things I've learned

I am so very tired of dreaming.  On one hand, I have stopped dreaming about horrifying things.  On the other hand, I have had dreams every night about the hospital.  Usually the dreams are harmless enough, going through a group therapy session or doing puzzles and laughing at stupid soap opera lines with my fellow prisoners, uh, I mean patients.  One night the dream was that we had my family meeting (a pre-requisite for discharge) with hubby, the BHA (behavioral health advocate) escorted him back downstairs while I got my things together, and then they informed me my paper work was not complete and I wasn't allowed to leave after all.  In my dream, hubby was waiting downstairs and I had no way to get ahold of him to tell him they weren't letting me leave after all.  I've had dreams that other patients are confiding in me stories of their lives.  I always wake up from those praying for the people I dreamed about.  Maybe I was there for a reason outside of myself afterall?  Any way around it, I am so tired of dreaming about being in the hospital!  Hubby says it would be weird if I didn't dream about it, afterall, it was a fairly traumatic experience. 

During my stay there I learned some things about myself.  I learned am passive and sometimes passive aggressive in my communication.  I learned that I don't feel secure enough to actually say what I need when I need it.  I realized that there are more body image issues than I have ever cared to admit to myself in this battle.  I am fighting for more than control.    I discovered, yet again, how a kind word and a smile can instantly change someone's outlook.  Thanks to the two people who gave me a kind word, a smile and someone to hang out with.  I was terrified when they left and I still had two days to go.  I realized that life has taken a toll on all of us, just some of us handle it less healthily than others.  I was surrounded by extremely hurt people.  It gave me perspective.  What if J actually had killed himself?  Who would have told me on my first day that I had a phone message and asked me to sit with them at lunch?  In the short time I was around these people I wondered how my life would have been lacking if I had never met them.  They were strangers and I felt that way, how much more I would feel it for a friend, how much more it would have been felt for me. 

Perspective is a good thing.  I am currently trying to switch mine.  This week the news came out that a player on the Denver Broncos committed suicide.  That has been difficult news for me.  Not because he is a ball player, not because I know him, not because he lived here in Denver, but because it could have been me that the story was about.  My brother in law was talking about this yesterday at dinner.  He said he didn't understand how someone could get so wrapped up in football that if the Broncos don't want you then you are worthless as a person and therefore kill yourself.  He said true words, that it is a shame that this player didn't know his worth is from being a creation of the Almighty God, not in how he acheived in sports.  True as the words were, they hurt me.  I wanted to pull into my safe wall and not talk, actually I did do that.  I was hurt simply because I suddenly felt like a freak because I have had suicidal thoughts.  I understand hurting so badly that everything seems hopeless.  I understand hurting so badly that I cannot see a way out.  I understand hurting so badly that I just want to die and never have to face life again.  I understand what it is to question your worth, to question God's love and to question if God is really big enough and willing enough to heal you.  The news hurt me.  The news sobered me.  I can't handle the news right now......

I also cannot handle CSI right now, or at least the episode that was on the other day.  It involved a patient at a mental health facility and also sexual impropriety.  I had to leave the room.  It was more than I could deal with.  I made delicious cookies instead while hubby watched the episode.  He's not insensitive, he asked and I said it was fine but that I couldn't watch anymore of it.  I am tired.  I am tired of life taking such a toll on me and on all of my loved ones.  I am tired of hurting.  I am tired of seeing those I love hurt.  I long for the day when all wrongs will be righted.  I long for the day when basking in His glorious presence isn't something I have to work for, but rather the ultimate peace and glory.  I long for the day when worship is more than a choice, a struggle through pain, but when worship easily and freely flows from every fiber of my being.  I long for the day when there is no more eating disorders, no more murders, no more sexual abuse, no more tears, no more gossip, no more bigotry, no more hurts.  Until that day, I will, having done all else, stand firm in my faith.  I know that He will bring beauty from my brokenness.  I know that He will continue and finish the good work He has begun in me.  And most of all, I know He is faithful, kind and good.