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. 

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.

my niece

It has been a stressful couple of days.  I called my mom-in-law yesterday and learned that one of my nieces is in the psych hospital.  Again.  She called 911, said she felt unstable, like she was going to hurt herself.  The ambulance took her to Children's Hospital where she stayed for several hours before being transferred to the  mental hospital.  This isn't her first merry go round with this.  Her life's timeline could almost be told from trauma to trauma, from suicidal intentions to hospital stays to cutting to running away to hospital stays.

This time feels different to me.  Something about this time feels very disconcerting to me.  Something feels very, very wrong this time. I know some view her as just wanting attention.  I don't.  She is a hurt young lady.  Sure, I guess there is some need to get attention in all of this.  But I get angry that her parents refuse to see her hurt.  Her step mom insists that she is just an angry teenager with no legitimate problems.  Her dad  is clueless and will never see her as anyone more than the girl who annoys his wife.

Hey, I can't say that if I were in her shoes right now that I wouldn't have made the same call.  She's hurt.  She's lonely.  She's unloved and unnoticed at home.  They don't want her.  They say she is just trying to get attention.  And you know what I think about that?  I say, hell, if the girl is attempting suicide to get your attentions, then maybe you should pay attention to her!  Now, I do believe there is more, much, much, more to this.  I believe she wants to die until she starts to and then gets scared.  I believe her intentions are real and based out of a crappy hand that life dealt her.  But then when she thinks about actually dying, she is afraid she will let someone down or hurt someone or that she just gets plain old scared of dying.

And here is where it gets hard for me.  I get it.  I know what it is like to live life measured from one suicide attempt to the next.  I know what it is like to be a teenager drinking myself to sleep at night to escape the pain of being me.  I know what it is like to hurt my body simply because it hurts less than the emotional pain.  I know what it is like to hurt my body just to see if I can still feel anything.   And yet, I want to see her want to get better.  I can't make her better.  She has to decide on her own that this isn't working for her and take the steps to make her life what she wants it to be not what she was dealt.  And it puts me in the hardest position of anyone in the family. 

I know her hurt all too well.  Sure things have been different, we have dealt with different painful experiences but we both have known very deep pain.  I'm the only one who completely validates where she is at emotionally.  I also know that she is almost an adult now.  In a few short months, her parents will kick her out and she will be left to figure it out on her own.  She is pretty much at the point now that life is going to be what she makes of it.  And I find myself angry that no one has prepared her for such a life.  Her parents think only of how quickly they can get her out, it's all they have thought of for years.  They say she is lazy, but they never taught her how to work. They get mad that she has no coping skills but they have neither modeled them nor helped her find to a professional to help her learn them.

My niece is about to enter the world as an adult and she is terrified that she doesn't have what it takes to make it.  So she threatens suicide and gets a warm bed, 3 meals cooked for her and doesn't have to listen to her step mom berating her all the time.  Doesn't sound like too bad of a gig to me.  Hey, I'm a functioning adult and have days that I miss the hospital and having no responsibility in taking care of myself. I think that maybe that is why it bothers me so much more this time around.  I think it is sinking in that she is nearly an adult but doesn't know how to be one.  I think she is terrified that she will not be able to make it in the big girl world and it seems easier to opt out before the time comes to face it.

Of course, I also think there is a little bit of a jab in there at her parents who don't want her.  Of course, I do think there is some "NOW they'll pay attention" in there.  I do think she could kill herself but I don't think she will, at least not yet.  And it breaks my heart to say not yet when referring to my niece.  It breaks my heart to see her depression spiraling out of control only to be told that she is fine and just trying to get me to feel sorry for her.  I see her pain, probably better than all of the family combined, and I can not help her other than to tell her she isn't crazy and that she can make it through this.  I feel really helpless.  And I know she does too.  You can only feel helpless for so long before you either fight back or give in. 

Here's to praying she fights back instead of giving in.  I sure do love that little girl, she has had my heart from the first time I ever met her .  I wish I could make it all better and it breaks my heart that I can't.

lurking and growing up

The tears are lurking again.  I can feel a weight behind the happiness.  I had the realization a couple of days ago that I was only 3 years older than my son is now when I tried to commit suicide for the first time.  I felt so grown up, like a very old soul, at the time.  But the reality is that I wasn't.  I was 12.  At 9 I was praying that I wouldn't grow up to be fat like my mom.  At 12 I was swallowing pills and truly it seemed like I had endured far more than a measly 12 years of life.  At 14 I had begun to starve myself.  I felt so old and yet I was really so young.

Thoughts like that scare me about my kids getting older.  My son has a crush on a girl at school.  He doesn't really understand his feelings, just that they are big feelings.  He drew a heart on his leg with their initials drawn in it.  He gets all smiley and goofy at the mention of her name.  He is growing up.  And I am glad he is growing up.  I hope his teenage years are much more like his daddy's than like mine.  I hope that thoughts of suicide never plague him.  I hope his little comments about not needing to lose weight yet, and rarely wanting breakfast before school don't turn to haunt him with a life of ED.  I read stories about the Penn State scandal and I pray he never has to understand abuse.

I want the life for him that I didn't have.  I want him to know safety and security that I pretended in my mind but didn't think existed when I was his age.  I hope when he is a teenager that he doesn't drink until he passes out simply because it hurts to live his life.  I hope he tells his wife of fond memories of when he was a child.  I hope he smiles at his kids and laughs as much as his daddy does. 

I know I can't protect him from all hurt.  We all get hurt.  Hurt is part of life.  I wouldn't want to either, it would be living in a delusion for me and cause even more hurt for him and for me.  But that said, I pray his hurts never carry him down a road of self loathing.  That they never carry him so far that he forgets he is loved.  That they never carry him to needing to cope with the after effects of molestation, eating disorders, or suicidal tendencies.  In short, I pray he never has to live my life.  I hope so much more for him!

I did it

So many thoughts so little time.  So what do I share and still get my backside to bed to recover from no sleep last night thanks to staying up with a sick little guy?  While there is a lot on my mind, I guess I should update on the life events that have happened over the last month. 

I decided at a point that I was ok with Hubby touching me.  Not thrilled, mind you, but accepting of it.  He was wonderful, as he always is, and did nothing until I made the first move.  There is something about being the one in control that takes some of the fear out of "the event".  My body was no longer hyper sensitive and he had been patient.  I didn't want to take advantage of his patience just because I didn't feel like it.  Not being in the mood is quite a bit different from being traumatized.  So I kissed him a little longer than I had been and I wrapped his arms around me.  That is my sign when it is ok to touch me again.

And you know what?  That man was so very gentle.  And somehow being intimate with him was healing not damaging.  Somehow being with him made me feel safe again.  I can't even explain it because to me it doesn't make much sense, but it was like giving someone a broken vase and receiving it back fixed and filled with flowers.  It was a mental effort for me, a HUGE mental effort.  I had to recenter myself several times.  I had to force myself to stay in the moment, there with him, instead of retreating to my mental happy place.  It nearly made me cry once or twice to stay present, but I did it.  When my mind tried to shut off, I somehow reminded myself that this wasn't the men who hurt me and managed to bring myself back.

And it does help (sorry if this is tmi!) that while Hubby is wonderful about satisfying me, he doesn't get his feelings hurt if I don't "get there".  For a couple of times, I didn't want to get there.  That meant losing control of my body and that was just too scary for me.  I redirected a little, didn't get there and he wasn't offended by it.  Even in the deed, my body was mine.  He once again, ever so gently, brought my heart out of hiding.

I did it!  I rode the wave of emotion and didn't die from it!  Ok, so I thought I was going to at times.  I spent days crying or sleeping.  I refused to cook or clean.  I barely ate, I wasn't even hungry.  My dreams at night were riddled with suicide attempts.  I'm not sure that I wanted to die, but I didn't really want to live either.  I wanted to not exist.  But the point is, I did it.  I felt the emotion.  I didn't stuff the emotion, even though I really wanted to.  And in the end, I actually do feel somewhat better.  I made it through another emotional hurricane, and yeah maybe lost some windows and downed some trees but it didn't wipe me out.......this time.

flesh memories

Remember in the 7th Harry Potter book when Dumbledore has left Harry the golden snitch that Harry caught in his first game of Quidditch?  Harry is told that the snitch has a flesh memory, that is, it remembers the touch of the person who caught it.

Well, guess what?  We have those types of memories too.  Haven't you noticed how a certain smell will bring you back to a place you have been before?  Have you noticed that someone brushing past you can remind you of something from years before?  Have you ever walked in someplace only to have your stomach lurch with a sudden memory?

I have.  Just yesterday, actually.  With a few minutes to kill before the zoo would open, I took my 4 year old to Starbucks for a cake pop.  I've been to this particular Starbucks only 3 times and one of those times was hitting the drive thru.  As I walked in, I was grateful for my little guy holding my hand.  He was holding me to reality instead of walking through a memory.

Eight months ago, I walked through these same doors.  I went to the bony thin male barista and ordered my  non fat vanilla latte.  He said, "Don't you just get sick of ordering the non fat milk and people commenting, 'Why did you order non fat? Are you trying to lose weight?  You sooooo don't need to lose any weight!' ?"

I forced a smile and agreed that my choice of milk was simply my preference and had nothing to do with my weight.  I lied.  I just wanted to get out of there, back to my car.  But my car was not the safest place for me.  I didn't want the coffee.  I went into Starbucks because my malnourished brain had finally had enough and I had just spent 20 minutes driving looking for the perfect spot to run my car off the road and end it all.  I pulled into the Starbucks parking lot simply because sanity broke through momentarily.  I went inside to give myself space.

I went back to my car and crumpled in tears.  I had enough presence of mind to call my hubby and tell him that I wasn't ok.  I made it home no longer actively seeking to kill myself but praying amidst the tears that God would allow someone to hit me on the highway so I could just be done.  The following day I was admitted to the mental hospital for suicidal ideations resulting from malnutrition caused by anorexia.  It was official, anorexia and several mental conditions were now on my permanent medical record.

Anyway, yesterday I walked into the same Starbucks and felt my stomach lurch at the memory of the first time I had been there.  I am glad my son held my hand.  I'm glad that being with him took the sting out of that memory.  I'm glad I am not driving down the highway looking for the stretch of road with no one else around, to take my life on.

And that particular flesh memory brought me hope because in that moment I glimpsed how much progress I have actually made (even though I struggle usually to see it).  I've come further than I tend to give myself credit for and yesterday for a moment, holding my son's hand, I actually  saw it.