Category: manic depression

Heart Disease

Hearts 168457_154905807894473_110794108972310_320156_2061498_n“The human heart is the most deceitful of all things,
and desperately wicked. Who really knows how bad it is?”

Jeremiah 17:9, NLT

We are the wounded. What exactly has caused it isn’t always known.  A death, divorce, depression and disability are great triggers.  Some of us are chronically ill, others are mentally ill.  We struggle to hold a job, and to go to church. There are some who are reading this who are controlled by addictions.  And a few of us consider suicide on pretty much a regular basis.

We’ve been hospitalized and stigmatized, and sometimes even institutionalized. And at times we endure massive attacks of fear and anxiety.  We are not easily understood, and we hear the whispers.  Our paranoia can often saturate what what we are thinking, (I think its more like a “marinade.”  Our brains just soak it up.)  Most of us are ‘walking wounded.’ We limp physically, and figuratively with equal pain.

“For thus says the LORD: Your hurt is incurable,
    and your wound is grievous.”

Jeremiah 30:12, ESV

If we are honest (and God insists on a rigorous honesty) we realize that we are a mess!  The prophet Jeremiah had a tremendous understanding of the human condition, and was never beguiled by the lie of pride, arrogance and selfishness.  He declares that we are diseased down to the core, like a rotten apple.

At times we continue in our favorite style of darkness.  And havoc sporadically rips through us and we become “disaster areas.”  How very sad, and profoundly tragic.

But you must understand this powerful fact.  Jesus Christ has been sent by the Father to save and cleanse all who come to Him.

“At that time a fountain will be open for David’s descendants and for the people of Jerusalem to cleanse them of their sin and uncleanness.”

Zechariah 13:1, NCV

“Children, it’s time for a bath,” and what God has done provides us the only way to “get better.” Some of us have carried staggering burdens for decades.  But I must be truthful. Our afflictions may continue to disturb us.  If you are bipolar or depressed, it just could be you’ll remain so.  But I know first-hand that our Father will give us an extra ration of grace.

In the Old Testament, family patriarchs could give an additional portion to a son he especially loved.  All were blessed, but some more so. That peculiar proclivity of our Father is why some of us with deep wounds can follow closer than others who are healthy.

“For I am the LORD, your healer.” Ex. 15:26

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“The treatment a wound gets decides whether time will bring healing or bondage.”

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ybic, Bryan

kyrie elesion. (Lord, have mercy on each reader)

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The Hours

When clinical depression is “on-the-clock” it can be sheer agony. It resists and lingers, sometimes for days and days. (It can last for months if untreated.) But it seems that it is these “hours” that are scarcely endurable. It’s truly all this “wasted” time that can seem most unbearable to the afflicted.

“I was mute and silent,
I refrained even from good,
And my sorrow grew worse.”

–Psalm 39:2, NASB

Depressed people tend to suffer in silence and isolate themselves from the outside world. When you’re depressed, you feel less motivated to go out, make contact, socialize or participate in activities, or doing anything at all. It’s all you can do just to get out of bed.

Days, even weeks can go by without wanting to see anyone or talk to anyone. This aggravates feelings of isolation. Often depressed people do not want to talk about their problem or simply feel misunderstood.

Similarly, prolonged and intense feelings of depression can lead to loneliness. Treating the symptoms of depression may help resolve the problem but it isn’t a sure thing. Finding good relationships can push you out of a depression. Loneliness often fuels my depression. Find understanding friends that you can talk with.

unbelieving-believersBeating depression or loneliness does not start with having more friends, or a relationship, although it can help. It really starts from within and is a process that takes time and care. We can be tempted to scrap friendships because they’re a lot of work. But they maybe one of the keys to healing. Experience has taught me that humans go through life in patterns. (We ‘ll do the same thing over and over again.) Even in different situations, these patterns will be repeated and simply generate the same results. A friend can be a new and strategic solution to breaking free.

It is a good thing to know that Jesus Christ sees and understands. 

But it’s also good to have someone with “skin on.”  Someone you can see and touch.  That’s precisely why we have the Church.  People who believe and touch each other deeply, helping each other up.  Depression does not do very well in the true Body of Christ.

“Brethren, even if anyone is caught in any trespass, you who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; each one looking to yourself, so that you too will not be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ.”

Galatians 6:1-2

Dear broken believer, take solace in the people in the church. Learn to confide with those who understand. Sometimes I wonder if God has arranged my mental illness so that I will reach out to others. Perhaps He allows it to bless His Church?

“The church is not a select circle of the immaculate, but a home where the outcast may come in. It is not a palace with gate attendants and challenging sentinels along the entrance-ways holding off at arm’s-length the stranger, but rather a hospital where the broken-hearted may be healed, and where all the weary and troubled may find rest and take counsel together.” 

–James H. Aughey

aabryplain

 

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Paranoia and Delusions, Oh My!

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Didn’t really sleep last night but an interesting day.  Hope it continues to develop in that direction.  I really need a good day to come along right now.

Been thinking about paranoia.  It comes loaded up with delusions.  They are separate words, but when they make that toxic combination it gets strange.  Are people out to get me?  Probably not.  People are by far and away more apt to dismiss me then to plot against me.

Paranoia is the belief in a hidden order behind the visible.

Delusions are a strong belief in something despite superior evidence to the contrary.

I don’t know why this is such a hard concept to hold on.  Paranoia is intensely self-absorbed and egocentric.  Everything is conspiring to destroy me is a very foolish way to live.  In a culture already overheated by egomania, to offend me becomes a declaration of war.  My paranoia makes you a mortal enemy.  But to act from that destroys me.  I only take it deeper and make it easier to slide into the next time.

Paranoia is not rational.  You can not reason with it.  (You certainly have my permission.)  For me, I win the battle over paranoia and delusions by “displacement”, pushing it out by adding in the presence of Jesus. The Holy Spirit fills us and flushes out the bad. At least that is what it feels like.

When I recognize Him to be the good shepherd, He watches over my thoughts like sheep.  He protects me from paranoia’s snares and thorns. I experience peace when He is present. I find Jesus actively helps me in this.

There are times I hear the voices, and “see” the monstrous faces leering out of the wallpaper. But more often I concoct delusions about people who I feel have slighted me. Paranoia provides plenty of grist for me to grind. I’m learning how to recognize the lies, and the liar who speaks them to me.

“For God did not give us a spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear), but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control.”

2 Timothy 1:7, AMP

Often I hear what seems like a telegraph, a varying ‘dot-dash-dot.’ It is very loud and obtrusive, but I know now it’s not real. I read a cool quote, that made me laugh, “I was walking home one night and a guy hammering on a roof called me a paranoid little weirdo. In morse code.”  -Emo Phillips

I hope your day goes good.

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A Message from the Playground

Old Merry-Go-Round

“I can do all this through him who gives me strength.”

Philippians 4:13, NIV

I was thinking about this today, remembering the playground as a child.  I absolutely understood “the merry-go-round.”  I believed deep-down that it had been invented for just me.  It fit me, very well.  I like pushing around and around, and when it started to get beyond me, I would fling myself on to the spinning platform.

If I made it, the battle was only half-done.  Now, I had not only had to stay on, but I also had to avoid all other kids being spun off.  Just getting to your feet was a major undertaking. As the centrifugal force began to increase, the faster it went, the greater our momentum, and the more kids were thrown off; they tumbled into the mud.  There would be kids strewn all over the place, in heaps, crying. Clothes ripped, and knees bleeding. This wasn’t for ‘the faint of heart.’ This was war!

If somehow, you could make it to the center, you were the king of the “merry-go-round!”  For me at the ripe old age of 7, it was amazing!  I would exult and crow of beating my mechanical nemesis and blowing away the laws of physics.  But there are parallels here (surprise!)

Sometimes, life is a difficult ride.  But I know this.  If I can make it to the center, everything will be ok.  The dynamics of discipleship and mental (or physical) illnesses make it different.  We are all trying to find our way.  We stumble and fall (even hurled into the mud.)  But the center is right were we need to be.  It is the center that compels and calls. We were made for this.

We must continually fight to be at the center.  If you fall off, you can get right back up, and try again.  Nothing gets easier. Everyone scrapes their knees. I think one of the reasons that “heaven” is not talked about on every page of the Bible is we all would ‘mutiny,’ and head for its glorious shores. It’s going to be that good.

We will struggle.  But, we can struggle well with our illnesses if we we know His presence.  I get so my edges are frayed, and I feel like everything around me is dissolving.  My “fight or flight instinct” kicks in, and I feel frantic trying to hold together.  Being mentally ill is like flying a plane that has engine problems.  There is no escape; all you want it to cower and hide.  But you can’t. There is no place to go, but Jesus.

But there is a certain place, and when you battle to get to the center, you will find freedom from the pull of outward things. It is good to rest in Jesus, and abide in the center with him. Spiritually, you have been infused with His presence.  And you rise up!  You now discover that you have wings.

And the ‘merry-go-round’ has served its purpose. aabryscript

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