Faith

The idea of this blog was originally to journal about recovery. In the first post I said I would talk about depression, anxiety, panic disorder, bipolar, and life in general. I think that has been done and I want to continue writing those thoughts down, but I have found the common thread in all of the posts has been faith. Faith in something outside of myself.

Laying it out there, which is no stretch if you've been following my writings, I place the entirety of my faith in and on Jesus. I believe he was physically incarnate, born of Mary, lived perfectly, died sacrificially, was risen to conquer death, and is seated at the right hand of his Father in Heaven. He intercedes on our behalf so that God may judge my righteousness in light of Jesus' perfection rather than my total inability to accomplish any righteousness on my own. Left to my own devices life would be about me alone, with no thought of others, which is a truly lonely existence.

I really don't put it out there like that everyday. I'm not exactly sure why I am putting it out there today other than the realization that there is no reason to add unnecessary loneliness to an already lonely feeling condition.

Again, I'm not going to beat anyone up with a Bible or scream Jesus at anyone. It's not my intention to offend or hurt. It's not me to say to drop the pills and rely on Jesus to heal you of your phony depression. I know you aren't depressed just because you don't know Jesus. Depression, anxiety, bipolar, all of them as illnesses, are just that- illnesses. Sometimes God inexplicably gives miracles and illnesses are cured, sometimes he gives us doctors, and all the time he gives us good sense to know that seeking help is the right thing to do.

Faith is so important because, as I said earlier, it takes away an unnecessary loneliness. I find that faith fills a natural sense of being part of something larger than myself. Even when I am completely alone I realize I can play a part to change the world. I realize that, being in Jesus, I can offer myself in service to help people. I remember some of the great miracles, like feeding 5,000 with far too little food, and realize I can share water with the thirsty and bread to the hungry. I realize that offering myself to Jesus' service is where Jesus abides in me, then I am free of that loneliness.

If you are suffering, know again I would tell you to get help. Call me, call a friend, call anyone; just get help. If you just want to know how to fill a little piece of that loneliness that seems apart from your depression, know that faith is the solution to filling the gap.

Learning to Fly

I'm listening to Rush again this morning but I have a Tom Petty song on my mind. The song resonates well with me because it's somewhat hopeful in a less-than-perfect situation. It's the story of a man who made it but is struggling with his success and staying who he is.

There's a fear in "Learning to Fly" with which I am familiar. By no means am I Tom Petty rich or famous, but I have been blessed with a great measure of success in my life. I am thankful for parents who brought me up in humility, to remain thankful for everything, but I don't know that it helps when you have success and realize there are still failures and weakness in success.

I think I always thought success would save me from pain. I never believed it would bring me joy, I don't believe joy comes from anywhere but hoping in God's promises, but I really mislead myself to believe there was no disappointment once you reach success. The hard reality is that disappointment is a fixed circumstance I will always face at times.

So, like the song, success teaches you to fly without wings. The problem with flying without wings is you don't have a way to glide when the engines fail. No glide, no fly; you begin to fall like a rock. The great deceit was in believing, if I was successful, I would never have to fall- I'd never be disappointed. The problem is everyone falls, everyone faces disappointment; so when you are flying on a manic high and remaining successful the disappointment and depression that follows is absolutely debilitating.

I don't want to be a pessimist or a fatalist. I don't want to stay on guard for failure. What I want to do is have a healthy reality that both success and failure happen. They are neither the cure for the other, they are mutually exclusive realities which I should experience as they happen, not as I expect them to be or dream of how they were. Joy in where I am and hope for where I will be, simply living in the moments God gives me.

I really am learning to fly without wings. The lesson I have learned, but not practiced well, is enjoying the flight and the return to firm ground.

Sunday Mornings

Today is a normal day. It's Sunday, a week before Christmas, cold, and the sun is coming up slowly over our frost-blanketed neighborhood. There is nothing uncommon or exciting, yet I can't help but feel a unique anticipation.

My children, both boys, are five and seven years old. The seven year old is still sleeping at this hour while the five year old is awake watching television. Although he is still sleeping I know the seven year old is excited for Christmas. The five year old? He's already asked me if tomorrow is Christmas several times this morning. There is such a joyful anticipation in them.

Their anticipation and excitement gives me an extra sense of excitement. There is also a bit of additional excitement, too. I was awake shortly after 4 this morning not hardly able to wait for time for church. That may seem odd and boring, but I have really been recharged and renewed to the idea of worshiping God. It isn't about the songs, it's not about the preaching, it's not the beauty of the place; it is the raw joy of enjoying the Living God by His Spirit and through His resurrected Son.

A year ago I can honestly say I didn't feel this way. There have been other times I didn't feel this way and probably times I won't. A year ago I was still dread for life. I was fighting my way into church on Sundays and fighting the strife in my head to the point there was little joy to be found.

The honest truth is there is hope. I wouldn't share how I feel to beat you over the head with the Bible, shout JESUS! at you, or anything else. Each should work out their own salvation, but I'm here to chat if you would like to understand more of mine. All I say is, if you have given up hope, know that joy can exist- get help.

Help takes time. Help takes commitment. Sometimes on the road to recovery it feels like everything is getting worse. Believe me, I had plenty of those days on the way to here. I can also tell you it has taken every day of the past year to get this far. Don't give up, joy can be found.

Pray, not Prey

Spelling and grammar have gone down the tubes. I'm not pointing fingers, I do it too; in my last post I put affect where I should have used effect. When I noticed it this morning I almost fixed it but I decided against it. I decided against it to remind myself just how important the small things are.

Perfectionism is a disease most will suffer from at some point in life. I have mentioned I have a pretty good case of it. I think it is common for the depressed and bipolar among us to tend toward perfectionism. Being an artist, I hang out with a lot of artists and study great artists. There is a common thread that most, especially the best-of-the-best, tend toward perfectionism and mood problems. I'm not sure which comes first or which feeds the other, but I'm pretty sure it is rare they are mutually exclusive.

One thing I have noticed, being a perfectionist, I tend to notice the grammar, spelling, and misuse of words. In doing so I've seen some appalling errors, but I have seen some truly hilarious things too.

I remember receiving an email once that made me literally laugh, which was quite awkward while waiting on a funeral to begin. A co-worker's wife was going in for a kidney and liver transplant when my boss sent out an email to notify the team. He was kind and thoughtful and asked any of us who would to "prey" for the co-worker and his wife. Now forget the irony of being at a funeral while praying for someone's transplant to go well (for all I know she was getting this dead dude's liver and kidney), all I can think of is "preying" for someone.

Pray and prey are homophones; they sound the same. Problem is they mean something really different. I know what my boss meant, but now I'm thinking of the spelling and the predator/prey mentality. All I can do is think of myself stalking some game in the wilds of northern Alabama to bring meat back to Tennessee for my co-worker and his soon-to-be-on-the-mend wife. I'm sitting there with a completely inappropriate case of the giggles while other members of my family are weeping.

Is it some sickness to notice those things and be inappropriate? Probably, but I think it's fairly obvious that I'm not bashful about acknowledging my ill nature. Once all the morbid giggling settled off I thought about it some more. Often when we pray we are simply desiring we not become prey; prey of illness, prey of enemies, prey of mistakes, prey of whatever. We have every desire to be predator and not prey.

There isn't anything wrong with praying not to be prey. The Lord's Prayer, Jesus' model of how to pray, specifically petitions the Lord in heaven to "Lead us not to temptation, but deliver us from the evil one." He is specifically showing us that we should ask to be the victims of our world. It is not a problem to not want to be prey.

The question then becomes is whether we should seek to be predators? We want everything to be black and white, it's our nature, but there are alternatives to victimizing our enemies. In the same model prayer, before asking God to deliver us, Jesus asks His father to forgive our sin "...as we forgive those who sin against us." How much does that wreck our typical thought process? Forgive our predators? Forgive those that would make us prey? How unlike us to do such a thing.

So it boils down to this, my prayer this holiday is to make peace with the times I become prey while desiring not to be prey unnecessarily. Over and over I have said I believe I have this illness so I can share with others that they aren't alone. If continuing to suffer with being its prey is something I can forgive, and the Lord forgive me of, then be it so. What predators can we all overcome and what makes us prey from which we asking to be relieved?

What a Year

It's getting close to the end of a year and the start of another. Everyone will be talking about the past year and what the next one holds. I might do that, but this is not the time. This is time for something entirely different.

One year ago today I was in the peak of the worst episode of pure mental breakdown I have ever experienced. I think the toll of too many hours at work, huge deadline pressure, a lot of visibility on my projects, and a major health scare around that time certainly contributed, as did stopping my depression medication some months prior. Even with all of that, and a lot of experience with mental anguish, this breakdown of my mental state was probably the most frightening thing I had ever faced. I was quite prepared to die because there was no way to live as I was living in those days.

To talk about all of this now, with such freedom and boldness, is a testament to how much healing has taken place in the last year. I had come to the point of at least having been on medication for a while, but for years I really denied the depth of my illness. Even last year I was denying it again, quitting my medication because I really didn't believe it was helping anything. I was fine, I didn't need help at all. I was keeping up with my life just fine.

When it all started we really felt like we knew what we were doing this time, too. Both Shelly and I were so stubborn we believed we could manage things and get through this thing on our own. I remember day and night, hour after hour, where she was simply consoling me without even knowing what the issue was. To be honest, I didn't know what the issue was.

When I entered the hospital, a year ago today, I think Shelly thought she failed. Sometimes I think she still feels like she might have. It is not true, she, I, no one failed. These are things that happen and, one way or another, it comes out that things like this are more than we can handle. I'm thankful that she and I both let go of the situation. Failure is only true when nothing is learned.

Learning is something we have done a lot of since those days. It was a short stay but a lot of follow-up counseling and doctor visits. I went through a couple of months of pretty intensive counseling and Shelly went through some as well. I've been on five different medications, two of which I must take daily and a third I still must take from time-to-time. Shelly is learning how her actions affect my mental state, I'm learning how to let go of some of those things while also communicating instead of shutting down.

All of the ups-and-downs, both real and "imagined", it really has been a year and I really am still here. Before Christmas last year, when I started this blog as part of my therapy, I wrote that I wanted to stay here in the about me section. I'm not sure I really meant that at the time; all I know is it was what I needed to put. I mean it now, and I'm not too afraid of what tomorrow brings. Today I know what I believe and will stand upon those blessings which God has provided in the past year, in the years before, and in the years to come.

Maranatha, come quickly Lord Jesus!

Fresh Outlook

Well, I said earlier in the week that Wednesday was the big day and it was. I was correct that an adjustment was needed, just not correct in stating my other medication had "pooped-out". It appears, from talking through everything, the medication is working as intended and as best it can in the circumstances. Problem is that my condition is slightly more than the medication can handle.

I think I've stated it before, but we've finally determined I'm mildly bi-polar- specifically a mild bi-polar 2. Since my most intense symptoms have been panic, anxiety, and depression, those are the "diseases" we have had to sort through to get to the bottom of things. First it was having panic attacks (at the time I didn't know that's what they were called) and getting those under control, then it was a lingering anxiety that would cycle into depression and back around again. Of course last year it all cycled out of control, and that's when the process of really getting to the bottom of things started.

Even though we knew it was more than depression, we found an anti-depressant that worked for me. Taking that, along with a milder mood stabilizer as needed, had been working. Since everything was working well we stuck with it. Of course lately the depression has been getting darker, even with a pretty high dose of anti-depressant, and the swings getting more intense. I knew for some time something needed to be done, I just hate medication changes so I delayed until I had no other choice.

Wednesday I got put on my first real bi-polar medication. So far I have no huge complaints. The nice thing is it's not a change; I take it in addition to my anti-depressant so I don't have to do the whole withdrawal bit. Typically I am the lucky one that gets all of the side-effects in a single onslaught as soon as I start something new. This time I haven't had any rush of side-effects and am pleased. Five days in and I am seeing a huge difference without any extra craziness.

The long and short of the follow-up, I guess, is hanging with it pays off. I hate doing the med shuffle, but it does work. A year ago today, literally, I was unable to function. Ups and downs, a hospital stay, many counseling sessions, lots of prayer, not sure how many doctor visits, and five medications later, I'm not only rounding a corner but seeing a real light on the horizon.