Morning Pontifications and Reflections 7/6/22

 

This morning, I had a realization.

I think… well I’m pretty sure.. I’m depressed.

It’s not really a good state of mind to be in, and I’ve tried to avoid it for a while. But… it’s hitting kinda hard.

I realized it when, I woke up after a nightmare at 5:45 am, and I was awake, I should have gotten up. But I didn’t, I half slept until 8:30 and then felt crappy and guilty for not having just gotten up. But, I had no motivation to get up. I had no reason to get out of bed.

In 2019, I hired a dating coach, who was also a life coach for me. It was really good, I feel like he did way more to help me than any counselor ever has. But, it was a pivotal decision for me.

I am bipolar, and there’s a spectrum of depression we fall into. I was diagnosed in 2009. Well… that summer when I was diagnosed, I was at a really manic high. I found a new joy filled outlook on life for a little while.

Before that summer, before that year, I was a mess. Pick a negative attitude to have, that was what was in my heart. Bitter, angry, resentful, envious, I was miserable. I guess it started when I moved back home from Colorado. I hated having to move home. I loved my life and community in Colorado. But I loved my mom, and even though I wanted to be a ski bum and work at a ski resort during the winter, I didn’t want my mom to spend every holiday by herself. So I moved home.

I thought moving home was temporary. I was applying to jobs in Raleigh and Durham, even Charlotte, and some other random places, basically anywhere to leave home, and preferably be close to my college friends again.

Finding a job was harder than I thought.

I finally did find a job, thanks to a friend who told me to apply for it because it was her old job, and it was a relief for a while, although it was still in Winston and I was still stuck at home. I liked the job in some ways. Sure it wasn’t counseling, but it was helping people, I tried to convince myself. But, I stopped being grateful, and all this crap came out of my heart.  

I was so miserable, but the thing is, when I look back at it, I grimace because I know, I didn’t have to be. I was letting sin run amuck in my heart. I don’t know if anyone knew how bitter I was, besides maybe my best friend. What tipped her off? She was in treatment for her eating disorder, and I was jealous of her being in the program. What kind of sick person is that, who’s jealous of someone’s program for helping them deal with an eating disorder? Me, that’s who.

I don’t know if I had anyone else that close that I would have dared to share what was going on in my heart with. I stopped talking to my college friends to avoid them, knowing I would just complain about my life and push them away. I missed the community I had in CO. I had some good friends here, but no one I really opened up to.

And there was this one friend I loved so much, but at the same time I was so envious of her and resentful of her joy even.

She was so happy and excited to be in Winston-Salem, and I was like, she must be crazy, what is so great about Winston-Salem?

I hated my life here. How could she be so happy to be here?

I would compare myself to her, it was so bad, please if you read this don’t compare your life to anyone else’s, it will leave you unhappy. But I did.

I don’t know how I loved her and yet felt all these conflicting things towards her. It wasn’t agape love, obviously.

I remember the first summer she organized a weeklong event at our church to plug in people to serve in the community. I did NOT help out. I did NOT love Winston-Salem.

The next year I let from friends talk me into helping out at  VBS. So, that was something I guess.

The next year is when I grew increasingly manic, went to the hospital three weeks, and was a little crazy.

I remember January 1, 2009, writing in my journal, I was not going to let bitterness destroy my life anymore, I was going to choose joy. I really tried hard for that. I knew my bitterness was out of control. I knew it was robbing me of my life. So I was like, no thanks to that.

Something did happen that spring and summer in 2009. There was definitely a transformation for some time.

But then, it’s like, I didn’t understand contentment doesn’t just happen you have to actively fight for joy with gratitude and praise. I just got jealous of others again, and things went downhill. I lost my job, I don’t know, everything went sour. My mom went to the hospital for 9 months, and when she left I moved back home to take care of the dog, which now I wonder if that was part of my downfall. But, I went back to those envious, jealous, resentful bitter feelings again, why would I let myself go there, good grief no wonder I stayed depressed 10 years.

So yeah, I’m not detailing out 2009-2019 here, just will say, it was a dark blot of my life, that I feel more embarrassed and ashamed of than anything. Now I know, I did have curses hindering my ability to progress in any area of my life, but… there’s nothing I’m particularly proud of that I accomplished during that time. I just existed and watched life pass me by. It’s a really sad place to be.

So, in 2019, when I hired Jonah… it catapulted me on a different path. A better path, I think. He helped me see I had gotten stuck in a victim mentality, and I can create myself into whatever I want to be. It was so good. I started to like myself for a change. I hate to say I started to love myself, but the truth is I had hated myself for a long time, and so learning to love myself was a good thing.

I’ve still had curses going on these past few years, so it’s been good to know I’ve been breaking them lately. Because I look back at the past several years and feel defeated at everything I tried and gave up on too quickly.

So when I got out of the hospital last February, I was really really grateful. Which, I am grateful still. I just… I don’t know if this will make sense… I don’t have a lot of hope of accomplishing much in the future when I think life is about to halt within the next 6 months. I don’t know if I’m grieving missed opportunities in the future?  I just feel like, why am I trying? What’s the point?  So I know I can’t live like this, but I don’t know how to live, pretending life will be normal and things will get back to normal, when I know the bottom’s about to fall out.

I was convicted reading None Like Him by Jen Wilken, when she was writing about wasting time versus redeeming time. I waste a lot of time. But I feel like, I have no purpose. What am I supposed to do with my time?  I’m always waiting around for my mom, I don’t feel like I have my own time.

That’s a whole other blog post, my co-dependence with my mom and feeling like I don’t have my own identity apart from her and how unhealthy that is.

Maybe that’s why I want to take this full time job, even though it’s a commute to Salisbury every day. I want a life of my own. If my job takes me away from home, I don’t have to help mom at lunch every day, I have a break, I get away. If I’m working part time here, well, I’ll still feel like I’m a slave to my mom. I think the problem is, I’m a slave to my mom if I’m working part time or full time, and felt more of a slave to her only working part time than working full time. I don’t know, I need insight on this again.

In 2020 I thought I wanted to become a life coach myself! I just, wasn’t ready because my own life seems in shambles. I see a path to how that could happen, but not in three months. There is an entrepreneurial endeavor I want to embark on, but I don’t know if I’ll have time to make it happen, and I don’t know if I can even pursue it yet… or I could sell life insurance again for the Alliance. My friend Tim wants me to.

Anyhow, I think… I wonder… could this depression be hindering my deliverance?  All this fear of the future I have now, I don’t think I would be as fearful if I was prepared, but I’ve got no garden, a little food, clean water is an issue between me and my mom, and no gun, no gun to help protect me and my mom when all craziness breaks loose. She just says, trust in God. I’m like, mom, when God sends you a canoe, take it, GET PREPARED! So, that also plays into my depression. I know I’m just a sitting duck. So, all this negativity cannot be good for me!  And I don’t want to be here a long period of time, I want to get to the bottom of it and move forward. Anyhow. I know we all have seasons of depression for different reasons. But this cannot go on forever for me. I like life when I’m hopeful a lot more.