Just very occasionally you can find a music album that you can really identify with. Music and lyrics that make your heart sing. I found one such album in “Revelation” by Third Day. While my moods were swinging all over the place there was one song that I most identified with when depressed and another I identified with when hypomanic. But there was a song that I really didn’t get. I mean, I liked it an’ all, and I thought the singing was lovely, but I knew that I had never really felt that way. Here are the words:
Today I found myself
After searching all these years
And the man that I saw, he wasn’t at all who I thought he’d be
I was lost when You found me here
And I was broken beyond repair
Then You came along and You sang Your song over me
It feels like I’m born again
It feels like I’m living
For the very first time
For the very first time
In my life
Make a promise to me now
Reassure my heart somehow
That the love that I feel is so much more real than anything
I’ve a feeling in my soul
And I pray that I’m not wrong
That the life I have now, it is only the beginning
It feels like I’m born again
It feels like I’m living
For the very first time
For the very first time
It feels like I’m breathing
It feels like I’m moving
For the very first time
For the very first time
I wasn’t looking for something that was more
Than what I had yesterday
Then You came to me and You gave to me
Life and a love that I’ve never known
That I’ve never felt before
It feels like I’m born again
It feels like I’m living
For the very first time
I’m living for the first time
It feels like I’m breathing
It feels like I’m moving
For the very first time
I’m living for the first time
In my life
As I listened to this song yesterday, I realised that I get it now. This is exactly how I feel. I have never felt this way before but I do now. It feels like everything is new. I have so much to process. This last year has been so hard. I have lost sight of who I am, lost my confidence in dealing with other people, in coping with my job, I have even questioned the existence of God.
But how faithful He is!
Last summer, I wrote about an experience I had at a church service one Sunday. The thoughts in my head were turning black at that point and I was suffering from high levels of anxiety. Here’s what happened:
One of the elders got up during the morning service and he said that he thought someone in the church had been thinking black thoughts. He wanted to reassure that person that God sees the depths of our hearts and all our thoughts and yet He loves us the same. I knew that that person was me.
That same elder prayed for me at the end of the evening serivce. I sat and waited, becoming more and more nervous with each passing minute. I had tears streaming down my face, I was shaking like a leaf, I couldn’t even breathe properly and I was just about to leave when he turned and saw me. He came over. All I could manage to do was to whisper, “I don’t like being prayed for”. He looked at me with such compassion and then started to pray. He prayed that I would come to fully understand the love God has for me, that God cherishes me, that I am His daughter. Then he looked at me and said that he believed I need to realise that I can be me; he said, “You are free to be you - be free. I don’t know if that means anything to you?”. I told him it does. He prayed some more then we chatted. I said that I had wanted to skip this service but I couldn’t because I was singing in the band. I had been fighting with God all the way through the service. He then told me that he was glad I hadn’t skipped because I was the person who came to his mind in the morning service.
Ten months have passed since that happened. Since then I have been on four difference anti-depressants, been diagnosed with Cyclothymia and started taking a mood stabiliser. Even though God reached down and touched me that day, even though that touch was so personal it took my breath away, I have still doubted that He exists. How little faith I have.
But now I am starting to get a tiny glimpse of what God was telling me that night. God saw my black thoughts, He saw my unbelief, and yet He loves me the same. He will never stop loving me, because I am His daughter. I am free to be exactly who I am, in all my oddities, my uniqueness, because that is the way He made me. This is why I can identify with that song. Everything is new to me. It feels like, all through this year with all the bumps and bruises I have sustained, God has been singing His song over me.
I feel like a rose bud just beginning to unfold its petals, just beginning to bloom.
I’ve a feeling in my soul
And I pray that I’m not wrong
That the life I have now, it is only the beginning
I’m feeling happy, people. Really happy. My mood is stable and has been for nearly two weeks (apart from one teensy little blip). I’ve started exercising every day and I’m proud of myself for that. I have things to look forward to.
I wrote something today and I thought I’d post it here too:
I’m still struck by how new it feels to be stable every day. Every day! Everything seems different. I’m so calm. Well, not all the time, I’m still me!
But I’m starting to see my “real” personality. I’m bubbly, but also a deep thinker. I like to ponder questions, I like to daydream. I still get nervous sometimes, but it’s not overwhelming me. I still have lots of opposites to my nature – the Cyclothymia emphasises that. Like the fluctuating self-esteem – sometimes high, sometimes low.
But I’m starting to see that even when my mood is stable I’m still full of contradictions – and I kind of like that.
I don’t feel the same need to be understood. I have always felt like I sit on the edges – people just don’t “get” me. I spent far too much energy on trying to be understood and accepted. Now I’m thinking, it’s OK to be different, I don’t have to get people to understand me straight away, possibly even ever. I just have to be. If people don’t get that then that’s not so bad.
I think that people will get the most out of a friendship with me if it’s long-term. If they’re not willing to be around for that long, if they can’t accept me, then that’s just their loss.
Some of today’s musings. Maybe I’ll turn this into a new “About” page.
Hubby and I spent part of this weekend with my parents. We all had good news last week so it was a chance to catch up and celebrate. It was good apart from my brief meltdown:
The first thing my youngest sister said to me was, “You look different, your face, your bum, your tummy”. I should have prepared myself better for that. I’ve gained 2 and a half stone since they last saw me and she always says whatever comes into her head. She kept watching me all night.
When I showered and dressed the next morning I made a stupid mistake – I weighed myself. I’ve gained another stone in the last month. I’ve never been anywhere near this heavy. And then I realised I brought the wrong clothes and nothing fit me. I felt just so disgusting and I had visions of cutting and ripping myself. I broke down in tears on my Mum’s shoulder.
My family are all so thin, I used to be like that. I felt enormous the whole time we were there. And my stomach was hurting because my jeans were too tight round my waist. Doesn’t that make me sound attractive? However, I have now bought my first ever exercise DVD so it’s time to start burning off some of that excess. There is no way I’m going to buy size 16 clothes.
I’m thinking about my triggers. Now that I’m relatively stable (most of the time over the loast week anyway) I’m attempting to look at things more objectively.
Biggest trigger: My step-daughter. Just being around her has the power to push me into a depressive episode, with anxiety and paranoia. I can’t not be around her but I can limit the time we spend together and not get my hopes up of our relationship transforming anytime soon.
Other triggers: Being around my family (it’s weird, they trigger me, but also make me feel safe. Not entirely sure how the two co-exist!), travelling to work (the London Underground in hot weather brings out murderous desires in me), not being productive at work. That’s a hard one as my work is boring and I tend to procrastinate. But I have noticed that when I just force myself to work consistently without thinking about it my mood is often better. Being in an over-stimulating environment can trigger me, I get overwhelmed by noise and movement.
My counselor reckons that I should plan a weekly schedule. Apparently unexpected happenings can be triggers, routine is supposed to be good for BP. But I have to disagree. For myself anyway. I can’t stand routine. I need variety. I have enough routine in my life anyway, I’m not going to add more. Although, having said that, come September my entire life, down to the last second, will have to be organised as I will be working full time and studying part time. I will have to say goodbye to procrastination forever if I want to succeed!
Oh yes, and spending too much time thinking about my body triggers me. I know that makes me sound weak, but there you have it. My Mum suffered from Bulimia years ago and still has eating disordered thoughts. I know I have inherited a bad body image from her. Learned behaviour. Judging myself for this doesn’t help. So instead, as mentioned above, exercise here I come. I’m going to get fit, even if it kills me!
You know what? I’m not depressed! I’m not actually anything. It just hit me.
I had a whole post planned about depression, and some stuff I’m trying to learn about it. I have tried not to write too much about how I’ve been feeling lately, for various reasons, and today I was going to attempt to overcome that little block.
But now I’m not going to write about it because I’m not depressed. I thought I was but I’m not. Maybe the extra dose of Mirtazapine is kicking in. I’m not hypomanic either, which is probably for the best.
Nope, what I am instead is almost completely detached from life. Devoid of emotions. The drugs are turning me into a robot.
I mean, some really good stuff has happened this week, and I am happy about said stuff, but once the initial smiling and hugging is over I go back to staring vacantly. I am much, much more stable than I was, which is so good, because I am finally able to pull off a whole day’s work without panicking, but still…
I wonder if real emotions will come back soon? You know, where you feel sad when something sad happens, happy when something good happens, that sort of thing. A normal range of emotions. (Normal, ha! What the flying feck is normal anyway?) I’ve gone from having extreme emotional reactions to things, to almost complete detachment, where the only thing worth noting is that I sometimes get irritable easily, and I sometimes get a sort of sensory overload which makes me feel squashed-in and panicky.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining. I was the one who pushed the psychiatrist into raising the dose of the anti-depressant, and I suppose it’s a good thing that the Valproate stops me bouncing off the walls, but I kind of miss that, you know? Where you can feel excitement and energy coursing through your veins like electricity. Where ideas buzz around your mind and you feel at peace with the whole world.
When I remember that I start to think that maybe I should just come off the meds. Just quit them. We could just pretend that all this never happened. You wouldn’t say anything, right? Or better yet, I’ll just cry nonchalantly, “who cares?” Yeah, so my brain is messed up, but what’s so bloody wrong with that anyway? But see, the thing is, I really don’t think that a brief couple of hours of euphoric hypomania is really worth it. Most of the time I was struggling to sit still, to keep my breathing steady, desperately hoping that my heart wouldn’t pound so fast that it popped out of my mouth. Not exactly fun times.
So blah is better. And I will continue to wait and see what happens next.
I got The News today. I got accepted onto the MA!!! Yay for me! I’m very happy and soooooo relieved.
I also saw the shrink on Wednesday. My dose of Mirtazapine has been increased to 45mg, which is apparently pretty high, so lets hope it works! She said I have to be very diligent in recording my moods because she thinks it may push me too far up. So far I feel exactly the same as I did.
I really haven’t got much to post about. I’m off work for a week (I go back on Wednesday), I’ve seen friends and been to a concert (that was brilliant, my favourite band, Third Day). I saw the step-daughter again today and things were fine and more relaxed than the last time I saw her.
I think I need a wee break from blogging. I just can’t think of anything to write about. Too much self-analysis can do more harm than good sometimes. As it is I’m writing down my mood every day (or when I remember anyway!) and I see my counselor once a week, so it’s not like I can just plod along without thinking.
I’ll be back properly as soon as any coherent thoughts enter my head screaming to be written down.
I’ve been thinking (ooh, careful!). You know what? I am absolutely rubbish at praying. I mean, I believe in God, I am a follower of Jesus, but I find it soooooooo hard to just talk to Him. I get distracted so easily, I feel like I’m talking to a wall, I wonder if He’s even listening, I wonder if He gets fed up with all my whining… Prayer is just one more thing in my life that I have allowed to be ruined by my mood swings.
I’ve been meaning to do something about this (I even wrote about it here, because Jennifer had challenged me with what she writes over at her blog, Conversion Diary)… but then, I just… didn’t. I am an utterly inconsistent person. And when it became abundantly clear to me that I’m rubbish at praying, it just became another stick for me to beat myself up with. So, in the true spirit of cowardice, I ignored it and hoped it would go away. But Jennifer never fails to challenge me, and she did so yesterday with this post.
I want to trust God. I really do. I want Him to move in my life, I want to follow Him with everything that I am. But that all goes out the window when I become depressed. When I’m depressed I just can’t pray. I can’t find the words.
But I know that prayer is absolutely central to the Christian life. I can’t spend the rest of my life waiting to feel better before I start to pray – that’s just back to front.
So. So… You know, in my particular denomination of Christianity, we really don’t like liturgy. The focus is on a “personal relationship with Jesus”, where things like liturgy become merely barriers, things that prevent us from communicating with God directly. I disagree, people. I think that using liturgy in prayer can become distracting, and we can just use it to make sure we say our prayers without actually thinking about what we’re saying. But I don’t think it has to be that way.
Anything that we use in our Christian life, whether at home or on Sundays at church, has the potential to become idolatry. Things that take the place of God. As soon as we start bickering about whether we should be singing to organ music or music played by a band – that is idolatry. Because we have started to care more about how we sing than we do about actually singing praises to God. Er, anyway, that’s a different rant topic entirely.
My point is that I think that liturgy in both public and private prayer can be good. And it think it may be a useful way for me to start praying again. So I did a quick Google search, to see if I could find anything that might help me. I came across this site, “the prayer site run by Irish Jesuits”. Go have a look. The prayer I went through today was absolutely lovely, and gave me the words I needed to say to God but couldn’t find myself.
I’m going to spend some more time looking around that site. I want to talk to God again.
I’m tired and lethargic and quite fed up. I’m so looking forward to next week, when I have a week off work.
I have a review with a new psychiatrist on Wednesday – and guess what! I’m getting nervous. What a surprise, eh? I’m not sure I’ll be able to present a coherent picture of what’s going on inside my head. My moods change almost daily, so it’s like seeing the world through ever-changing coloured lenses. But at that same time my mood changes are more subtle than your average Bipolar Joe. So I’m worried that maybe they’ll just see me as a waste of time as I’m not suicidal. And perhaps I am. I should just pull myself together and enjoy life.
Worry worry worry. It’s what I do.
I need to review the Mirtazapine. I’ve had some persistent depressions recently. Perhaps the dose should be increased to higher than 30mg – but then my cravings for crappy food might increase too. Along with the other side effects. I mean, 30mg is making it hard enough already to get out of bed in the mornings. And then there’s the dizziness and headaches. I love that, gotta tell ya. My blood pressure drops when I stand up, so I’ve got all the unpleasant effects of being drunk, without the merriment. Apparently the whole random blood pressure thing is one of Mirtazapine’s not-quite-so-common side effects – well, that makes me feel special.
I’m in the office on my own today, which is making it slightly difficult to do any work. I could just ponce about on the Internet all day, writing pointless twaddle on here. But I figure it would be better to work my arse off for a while and then go home early so I can do some painting. Trees. I love trees, so I’m going to have a go at painting them. Maybe that will make me feel more alive.
And I’m eating grapes and trying to pretend that they’re satisfying. I’d rather have a chocolate muffin.
I had a long weekend – so nice. Yesterday was beautiful so hubby and I laid on the grass in a park for a while – I caught the sun, yay! I am now a fractionally warmer shade of pale.
I am trying to make my peace with my new curves. Not an easy task.
…
I saw my step-daughter last night for the first time since this happened. I was sooooo nervous, far more nervous than I realised. As soon as I arrived at her house I had to rush off the the loo with severe stomach cramps. Great timing! But it was OK. I had to see her sometime. She has not apologised to me and hubby thinks she was quite embarrassed when I first arrived, hence a lot of joking ensued. Anything to ease some tension.
I now feel quite torn. This is my stream of thoughts and feelings: I feel nervous about seeing her again and yet want to see her… I have missed her but relished not being around her… I enjoy her company but she makes me so angry… I love her and want to be loved by her, but I am not sure how that can ever happen… I wish she would apologise to me but I don’t think she can and I would just be uncomfortable anyway, I’m no good at making people feel bad… How can I ever trust her again? How can I ever be around her if I don’t trust her? How do I show her Christ’s love without capitulating to bullying? Unanswerable questions, methinks.
…
Church. Man, being part of a Baptist church drives me up the wall sometimes. Church meetings. They suck. All the people who show such compassion and kindness usually, become snarky, bickering children at church meetings. I walked out of one last week. Partially out of anger, partially because I had spoken up for the first time and my hands were shaking as a consequence. Change is coming in my little community of believers, and some don’t want it, and resort to bullying tactics as their last resort. I don’t respond well to that. But I have to learn to communicate without becoming emotional. Something I have to work on before the next meeting in July, one that will most likely be worse than this one was.
Essentially I am an idealist. That is a huge part of my nature, and is often laughed at. People see me as being naive, weak… enthusiastic, but misguided. I detest being seen that way so much that I often hide behind self-deprecating jokes and laughter. But the main thing that I have been working on with my counsellor is that I have been created by God to be exactly the way I am. I am unique. I have to learn to accept that, and learn to be able to speak up when I feel a prompting from God, without the fear of rejection.
…
So these are some of the thoughts that have been bouncing around my head this weekend. Sorry if they don’t make much sense.
Hello all! Thanks for all the lovely comments on my last post – I can’t possibly describe how much you all helped.
My mood is going back up into the clouds today, which I’m thoroughly enjoying. I can tell I’m in the middle of a mood change, because I’ve started giggling at the smallest things. And I’ve been dancing to an unknown song in my head. It’s a bit of a struggle to sit still in my office, but I’m soldiering on like a good girl.
A few updates:
I’ve started painting again. I have some lovely acrylic paints, lots of paintbrushes, canvasses, painting mediums, and I’m having fun if nothing else.
Last week I started writing out some wonderful Bible verses in Arabic – I realised just how effective it is to look at these verses in another language. It’s easy to skim over familiar verses and say, Ah yes, I know that one. But when I looked at them in Arabic I noticed tiny details that would usually escape me… I’ll see if I can find an example for another post soon.
My counsellor wants me to practice a technique called mindfulness – something I have been quite skeptical about. How can I possibly force my brain to focus on one thing for any length of time? And by length of time, I mean anything longer than two seconds. However, a friend has suggested doing it as I wash the dishes. Focus completely on the act of washing the dishes, and every time I feel my mind wandering just gently pull it back to the dishes. I’ll give it a go. Apparently this is a good technique for controlling anxiety.
The whole self-esteem thing is still playing on my mind, but my brain appears to have been replaced with cotton wool, so I have nothing meaningful or profound to say about it. Needless to say, I have not made any great strides in a positive direction, but I’m trying to hold onto God’s promises in the Bible. More on that in another post And anyway, my self-esteem fluctuates according to my mood, so when I’m up, like today, I feel great about myself! I’m not fat, I’m just curvy! And curves are good. The constant mood changes mean that I see life through different coloured lenses each day.
To finish, I have been listening to this song by Casting Crowns:
over and over again for the last week or so. And then I went to music group practice on Tuesday evening for the first time in three months. Guess which song we sang? Yep, that one. Admittedly, we absolutely slaughtered it, still… The words are wonderful so I’ll pop them here:
I was sure by now
God, You would have reached down
And wiped our tears away
Stepped in and saved the day
But once again, I say “Amen”, and it’s still raining
As the thunder rolls
I barely hear Your whisper through the rain
“I’m with you”
And as Your mercy falls
I raise my hands and praise the God who gives
And takes away
And I’ll praise You in this storm
And I will lift my hands
For You are who You are
No matter where I am
And every tear I’ve cried
You hold in Your hand
You never left my side
And though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm
I remember when
I stumbled in the wind
You heard my cry to you
And you raised me up again
My strength is almost gone
How can I carry on
If I can’t find You?
But as the thunder rolls
I barely hear You whisper through the rain
“I’m with you”
And as Your mercy falls
I raise my hands and praise the God who gives
And takes away
I lift my eyes unto the hills
Where does my help come from?
My help comes from the Lord
The Maker of Heaven and Earth
And I’ll praise You in this storm
And I will lift my hands
For You are who You are
No matter where I am
And every tear I’ve cried
You hold in Your hand
You never left my side
And though my heart is torn
I will praise You in this storm
