So… I has been a while… and I haven’t written cos I’ve felt far from God and have had shit going on in my life…. and yet that’s probably the time in which I should be writing the most, so here I am…. Am determined to get over this frame of mind that I can’t write depressing posts here and get on with it.
I got so wrapped up in wanting to only write things that I found inspiring that I forgot the most important thing…. that this blog is for my benefit and to show my walk with God… Our walk with God is never smooth.
Anyway… Here I am, after about two months (hmm… maybe more?!) and I’ll share with you what’s been going on.
Christmas is never a good time for me… In fact, it’s a shit time, however this Christmas was quite pleasant with my vicar inviting me for tea and chilling and having company with someone I love on boxing day. All in all went better than I thought.
As for New Year, I completely messed that up when we got to the countdown and I was panicking and flicking through channels confused at the big clock on the TV that said 11.50am when it was actually midnight lol… but again, it wasn’t too bad 🙂
Then – my birthday…. I was dreading it. I hate the end of Dec/beginning of Jan, Christmas, New Year and my birthday all shout “we’re gonna make you feel shit” and this year it was worse… It was my 21st… BUT, again, I was surprised with it being the best birthday I’d had in years. I enjoyed it so much, I really did and I came home so happy 🙂
Early Jan I decided, right, let’s lose weight. I’ve been on plenty of diets before and failed miserably at all of them. I’m not diagnosed but am pretty sure I suffer with “binge eating disorder”… let’s face it you don’t really need to be diagosed to know if you are or not… however, it’s always made it extremely hard to overcome. I have binged for comfort just about everyday for 6years and now my weight was dangerously high and I needed to do something about it. The diet’s going well… I’ve lost about a stone and am really pleased.
I don’t know if it’s coincidence or not though but when I started the diet, I started getting depressed. I’ve always had a “depressive personality” but this time it was worse. It goes into more depth than this but the three main “crutches” I have had are self-harm (cutting mainly), binge eating and binge drinking… I have got over binge drinking and cutting more or less, and now the binge eating… all my crutches are gone and I wonder if this is the reason I’m depressed. I’ve always used one of the three to make me feel better and keep me happy and now I had nothing.
My anxiety has been very severe… I struggle to leave the house alone unless it’s to meet someone… I have missed over a month of uni cos I can’t cope with being around people. I walked around Tunstall with me sister and her fiance and felt pysically sick cos of the people, then my OCD gets severe and I cringe and feel sick if I step on a crack… Someone brushes past me and it makes me feel sick and panicky. I move to the side so noone can touch me and fine myself digging my nails in myself and scratching my hand to stop the panic (a very easy and subtle way (most people don’t notice) to help me not to cry).
It is always absolute relief to get home to my room and feel safe. My comfort zone and my prison.
Dad took me to see Godspell on Thursday night. It was just as good as I’d expected and I really enjoyed it. I dunno why I felt so far from God though, the Jesus on stage seemed miles away from where I was sitting in my head and where I normally cried at the songs, I couldn’t and found the only time I cried was at the fact I couldn’t cry. Ironic eh?
My vicar and his wife gave me Oscar, which is a stuffed dog about as big as me. He’s spent most of the time being cuddled on my bed and is lovely. My vicar had put me on the prayer list, but I didn’t know. When we did the prayers at church on Sunday and they read the names out my stomach dropped when they read Vicki even though I’d seen it on the prayer sheet before the service, it didn’t twig that it might be me, and I didn’t think it was, but after communion I sat down to pray and found my head was clear for the first time in weeks. There was no shit running through it, and I sat in silence for the next hymn. It was lovely. People after the service asked me if it was me on the prayer sheet… I said I didn’t know lol, but me vicar said it was if I wanted it to be, or I could say it wasn’t me. He said he would take me off if I wanted but I thanked him (because I would’ve been too shy to ask to be on the prayer list) and said I wouldn’t turn down offered prayer. Even though I didn’t know it was me on the prayer list, my head was all clear after the prayers… It was such a relief and is such a comfort to know people are praying for me.
It’s been a week since I went to the doctors now. He put me on anti-depressants and refferred me to a mental health team. I should be seeing a shrink within 28days now to see whether I’m bipolar or not. The sideaffects of the anti-depressants have more or less worn off now which I’m grateful for, but the anxiety is still as strong as ever and the depression is still a big black cloud above my head. However, I need to wait at least another week… am seeing the doc on Monday so I’ll see how that goes.
I have to keep telling myself that God is here, even if I can’t feel Him or feel far from Him. He doesn’t just abandon people, especially when they need Him the most. I know He’s here in that I have stuck to the diet and am still losing weight for the first time in my life. I haven’t cut myself or harmed myself pysically whereas normally I would’ve done that by now and I haven’t binged on alcohol… however I can’t drink on these tablets anyway but it’s still very tempting.
I’m sure things will get better eventually but at the moment in the words of me dad “some buggers knicked the bulb”.
“One day a good day will see me walk out of this tunnel…
On a bad day I’ll try to remember that”
– Alan Barrett –
Emeth 