Posted on by She Who Rises

Just keep going…

The last few weeks have been a lot. I’ve been under some stress that just kept building and building until, before I knew it, I was well into a depressive episode. For some reason, they usually take me by surprise.

I was having migraines every day, almost all day, for two weeks, not eating, doing the bare minimum at home and work, and withdrawing from everyone in my life before I recognized what had happened. I thought I was treading water. But in reality, the water was 100 feet above my head.

Have you ever had an experience where everything just seems to fall apart all at once?

Remember that workplace trauma I told you about? A really difficult relationship with a colleague and a reluctance to address it by leadership triggered the hell out of me. The details were different, but it felt all too familiar. And the more they dragged it out, month after month, the less safe I felt. It felt like I was being attacked, rejected, and abandoned all over again.

And I thought, “how could I be going through all of this again? Is it me? What am I doing wrong here?” And then, once I remembered that I’m not responsible for the way other people behave, including when I ask for help, I just felt alone, yet in the same place, again.

But I couldn’t just go forward like it didn’t matter. Something in my spirit wouldn’t let me. So, I set a boundary. I told leadership that I couldn’t, wouldn’t, interact with this person until they addressed the issue. Eventually, they at least had a conversation. But the sense that it wasn’t enough wouldn’t allow the burden to lift.

Around the same time, the new relationship I had developed with a tenderhearted man was beginning to shake. We were unequally yoked  – two people who wanted to be together, but were walking at two entirely different paces and not always in the same direction faith-wise. I had known from the very the beginning that this was a possibility, a certainty really, but I went forward anyway. And as the relationship crumbled around us, the painful rejection I felt was compounded by my own lack of wisdom in the first place.

A week or two later, I would find myself in the middle of another break-up. It was the end of my time with my out-of-state EMDR therapist, a person whose work with me had been truly transformational. There was no blow up, no drama, the rules just wouldn’t allow it anymore.  So, though we knew the end was coming, it didn’t make saying goodbye any easier. Up to that point I had been filled with dread, but it turned to grief when everything was said and done.  

And finally, a dinner with an old colleague and his wife that I had hoped would have been an enjoyable experience, ended up being the exact opposite. Instead of laughing and cracking jokes with the man who regularly checked-in with me, I found myself constantly dodging questions about why I wasn’t married or had a boyfriend from his wife. And in the wake of my recent breakup, I wasn’t ready for any of it. The dinner had only been an hour and a half, but when we parted, I felt like I had spent hours being judged and had come up short.

It was A LOT to endure all at once. I thought I was maintaining  – treading water. But the pain of each scenario pushed me further and further below the water’s surface. And when I finally opened my eyes and looked around, I saw that I was in a familiar place. I was failing at life  – again  – and that made it worse.  More tired than anything else, I just wanted to give up on everything, including life itself.

Before I decided to follow Jesus, I thought that being a believer would take those negative feelings away forever. I thought I would never experience pain, make mistakes, or feel alone ever again. But in the years since, I’ve learned that isn’t true. I wish I could say that I pushed my way through the despair that I felt or that Jesus suddenly washed it all away. But neither would be true.

What I did was cry a lot, get angry with myself and God, repent and do it all over again. But there’s one thing that made the difference.  When I accepted Jesus, I also accepted his spirit, the Holy Spirit, and invited them into my heart and my life. The Holy Spirit leads us in ways that we can’t always see at the time. Moment by moment the Holy Spirit directs us to the things that will comfort and restore us, even as we struggle.

It can start with something as simple as a glass of water. That bit of hydration can give us the clarity to take a shower, then lotion our bodies, have a little food, or take a nap.  Bit by bit, he leads us to just keep going, one thing, one step at a time. And slowly, over time, you notice the despair lifting.  It’s not a “suddenly” kind of thing, at least, it hasn’t been for me.

Posted on by She Who Rises

Just Stay … please?

I don’t know who needs to hear this, but…

You are not alone.


You are seen.


You belong.


You are needed.


You are no accident.


You were made with intention, regardless of what’s happened since.


You have a purpose, despite all the pain.


So, stick around a little while longer to see what it will be.


Decide to stick around for one more day.

Just one – one day at a time.

Every day.

And I promise you will get there, love.

Because, for real, you really are loved.

If you need a virtual ear, hit me up @ creatorskind@gmail.com 💜

Posted on by She Who Rises

Rejection

This isn’t a thanksgiving post, especially since the day has already passed (LOL). But with that said, given the week that we’ve had preparing for and welcoming, enduring or escaping family, we all have a fresh reminder that family is a trip, right? I’ve heard it said that there’s the family we’re born into and the family that we choose.  That is, our friends. No family is perfect – even those we choose. And every family comes in one of many shapes and sizes.

Even the family that we’re born into doesn’t always look like the self-contained nuclear family of black and white TV. Like me, many people are raised by a village and your “family” may share some of your DNA or none at all. In my own, bloodlines never mattered and thankfully, they still don’t. But…people are still people (who be peoplin’) and so those bruises and breaks still come along with them.  It’s an unfortunate truth that those who are closest to you can hurt you the most. It’s something from which we can never be immune.  We are often compelled to make choices around how we handle the hurt and those who do the hurting. The same is true about the bruises and breaks that we inflict on ourselves.

When I think of my experience with mental illness, and depression specifically, it seems to me to be a very selfish disease. Not selfish in the sense of being stingy, but instead, self-centered. Depression is a disease that takes our natural pre-occupation with ourselves and both perverts and expands it to the point that it can be nearly impossible to see through or around it to the other manifold aspects of life. With depression, you are always on your mind. And most often, it’s our most unflattering aspects that are the focus.

Maybe it’s the time you excused yourself from an important meeting to go to the ‘potty’ instead of the very adult restroom on your floor. Or maybe it’s the time when you spent an entire day at work and happy hour afterward with spinach between your two front teeth. Or, more seriously, the day someone you thought you knew became a predator and labeled you prey.

Somehow, whether silly or severe, each thought or memory that darts through your brain all have a common and well-traveled pathway. Those tinted visions of ineptitude, a lack of sophistication, clumsiness, gullibility, and whatever else that speeds through your brain all lead to one destination and that’s … rejection.

I find that regardless of who started the assault, because I am with myself more than anyone, the heaviest beatings come from my own hand. And believe me, no-one’s dagger is sharper than my own. Because depression underscores and magnifies the negative and is so self-focused, it can feel nearly impossible to do anything, but reject ourselves. I mean, what other conclusion could there be?

The self-rejection in my life made me want to hide from the rest of the world. I couldn’t let anyone truly get close to me, because if they did, they would see what I see and, ultimately, reject me.  What other choice could there be?

One of the things that is so remarkable to me about this faith thing is that I have never felt rejected by God. It has certainly crossed my mind that God should reject me. But I’ve never had the sense, once I started talking to God (a.k.a praying), that God would ever echo the sentiments that I had about myself.

Even as I complained and mocked myself, I never had the sense that God would agree. I didn’t feel it or see some cosmic co-sign in the heavens. Most days, I saw and felt very little beyond depression’s walls.  But after learning about God’s character, I now have a visual to go with that stillness.

It’s a facial expression that, hopefully, we’ve all seen in the eyes of someone who really loves us. It’s a look of concern.  A head tilted, angled as if to hear me better. A hand holding both cheeks and chin and brows furrowed, signaling the seriousness of the thoughts in the brain above it. And a sadness creeping into loving eyes. When I think of the days where I struggle and depression riddles my every thought, I see Jesus listening intently and then whispering, ‘My daughter, I long for you to always see yourself the way that I see you. But I’m here and ready to remind you again and again for as long as it takes.’

What about you? Do you have a visual in your mind that reflects who you know or believe God to be?  Leave a comment or shoot me an email at creatorskind@gmail.com.

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