life like me

Oh Jesus my heart needs you.
 I am tired of the right words...
those words bury me as I smile and whisper something about hope
But im empty.
Cold.

Revive me.
Remind me that:
I'm Yours
Bought at a price
Daughter of the King
Worthy

Stay close.
I feel so far away.
But you are there
closer than my next breath
Holding me
while I sell my soul

This world is not
my home
my hope
my happiness

I live to bring
you praise
your love
your truth
to a dying world
to hurting heart

to a life like me.

 

Acceptable Addict

I'm an addict.
As much as i run from that truth and cover it in smiles and socially acceptable behavior, deep down I am an addict. Though I know that my actions and struggles don't define my worth or my identity I wrestle with the fact that my drug of choice is admirable or even envied. We live in a society that is overwhelmed with obesity. We live in a world that describes the perfect body and perfect size as a standard that is unattainable. So when I found that pain in the world was too great and control was only a figment of my imagination I found that I could set my mind and my heart on becoming beautiful. I found that drinking in excess and using drugs was socially unacceptable. I found that those who were slaves to alcohol were mean and loud and inappropriate. I couldn't be perfect and be drunk. Drugs were expensive and unpredictable. There was nothing attractive to me about taking something that made me absent from my own body and susceptible to the desires of those i was with. Who doesn't want to be thin and beautiful. Everyone is always trying to lose a little bit of weight and work out to be more toned and in shape. No carbs, only carbs, no sugar, no wheat, no fat, low fat, all fruit, no fruit....it is always just merry-go-round, changing from week to week...only to cycle back around years later.
I found myself sad tonight as I sat in Church... perfectly raising my hands in worship, taking diligent notes, nodding my head at all the right times...and that being genuine. My desire I believe is genuine. My heart full longing to be seeking after God. My deepest desire in life to know Christ and emulate his love to a hurting world. But in the midst of pain...my mom's surgery behind us and everyone else taking a deep breath of relief...i spiral in the fear and confusion. I am so good at being strong until the time comes when everyone else is able to sigh in thankfulness...and all the terror and fear and insanity that I felt finally able to surface...shoved down so deep that it wouldn't even be known at all...until the pressure breaks through and the mess is everywhere to be seen.
So i could drink. I could take prescription or recreational drugs. I could sleep around or cut my wrists...but the world would look down on me. They would see me as lazy or selfish. There would be talk of me being out of control and untrustworthy...wasting money. It would bring embarrassment to my mom and her job as a children's pastor. My destruction would only cause more pain and my family isn't looking for more of that. So I diligently go to the gym. I use the same machine on the same settings for the same amount of time. Every night I pack the same foods for the next day...knowing the things I will eat and knowing the things I will repack every day this week...something to fill up space. But I can't help but feel like I am living a lie. I can't help but feel like an addict when I get so worried about not going to the gym two days in a row that I sneak away during family dinner to get in a short workout.

I just want to be free. There are days when I am jealous of the alcoholic or the drug addict...because they wear their pain for the world to see. They don't care about keeping a pretense...they just hurt and let the world watch them destruct. I secretly sweat out every fear and every devastation. I starve away each loss. I bleed though sweat and it manifests in flashbacks. My whole past secretly lurking under my skin desperate to find its way out...in a loud and angry and uncontrolled way. It screams at night threatening to lash out and consume those around me...and consume any good that is left in me. So I embrace that 4th elliptical from the left and put it on a level 4. At work I park in the 4th parking spot from the right and always have 4 new emails in my inbox. I eat my same foods at the same times and I wonder why the tears won't come. But don't you see that they understand wanting to work out...they are envious I make it a priority. They understand not eating anything unhealthy...and they are jealous that my clothes are a smaller size than their own. Self control. When all I see when I look in the mirror...when I take a deep breath as I leave the gym...as I throw away my plate from dinner...
I'm an addict.

No words

The wave of the last few weeks crashed over me and took away all my words...sometimes life is so deep and so painful that its hard to breath, let alone speak. It's interesting really...how words disappear and only silent prayers manage to constantly be on the tip of my tongue. In the silence, in the stillness...in the noise and chaos of the day in day out existence that we call life, there quietly waiting is the fear, the what ifs...the realization that we have much less control than we would like to believe and yet more than we give ourselves credit for.
Cancer is an awful word. Its a poison that seeps into the lives of those actually battling its ramifications, but also into the hearts of the loved once standing beside them. Helplessly trying to support and love and hold up while inside we too are dying...yet knowing its not about us...and yet hurting with every step along the road.
Its funny because life after cancer is different. Much like life after losing a parent, after abuse, after an eating disorder is different. While you appreciate the health of those you love and treasure each moment you still feel jaded, scarred from the wounds that aren't necessarily always yours to claim...but the scars run deep and run wide. As I waited in the waiting room for 5 hours today I felt oddly numb. I no longer had any control of the situation. All I could do was to trust God above all else, and trust the man who went through years and years of schooling to specialize in removing cancer. Everything else seems somehow less important. I want to put aside the "trauma work". I want to put aside the elusive search for a husband. All I want to do is not be so afraid...and to have my mom healthy. And in the height of the moment all else fades away. And i struggle to believe with everything in myself that those things will stay in the background and i can move on as though nothing at all has broken me. I just don't know how I will ever feel again. When you make the decision that this journey isn't about your fear or pain or brokenness and allow the one who is sick to have the right to what they need taking precedence over everything else...its a decision to be numb...because how else will you survive?
The words still won't come easily. My mind still in fight or flight...not on me or my journey. Only wanting to hold tight to my mom and never let go. After losing one parent you become desperate to do anything to not lose another. I pray that somehow in this lack or words or feelings i can find a way to still love deeply and do what I need to do to be available to be of use to others. I try to be thankful...because I am so very thankful. I am so thankful for God's goodness and faithfulness to stand beside His promises... I am so thankful He hears us and it moves him to action...to compassion...to remind us His love is always far greater than our own love for our loved ones. He gets all the credit...to Him be all glory..forever and ever amen.

cancer

The word cancer is never one that is expected. It hits like a rock and steals your breath as its meaning slowly bleeds into the brain. No words can fix it. No desire can change it. It simply is...and there is only waiting. When my mom told me about the cancer I thought my heart would literally break inside of me. The greatest fear is anything hurting her. I would protect her with everything in me and guard her and there is nothing i can do. I have no control and the only thing i can do it leave it in the hands of the one who created her...but He was also who also let my father die all those years ago. How do you trust? How do you believe He loves her more than I ever could? How do you lay at His feet and plead with everything you have inside of you...because I love her more than I could ever lose myself. I am so afraid and yet it all feels so surreal. So untouchable....

Father God help me to trust you. Lord God heal my mom. I pray Father that you touch her with your mighty hand and remove any cancer...any trace of any cells and leave her healthy and cancer free. Lord God I plead with you to let her healing bring faith to so many...let it be evidence of your power. I thank you Lord that you love her more than I ever could. Please Lord, heal her body and mind. Bring her peace. I pray for her doctor Lord that you would give him precision and wisdom. I pray for steady hands and for him to be gentle and efficient...that he would see her for who she is and not just another number...the amazing woman of God that she is and take the care any of us would take of her. I pray for people everywhere to lift her up to you and to pray for a miracle. Lord heal her. I know you are able to do all things. Make her healthier than she was before...you are good. Help me to trust in you. Forever trust in you...with my heart...with finding a husband. Lord heal my own heart from the past pain...help me to walk into freedom. I need you to be the center of who I am. I need you to be the center of my life. I need your love. I need your hope. I need your strength because I have nothing left. Be my everything. Help me be strong for my mom. Lord God I need her. Please know how much i need her. I love you. Thank you for hearing my heart. I believe your healing has begun, even now. You are faithful.

Why is it so hard?

To the uneducated and uninformed the solution to recovery from an eating disorder is simple. Eating is in the same category as breathing and sleeping...all necessities that happen without much thought or deliberation. It is among the fundamental necessities to stay alive. Much like we can learn deep breathing for relaxation or sleep in late on the weekends for rest there is also a degree of enjoyment in savoring different flavors and dishes. So for one to decide not to eat is difficult to understand. For some there is a jealous idealism..wishing they too were able to resist the natural need for nutrition to obtain the figure they would like to embody. However it only goes that far...an annoyance of those who are stronger and a guilty or at times not so guilty indulgence in deserts and foods they enjoy. So the simple solution to the starving anorexic would simply be to eat. Give in to the natural desires and promptings the body evokes and eat.

So you can imagine the frustration and desperation that torments me every single day as I battle through a mind so blinded and overwhelmed with numbers and rules and hatred towards the very thing i need to survive. But it goes beyond that. My head is so clouded by the accusations of the eating disorder that there is no room to accomplish the dreams and desires that make this life worth living. It would seem like an easy fix...a simple solution...but its anything but that.

  My world stays in order with my ability to manage and control my weight and my food intake. I am able to relate and empathize with those who struggle with obsessive compulsive disorder. The repetition and the counting and the ability to control myself in a world that feels so susceptible to the desires and agenda's of those i come into contact with brings a calming security, an ability to breath...and like a drug that eases the anxiety and pain that surrounded everything i can't control, i am addicted to the safety within the predictability. Before you know it the feeling that is achieved through the disordered eating is harder and harder to achieve and the lengths you must go to increase...and to be honest its worth it.

This week I believed a medication I was taking was making me gain weight. I felt like the one thing i can control was taken from me and i went into this crazy panic...i became desperate to prove i could still find control. I didn't care about the consequences of losing weight...i just needed to see there was still something in this world that made sense...that followed some sort of order...like 1 + 1 = 2. I needed something to follow a this, then that, equals pattern. The world doesn't make sense. Bad things happen without asking permission. People make choices that impact my life...my heart...my voice. So when i perceived my medication to mess up the pattern i have found so much comfort in, I became frantic to make it all work again. So its not as easy as just eating. Eating or the lack there of has been interwoven with sanity, protection, safety...and to give it up would be giving up everything that makes my world safe to live in. It helps me cope with the weight of a past that threatens to steal my very heart... that threatens to strip me of all joy and peace and leave me cold and alone, used and worthless. There is no easy answer as to how to get better...only an understanding of why its so hard to let go.

Fragile

Fragile - Easily broken or damaged or destroyed.

The lie is that we are weak. For whatever reason its easier to align ourselves with the ignorant assumption that addiction consumes those who are lazy, selfish, and unmotivated than it is to see that fighting takes courage. Perhaps its the shame. Perhaps its my own pride. Regardless I find myself embodying a false persona in a desperate attempt to be something other than the person I am. I stop writing. I stop connecting with the friends around me. I run deep into the dungeon of my heart and try to bury the monster that threatens to steal more and more from me everyday. And when I can't smile and laugh through the environmental and emotional cues I lecture myself, assuming a lack of grace and compassion will train me to become the person those around me could love.

You see the shame is so deeply rooted. I have this picture of them woman I am supposed to be and I am constantly comparing myself to her...picking apart every single difference and wondering how to deny what is and find the way to become like her. The biggest problem however is that she isn't real. She never was. She is just an innocent picture in my head...a picture drawn by a child without the real life experience to comprehend that our dreams don't always come true. I was supposed to go college, meet the man of my dreams and get married. I would then naturally get my dream job and work until the day we decided to have children. Then I would be a stay at home mom, be a mentor and motivational speak on the side, and live happily ever after. But it didn't work out that way. It didn't even come close. So I state at this dream, this picturesque life and wonder where I went wrong...and wonder if there is ever a chance for redemption.

The thing that I miss on a daily basis is that my experiences and my struggles don't make me "less than" everyone else around me. They don't make me "less than" this woman I dreamed of being. In fact, though I would never admit it, I think it might just be the opposite. I know woman, amazing women, who have been to hell and back. They battle demons that no one on this earth should ever have to fight. Each and everyday they face nightmares that would make the most cold and composed cringe...rightfully so. Some of them have struggled with drugs and alcohol. Some of them starve to numb out the pain. Some of them cut themselves and have sold their bodies for money. But hear me when I say they are stronger and more beautiful than countless others who are living out the idealized perfection we all strive to become. I am not glorifying addiction. I think addiction in an of itself is easy. For those with deep wounds and broken hearts it isn't a pass time or an adventure. It isn't enjoyable. But its comfortable. And lets just be honest. For a time, it works. Or else why would we do it? But the strength I am talking about is the courage that comes with the fight. I have encountered a lot of people in my treatment experiences. There are a couple different types of people. There are those who fight, relapse, and because its hard or its uncomfortable or its exhausting (which it is all of those things), they lay down and die. They decide life has given them more than they can handle and the rest of the world is to blame...so they keep using, keep starving, keep drowning away the hurt in their drug of choice...until death itself consumes them. But then there are those who fight like hell, relapse, and then stand back up and keep fighting. You look into their eyes and you can see how deep the pain runs. They won't make eye contact. They smile and laugh and go out of their way to do anything they can to help you. They would give you the shirt off their back if you asked for it...only because they have been used and abused until their voice is but a whisper...a whisper that is blatantly ignored when audible.

I was watching Greys anatomy this week and there was as scene that inspired most of this rant. Watch and you will hopefully see where I am going with this...




I get so passionate because it is so easy to look at my life and look in the mirror and see my struggle and to see failure. And I do see failure. Everyday I think about how far I am from the dream I had for myself and all I want is to find a magic reset button. But the longer I search for that magic button the longer it will take me to look at my God, my Jesus, and to ask Him to help me become the woman He created me to be. He clearly didn't create me to live out the plan I envisioned...clearly we have a different vantage point of what perfection in my life looks like. If success was measured by courage then I would know some of the most successful people to grace this earth. Strength isn't measured by the car we drive or the fairytale we live in. Strength comes everyday as we surrender our broken hearts and lives into the care of the almighty God. It comes as we take a baby step towards learning to trust again. Because to have survived hell. To go back to visit it every night in your dreams. To smell it on the Cologne of a man who bumps into you as he hurries by. To day in and day out have triggers of a past that won't let you be and to keep living...to keep fighting...that is courage.

What appears to be fragile may often be deceiving. Recovery is delicate...but the survivor is far, far from fragile.

Protection

I struggle with the concept of being protected. I find it difficult to give anyone that much power, to entrust myself into the care of another. And in our society being vulnerable and dependant isn't exactly looked highly upon. I guess to be loved enough by another that they would stand guard, at their own potential danger, to ensure your safety is beautiful... well in theory. As long as we have the general concept that we are all fallible...that really no matter how intentional someone is or how desperate they are to keep you safe, there is no guarantee, no real chance that awful things won't happen. But how often do we have high expectations, especially as children, only to fall hard and fall fast into the reality that there is no one big enough or strong enough to really protect you from the harsh pain of this life. To be perfectly honest I have struggled at times with the concept that the Lord is our protector. He is God. He is all powerful, all knowing, all loving. And yet sin entered the world and humanity fell. Our freewill allowed us the ability to not only hurt ourselves but also to impose our own will onto another person. We aren't puppets...because what good would love be if it was forced? So I understand all of that- and yet- what good does it do me to have a protector who isn't able to protect me from the freewill of others? As a child I came to many conclusions about this based on my limited ability to conceptualize life outside of myself. Pain and fear and a lack of understanding all jumbled inside of my little head and the only conclusion i could come to was that that I was the cause of everything and I could never ever trust anyone again. If what had happened to me was an example of protection, then protection from anyone was useless to me...it still left me shattered, and alone.


The discussion of protection has been brought up quite often in the last year. I had countless conversations with Tiffany where she explained to me that God's greatest protection for me was in my ability to not remember that which I felt like I wasn't protected from.. There was actually no recollection of memory, that was so dark and so deep it would destroy me. For years He allowed me to forget, until the time came when I could handle it. Which is fantastic, if that memory loss could have lasted forever. But as a 28 year old woman I now feel trapped inside the limited memories of a young child. Over and over and over again they play...each smell, each sound, each whisper echoing as real now as it was all those years ago. It would seem that forgetting still wasn't exactly my idea of protection....because what good is it to forget, if one day its all returns.

The other night I watching the TV show called the Mentalist. It is a crime solving show with a bit of a twist to it. Patrick Jane joined the CBI as a consultant after his daughter and wife were killed by a serial killer named "Red John." His life became dedicated to finding their killer and he found he could more easily find this man while working on the "inside" (police, FBI, CBI etc) instead of on his own. His only motivation however, is to find and kill red john with his own hands. Jane has an amazing ability to read people and emotionally draw things out of a situation that most people would miss. He is brilliant and is an amazing asset to the CBI. Well, in the last episode, while trying to investigate a murder scene Jane is attacked from the back and drowned in a swamp...they of course manage to find and revive him but he has memory loss. Now I know this is just a TV show but stick with me. The doctors say the memory loss is attributed to the fact that often times when the brain had endured great emotional trauma, in self protection it can retreat to only having memories before the traumatic event in the case of physical trauma. So Jane wakes up and doesn't remember anything about his live after meeting his wife...he can't remember her at all. And the doctors say to let the memories come back on their own in attempt not to re traumatize him. To make a long story short, it turns out Jane is a total jerk before meeting his wife. He decides to quite his job steal a bunch of money and move on. He knows there is some great emotional trauma everyone is tip toeing around and he says something to his coworker which hit me...He asked her to just leave him alone, because he is finally happy...something he never was after his wife and daughter were brutally murdered. There was finally an ability to go back to the time "before". Those are my words...to go back to "before". That moment in life when the veil that was up allowed you to see the world as innocent...to have no comprehension of the deep harsh reality of the pain in this world. The evil. In the end, his coworker decides to save him from being the horrible person he was and has now returned to being and leads him to a place where he will remember what happened. So she takes him to his own home and leads him up the stairs to a door that clearly stays closed...and she tells him to go in. Inside is what appears to be the room that his wife and children were raped and murdered in, with the blood thrown against the wall in the shape of a smiley face, the signature of the serial killer.

It is a TV show. I know. But Jane's face...it was the look I know and feel so often...one i have seen in the eyes of others who have faced similar battles. The feeling of recognition, two realities meeting for the first time or for the millionth time...and its as if the world has been pulled out from under your feet. You feel sick and your head is spinning...if only for the amount of time you can stay grounded, and stay in the present. You desperately want to go back to the blank feeling that tells you there is something more but never gives voice to more than a hunch. You want to run and sometimes you try...pleading with your mind to forget. To fall asleep one day and wake up and it be gone. For days, weeks, years, you hold onto the hope that it will. Because how could something that never was come into the here and the now and present itself like it always has been...and somehow you are the only one confused by it. You want the whole world around you to tell you its not true. You want someone to tell you that you are crazy...because anything, ANYTHING, would be better than the truth. The hair raising screams begin- the ones only you can hear... a horror story on repeat in the back of your mind. Nightmares bringing the subconscious to life.... reliving a pain so deep that it was shut off from your mind. Yet every night it comes to life. There is no escape. So you hide and deny and numb in desperate attempt to be free...while only burying yourself faster each day. There aren't words to express it. Literally...because you can't imagine speaking after the vow of silence. You hate that little girl who lives in your mind because if she would just stop crying, stop breathing, stop laying motionless staring at the ceiling then maybe you could move on. They tell you to love her and in disgust you look away...she is the reason for the inability to be happy. She is the reason for the sickness and the loneliness. "Love her?" I mock. I simply wish she would disappear and give me the chance to start living. And so I desperately try to separate myself from her. But it seems moving home has made that harder to do. Around every corner there is a reminder, a memory, a person... hyper vigilance has sewn itself onto my body like a shadow. Anxiety flows through my veins and trembles out through my hands and takes rhythm in my bouncing leg. But the choice to let the past overcome me is no choice at all. There is a life to uphold. A job to work. Friendships to keep...and new ones to be made. And I walk the balance beam, high above the tree tops, believing if I fall it will all be over. So I hold tight to myself, thinking that will be the only thing that won't hurt me. All the while God sent hands reach out on all sides of me, offering help, hope, and support...and I am so desperate to take them it scares me to death. What if I forget how to function without help? What if I lose my ability to need no one? What if I become so desperate to not be alone that I scare everyone away because I cling to them? For so long I have taught myself to never give in to what my heart longs for...the more desperate I am for it the greater the importance to prove my self control in my ability to want it and not give into it. But there are days that the thirst becomes to too great and in shame I take a deep breath in the comfort of someone holding my hand. Oh to be able to admit to weakness, to surrender to love, and to chance everything...and risk the seemingly unbearable pain of learning to be loved and letting some into the deepest places of hurt and then one day chance being alone in it once more.

I know God is faithful. I know his truth and understanding far over shadow my own... I see his faithfulness in the people he has placed in my life...in the fact that he continues to fight on my behalf. I believe this time of year is a reminder of his faithfulness...that he would love us so deeply that he would send his son to be born into this harsh world, then to die a horrific death just so that we could be with him forever. So on the days when the journey seems so long, i make myself remember, He is faithful.




You Are Faithful" - by Michael Boggs

Oh the mountains haven't always moved
When I prayed that they would
And the waters didn't always part
When I believed that they should

But You have promised You'd never leave us
To face this life on our own
So whatever You choose
However You move
I know I'm not alone

In the healing and in the breaking
You are faithful,
You are faithful
In the saving and in the suffering
You are faithful
You are faithful

Through the pieces of a broken life
Your loved has helped me see
I may never understand Your ways
But You'll always be good to me

'Cause You have promised You'd never leave us
To face this life on our own
So whatever You choose
However You move
I know I'm not alone

In the healing and in the breaking
You are faithful
You are faithful
In the saving and in the suffering
You are faithful
You are faithful

Your love is deep enough to drown my fears Lord
The plans You have for me are worth waiting for