion that would ensue. The cat knows nothing of failure, or giving in. It will fight that bag with tooth, claw and sheer feline perseverance until either the bag or the cat collapse. That what it feels like inside when I start to get anxious. Like there is something desperate in my chest clawing it's way out. It feels almost like there is someone inside who will stop at nothing to get out--to flee. Most nights the bag wins, but not without serious claw marks left behind.

I'm told that Satan almost always attacks when we begin to turn back to God. When we've been off the path, bruised and broken, and it almost hurts to put one foot in front of the other on the narrow road, the evil one tries his darnedest to convince us that its not worth the fight. With him you don't have to get up. You can just lie there broken. He'll numb your pain with addictions, vanity, or apathy. He'll coddle you and tell you it's everyone else's fault. He'll keep down until you can't remember what it felt like to walk, to see the sun, feel the breeze. He knows that if you get going on God's path, if you walk far enough, God won't numb the pain, He'll heal it. He'll not only help you walk, he'll let you fly (Isaiah 40:29-31). Satan is a serpent. He's a land dweller. He can't catch you if your feet are suspended in the air. Until you look down.

Looking down will almost always bring you down. There is a quote from Jane Austen's Mansfield Park that I just love. "Beware of fainting fits, beware of swoons. Run as often as you like, but do not faint". She is telling the story of a girl who looks down. She turns to the life she'd left and faints. She gives in.

I won't give in. I'll keep walking. I'll opt for healing over numbness, for wholeness over patches, for flight over fainting.

To exercise or not to exercise that is the ?

Why is it SOOOO hard to do what you know you have to. Jesus once asked a crippled dude who was sitting miserably by a pool, "Do you want to get well?" If I were the guy I would have been like, "um, duh, my sandal-footed friend". But what He was asking was an important question. One I continue to have to ask myself. Do I WANT to get well? The immediate answer is yes, but the long version is I want to just BE well. Getting well require effort. I just want a pill, or a quick fix. Liposuction of the brain. All the results, none of the effort.

Exercise used to be an escape for me. Something I did for fun. That was before this summer when now every time I run I have anxiety. Is my heart rate too high? Am I dizzy? Is that guy staring at my big butt in these pants? The thing is, if I get through it, I DO feel better. I want to ignore the mountain of research that says exercise is more effective than any of the happy pills on the market if done regularly, but how can I when the results speak for themselves?

Well I'd better stop writing, and get to running. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can....