The Lunar Tide

Two-Handed Vascillation

“I don’t have to hear it, if I don’t want to// I can drown this out, pull the
curtains down on you//It’s a heavy world, it’s too much for me to care//If I close my eyes, it’s not there//with my headphones on, with my headphones on….I don’t want to be the one who tries to figure it out//I don’t need another reason I should care about you//You don’t want to know my story,//You don’t want to own my pain//Living in a heavy, heavy world//And there’s a pop song in my head//I don’t want to have to hear it.”

“I’ve been living out of sanity//I’ve been splitting hairs and blurring
lines//I’m a house that is divided//in my heart and in my mind//I USE ONE HAND TO PULL YOU CLOSER//THE OTHER TO PUSH YOU AWAY….”

So, I just had two friends in a row, calling to see how I am doing. I know they care…they care a lot, but they feel helpless to be able to help…other than by praying, which I know they do. My family cares also….some of them more than others….but they too are left feeling powerless and also then, stuck with their own needs unmet, because I am the one who should be meeting them but am usually too sick to do so. So that leads them to some anger and guilt at feeling angry because they know it’s not my fault…at least some of them do.

I cannot describe to you what a day in my skin is like…Struggling for every breath….every motion I make followed by at least ten minutes of coughing and gasping for air. Now, my arthritis (I have a type in the same family as Rheumatoid Arthritis)…is in an accute flair up because I had to take a “drug vacation” from one of the main drugs I take to treat it, because the side effects of that drug were becoming too toxic to my body.

It seems like my whole life revolves around symptoms, medication, the side effects of that medicine, and new complications which are constantly cropping up…trying to keep that all in some kind of manageable balance and still find the wherewithall to keep up to my responsibilities as wife and mother….and failing that last bit, miserably. If it only were just limited to a physical ailment (or even two), or just to a psychiatric illness…NOT all of them all at once!! They are like two snakes all tangled together…a heaving, confusing MESS of things where you don’t know where one ends and the other begins.

I saw a video yesterday of a pastor in my church denomination who suffered this horrific illness—life was in great jeopardy several times—and they STILL don’t know what has caused it….but he seems to be finally pulling out…but is now much worse for the wear. He spoke haltingly and with difficulty (I think due to the fact that he’d had a tracheotomy) but what he kept repeating was “I don’t like this journey I’m on…but God is in it….and GOD IS GOOD.” He’d even had an experience of hallucinations and delusions caused by the steroids also that they had to give him….And in the midst of that confusion and darkness, he just clung to the fact that GOD IS GOOD. If I know nothing else…no answers to my “WHY’s” or where this journey will lead me, I too must hold onto that knowledge…because it is something I firmly believe and very rarely doubt…THIS SUCKS….BUT GOD IS GOOD, and trust that, in the end, He will work something good out of it…probably far bigger and far better than any of us could ever imagine. And maybe I won’t have any glimpse of that until I get to heaven.

Here is that link, if you want to watch that video I saw, for yourself. Just click on it where it tells you you can view John Stumbo’s story. http://www.salemalliance.org/home/index.php

Go with God today…it’s the only way to fly.

Funny how God ties things into packages in our minds… Takes a sentence here, a paragraph there, a Scripture passage, a comment, a blog, an incident…. and weaves a tapestry of meaning for us. People often are in doubt as to how to hear God’s voice and how to know it is Him speaking. For me, this question is difficult to understand…. He is really pretty persistent when He wants to make a point. He will say it in a thousand ways…each time adding a new dimension to our understanding until we finally “get it.” But getting it is only half the battle… and this aspect of my line of thought here, is precisely the package God has been handing me to open and use. Once we understand what God is telling us, we then have to act on it - or make a decision based on that information which will have a huge impact on our future path. So many times, even this morning: I saw the signs, heard the bells and alarms….and chose wrongly. Sometimes we can try to brush these failures under the rug, thinking that it was a small mistake and no one will ever notice and it will not have an effect on our tomorrow… but God has shown me just today, that, as the Bible says, “sin is crouching at your door, it longs to have you.” Give an inch and before you know it, you are miles away from where you know you should be…and truly want to be. And sometimes those miles are irretrievable. You cannot trace your path back and undo what you’ve done. I chose this picture of the milkweed to accompany this post because it reminds me of myself…. Intricately and beautifully designed…with many seeds of potential…yet so fragile that a puff of wind can send those seeds and scatter them in all directions. I cannot forget my fragility… I cannot think myself independent of my Designer. And when the wind comes, I need to lean hard on Him to guide where my seeds land. Listen. Hear. Trust. Obey. It really is not complicated, but without the Trust, it is impossible.

 
Shout Joy
By Madeline L’Engle

O sing unto God
and sing praises unto his Name
magnify him that rideth upon the heavens
praise him in his Name
Jah!

shout it
cry it aloud upon the wind
take the tail of his steed
and fling across the sky
in his wild wake
Jah!
he cannot be caught
he cannot be fled
he cannot be known
nor his knowledge escaped
the light of his Name
blinds the brilliance of stars
Jah!
catch the falling dragon
ride between his flailing wings
leap between the jaws of the lion
grasp the horn of the unicorn
calling with mighty voice
Jah!
caught in star flame
whipped by comet lash
rejoice before him
cry above the voices of the cherubim
shout alongside the seraphim
Jah!
bellow joy behind kings
scattered by the quaking of his hills
fleeing before his fire
rush like snow through his thunderous flame
crying with gladness
adoration of his Name
God is Lord
Jah!

Maybe you are wondering why the “lunar” references?  It’s for several reasons.  One is that my name is another name for Aphrodite, the goddess of the moon, and also because the moon was thought, years ago, to be associated with madness.  The word “lunar” comes from the same root as the words, “lunatic” and “lunacy”.  Also, there is the monthly period of madness most women know well: the cyclical depression and instability that occurs at “that time of the month”  The moon’s pull is what affects and moderates the tides of the ocean and in a real way, I believe, our own emotional tides.

The Bible says that God created the moon’s lesser light to govern and light the night… The light from the moon still comes from the sun; the same source that lights our days.  I take this to mean to me personally that, even in the darkness, God is present and grants us the light that we need to see our way.

I am sorry for my prolificity yesterday (is that a word?  If it isn’t, it should be.)…I am often like a child with a new toy when I start a new blog and since tumblr is new to me, I had to fidgit with everything until I figured out how it works.

I’ve been checking out some of the other blogs that are on the Mental Health Bloggers’ Directory.  It was an interesting thing to do; I guess that there are more people out there who have similar problems to mine, than I’d originally guessed.  I am finding it hard to define this blog or to establish parameters.  If it’s about mental health; then that’s one thing.  If it’s about Faith; then maybe that’s another.  I think the real deal is that it’s about me - and therefore, it is bound to be a confused mess of thought, intelligence, and complete ramblings with an occasional rant or lofty thought about God and faith.

I need to throw in a rant at this point…please bear with me.  I am SO tired of people throwing the baby (ME) out with the bathwater (my illness).  Why is it that everything I do and say is tolerated, humored, indulged, and then DISMISSED as simply an expression of insanity?  Why is it that people from my church are praying for healing for my asthma by praying for my mind?  Am I not “allowed” to have a physical illness without people assuming that it’s a product of my mental illness?  Does every other mentally ill person struggle with this issue?  I feel completely invalidated…which is becoming a familiar feeling lately.

At home, I am constantly told I am being “crazy” “unreasonable” ”illogical” etc.. My husband and daughter act like they are caretakers of an unstable child.  My church friends love me, I know…but again it’s sort of an indulgent love.  Like, “This is C———-, our resident psychotic person…Humor her!”  They asked me to teach a ten or fifteen minute devotional on prayer in the Discipleship Training (i.e.: Sunday School) class in two weeks.  I am honored, scared to death, and hoping I am not hospitalized for asthma or pneumonia by then. I know I have begun to get a reputation as someone who is not very dependable.  Sometimes because I am physically ill and sometimes because my pain levels are excessive and sometimes because I just  can manage to carry it out and follow through.

I’ve been thinking today about my expectations for my life…am I settling for too little?  Should I strive for bigger, more “normal” goals? Dream bigger?  Try to rescue old dreams from extinction?  Or do I adjust my sights to short term reachable goals like getting out of bed and getting dressed? This is a question that I need to have answered.  God is a big God and He can do anything…no limits.  So is it wrong to expect or ask Him to do big things in me and with me?  Or is that just setting myself up for constant failure and disappointment?

I am confined within my nights’ dreams…

Cannot escape the swirling morass

Of mind’s invention and eerie unreality;

Bizarre characters parade through my thoughts

And my eyes corner them—

Brief flickers as they pass in the daylight.

My nights are interwoven through my days…

And I am unsure of my skill at discerning

Between fact and that which

Is the nightspawn of my fractured mind.

I think, sometimes, I would rather

Choose to live in the whirling implausible,

Than to chew the reality on my plate

Which is even harsher to swallow.

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My dad once wrote a poem for me (cool, huh?) after my first suicide attempt and the resulting psych hospitalization.  Just prior to my meltdown, I had been in a performance given by my college choir, singing with the West Point Cadet Choir in the beautiful mini-cathedral/chapel on the grounds of my college.  In the poem my dad likened me to a butterfly…

So many times in my life I have felt like a butterfly in an entymologist’s display; with wings pinned, like frozen flight.  My health pins me now.  The fact that I can no longer drive limits my flight.  The fact that I cannot dance or even walk  without gasping for air (I have severe asthma), also is a factor that hampers my freedom to a great degree.

That is why I am so grateful for prayer.  It allows me to soar, unhindered by my body or my life.  It allows me to roam the globe, unleashing God’s plans for people and nations… It gives me more of a freedom than even the internet allows.

The intensity I feel when at God’s feet, prostrated by my awe of His magnificence is indescribable and I love that it is available to anyone who would come and sample it.  I think that having my wings pinned is what has taught me to see with inner eyes, to hear things that are not audible and to taste the sweetness of God.  It is too easy, when we are free to flap frenetically around from task to task, to forget that there is One who stands beckoning and offering us the sweetness of worship and the gift of BEING.

I’m am tumbling over to this blogsite after a bad experience on a former blog of mine… The world has its share of “creeps” and it was my misfortune to meet up with one and I needed to get distance from his eyes and comments.  So bear with me as I learn the ins and outs of tumblr.  I find that I am also hesitant to open my soul again online… “Once bitten,…” and all that.  It is saddening when something as marvelous as the www. becomes a dark and frightening thing rather than the blessing it should be. I am struggling with some fear in this regard…how much information to give and how honest to be…  I will eventually sort it out; in one direction or another.

I will tell you a bit about myself, but obviously with some caution, I don’t want any searchable phrases to lead the predator to me again.

The most important thing about me is the God who created me, died for me, and is going to beat the pants off of the powers of darkness that are currently having their heyday in this world.  He is what I am about… all else is relatively insignificant.  In His inscruitable wisdom, God has chosen to allow me to suffer some great challenges in my life: poor health, chronic severe pain, and mental illness.  I’ve struggled with the last item for almost 30 years now and it was only in the past two or three years that I got a definitive and correct diagnosis…which I am hesitant to share, because of the “searchability” of that phrase.  I will suffice it to say that it is a combination of schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. 

My physical health combined with the psychiatric illness have worked together to limit my activities greatly…  I am not quite homebound, but close.  I can no longer drive or work, so am currently working on the concept of finding my identity apart from work or accomplishments or socially defined terms.  God doesn’t do things without purpose, love and wisdom; so it is up to me to trust that and to discover exactly what it is He wants me to do and to be right now.  I don’t mean to be blithe about that and casually state that as though it was an easy or natural thing to happily accept such pain and hardship with a graceful “Thank You.”  I struggle with it sometimes… Sometimes I whine and complain and sometimes I rage… 

But the bottom line; the bedrock of my life; is the certain knowledge that God is infinitely wise, infinitely loving and that THIS WORLD IS NOT ALL THERE IS OR IS GOING TO BE.  It is that fact - the fact that I am on a journey to a reality where pain, sickness and limitations will be non-existent - which keeps me committed to life rather than trying to end it, as I’ve done in past times.  What WILL remain is my character, the WHO of me and the WHAT that I have become as a result of the challenges in my life.

So these are the main parameters of my life…other than the fact that I am (was) a painter, musician and writer…as well as a voracious and omnivorous reader…I still dabble in all of the above pursuits, when my body and mind will permit, but I do not any longer define myself by those activities as I once did because I have learned to hold loosely to things that are not intergral to my being, because they are not permanent nor dependable. 

So join me on this journey of notation…in words and images…as I delve into my thoughts and the wisdom that God shares with me about Life, Meaning, and Struggle and share them with you.