This may be painful for some to read because we all try to portray ourselves on social media or in public as one who has it all together. We only post cheerful pictures, ones where everything seems rosy and happy. This time of the year, we upload pics of our perfectly decorated Christmas trees, perfectly dressed and posed family portraits and loads of kitten videos. But, the cheerfulness we portray is not always the truth.
Why am I writing this? Good question.
I have a depressive disorder that I inherited from my father’s side of the family. It’s normally controlled quite well by two medications and vitamin d3, but this year my doctor took me off of one med because I had been doing so well. Big mistake. In a stretch over the last two years, we’ve experienced major changes in our lives, including the death of a parent, a car accident that landed me in the hospital, and major renovation to our home.
It’s a bit fuzzy as to when I began to feel the depression because we had moved from my deceased mother-in-law’s home in late July to our still incomplete but inhabitable home. This was stressful enough then add to it the stress of caring for my crotchety 79-year-old father and preparing the house for the arrival of my 78-year-old mother. I resisted the idea that I needed to go back on the medication, but by late November I gave in and am happy for it.
Jump to today, Sunday, December 22 where I find that I am troubled and confused by my depressed feelings once again. To top it off, in the middle of praise team rehearsal, my Dad calls worried over a much-needed medication that he’s almost out of that hasn’t arrived in the mail. Worry makes him smoke more, therefore his cigarettes won’t last until I see him tomorrow and would I come out and get him some more. I agree to come out after church. My stomach was churning the rest of the rehearsal and through the church service.
I did not have the worst childhood, nothing more traumatic than the separation and divorce of my parents is all, but it was enough to pack on some baggage that I dragged into my adult life. My mom, whom I lived with along with my four siblings, rarely had anything good to say about my dad and his family. My dad was troubled enough with various forms of mental illness and alcoholism that he almost never came to see us, so all we understood about him came from our bitter, overworked mom.
Fast-forward to January 2016, I’ve been married 25 years, had an on-again-off-again (more off than on) relationship with my dad, when I receive a call from my dad’s niece saying that Dad was in the emergency room because he’d been having suicidal thoughts. Panic set in. I was afraid that I would lose him and regret for the rest of my life that I had not had a relationship with him. When I arrived in the ER I found that he had been checked over by a doctor and released and all he’d lacked was a ride home, which I provided.
The dynamics of our relationship are complicated; he’s a stubborn, grumpy ex-Marine with a mountain-size chip on his shoulder, while I am a compliant, mildly stubborn individual with moderate-high sensitivity to other’s feelings. This is a bad mix under any circumstances, but especially when he’s grouchy and blaming me for something I likely had nothing to do with.
Add to the mix my guilt-driven relationship with God, which has improved over the years, though I still find myself feeling as though, no matter what I do, I can’t please Him. And I can’t… in my own strength, which brings me to the point of this blog entry. The Bible says that I can do all things through Christ… but I have not reached the level of spiritual maturity or understanding that this through Christ thing comes naturally, consequently, I wear myself out and become confused and depressed.
I am thankful to God, that, while I am still far from what I would consider a “good” Christian, He is faithful and hears all of my prayers, from: “forgive me for this same bad decision that I make over and over again” to “help me love Dad or my husband or my children” and He never gets tired of hearing my repetitive prayers. A favorite theologian says that God is crazy about me. Since He was willing to allow His only Son to become the sacrificial lamb and be crucified for the sins of the world, why would He not also give me all things and how could I not see that this sacrifice means that He’s crazy about me?
Life is hard and sometimes it is so hard that I don’t see how I can go on with it, but God is always faithful to me and gives me ways to go on. This blog is one of those ways, it is an outlet for all of these mixed-up, pent-up emotions of mine. I feel better just getting it out on paper, so-to-speak, and if these ramblings can be a help to even one other person, besides myself, it’s worth all of the trouble I’ve gone through to get where I am.
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