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

watching the world pass me by

I don't have a feeling to describe the way I feel. Instead I have a picture, a situation per say... and that picture embodies my voice, attempts to communicate in my lack of words. Its a scene in a movie I have seen many times. A person in some shape or fashion takes a physical step backwards... within a busy street with people walking every which way to get to work or school or families at home. Everyone is in a hurry and talking on their phones or texting and trying to catch a taxi. But the character steps back and though they are standing still the world around them goes into some sort of fast forward...as if life just keeps moving and changing and somehow, mentally- which is being portrayed physically- they are separated from reality and time, and deep within themselves they are standing still. Body frozen in place, eyes staring blankly into the distance...in a way which would lead you to believe you could look straight into her soul, that is if anyone noticed she was there at all.

That's how I feel. Separated by my own lack of movement yet not able to fully withdraw from the reality which are the demands and expectations of an everyday life. Avoiding eye contact, avoiding heart contact...hoping to somehow come back to life in time to catch up with the world around me. Sand falling to indicate my number of breaths is running out. Lost inside a tunnel where a small dot of light is visible...yet seemingly too far away to get to before its too late. My mind completely still and simultaneously racing to the rhythm of my pounding heart. Screaming with no noise. Crying with no tears. Silence so loud it can drive you insane.

There is a song out right now by Rascal Flats called Easy. The exact content of the song doesn't parallel my situation, in terms of it all being about a broken relationship, but the concept fits perfectly. We, or I guess I should say "I" go through life trying to make living seem effortless. I try as hard as I can to be the version of myself I so desperately want to be. I work hard. I portray confidence and lightness. I say the right things at the right times and I laugh off pain as though it is nothing but a slight discomfort in my otherwise blessed life. The line of the song that I so relate to is this,

"But what she, what she don't know.
Is how hard it is to make it look so, Easy."

I so relate to that. I work so hard to make it look like living life is easy. That to love deeply is easy. That working hard and laughing light and taking risks is so easy...when in all reality I am stuck inside a heart that blocks out the world around me. I am the girl stepping back as the rest of the world passes by...staring blankly through the deep sadness, the heavy heart, the fear and the hopeless ambivalence.

All I really want is to be loved deeply...to be known fully, and to be worth fighting for. And the crazy thing is that deep love, undeserved worth, that hope is standing right in front of me. Its so real and so beautiful and yet feels so hard to embrace...to trust...to get used to. Christ thought I was worth fighting for. He loved me enough to see me in the depth of my sin and fight to bring me back to him...he loved me too much to let me go...to reap the consequence of my mistakes. Everyday He offers me that gift of grace. Moment by moment he offers his hand to walk me through...and more often than not I turn away in shame...because to be loved, to be known, is too painful. Which kinda bring me to the second rascal flatts song called I won't let go. I believe the chorus of that song is the Lord's heart for us...his deep desire for us to know that we are never alone.

I wish it was just that easy. To open yourself to love. To be known and be embraced for it. To accept the past in order to make it stop torturing the present. To let tears fall without shame. To put words to the unspeakable. To stop the cycle. To be whole. To be free.

I believe there is hope that is worth fighting for. Even when I can't feel it...even when I can't see it. Even when I am frozen in time, watching the world pass me by...I hold tight to the promise that with Christ nothing is impossible.

Better than a Hallelujah

Now matter where I am in my life it seems as though there is some other place I would like to be. When I was in Nashville I always thought moving home would fix the perpetual loneliness...because surly when you are living with your family there is never a moment to be alone...causing one to conclude there will be a lack of loneliness. It's easy to forget that loneliness is a place deep inside the core of who you are and isn't fixed with the presence of other people. Now that I am here in California I long for the days when I was in Nashville, thinking at least there I had friendships and relationships with people I loved and trusted. So I sit here perplexed because I can't seem to grasp the skill of being content. It is as though if I were to stop long enough to take in the moment, my lack of movement would cause the very beauty of the season to crumble beneath my feet.

Last night I was painting at a pottery place finishing up a dog bowl I was making for Bella. I had started it weeks before and hadn't quite finished the detailing I was doing on the sides and some of the stenciling needed a second coat. So I sat as still as I possibly could focusing all my attention into the precision of tracing back over the fancy letters that marked the bowl with her name. My hands were shaking and it took so much concentration to dip the tip of the brush into a tiny amount of paint and gently darken the paint already in place. I thought about the patience that was being required of me. I thought about how slow I had to go in order to get the result I wanted. And as I sat and listened to Amy Grant's "Better than a Hallelujah" my eyes welled up with tears. I am so careless with my life. I take things that are so fragile and delicate...my heart, my recovery, my trust and I refuse to slow down and with shaky hands brush by brush build upon the way I want my life to turn out. Instead I choose any brush and throw some paint onto a tray and hope the colors and textures match up...and then am honestly so surprised when the result is far from beautiful...far from how I envisioned it to be. I treat myself as though I am a useless piece of art with no hope of ever becoming something worthy to be seen. I throw away the tears and the sweat and the intense pain I have already placed into making my life free from the grasp of my past...I take the value that others have marked me with and have beat myself down to something no one would want...because at least then I won't be hurt by the worth at which I am appraised.

Its been a hard week. At times I refuse to write in order to preserve the image people have of me. I want people to think I am doing great and fantastic. That I have my shit together and that I am somehow different than the girl they remembered me to be. I fear forever being the hopeless cause...the girl who never got better because she was too stubborn to take responsibility for her life. And the funny thing is that my version of taking responsibility is taking responsibility for everything and everyone...or refusing the existence of things that would give someone else the responsibility over me. Have you ever had the pleasure of having a debt collector call you repeatedly? They leave intimidating messages or have people call with beautiful accents and threaten to take everything you own if you don't do what they say you must. Well instead of facing these people. Telling them what I can do to work toward the goal we both have, I refuse to answer my phone. I put my phone on silent and I feel sick every time I see their missed calls. I refuse to listen to their messages and hope that if i ignore them long enough they will give up on me and leave me alone. The problem is that it normally just doesn't work that way. It is a battle of wills and they are being paid to settle this so in all reality they have alot more motivation than I do to keep calling until they get what they want. This is exactly how I live my life when it comes to the painful things that keep my sick. This week I have felt the weight of some of my fears. Perceived abandonment or major change. Feeling so alone... people who once held you close are now holding you at arms length. After days of pulling away, trying to show them that I am not that hard to love, I open up my heart in total fear and vulnerability only to find that arms length is now the stance of our relationship and that my fears have been seemingly confirmed. Terrified. I spend so much of my life running from this very feeling all because of how deeply it tore my life apart. I see the anger that comes up inside of me which immediately turns to fear and regret and I start asking for forgiveness when there is nothing to be forgiven for. I have learned to operate out of always assuming I am doing something wrong and taking responsibility for things I can't control. And part of me thinks its this very attitude that keeps me alone and constantly fighting an uphill fight...every time I fall I roll back to the bottom and start from the beginning all over again. And I start to ask myself what it is that makes someone so afraid...like when a dog cowers at any raised voice or raised hand. You wonder what they have walked through that has taught them there is a need for their reaction.

So as I struggle to find a place to rest my head from the insanity that has become my life I pour out my heart before the Lord praying that, as it says in Amy Grants song, a broken heart and deep longing for His touch would be "better than a hallelujah."


*** Lord God I pray for my heart to be open to love, to be open to change, and be open to following you with total abandon. I pray that you would help me turn this path, this heart, and this life around as a testimony of your power and to bring glory to you alone. I pray Lord that instead of running from the people you have placed in my life to help me walk through this pain that you would give me the courage to push past the fear and walk with courage...and allow my heart to be healed through the love and relationship that is being given. Help me know that my hope is in you alone.***

A mean disease

It's a mean disease. Everything from the past root issues, the trauma, the abandonment to the numbers and the addiction and the desperation to cling to a lifeless embodiment of lies. It's cruel. It is vicious. It's mean. I know that seems childish. I know standing back as an innocent victim seems a bit naive or ignorant. But I think there are moments in time when I am just taken back by how deceptively the roots of an eating disorder slip down into the cracks of your life and before you know it your hands are tied together and you feel as though the world could never understand how you can love something and hate something simultaneously with such raw and desperate passion.
It doesn't play fair. In fact it actually serves a purpose and meets a legitimate need and brings relief to an aching heart. It confuses the mind by bandaging the wound and leaves you perpetually empty, a nice change from the fullness of emotion.
I drove home from work today in silence. Five O'clock traffic was wearing down my already shot nerves and all I could do was stare ahead of me. I didn't have the capacity to listen to the radio or even sing to music. I was incredibly frustrated because in that moment I ached for the numbness that the eating disorder would bring me. I was desperate for the sound of my mind racing with thoughts and numbers to the degree that it would provide white noise for the emotional torment of a triggered memory. I spent a lifetime avoiding the truth and now I feel like I will spend the rest of my life trying to forget. And its silly because I know food has nothing to do with why things are hard right now. It's not about calories or fat or numbers...and yet those are the things that send me over the edge... that take me from pretending nothing happened at all to melting into a puddle. I didn't want to go out to lunch again today. I really didn't. So when it was another restaurant I didn't know with another man I am still getting to know I was overwhelmed before we even sat down. Things just went downhill from there. By the time we were leaving our last agent's office I was reeling with anxiety and yet showing nothing but calm. I was amazed how put together I could appear to be when inside I couldn't think straight. Its a talent that has aided in my detriment. So as I drove home in total silence I felt like a drug addict needing a fix...an alcoholic needing a drink. But I can't stay abstinent from my drug of choice. I knew I had to go home and face the demon and stand against it, when I felt completely powerless to do so. It seems mean. Like making an alcoholic go sit in a bar 3 times a day or an addict go hang out at their dealers house. I am not saying those addictions are any less difficult to overcome than my own...im just saying its a different level of having to daily take part on the very thing that has destroyed my life.

There is a little girl who I have been connected with who just entered treatment for the first time. I have friends who are dying. Literally. Yes its about the food right now but its not. Each one of them have a story and within it food took hold of them in some way shape or form. Too much or not even close to enough. It promised to sooth their emptiness and bring control to a world that had failed them, crushed them, and left them to fend for themselves. It's a mean disease, fueled by a mean past. My heart pounds in frustration tonight as I continue staring..looking past the screen in front of me and into the eyes of the moments, the people, who took my heart away. Some days I wonder if the greatest treatment, when in combination with professional help, is love. Not for any other reason then that they are who they are and deserve to be handled gently and loved fully. Maybe, just maybe, if they could find the comfort of Jesus through the arms of his people they wouldn't be so desperate to be held by the illusion of control. What if we held them. What if we loved them. What if they really didn't have to be alone.

I simply long for the day that freedom flows out of my words, my thoughts, and my actions. I long for the day when I can feel the Lord pick me up and carry me through the past, healing the wounds, and bring me into my present...going before me into my future. It's a mean disease...but I have a God who is bigger.

my mind is screaming

This is the first time in a long time that I have felt such a desperation to write. There is no direction I am intending to go, no frustration I am trying to sort out. I simply, for one moment, need there to be no filter, no restraint, no pressure to be something or someone that I am not. I think I have carried hope for such a long time, believing that things will one day be different. However deep down I know it is not the kind of different that will ever happen. I have longed for there to be a day when suddenly I find what has been missing. The wound inside my heart is healed with no scars to show. Relationships are easy. Joy is found in abundance. Food is the furthest thing I am focusing on. It is the idealized depiction of a world that could be... but one that had become as easy to believe in as unicorns and mermaids... as there ever being perfection in every aspect of who I am.

I can't help but think its not supposed to be this way. I know that in the garden so long ago humanity became separated from the life we were created to live... separated from the one we were created to abide in. But everyday I see people who are living in this world and they are alive. They are not weighed down with anxiety and depression and fear of everyone and everything. They aren't overwhelmed by the idea of change and paralyzed in the midst of it. I meet people who enjoy life and seem to have peace in the confidence of our maker. And I wonder to myself, why can't I? I think the easy thing to do would be to turn to my past and place all responsibility on what has been done to me... but I just can't do that and actually believe it to be true. So its actually easy for me to take a can of spray paint and cover over all the pictures in the story of my life. I want so desperately to believe that my stories are nothing but lies and ploys for attention and excuses for failing to live a normal life. I want the sole problem to be me... that I have done something to deserve to feel this way or that I have brought this upon myself... because if the problem lies in my sanity and my behavior then I can fix it. Lets say I am a liar and I lie to everyone I meet. And lets say the punishment for that is extreme anxiety or fear... then the insanity will only last as long as I am bad... which means there isn't permanent damage, you know? I can change my behavior. I can be a better person. I can love deeper, serve more, encourage better. But lets say for argument sake something did happen. The abuse was real... then what. I can't take that away. I can't erase the damage that did to my heart and my mind. I would be abandoned with the memories and remain at the mercy of another person. I would be shattered, in a state that can never be flawlessly put back together. Millions of little pieces glued side by side, hoping to reconstruct something that resembles that life I once knew. But everything inside is different and the person staring back at me in the mirror is a stranger. I try to be better, just obviously not hard enough.

I know there are people who are able to find healing. There are people who bounce back and are able to resume life...often times being changed for the better by what they have endured. But I don't know if I have the strength to keep believing that for myself. I am so frustrated by how hard this transition has been for me. Every thought I have is intensified by anxiety and fear and it steals away joy, contentment, moments with my family. They say to stop freaking out and to just calm down but what does that even mean? When I feel like I am being swallowed alive by a life that is headed in an opposite direction of where I want to go. I feel like what I wants doesn't even matter. I feel like I am getting advice from everyone around me telling me about how good the direction I am heading in will be. I feel like I am screaming at the top of my lungs telling everyone I am going the wrong way and that this isn't what I want and I honestly feel like it doesn't matter. Like when I open my mouth nothing comes out... its like I am living in a nightmare where I am crying and falling apart and everyone somehow sees me smiling and happy. Outwardly I appear to be doing the right things but in all reality on the inside I feel like I am being tortured...like I am watching my greatest fears being lived out right before my eyes and no one except me sees a thing.

In reality the reason no one can hear me is because I actually am not saying anything. I am not screaming, but instead I am saying the right things at the right times... trying desperately to be the person I want to be. I kept living out the definition of insanity, trying harder and harder to turn into the person I pretend to be, and getting stuck in the same place I have been for the last 15 years. It isn't something anyone else has put on to me...but its this brokenness that so many days I don't believe I will ever live without. Moving is hard. It takes months, sometimes years to establish a new life. I have been here for a month. But I feel like I am drowning. I feel like the need is now. I feel like the world is slipping through my fingers and I am doing my best to hold on. But much like sand it slips through the cracks in my life and before I know it there is too little that remains to get back what I have lost.

I don't know what comes next. I don't know how to try and put a positive spin on how I am feeling. I do know the truth is that there is hope. That change takes time. And that there is a love that can heal the deepest wound. I pray for the strength to embrace, to trust, and to lose myself in my maker, so that one day I can honestly say, I am free.