recovery or recovering

Today I feel like I am "doing recovery" rather than recovering.  I think you have to have experienced recovery in some form for that to fully make sense.  I am tired.  But I'm tired because I'm depressed not because I haven't gotten enough sleep.

Yesterday, once again, I begged God to heal me.  I promised Him the world, just make this heaviness go away.  PLEASE!  Instead He filled my ride to work with songs about trusting God even through the pain, songs about how His love doesn't fail us even through the dark times, songs of reassurance but no songs of healing.

So once again, with a heavy heart, I am asked to trust what I cannot feel.  And I do.  And I will.  Even if the heaviness never leaves, He is God and He is good.

I saw this on Facebook last week.  I have to share it because it is true.

Yeah, I really am glad.  I'm glad you're here still.  I'm even glad I'm here still.  Keep pressing on.  Keep hanging on.  Keep doing recovery even when you feel like you are doing recovery not recovering.  Keep putting one foot in front of the other.  Keep doing the next right thing.  And next year we can all gather around each other and be glad that we are still here. 

walking throught the muck with my kids

Friday the news broke that the body they found was indeed the body of the missing little girl.  Friday my son spent the night at a friends house.  Friday the friend's mom told my son that the girl had been found.  Friday she told him that the body had been dismembered.  Saturday I had to pick up the pieces of a very broken little boy.

Wouldn't you think that maybe it isn't ok to tell other people's kids big news like that?  Or maybe send me a text if he was asking questions to ask if I minded if she talked to him about it?  Or at minimum, TELL ME that she talked to him so that I know what he knows so I have a starting point when he breaks down in my arms? 

We believe that our kids should hear from us whenever possible the things they need to know.  We tell our kids hard things because we want to be able to help them process their emotions in a safe place.  We would have talked about this with him.   We talked to our kids about the theater shooting.  We talked about the little girl being missing and the reasons we have certain outside rules in place.  We talk about sex and answer uncomfortable questions.  We answer all of their questions when we are asked, even if the answer, like this time, is "I don't know.  I don't understand either." 

Maybe that is why it made me angry that someone else handled it.  I know it will get talked about at school.  My son is in the same age range as the little girl was.  He and his friends have been talking about it.  I just wanted him to hear the big part from me and dad.  I wanted him to be in a safe place that he could completely loose his temper and punch his pillow and scream and cry and do all of the things that he did when he got home to the safety of his room.  I wanted to be there to hold him when he asked through his sobs why someone would do that.

This morning  I asked his little brother what they talk about at school.  He told me at lunch that they talk about the bad guy who broke into the theater.  He told me they talk about the missing girl.  I told him the missing girl was found, that someone had hurt her, that someone had killed her.  He asked me why that person would steal her if they were just going to kill her.  I told him I don't know.  He doesn't have the same details that his big brother has.  He doesn't need the same details that his big brother has.  But he knows that he can ask us questions if he has them.  He knows home is a safe place to feel what you need to feel.  But it isn't affecting him in the same way as it is affecting his brother.

This parenting stuff is hard.  Helping my kids to feel the emotions that they need to feel and to walk alongside of them as they process is important.  It is also hard.  I understand why some parents choose to not talk to their kids about issues.  It is painful.  It hurts to see pieces of your child's innocence taken away.  It is a very helpless kind of feeling to have your son break down into gut wrenching sobs in your arms and know that you can't make it better.  It is very humbling to have no words of comfort and to only be able to pray that the Lord will bring us His comfort.

Even If....

My new favorite song Even If by Kutless......

Last week was hard.  Really, REALLY hard.  I've decided that suicidal thoughts come in many forms.  I've had days of actively wanting to kill myself.  Last week I didn't want to actually kill myself but I just wanted to die.  My friend had a time similar this week.  She didn't want to kill herself but wished that someone else would kill her.  And it is all suicidal ideations whether it is wanting to kill myself, wanting to die or wanting someone else to take your life.  And it is scary. 

It is scary to fantasize about dying.  Even when I am in a good place I still wonder what it would be like to die.  Even when I am loving my life and not overwhelmed with depression, I still wonder what would happen if I took the entire bottle of pills.  I still think about it, maybe not all the time, but regularly. 

Last week I heard this song for the first time.  It is truly what I believe.  This song has moved my heart.  If my healing never comes, if I struggle with depression, suicidal ideation, and eating disorders for the rest of my life, it won't change WHO  God is.  He is still good, even if my healing never comes.

some days are harder

like today.

I've had plenty of random things trigger big emotions today.  I'm not a fan of big emotions, especially when several different ones hit me in just a few hours span.

On the way to work this afternoon I was overcome by sadness.  As I turned the corner to the street I work on, I saw two men on scaffolding and one man down below extremely exerted and struggling to lower the scaffolding.  In January, when Cousin died, he fell from scaffolding at work that he was helping his guys to take down.  It was the last thing they had to do before they went home for the day.  I gasped and tears immediately sprung to my eyes.  The sight and the subsequent intense emotion caught me off guard.

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At work, I checked my email.  There was one from my former pastor that had a link to something he had just written.  The short version of what he had to say was that depression is a symptom of trusting your feelings rather than God. The long version, to be honest, made me a bit angry.  When someone who has never dealt with depression tries to tell me why my depression isn't as big as it is or that it is my fault or that I'm just not enough of a Christian, I get really frustrated.

 I wonder if these Christians who believe that depression is a sign of sin have ever read the Bible. What about the prophet Elisha (or maybe it was Elijah, I still to this day get those two mixed up!) who sat beneath a tree and told God to just kill him, that his life was over?  God had to send an angel to tell him to sleep and eat and to minister to him. Or what about David, the man after God's heart? He was as extreme in his emotions as one could ever be.  How many times does he, in his hurt, cry out to God and beg God to kill him?  How many times does he ask God to kill his enemies?  How many times does he make comments about despair and agony within him?  And yet he knew God was faithful.  And yet he still worshiped God in spirit and in truth.  DESPITE the agony.  Why can I not still know God is in control and worship Him even though often times my soul is in despair?  Why is my hurt a sin in so many people's eyes? Wouldn't it be nice if people had to live a day in your skin before they were able to criticize your emotions?

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Many years ago I heard it said that once you have been stalked, you will always live with one eye over your shoulder.  At the time I didn't understand but thanks to abusive boyfriend, now I do understand that comment. Looking over my shoulder has been somewhat of a second nature to me for far too many years now.  I'm not terrified like I used to be.  I don't think every car or person behind me is out to get me like I used to.  I am aware though of any car that has been behind me, including lane changes, for more than a mile.  I have detoured on my way home from places just to be sure that I'm not being followed.  While most of the time I feel fairly safe, sometimes I don't at all.  Tonight was one of those nights.

I work in a really nice part of town.  We joke that you are more likely to get pulled over there for something minor because the police need something to do to kill their time since they don't need to be out stopping crime.  Tonight, however, the police didn't need to kill time.  I don't know what happened, but something did.  I saw 18 cops tonight, lights on, sirens off, blocking parking lot exits and several side streets in 1/4 mile radius as I was leaving work.  As I got on the highway, I saw 2 more that I hadn't seen who were parked on the sidewalk next to my building where the light rail station is.  They were definitely looking for someone. I was suddenly bombarded with icky feelings of insecurity and danger.

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All of that comes to top off the fact that last night I realized that think I have been subconsciously sabotaging my recovery for the past week or so.  I wasn't intentionally acting out but suddenly last night I realized that I have been restricting.  I haven't been concentrating on it, I think that is what is scary.  It comes so naturally that I don't realize I'm doing it sometimes.  I realized simply because I had very little wine last night before I was aware that it was affecting me.  I made a comment about being a total light weight last night and Hubby asked me what I had eaten.  As I started going through my day I realized I hadn't had much at all to eat, and then I went through the previous several days and suddenly understood why the wine got to me so quickly.  Had I not done that, I wouldn't have even realized that I was doing it.

I knew I have been unhappy with my body.  I knew that I don't feel anywhere near summer body ready.  But I also have known that having energy to enjoy my family again is better than fearing my body.  I thought that since I have been acknowledging my and validating both my body and my emotions that I was in a good spot.  And now I see that recovery still needs to be an active choice even when I think I'm handling things fairly well.

So that's my night.  There are a lot of emotions swirling around in there, and a lot of thoughts as well.  I'm not pushed over the edge, which is good.  I'm a little overwhelmed still by feeling and especially so many things in such a short span of time.  I'm reminding myself that feelings are ok, good even, and trying to embrace them rather than run from them.  It is a little (ok, a LOT) scary and difficult too.

just like that

I recently saw something on Facebook that shook me up.  One of my friends is a girl who I went to highschool with.  We haven't talked since I graduated.  We seldom talked while in school. I went to one of those really small schools where you know everyone and everyone knows you and she was in the class behind me, so it was impossible to not know each other somewhat.  At some point after school we both got married.  I had three kids she had one. 

I rejoiced via Facebook with her when her Marine came home safely from a long deployment to Afghanistan.  I sometimes see her updates about her son.  She has made a happy life for herself and her family. I've been happy for her. And then it happened.  Her hubby was killed in an accident and now she is a widow.  A thirty something widow with a young son to care for.  Just like that her world is forever changed. 

He wasn't away at war.  He had come home.  They were enjoying life together.  He didn't die at the time she was braced for the call, when she was hoping against the call but prepared all the same.  He died after she had let her guard down.  He's home.  He is out of the line of fire.  He is out of the area where one would not be surprised (though of course the emotions would be just as horrible) if he died.  He was on his motorcycle and a car hit him.  Just like that he's gone.

I'm struck by the frailty of life.  He was young.  He had an amazing life and a lot to look forward to.  She thought he was coming home.  She wasn't prepared at all for the call saying he would never come home.  And it could have been any one of us.  It could be my hubby on his way to work in the middle of the night.  It could be me.  It could be anyone.

This time it was them.  She is left to pick up the shattered pieces of her life. She presses on to raise their son without the help of her best friend.  I nearly cried this afternoon when my hubby turned on an episode of Scrubs.  Turk and JD are sitting with a man while he dies and JD says something along the lines of all you can really hope for (in dying)  is that your last thought is a good one.  I hope D's last thought was a good one. 

It is such a shocking reminder to me that I am not promised tomorrow.  If I died tonight, would my kids last memory of me be hugging them or yelling at them?  Would my husband know how much I love him?  Would those you love know how much you love them if you didn't have tomorrow to tell them?