I am not 100% that I’m going to publish this post. But, if you haven’t figured out yet that I’m a verbal processor, welcome. You must be new. This is one of the ways I process, and I am processing a lot right now.
I went back and looked at my last blog post for reference. I thought, I wonder what ridiculous thing I said. I found it brimming with optimism and the knowledge that I had conquered my brain. You can tell by the title how that went.
If this seems to be brimming with sarcasm, it is. I always am real with you, though there are some things that you do not know. (Don’t get excited. You don’t find them out today). However, so many of you have reached out and are on this journey too, that it’s not fair to leave you thinking that all is fabulous here at the ranch.
This last week, for no apparent reason, though some speculation that I can pull from now, my brain decided to leave the straight and narrow and take a detour into old familiar territory. Awesome.
I fought it. I wrestled it. I tried to get it in control. But most things I did just made it worse. (Shocked? You shouldn’t be.). I stopped sleeping through the night. Then I went back to not eating much. (While that sounds like a good idea, hypoglycemic that I am, it’s not). I worked myself up culminating in an anxiety attack on Wednesday night. Then the next day, as broken brains tend to do, it misfired all over the place, leaving me needing to make a list to get basic things done, like putting on my shoes.
Sound horrible? Or does it sound familiar? It probably depends on which camp you’re in. If you’ve been there, you’re like, I feel you. If you haven’t, you’re probably concerned. Let me just tell you, it’s the thing the anxiety brain does sometimes, leaving you ready for work wearing house shoes and no makeup.
Sitting here, in my living room, with nothing but the clicking of these keys (overstimulation is a thing), I’ve been thinking about it. I’m coming back from it. I actually had a good day Friday and Saturday, but my brain…it tried to spin out again today, fueled by another 2am wake up and a medication change that made my stomach revolt more than my brain. (This too shall pass). However, it didn’t spin. (My brain that is. My stomach sure did).
I’m sitting here thinking about what my people keep telling me through this week. They tell me that this time is different from their end. This time I didn’t spin out alone. I reached out all week. For them that’s a good sign. For me, I feel like it’s unfair to keep dragging them through the mud too. But they tell me it’s not. I’m so thankful for them. They speak truth. They pray when we don’t know what else to do. They check in.
They have lives and things that don’t involve babysitting an adult, but they still walk through it, even though they don’t have to. The truths they say, I take. My brain doesn’t believe them yet, but my heart knows they’re true.
Monday I was watching Moana with my favorite 3 year old and his mom. After he went to bed we were talking about the things. I said, I know the truth but somewhere there’s a disconnect. My heart and my brain don’t communicate. I’ve decided it’s an angry coconut running interference and beating away the truth. (Just watch Moana and it might make sense…or not. I can’t be held responsible for making sense right now).
For now it’s one foot in front of the other, good days and bad. Good hours and bad hours. Sometimes good minutes and bad ones. All I know to do is to keep repeating that it’s going to be okay. And we’re going to get through this. I have to keep repeating it until the angry coconut lets it through.
Because those two sentences are so much more kind than the ones I want to say. That I’m so disappointed in myself that we’re here again. That I can’t believe I thought it was through. That I thought everything was different. That I was ready to be done with that chapter and all the parts of it that feel like failure. Then I read this
I feel that in the depths. It feels like a spiritual battlefield as much as a mental one. Each of my people are battling something equally as heavy. It feels like such attacks from Satan. He wants us alone and we’ve pissed him off more by trying to fight together. (Yup I said it).
I’m tired of fighting. But, I can’t stop now. Even if we’re doing this again. Right now, just this very minute, I realized something. I have to keep fighting, for me and for them. If I give up, who will fight for them. And if the devil is this mad at us, what in the world are we capable of that he’s afraid of? That sounds egotistical, but I assure you it’s not. I’m not enough on my own. The fact that I can’t even keep my brain running straight should prove that. But God. If He can use some of the people He did, why not us? Even with these battles. Even in spite of these battles. Maybe even because of these battles.
And so I guess I hit publish, not sure what you will think of me and not wanting to reread it for fear that it’s too raw. But raw is what the devil hates. He wants me to suffer in silence, and I just can’t do that anymore.
Anxiety has no power over me, though it thinks it does, though sometimes I think it does. It can come at me, it can fight dirty, and it can think it wins. Maybe I lay down for a while and even think myself that it won, but I will keep fighting, fighting the sense of failure and disappointment, all the things. Because right here in this paragraph, for the first time in a week, I’m mad. Fighting mad. I’m mad that I almost let him win. I’m mad that he fights dirty. I’m mad that he counted my people out.
The Lord will fight for you. You need only be still.
Exodus 14:14
This Season.... 