"Yet a time is coming
and has now come when the true worshipers will worship
the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the
kind of worshipers the Father seeks." - John 4:23

My Heavenly Daddy is healing
me from the inside out.

Transparency is Real.
Many times painful.

Daddy let me be secure in You only!

Tuesday, December 11, 2012

HOW TO DIE

Depression. I can so relate! Depression can be a silent killer.

Read with caution. May be some triggers.

It took me two days to compose this post. My little girl would come in and out while I wrote some parts. Helping me.

Depression can be serious. Any time of the year. For some, the holidays can be exceptionally depressing and difficult. Where especially stress, sadness, hopelessness and loneliness can loom large in one's heart. We tend to self evaluate and reflect on our past when we become depressed. Bringing up pain that extends into the next year. The current state of the economy and unemployment rates does not help either. If we are not careful depression can take over leading to a more serious nature. Suicide.

Having two traumatic events going on at the same time when I was around 8 or 9 has a lot to do with my emotions and behavior. The sexual abuse from my brother and dealing with the trauma of my parents divorcing. Sadness and depression became a big part of my life early on. Carrying over to my adult years. Bringing on a lot of crap of fears, guilt, condemnation, anger, worthiness, confusion, etc. Felt so empty and scared.

The sexual abuse brought a lot of confusion along with tremendous fear. The best I recall with coping what was being done to me was disassociating. I had a focal point while on my back, which was looking up at the clouds while my brother abused me. He would take me to the woods most of the time. Afterwards I found myself putting the pain under lock and key for many years. Going on about playing outside with friends like nothing ever happened. Only on occasion having a disturbing memory surface. Wondering, "what was that all about?" But the evidence was all there that I was abused. Relational fears with men later on was the biggest red flag. Let alone having trouble establishing any kind of relationship with anyone. Male or female. Living with self loathing and unhappiness.

If being sexually abused was not bad enough, and the emotional and physical pain it caused me, then I also I hated the whole idea of this "divorce" thing and the pain it caused ME! Yes me! I would never of admitted this a few years back. Now I see the affect it had on my little girl.

How can a young child mentally and emotionally understand the dynamics of a mother and father not loving one another anymore? You cannot. Then having a father who tells your mother, "I do not know what to do with her?" My mum was having her own guilt issues at the same time with breaking up the family and questioning herself about divorcing my father and remarrying right away thereafter. Her outlet was the bottle. I would come home from school see her in a drunken stupor and get so angry at her. That is all I knew was anger. Yelling and cursing at her. She would then slap me hard in the face. I would retreat in my bedroom as a safe haven for many years. Isolating myself. I felt I had no one! Not only feeling abandoned by my father, but my mother now but who later on used control to get at me. So, I ended up just stuffing all the anger, guilt, condemnation which then eroded what little self confidence I had.

I was ripped away literally without any understanding from my home, friends and family and expected to function normally in a new scary environment. To cope, I zoned out. I created a fantasy world where I would go off in my mind (La-la-land) and created a safe haven. A place where I was appreciated. I was a walking shell of depression, anger and sadness. I could not make friends. I did not know how to relate. I was in too much pain.

I was a poor student at school. Could not concentrate. Retain. I only know, as an escape from my emotional pain, that I excelled in sports at school. That was the only class I got an "A" in. I think now I let out a lot of frustration being active in sports. Otherwise I was looking at mainly D's and a few F's on my report card. D's believe it or not was a passable grade. But not great. To this day I have no idea how I received my High School Diploma. I know there was some last minute strings that were pulled from the Board of Education in order for me to graduate with my class. But, really, looking back now, I should not have.

The winter months from October to February are exceptionally more depressing for me. Maybe it has something to do with the finalized divorce of my parents and moving away in January. As well as I believe most of the sexual abuse happened in the winter months.

My mum blamed my bad behavior on defiance. She had no clue of my pain. When I was 15, I can only remember one adult ever noticing something was wrong with me. It was a Guidance Counselor from my High School. He asked me one day while in his office for some disciplinary reason, "if things were okay at home?" He saw the signs. Naturally I said everything was fine. Because I thought they were.

Depression for me, at least, has carried such a heaviness of hopelessness. A dark cloud. A constant reminder that something is missing.

Sadly, I come from a family line of suicides; a brother, uncle and a grandfather. My father was a very depressed man and I have that susceptibility as well.

After much prayer, I chose to share this article, taken from the Life Challenges website on this sensitive topic of suicide.

I felt the need to share some of my story with depression. Although many of you already know it.

The article also offers up much hope for any of you out there who suffer with depression and/or suicidal thoughts!! Do not let the title fool you.

I know that I know that I know, once I am totally set free from my past, this nasty deadly bondage of depression that satan uses on many of us will cease and be replaced by unspeakable joy!!!!


HOW TO DIE
Written by Anonymous - Life Challenges

How to Die - Cultivating Thoughts of Suicide

Many people struggle with how to die when dealing with the issue of suicide. Perhaps you came across this article for that very reason. We hope to offer you some insight into dealing with the pressures of life which could contribute to the feelings you are experiencing.

Let me also state that I wrote this article from my personal experience and it is a depiction of what I have felt and dealt with over the past year. Again, my hope is that we can offer you some direction in dealing with the feelings you may be having now.

The last year of my life has been one long roller coaster of turmoil with many emotional low points and very few high points. Because of this, I have discovered how easily it is to slide from emotional collapse to spiritual disintegration, and maybe even cultivate thoughts of actual death. Let me tell you my story and then maybe you’ll understand.

How to Die - Emotional, Spiritual, and Physical

There are a lot of things in life which cause us consider how to die. Perhaps you are experiencing an emotional meltdown -- the death of a loved one, break up of a relationship, loss of a job, or some other emotional tragedy.

For me, these feelings of how to die came when three very difficult events occurred in my life within months of each other: The first was my son being involved in an accident that claimed the lives of two other people; the second was the death of a twenty-three-year-old girl who was like a daughter to me; and the third was the death of my mother. Add into the mix the death of a very close friend and you can see why I felt like I was in an emotional downfall.

These events led to questioning the reason for my own existence as well as the reality of God. Can you identify with these feelings?

When the tough events of this life start to pile up at your doorstep, you may start to question everything: your beliefs, your faith, even your reason for being. My emotional turmoil led me down a very dangerous road where I started to question the character of a loving God, or even the existence of God at all.

I asked myself all of the standard Why? questions -- “Why me?” “Why would God allow all this suffering in my life?” and so on. This led to being mad at God and turning my back on Him for awhile. When we die emotionally, it leads to a gradual extinction of our spirits, which then drives our questioning to why we even need to be here. In the end, this emptiness can spark our contemplation of physical death and we begin to wonder how to die.

Our sense of loss emotionally and spiritually can lead to such an overwhelming avalanche of feelings that we may consider anything to be rid of them -- even suicide.

I can identify with the sense of hopelessness you are feeling right now. Like me, maybe you're feeling like there is no light at the end of the tunnel. I am here to tell you that there is! There is hope!

How to Die - Discovering Hope

I needed to find hope. I wanted to stop cultivating thoughts on how to die and begin engaging thoughts on how to live!

The first thing I did was focus my energy on how to live. I wanted to stop pitying myself for events in my life that I have no control over anyway. I realized I couldn’t change what had happened. I could only change how I personally viewed calamities in my life.

Please don’t misunderstand, I am still having a tough time working my way through the circumstances of the last year. I fully recognize that the pain and hurt might always be there, but I will not, by the grace of God, let it drag me too far down.

The next thing I did was turn back to my one true friend -- Jesus Christ, my Savior. I know what you’re saying: “Oh great, he has turned this to a religion thing.” Well, all I can say is, I haven’t. Loving Jesus is not about religion. It is about having a best friend who understands better than we do what we are going through. Jesus knows personally our pains and sorrows and He knows how best to comfort us.

Next, I relied on God to comfort me. Sometimes this comfort comes directly through Him. Reading the Psalms and other Bible passage can be a source of comfort (read Psalm 34:18, Psalm 147:3, 2 Corinthians 1:3-4). Other times comfort comes through my friends who also know and love Jesus and who are there to guide.

I encourage you to turn over your emotions and pain to Jesus now. Speak to Him in prayer. Tell Him about your hurts and ask Him to comfort you. Don't hold anything in. Let Jesus have your sorrow. Cry, "God help me!" (Taken from Allaboutlifechallenges.org)


20 comments:

  1. Wishing you hope and healing, Grace. That last paragraph really says it all.

    ReplyDelete
  2. First off I want to thank you for being brave enough to share your feelings. Secondly thank you for the article on suicide. Thirdly and sadly I can relate. My depression can be strong enough to immobilize me. Interupting and causing abnormal sleep patterns. I was sexually abused as a child by an uncle and a school teacher. What you said about your lack of concentration at school, I know what your talking about. My mind was not present. Sometimes my depression is so severe I have stomach pains, feel constantly tired, totally hopeless and all alone. Anxiety is another thing I suffer with. Panic, even in safe surroundings. Feelings may surface of being crowded, rushed, unable to make decisions and unable to take one day or one step at a time. Reactions may cause me to want to be alone, while at the same time feeling fearful of being alone. I do have a support group I attend twice a week. Have gone through counseling one on one. I am withholding back my true name and coming under anonymous. New to blogging, I've noticed some of your followers would know me. :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Wow that was long. But worth reading. It seems so cruel to lose your youth over abuse and divorce. Hoping that time may dull and heal your pain.

    ReplyDelete
  4. Every time I get depressed, i focus on the blessings.
    I tried to take my life I believe when I was 19 years old because of abused and feeling worthless. But God didnt let me die and I am so grateful.
    There is always hope for everyone who believes. For me, forgiving and forgetting and trusting had helped me through the years.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I love you JBR.
    I' ve been through some very dark times and entertaine d such thoughts too, perhaps if I was brave enough I wouldn 't be alive today, but Go d was merciful to me. Thank you for sharing this

    ReplyDelete
  6. You had some guts girl, bravo! I also made in imagination in my head where I felt secure and wanted, but it just made me go into deeper trauma. I still deal with family problems of my own. Jesus is really life. He's giving me another breath, like you. He really does know how to comfort us, I get mad when He doesn't give me what I want, but it's what I need. Blessings!

    ReplyDelete
  7. JBR thank you for sharing so honestly and openly. I struggle with a lot of pain and at the moment especially at times a paralyzing fear as a direct result of trauma that I have suffered. I too disassociate and it makes life difficult when you are required to face the pain to walk to the other side of healing and recovery. It was and is a coping mechanism but not a very helpful one for me at the moment. I don't tend to suffer from depression instead I suffer physically with ill health. All we can do is keep walking and breathing putting one step in front of the other.You had a lot to endure JBR in your life. You are an inspiration to me. Thank you and safe hugs.

    ReplyDelete
  8. You had many bad experiences to work through, and it's not easy. Some memory will surface and just tear you apart again, but you have faith, you have Jesus now in your life to comfort you.

    Yes, depression is on high alert especially at this time! Hugs to you too, dear friend and thanks for your visit!

    ReplyDelete
  9. I find such comfort when I come here...an understanding of my own emotions, my own pain, and everything else in between. You are a blessing to my spirit and to so many...you lead the way for many of us and I praise God and thank Him for you...you truly shine the light of Christ in the darkness that is all around...

    ReplyDelete
  10. I am overwhelmed at the courage it took for you to post this. There is hope with Christ for life is in Him. And I think all healing has a process, one that will go on till He takes us to heaven. Sharing is one way to bring some healing, writing about it, talking about it to a safe person. Giving of myself to others has been the best medicine for me. Even though I was not abuse by pentrating sexually I was abuse in other ways, especially physcially and emotionally. Allowing Jesus to come in to my life was the best thing that ever happened to me. I will be back to check on you and will pray for continued healing. This was a God ordained visit for me today.

    ReplyDelete
  11. I am always in awe of what God is doing in your life and how much He has brought you through. No child should have to go through all that you experienced...Praying that this winter season will not be as dark as others have been as the Lord continues to heal you. You courage is astounding! Many blessings Grace!

    ReplyDelete
  12. Thanks for sharing hon. This took a lot of courage. I am seeing so much walking through this with you on your blog. It is helping me a lot to discover things in me that I would never have seen or known and it is also helping me to see signs in others so I can reach out to them in order to help them too.

    Praying and praying for you hon. :)
    <><

    ReplyDelete
  13. You're very brave to have written this post. I can definitely relate to depression especially during the holidays. You've done really well and you're very strong, may you continue to get stronger.
    Take care

    ReplyDelete
  14. I relate to the things you said about sexual abuse and the sense of unworthiness and fears about life that come to you because of it. Also I have struggled with depression my whole life. But I keep reaching out to Jesus. in fact, I'm desperate for Him. And I have found hope in Him. May you find His hope and Peace this Christmas, JBR.

    ReplyDelete
  15. Depression i guess is worse than cancer killing people silently...

    ReplyDelete
  16. depression really is a silent killer.
    i think it takes extraordinary courage
    to walk in joy....I remember someone telling
    me to be brave when i told her how sad i was.
    i thought that was just cruel.
    i've come to see that (even tho it was an
    insensitive comment) there is truth in that.
    but it's only by grace....huge, big juicy drops
    of grace, that we have any joy at all.
    i wish you joy, sweet friend.
    joy to you even in the pain of remembering
    and letting go.
    joy to every bit and morsel of your spirit,
    soul and body.
    you are oh so worthy of love and healing,
    Jennifer

    ReplyDelete
  17. Thanks for sharing this. Thanks also for pointing the way to Jesus, who continues to work in my life with all of my own issues. I could not survive without Him. And I have so happy to see He is also doing such a great work in yours.

    Bless you.
    C

    ReplyDelete
  18. I pray that the Lord's blessins be upon you and that He gives you peace.
    Ken

    ReplyDelete
  19. I'm so, so sorry for your pain, JBR. You didn't deserve that. I pray that you feel God's loving arms around you now. Blessings.

    ReplyDelete