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The Vicious Cycle

Last night, my husband sat with me in the car and we held hands in silence, as I let the tears roll down my cheeks. This continous cycle is almost predictable yet I cannot break it. Im not sure what to share and what to hold onto. I want this blog to be an inspiration, but I also promised truth. I believe by sharing the truth of the situation that in turn some of you can identify with the pain of this and feel less isolated.

So, here I am. In the same lounge room that Sam learnt to crawl in , yet I have no recollection of him doing so. I'll take the chance now to tell you that I have found an amazing pycologist who is redefining my thoughts and perceptions of my entire life so far. The benefits have been immeasurable and the amount I have learnt is mind blowing, yet I reach this point where as much as that helps, I am still in the prison of my own mind and its perception of reality- I still feel removed from life and its emotions and responses.

Can I just say, that learning the reasons why my brain is doing so, is incredible. Understanding why this is happening has changed my world. I encourage all of you who can and who may feel they need it, to take that step to councelling and pysological help. It took me along time to find who I needed, but Marcus and my new doctor, together, are a miracle. Let me share with you why I feel so strongly that professional help is crucial and a must in the assistance of mental illnss.

The condition that my brain is in, is a daily, hourly battle. I can sometimes ( mostly) only see what is in front of me. ( my close friend who also suffers depersonalisation refers to it as the sensation of " tunnel vision"- you really only know and remember and experience what is happening right infront of you, thus why this condition can be very inward and selfish ) It becomes easy to be negative and get into a dangerous cycle of feeling hopeless and defeated. A lot has to do with the fact that once your brain makes that switch to depersonalisation, it isnt for a few minutes or hours, or here and there. It is: all....the...time. Draining, disabling, disorientating, helpless, repetative. I feel a lot of the time that I am just waiting for reality to come back so that I can function and feel and relate and experience and love and forgive and well, just plain and simply, live. A lot of mental illness is the same- relentless. The cycle I find myself constantly in is dangerous. I find myself going from positive and determined to beat this, then as time passes and nothing changes  I creep into questioning and confusion, then disillusionment and ultimately depression. I end up in a very dark place.
I think Ive gotten to a point ( my brain has been in this state for 4 years) where the cycle is predictable and I get sick of always talking about and dragging the people in my life into all over again. So I stop sharing, and I start internalising. That, my friends, is dangerous. Its dangerous because ultimately, you WILL explode and when you do, you will end up hurting the people around you far more than you do when you let them into your pain. I just wanted the people I love to move forward, I hate that just because Im stuck here, means that they are too, especially my little family. They deserve better. This is my plee to God. I have learnt so much about myself and about God and about life, yet I cannot apply it to life in the way that I know I need to. I feel like I have all this resource, and no outlet. What a waste. These thoughts have plagued me lately. Why? Why cant I flick that silly swtich back to reality? I really lost it on the weekend, I think I had made myself be ok for a few months now and all of a sudden I realised, I had just been breathing, and not letting anything else matter. It was the only way I felt I could cope. Instead of sharing with my husband and family that I was still struggling everyday, I let it go and internalised it all, and I full on exploded.

I punched the walls of our house and I literally screamed out that God had forgotten me. I told my son that there was no way out. I collpased into my husbands arms and cried like a baby. I fell apart. It was hideous and sad and yucky for us all, especially little Sam. Jas and I always make a point of trying to not fight infront of Sam, but in the moment, I lost sight of all rationality. It actually probably cost my family more than it cost me. In saying this next part, please understand that I believe in Jesus, I believe that He saves and that He loves. I know that redeption is something I do not deserve and that I am lucky to be breathing. I am grateful and in awe of that fact, but I constantly come to this crossroad in my walk with God.
What the heck is he doing? Lets be honest, we have all thought that at some stage. I find myself saying it all day everyday. I see His hand in my situation, I see Him changing people around me, but I also see what I experience every day and it feels incredibly lonely. I said something that actually scared me a little bit, last night as Jas and I sat in the car together. The hard thing is that I do believe whole heartedly in God. I see him being loving and faithful and beautiful to all these people around me, but I feel like Im just watching it all happening to everyone else. I said to Jas, that one of 2 things is happeneing. Either God has forgotten me ( even writing that makes me break down because it there is honestly a part of me that feels that) , or He sees me and is watching me go through this heartache everyday, and doing nothing, and Im not sure which is worse. A huge part of me knows that the Jesus I know is actually not doing either of those, and is all over my situation. That He is passionatly and faithfully working in my life with precise accuracy and unmatchable love and faithfullness. But my situation constantly tells me the opposite because it feels never ending.
The reason I feel forgotton is because, as I said to Jas at that time, if I knew Sam was someone experiencing what I was, and there was ANYTHING I could do to change that for him, my goodness there would be no holding me back. I would move heaven and earth to relieve him of that suffering. So I feel like on some level, that God is seeing this, and not saving me from this.

HOWEVER.......

That is what my situation tells me, that it what my silly mind tells me when I let the cycle win and allow my mind to go to places that it doesnt need to and shouldnt go. When I constantly talk to myself instead of other people, I end up here. Everytime. As soon as I see my doctors, they talk it out, set me right, and I leave feeling like I can go on and keep fighting. TALK TO SOMEONE! Please. Talk to someone who can make sense of your head and who can give hope to your heart. This is how I know that Jesus is fully aware and working in my situation...- my doctors. They are scattered on opposite sides of Adelaide, not in the phone book, and booked out. Yet at the precise time I needed them both, they literally came my way without me needing to do much. Even that thought brings me to tears, the thought that possibly Jesus is at work, and will bring me through this. His hand is working, and probably working overtime when we can least see it. My own silly thoughts can cloud this truth, and can I tell you just how easily that happens. One wrong thought, one lie that I give truth to, and Im set on the wrong path, for a long time. It is painful and gut wrenching. Beware of those thoughts, the ones that tell you no one cares, that there is no way out, that there is no hope.
I know it feels like that, and if you are reading this and know how this feels, I wish with every fibre of my being that you didnt know those feelings :( There is nothing like it in the world, and as much as I am desperate for my healing, I am also desperate for yours.

Lies will destroy you. The enemy is a complete douche, He will often wait until we get ourselves sad and isolated, and then pounce when we are hurting most. He is a serious creep, be aware of his tactics. If he can set one lie into motion, and we run with it, he rubs his hands together and smirks. He smirks because again, we end up lost, hurt and confused and instead of blaming him,  the one who actually stared the lie in the first place, in our disillisionment, we blame God. And in doing so we seperate our hearts from the love and comfort that Jesus has for us all day, everyday. This my friends, is my vicious cycle. I need to guard my heart, because although on some level I suffer everyday, the enemy loves to make sure Im down and out of action, as much as possible, as often as possible. And if I let his silly thoughts in, they run havoc in my heart. If I can some how save you the process, save you the heartache of that same cycle....
Lets take our thoughts captive and let truth resonate in our hearts.

We were created for such a time as this, and hope is coming for us. Amen. xxoo

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