Tuesday, April 17, 2012

How Very 2003 Of Me...

I've waited a bit too long to  begin writing this... My eyes are becoming increasingly heavy... This will either prove to work towards your benefit, as it will be a shorter blog than usual or will do the opposite - just be too drawn out and miscomjobulated. You know, one of these things.

It's been a while since I've written anything. If you know me for any period of time, you'll begin to notice that this is usually a tell tale sign that something funky's going on in my life on some level, and I just don't feel comfortable sharing it.

The short and sweet of it is that over the past 4 months, I've been emotionally hurt, lost money, lost even more pride, experienced fantastic highs and pretty bad lows. (that last part just made me sound bi-polar - I'm not)

The following may be more for me, but I'm going to attempt to share via bullet points what I've gone through/learned/continuously learning.

* Due to a series of unfortunate incidents, my depression worsened. This makes me feel broken, miserable, discarded, worthless

* I also lost/spent a LOT of money in a very short amount of time. This makes me feel foolish (1 time I had to go to the doctor and the other time I thought I was doing something right), naive, stupid, juvenile, a terrible spouse

* Finally began recognizing that I do binge eat. I don't think I've actually been hungry since 2010. I've gained 24lbs since September. 5bs just in the last month. On some level I'm able to recognize that this is unhealthy. On a more emotional level, I'm so overwhelmed with everything else, that I just don't care. Realizing all of this makes me feel shameful, unworthy of friendship and love, a major, ginormous embarrassment to my friends/family.

* There's some really great things about being married. Being sad a lot and feeling like you (unintentionally) put an extreme amount of pressure on your spouse to make you "okay" is terrible. Whether real or not, I feel awful after sharing things with Isaac. I partially feel relieved to get it off of my chest, but the other part of me feels like a giant Eeyore that moozied on into the room. I've tried to express it before, but it's not my spouse's job to make me 'happy'.  It's just not.

* Periodically I get my panties into a wad about Christians who seem to present their version of the gospel as a spiritual 'wham, bam, thank you m'am'. I don't believe that's what Jesus taught. I typically refer back to the section in Luke 5 when Jesus tells his posse and some church folk that, as the New Living Translation puts it - “Healthy people don’t need a doctor—sick people do."
Somehow we've tricked ourselves and others into believing that 'Jesus Saves' means that we'll never have to deal with our drug or sex addictions. Our judgemental attitudes or loose tongues. Marriage problems will evade us and as long as we don't get a divorce, we've proven we really listened to God. I have done a fabulous job at convincing myself on many occasions that because I really searched out my faith, or that I did all of the right "steps" that I'll never have to deal with my own "afflictions". Because I love Jesus, I shouldn't ever have to really deal with recurrences of depression, doubt, self-loathing, anxiety, stress, obsessive tendencies or over eating. A) This is total BULL SHIT  B) No sane person ever expects to go to the pediatrician as a baby and never have to see a doctor again for the rest of their lives. C) Nor should any sane person rack their faith up to check marks.

As much as I talk about my friends and the need for community, I'm still pretty into me. I would like to believe that I should have mastered (insert something here) by now. I don't really need continual saving....

I'm sure there were other witty, intelligent thoughts that were dying to get out, but I've successfully stayed asleep on the couch with the computer in my lap for at least the last 45-60 minutes.... so I'm calling it a night.

Feel free to discuss/share (anonymous is always a swell safe way to share in my book) your thoughts, successes or struggles here. I can't promise that I'll always respond in the most loving way, but I promise that I'll fall asleep on the couch multiple times with the aim to...



3 comments:

Thorny said...

There are two things that every human desires whether they realize it or not. 1.) To be fully known and 2.) To be loved well and accurately.
When these two things start to shift to an unhealthy place or become unbalanced it's kinda like Jenga, the rest of the blocks just shift and tumble with them.
Being fully known means taking risks. There are going to be, honestly, some people who are put off by it and may not want to have anything to do with you anymore because it's just too messy (their perception of course). But Christ never said that life wasn't messy. In fact, it we are living into the Kingdom, it will be messy. I hope you allow yourself to be messy. I think you did that by writing this.
The second part, being loved well and accurately doesn't mean that it will feel good either. Being loved well takes honest and being loved accurately takes really knowing someone.
Are you and your husband living into that kind of life? Are you allowing yourself to be messy, not for the sake of controversy, but just to let Jesus deal with your crap?
I take that back, not deal, but live into your crap. So it's great that you've shared this on here. My hope is that you got some sleep and realize that it truly indeed is a new day. "The Word became flesh and blood, and moved into the neighborhood." John 1:14 (The Message) I love that verse. Are you letting the Word move into your neighborhhood, your life, your mess, your crap, your marriage, all of it? Or are you just giving up what's easy to let go of? So yeah, great that you've shared on here, but since it's a new day what are you going to do in real life today to realize that no matter what anyone in this world thinks of you or how they perceive you that Christ wants to fully know you and truly love you well and accurately?

amanda said...

I just want to say that I love you and I miss your blatant honesty! You are such a beautiful and amazing person and I miss you bunches!

Anonymous said...

I'm thinking you and I really need to get to know each other a bit better. I can totally relate to most everything you wrote about.

Lana