Struggles

It's been seven months since my last post. In that period of time, I've been fighting with depression, stress, and anxiety. In December, I realized that I could either continue going the way I was going, or I could seek help and go to a therapist. I chose therapy; the reasons for depression and anxiety are rooted deeply in the way I grew up. My logic was that if I was able to get to the roots and deal with them, then I'd finally be released from this terrible depression that has hounded me since childhood.

I grew up being rejected by family, peers, and the church I was in. I was told I was antisocial, too quiet, was repeatedly told to speak louder. I'm an introvert who likes quiet, and I speak softly both because I'm afraid to be heard, and it's something I inherited from my father, who speaks quietly too. I was told I was weird, just because I didn't have the same interests as the little girls around me. I preferred books to human companionship, read and understood Shakespeare when I was only six, and at that same age began a love affair with classical music and opera. I wasn't like the rest of my family; loud, outspoken, controlling. This rejection caused me to withdraw more into myself, with occasional outbursts of my attempts to be accepted. These attempts were rewarded with other kids or adults laughing at me, the former pointing fingers as well.

As I grew up, I still tried to be popular, to be the person my family and my church thought I should be. I never knew what it was like to have individuality; my mother tried her best to put me in a mold I was never meant to fit into. On her death in 1994, on my 14th birthday, my depression became worse. Anxiety attacks accompanied horrific nightmares that always involved Mom. Waking up was hell; I would realize that it was just a dream and that Mom was gone for good. Part of me put on a show for my grandparents, the other part showed its butt at school, around the "friends" I had surrounded myself with. I developed a foul vocabulary and every other word was the F-bomb. I couldn't stand going to church because I saw hypocrites who would never understand what I was going through. I couldn't stand that my grandparents got so many sympathy cards, and only a few mentioned me. All this anger was shoved down inside, coming out in bursts when the pressure was too great.

Because my way of grieving was to shut myself out from the people around me, my grandmother became worried and insisted that I see a therapist. My grandfather agreed, but I fought them like crazy. It was useless; I would have to see this therapist every week or so. I didn't want to do this because I didn't think that some stranger should be privy to the details of my life. I didn't think there was anything wrong with me at all, I thought that everything was wrong with the world. These therapist visits were a waste of money; all I did was avoid talking and would answer the therapist's questions with answers I thought he would want to hear. After the sessions, my grandmother would drill me on what I said. I got so sick of it, especially because she was told that these sessions were absolutely confidential. I realize now that she asked because she was worried that I was saying bad things about her.

This kept up until shortly before I turned 18. Halfway through my senior year in high school, I joined a witches coven. To me, these people offered me the acceptance I felt I'd never find in church. I was very much mistaken; when I became high priestess, I ended up giving more than they gave. I was guided through all kinds of training for this and excelled at it, but not without payment. My nightmares grew worse, my depression deepened, and I felt like all was lost. What snapped me out of it was a graduation gift from my church - a beautiful gold cross on a gold chain. I felt terrible for having been so hard on these people. I ended up leaving the coven and going back to church almost weekly. Life still had its issues; two days after my 18th birthday, my grandmother suffered a stroke that left her half-paralyzed. Two years later, my grandfather was diagnosed with emphezema and congestive heart failure, as well as diabetes.

In the years following, I made all the dumb decisions that I could make. I got married at 20, and divorced three months later. I dated different men, ones that would ignore me in favor of video games, or ones that would try to change me. I did find a couple of good guys, but ruined the relationships because of my then-controlling nature. In 2003, my now-husband and I met through a site that determined one's hotness based on votes. Emails and instant messages went to phone conversations, and he ended up coming to see me when my grandfather had almost died. He and my grandfather hit it off and, about two months later, I was traveling over three hundred miles away to get married. My grandfather moved out of the house and into an assisted living facility, right down the hall from where my grandmother was in the nursing home. They insisted on me not "ruining my life just for them". In truth, I wanted to stay at the only real home I'd known, to work and take care of my grandparents. To be separated from them by such a distance was not what I wanted at that time, but I loved (and still do love!) my husband. I chose to move and get married.

Things weren't all roses at first, and within a year and a half of our marriage, we came dangerously close to divorce. That's when my husband had cried out to G-d to help us, and He certainly did. We both began attending a Messianic congregation, the one we have since left, and it was great at first. My depression lessened; I only had bouts of it every once in a while, and not for long. Unfortunately, the congregation's leaders changed, and while my husband and I "advanced" up the ladder of congregational ministry, we found ourselves changed as well.

Depression came back with a vengeance. Because I'd shed my Gothic skin and started wearing more colorful clothes, once I joined the dance team I was expected to look that way ALL THE TIME. I couldn't wear black nail polish without being reprimanded, kept my hair very long so that the tattoo on my neck (Japanese for "warrior", the meaning of my name) couldn't be seen, wore long skirts and long-sleeved shirts even in summer so that the tattoo on my right arm and the tattoos on my legs were also concealed. I gained a lot of weight and lost more of my confidence. I went right back to depending on the people around me to define who I am, and looked to them for acceptance. The leader's wife did not give this out freely, if ever, to me. She was one of the people who really hurt me. Again, I found myself completely unable to be myself without being teased or laughed at. The depression became so bad that I couldn't keep up a weight-loss goal for more than a couple of weeks, wore more frumpy clothes, and let my hair just do it's naturally curly thing. As an armorbearer, if I arrived at the building later than the leader's wife, I was chastised...so I stopped taking so much care with what I wore in terms of clothes and makeup.

When we left, I harbored so much anger and resentment for the treatment my husband and I received, that it continually ate at me. Despite my thinking that, finally, I forgave them months later, I was wrong. I can forgive someone for one thing at a time, not for many things all at once. So, since January, the sediment of many years is being stirred up. Combine that with many job responsibilities and major stress, and you have a recipe for major anxiety attacks. I experienced my first real one back in November. Now, after Mom died, the anxiety attacks were about two minutes of fear, followed by another bout of depression. This anxiety attack in November was horrible; I became extremely dizzy, could hardly move because all my limbs felt heavy, and the worst feeling of terror came over me. Another one followed in January, then many more in February. All the stress at work, combined with the depression I was feeling, finally overwhelmed me. I asked for help and received a little, with just one thing taken off me. I still was struggling to meet the daily requirements of work and was failing with each passing day. Finally, I just couldn't deal with it any longer, and requested that I be allowed to go back to my original duties. This was denied and, a week later, I handed in my resignation.

I'd been thinking about doing this on and off for a few months, but decided to soldier on and do what I could. I didn't realize that I was allowing stress and depression to dictate my daily life. In December, I began having daily headaches and my female cycle started going haywire. I started dreaming about work every night. The wake-up call for me was when the anxiety attacks started becoming more frequent, and I started worrying about my physical health. Taking time off from work didn't help; I only worried about having to go back in and face my daily duties. I talked about work when I got home, complaining to my ever-patient husband about the happenings of the day. Once the anxiety attacks became almost daily, I knew something had to give. It was either my job or my health, and so I chose what was most important: my health.

I've gone into such a history so that anyone who reads this blog knows that I am truly only human. I do desire to help others as much as I can, and so I can truthfully say that I'm grateful for what has happened to me. If it can help me empathize more with another human being who needs that empathy, then praise G-d. This isn't an easy fight, and I have to be reminded too often that I need to trust in my heavenly Father. You see, I AM merely human and cannot win battles on my own. Being alone isn't going to help those who are fighting depression or anxiety disorders. Having supportive friends, family, and even co-workers is essential to people like me who struggle. The best thing is, for me, that I have a Messiah who isn't unsympathetic to human suffering (Hebrews 4:15), and that helps so much. I know that, because He experienced suffering far beyond what I have known, I can trust that He will not be indifferent to my cries when I'm having a bad day.

Every day is a struggle for me. It's been less than a week since I resigned from my job, and I still feel daily guilt for what I did. I couldn't take any more of the stress, but I believe that if I had realized much earlier the signs of stress, I could have avoided the eventual effects of it. I miss my co-workers very much, and it grieves me to think that I didn't leave on terms that I'd hoped would be good. I didn't leave on bad terms, per say, but it was sudden when I did it. I asked for help, received little, and that is that. I did what I felt was necessary for me, for my physical and mental health, but that does not lessen the sadness and guilt I feel. This is a daily process and, with G-d's help, depression and anxiety will be defeated. It certainly helps that we have a new congregation we are attending, with a wonderful leader whose wife speaks Klingon (YES!), and are going through discipleship with the intention of becoming members. Yes, I have joined the dance team and have been told that it's refreshing to have me on it...blue-streaked hair included.