Motherhood, Madness, God and Me

It was said kindly and it's true. Nobody can make me feel differently, except me. It lays heavy on my heart and has done all afternoon. I can't do it. I have tried. I have tried 'health visitor-ing' myself. I repeat scriptures over and over. I say to myself and my inner child that I am loved, lovable, precious and good enough. I have prayed for strength. I have prayed for peace. I've waited. I've tried my hardest to leave my pain, my shame, my failings at the foot of the cross. I listen to other Christians who repeat over and over I must trust God. That this will be OK, no brilliant, in the end. I say it over and over. Yet my heart is heavy. Not metaphorically either. It feels like a stone crushing my chest, restricting my breathing sometimes. It hurts. I know that none of you can pick me up and make this go away, even if you wanted to. Listening to me, holding me, it helps. It doesn't fix it though. I can't change my attitude towards myself. I do...

I love call the midwife. It joins together call my loves babies, motherhood, nursing, faith and history. I love it. I've just caught up on last nights episode. A couple of series ago they dealt with a Ruth and Naomi relationship. An older and younger friend. Drawn together by situation (working together) but a deeper fondness occurring over time until you realise they are inseparable. They are true, if unlikely friends, Last week Phyllis offered to nurse a flu stricken Barbara to give Barbara's sweet husband a break. It wasn't flu. Barbara had meningitis and septicaemia. This week it looked like Barbara may pull through, although there was grief as she realised her lifelong dream of being a midwife, her career and vocation would be ripped away from her due to loosing feeling in her fingers. Yeah, a little close to home. My circulation in my fingers remains in tact but the scars left from the past year are almost certainly going to have an impact on the only career ...

Yesterday's Lent Challenge Prompt was "still". This is what I came up with. Still: I've been thinking about the meaning of this one for a couple of days. The Hebrew root of "be still" is "let go". I've been drawn to a few verses. Psalm 37:7 Be still and wait patiently on the Lord. Oh how I struggle with this. Pretty much every word. Wait?? Patient?? Still? Currently I'm 1 year into my depression. 1 year. I'm very impatient. This isn't how it was meant to be. I started off being still. Letting go was what started this. I waited on the Lord, to begin with. My sense of timing and His are obviously out of sync! Psalm 46:10 "Be still and know that I am God" Let go, rest. God has it in hand. I don't often feel still. My body is often still. My mind never is. My mind is full of 'what if'. It's like I could do with reprograming. Getting rid of all the useless files and reloading with the simplest software. Jus...

They say when the going gets tough you find out who your friends are. I accepted that. I knew that some people. Some friends, acquaintances, colleagues, family members would not be supportive. I had confidence though that some people would certainly stay put. No doubt. Even if I had a little wobble, I would be quickly reassured that they loved me and weren't going anywhere. Anyone who has read the blog will know that this didn't last. That people who I was certain would get me through, for whatever reason, didn't. Most days it hurts my heart. However there are others. Others who if I was asked a year ago wouldn't have crossed my mind as those to be holding me. My cousin. My totally mental, loud, foul mouthed cousin. We were so different growing up. You were cleverer but I was more conscientious. I was angelic, you were full of trouble! I was polite. You were cheeky. I through myself into study, you took a different path. We grew up together until our early teens w...

I read and shared a post about automatic thoughts today. Learned responses, internal monologue that type of thing. Unconsciously you learn about yourself from others. Over time this builds into automatic self assessments. I have been exploring how when people pass minor but careless comments they can mirror and provide evidence for what you have been told before. I learned very early that I had to be good. If I was good people would like me, I would be safe. My mum would be safe. I was taught I was a mistake. Unplanned and an inconvenience. I learned that I owed my family for keeping me. I learned that I had to cope. Nobody around me could and I had to. So when I cannot help people I feel I have failed. I feel I cannot pay people back for loving me. I am in their debt because I shouldn't be here. If I am not seen as quiet, well mannered, clever and kind I panic. In my head this means the world may fall apart. If I am not good then I will be punished. As a Christian I know ...

It's been two months since I attended church, but much longer since I have felt close and cared for by God. My prayer life is limited. Still just about intact. My ability to open the bible diminished. I don't know how to get it back. To feel His love and feel him holding me. Often people say our experience of God is through those around us. When you are isolated you have little time to experience God that way, or the experience instead is loneliness and abandonment. Even the kids didn't go today. My son still regularly prays, for me, for others, for the small things in his life but I am aware I am a poor example to them. My anxiety is preventing me returning to church. I have considered sneaking into bible study and then leaving ASAP. No time to connect, chat, answer questions. No awkward reunions or silences with those who would rather not be in my company. For now I hope God forgives me that all we could manage this Sunday was Veggietales on the TV whilst I lay ru...

Things I need to work on. Forgiveness. I need to look on those who have hurt me, intentionally or not. Out of lack of understanding or malice. I need to forgive. I have received forgiveness from people who I have hurt due to not being able to forgive their unintentional harm. I opened my bible at random and the study section is healing relationships. The key is forgiveness. The suggestions are: A truthful view of the offense, neither downplaying or exaggerating. I think this maybe where I am struggling. My mind exaggerates at the moment. Problems seem much larger than they are. However, I am also vulnerable. I am vulnerable to being convinced things are just in my head. I manage to do both in the same thought. Acknowledge the hurt and emotions that come with that. I have been hurt. I have felt judged, abandoned, lost, despised and abnormal. I have felt alone in my suffering and unwanted. Forgive freely. I forgive those whose actions have hurt me, whether intentionally or not. Con...

Written July 3/4th On my first night I came here, the day after my husband thwarted my attempt to end my life, I never doubted God's existence. I knew God was real, I also knew how very much the devil wanted me. In those hours I rabbited on about the devil having me. I begged for my children to be saved. I thought my vicar could see I had the devil in me and attributed his behaviour ad protecting the church from me. It is very hard to see God in a locked corridor of howling women, shouting nurses and despair seeping through every locked and windowed door. I woke up and realised I didn't need to take my life. I had already succeeded. This was hell. An absence of anything good and lovely, filled with tormented lost souls with no hope. When my dearest friend visited she reminded me this. We are saved by grace and grace alone. No sin is too big and mental illness should not be considered a sin. My obsessing over not being enough, not praying, serving, forgiving, loving enou...

Originally written July 2017 Where is God in Mental Illness: The suicidal Christian on the Psych ward. Jesus came to seek and save the lost. He is close to the broken-hearted and the marginalised in society. Jesus called to him the widows, prostitutes, tax collectors, lepers and 'unclean' women. He came for those with no voice. There are many people here with a very loud voice; in the midst of a psychotic episode or just downright frustration. It may be loud but it is a voice often quietened, snuffed out. If Jesus wanted to look for some oppressed lost souls, the psych ward would be the first place to look.

Thank God it was sunny when I left the house. It meant my red puffy eyes were hidden from view. Today is a bad day. There were triggers, nothing major but my afternoon was spent crying. Crying for the old me. Crying for the way things were. Crying for the version of me who was capable and reliable. That night I did die. I descended to a different place. A place of medication which makes you fat and tired. A place where people fear you. A place where you are always going to be remembered as the one who tried to kill herself. A place where confidential conversations are shared "in love". I tried to hold it together until I was alone. Desperately trying to keep up the appearance of recovery. It didn't work like that though. I almost made it but as my friend left I couldn't help out. Our friendship kind of illustrates to me how much I have lost. I'm still angry. I know none of this is her fault. It's all just such a mess. I wish I could share openly once aga...

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/article/hearing-god-in-the-midst-of-suicidal-thoughts I found this article whilst trying to convince myself God would understand if I killed myself, or that God didn't want me, or anything that might make it easier for me to escape the darkness. I really found it helpful to look at it from a sin point of view. Not in the way Job's friends did, blaming Job for his suffering. Instead that the world really is a dark, depressing place. To feel the weight of this fallen world is accepting that Jesus really is the only answer. It's my sin, but also that sin has corrupted the whole world. I still feel terrible that despite knowing and desperately wanting to see my true worth in God, knowing he has plans for me, knowing that suffering is only temporary and doesn't compare to the joy that is coming, I still felt I had no escape. No other option. Am I that faithless? Even though, as I lay dying, I was calling out to Him to take me, to save m...