Depression

3:14

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Philippians 3:14 I press toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus.

3:14

Most people would look at that number and associate it with the mathematical term Pi. For me for many years though it was the numbers of my digital clock, glaring at me in the darkness.

After my second bout of depression, this was the time I woke up at in the early hours of the morning. At first I thought I was imagining it but as the days and weeks went on, the realisation set in-I was waking up at this time every morning.

It was like a jolt. Suddenly I would be wide awake and my eyes were automatically drawn to the clock, hoping and praying I would see a different number, but no, there it was…3:14.

Why am I bringing this up now you may ask. It’s simple really. It’s back! It’s almost like an old friend who you haven’t seen in awhile turning up on your doorstep. It doesn’t scare me or make me feel that I’m staring into the dark place that is depression again. It’s more like a warning. Like when the petrol light flashes on your dashboard- you haven’t run out of petrol yet but you will if you don’t do anything about it.

At the moment we are living in very strange times. There is fear and uncertainty and there seems no end to the virus I spoke of in my last post. Many people are in despair, losing jobs, loved ones, missing friends, homeschooling….I could write an endless list.

3:14….I know that just like that petrol light, if I don’t do anything, that number will become an all too familiar sight. It is no coincidence that the Bible verse I’ve included has 3:14 in the reference. As someone close to me reminded me tonight, there is always someone in a worse situation than yourself. Reading this verse it brought to mind my purpose as a believer and follower of Christ. I have to keep going every day with His help and press on towards the goal set before me. My life is not my own but His. It was paid for on Calvary. As my pastor says, we are saved to serve. So my purpose is to press on and serve and glorify Him and I encourage you to do the same.

Thanks for reading.

Christmas 2019

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“Mummy, do you know some people call Christmas-Xmas? That is just like taking Christ out of Christmas. I don’t like it.” These were the words spoken by the Ginger Kitten a few days before he finished school.

I was so pleased to hear him speak these words at such a young age. He realises the importance of the word and what it means to us believers at this time of year.

It can be a huge trigger for many, especially those who suffer from depression like myself or who have other physical/mental illnesses. I was determined this year not to dip as low as I had last year.

I am a facilitator for WRAP which is a recovery program. Wellness Recovery Action Plan. It is something I’ve done for around five years now and which I’m quite passionate about as anyone I’ve spoken to on the subject will know.

WRAP allows an individual to plan for situations which may trigger off a period in which they are unwell. Christmas as I said can be such a trigger.

So how did I plan? I wrote lists – lists of who was going to receive a present and what it was. I made a lot of presents this year, and that in itself helped me in a therapeutic way. I looked at who was coming to dinner and when which also helped with shopping. I rested. I took time out instead of running around like a headless chicken. I breathed – I downloaded an app to help me breathe and sleep and…I spent time with those I love.

All of this planning helped a lot but so did the love and support of those close to me. I belong to a small family but we are close and always there for one another.

This Christmas I was privileged to spend many happy times with another family. Not everyone shares these experiences. However, at this time of year we remember how Jesus left His Father and was born into a family here on earth. Family is important to God. He never intended us to live alone. He created the family unit to provide love and support and to make each day easier as we help each other practically too. I am also a member of God’s family. I am a daughter of the King and there are so many brothers and sisters in Christ for whom I am truly grateful who added to the joy I experienced this season.

There was a lot of fun this Christmas. Fun being off work, fun trying new things, fun seeing my boys open their presents, fun with family, fun going out for the day and fun making memories together.

Celebrating my faith, spending time with loved ones all have given me hope for the year ahead. But as 1 Corinthians 13:13 says:

“And now abide faith, hope and love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

Love has been evident to me this Christmas. God loved me so much that He let His only Son come to earth and be born in a lowly stable. Jesus left Heaven knowing one day He would die on a cross for my sins. So as I go through 2020 I want love to be more evident in my life as I live each day for Him and His glory.

Thanks for reading

Enjoyment Versus Achievement

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This is the time of year in schools when reports are given out. I’ve waited ever so patiently for the Ginger Kitten to receive his 1st primary school report and for the Squid’s end of year report of High School.

Achievement is what teachers report on. We have to think of 30 different ways of saying the same thing. Reports send dread into the minds of many children and parents. Not everyone is a high achiever. Not every child receives top marks in tests or exams and so they often wonder what they have actually achieved.

I suppose that is why in school reports today, we do also comment on what children enjoy about school. It makes it more personal and gives the impression that we do know the children in our class when we mention little details like their favourite toy or some phrase they always say.

There is a difference between these 2 things. When I was diagnosed with PND after the Squid’s birth, I would meet with a CPN who would encourage me each day to write down something I had achieved and something I had enjoyed. That’s easy enough you may think-not so when you are suffering from depression, when you don’t seem to enjoy anything anymore and getting one foot out of the bed is an achievement. In those early days of recording my achievements versus the things I enjoyed, there were definitely more of the former than the latter. It was an achievement washing my hair; eating 3 meals a day; leaving the house for a reason other than giving my then husband a lift to work. Things I’d once enjoyed just didn’t feature in my life anymore.

However, something happened recently that reminded me of that time when I jotted things down in a spiral bound notebook with a pink flower on the cover.

A few months ago I spent a couple of afternoons cutting out squares and circles -49 of each-from cotton fabric. I wouldn’t say I enjoyed it, but, it was an achievement. I hadn’t made a quilt in a long time. I had bought fabric before the Ginger Kitten was born but hadn’t actually got round to making it for him.

Last weekend I attended a quilt exhibition with my BFF. Being surrounded in that small sanctuary by all the fabric, the myriad of colours, the simplicity of some and the complexity of the patterns of others fascinated me and I could feel a stirring up of my passion for textiles. So, I went home, got the circles and squares and dusted down the case of my sewing machine. I started the process of matching circles to complimentary squares and appliquéd them to one another with brightly coloured thread to match the warm, bright colours of the batiks. Before I knew it, photos were being sent to friends of the progress being made. I looked forward to spending a little time each day with my old friend, hearing my machine purr contentedly under my direction.

Hold on! This was not a sense of achievement being reported on . No! This was once again an enjoyable past time. My motivation to get this quilt complete so that I could begin another project I wanted to attempt was building up inside me. I took down numerous books to look for inspiration. I even ventured out to the shed to bring in my stash of fabric and collection of threads.

It was as if enjoyment had sneaked up behind achievement and overtaken it at the last corner in the last minute to win the race.

In the Christian life, God wants us to have an abundant life but we are also accountable. I for one know that I wish to hear those words ‘Well done, good and faithful servant’. However, the relationship I have with the Lord does not depend on works. Yes, I am saved to serve, but works alone can never achieve salvation.

Even in this hobby of quilting I look for ways I can encourage others in their faith, point souls to Him or just glorify God with the talent He has bestowed upon me. So I make gifts for friends, family and colleagues and as I spend the hours seeing by hand or machine, I can pray with each stitch that is completed. What a privilege to spend time talking with the Lord while doing something I enjoy so much.

Thanks for reading,

The Dreaded Meds

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“If you had a broken leg, are you telling me you wouldn’t get a plaster cast on?”

It was a serious question asked by my frustrated GP in January, 2006. I too felt frustrated , helpless, fearful and had come for reassurance. 14 months after the birth of the Squid and my return to work, I was told by a Community Psychiatric Nurse that I needed to take time off work and begin medication to help me…

My initial response had been the same argument I was using with my GP. Take time off work? I’ve been off for 14 months. I can’t take more time off. I’ve a classroom full of little people depending on me. I’ll cost my school money if I’m off sick. I need to work for my family. What will people say? Medication? No way. You can get addicted to those things…

I’m not good at arguing. I don’t like confrontation and I’m a people pleaser. I held up the white flag and said YES to the dreaded meds. I thought the battle was over, but hey, it had only just begun.

I’ve always been a very vivid dreamer but nothing prepared me for what I was about to experience. Fluoxetine-more commonly known as Prozac sent my mind into overdrive while I attempted to sleep at night. I awoke in the mornings feeling even more tired than when I’d gone to sleep and yet I waited 5 or 6 weeks before going back to the GP. After all, weren’t these anti depressants supposed to help? I had gone against everything I believed to take these drugs and now I felt worse…

“This often happens…” I was told. It can take a while to get the right drug and dose. For me, it was 3 attempts before that happened. I felt like a helpless animal in a lab, being experimented on. Except this seemed more like the trial and error approach than a controlled experiment.

13 years on, yes, 13! and the world of drugs still fills me with apprehension. For each successive depressive episode , I was put on my last known pill and dose only to become that guinea pig again. It’s all about chemicals and a lot of other factors I don’t really understand-being a very unscientific person-I did pass my GCSE Biology but it’s not a grade I reveal readily.

So 6 years ago after the Ginger Kitten entered my life I immediately was given Cipralex-also known as Escitalopram. It didn’t work so with the advice of a psychiatrist I was given Vensir. The people pleaser in me did as I was told. Surely he knew best? I needed help and fast and if this drug was good at treating depression, was that not the answer for me and my family?

In the short term-yes. It did work. I was able to return to work after maternity leave, work a shorter week, didn’t need therapy and lived happily ever after…

Huh! This isn’t a Hans Christian Anderson fairytale, no, it’s more like one from The Brothers Grimm. When I felt a bit better I looked into coming off Vensir. Oh dear! No, really, oh my goodness! Whose idea was it to put me on these things? “They’re the best drug for your present situation…” they said-and I had believed them!!!!!! Oh I felt like the victim of a fraudulent scam, that I’d been duped big time. Now I was scared, fearful that I’d be on these things for life. A few times I had forgotten to take 1 or ran out and what happened next wasn’t pretty. By the next morning of missing a tablet I would be tearful, by lunchtime I would be in a state of high alert and anxiety. By tea time I would be having suicidal thoughts!

Of course I could have just accepted that as the Borg in Star Trek say, “Resistance is futile , ” and it was meant to be that I remain on these tablets. Except I couldn’t do that. I’m a Christian. I am a daughter of the king. He loves me with an everlasting love and nothing can ever pluck me out of His hand. Just as an earthly father will do anything for their child (I am fortunate to have experienced this with my own daddy) , my Heavenly Father wants the best for me too. So in the grand scheme of things I needed to remain on the dreaded meds because my marriage was going to end and He also knew the best time for me to start the process of withdrawal. I’ve always attempted to come off meds at this time of year, simply because as a teacher I’ll have a long break without the added stress of work. Of course there are other factors. My divorce will soon be complete, I’m settled in my new God given home, my boys and I are getting used to a new normal way of life, I’ve supportive family and friends, I’m spending time with people who make me feel truly happy and I feel I am living the abundant life that Jesus spoke of in John 10:10.

“The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy. I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.” ESV

The devil sought to steal my joy, destroy my life and kill me through depression but his scheme didn’t work and with the Lord’s help daily, I’m still in my journey to joy.

Thanks for reading.

Refiner’s Fire

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Negativity, Loss to self, Devalued, Redemption, Transformation

Malachi 3:3

He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and He will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord.

There are different types of fire you know. I’d never really thought about it before, until I was looking at what the refining process is. There is a big difference between refining fire and consuming fire. Consuming fire as the name suggests, burns up everything in its path. Whereas the refiner’s fire is a way of making something pure whilst getting rid of the unwanted stuff.

God takes on the role of refiner in our lives. He uses the process to make us into a purer form of what we are. I’m going through this process.

But….people can do things to us to change us and not always for the better as it is with God. As a student I was always fascinated by the pieces of glass I would see on the beach. They were no longer shiny or see through but dull and scratched. There were no sharp edges , they were just like blobs lying amongst the shells, stones and sand. They didn’t look much use either, they no longer had a purpose. As I used to look at these strange shapes, I likened them to myself. I no longer felt like I sparkled like a bottle on the shelf. I had become dull and lifeless. Even my appearance had become less defined as I’d let myself go. But the thing that has changed the most was my purpose, my reason d’être.

The pieces of glass had been buffeted about in stormy seas and continually sifted through sand and agitated between stones and shells. I had been buffeted by a torrent of negative words , actions and activities. Those words had made me believe I was dull, boring, just something hovering in the background. My opinions did not matter so my voice became quiet. The light was no longer in those brown eyes he had once written poems about. I no longer spent time curling my hair the way he had once insisted suited me. No such comments were made anymore. Make up was frowned upon and so it to was relegated to a bag which lay unopened in my dressing table. Dresses which had once made me feel pretty were abandoned in the spare wardrobe as they became too small for the body I now inhabited. A body I now was ashamed of, a body I wanted to hide, a body I felt trapped in with no worth. As these changes took place so did my purpose. My confidence had gone and I felt useless. Days rolled into one another as I would drag this lifeless body into each day as the negativity would agitate my mind until I felt I had been worn away just like those pieces of glass on the beach.

Hold on. Remember the two types of fire? I was not in a consuming fire but a refining one. God still had and has his work to do. I have the word redeemed on my Facebook profile. I have experienced the redemption that came about as a result of Jesus dying on the cross for me. The transformation is taking place.

I no longer live in that negative environment. I immerse myself in the precious word of God to hear who I am to him. I surround myself with people who love him and so have love for one another and practise it daily in a meaningful way. I am forever grateful for the love they show me and my boys.

I cut my lovely long hair and feel it brings out a younger me. The old make up was replaced with new and there is a colour about my face that makes it anything but dull. My eyes are definitely the windows to my soul. I speak volumes through them. If you look closely at times you will see pain, despair and frustration. At other times you’ll see laughter, hope, love and even a glint of mischief.

Not all the dresses fit again but that’s a work in progress. This is a body that bore the Squid and the Ginger Kitten, it has fought depression and as one friend said has a whole lot of love to give. I am no longer ashamed of it, it gets me around this world I’m passing through. I have a purpose – I have a Saviour to serve. I understand the power of words. I don’t just want to use positive ones. I want to use words that encourage and edify those I meet just as we are encouraged to do in first Thessalonians chapter 5 and verse 11. “Therefore encourage one another and build up each other, just as you are in fact doing.”

So I definitely feel I’ve been through the refiners fire. It’s a process and has an end product. The stuff we don’t need is removed from our life and something of value remains. Through it all my Jesus is with me on my journey to joy.

Restoring a Masterpiece

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At the moment I am feeling very thankful for being alive. I have much to be thankful for but why being alive? As a sufferer of a number of depressive episodes that I hinted to in my last post, I had many days I felt quite the opposite of thankful. I couldn’t thank God, I didn’t want to thank Him . I just didn’t desire to be alive anymore, to my shame. Yet each episode came and went and each time I’ve acknowledged God’s part in that.

But… I know you shouldn’t start a sentence with it , but each time, although I came through it, life wasn’t the same as before. Often I tried to convince myself that I never would be the same because you change as you go through life or depression changes you.

However this time it’s different. So that got me thinking. Dangerous I know but Why? How? This time I’m not living in the same toxic environment I’d found myself in. I’m living in my own home that the Lord provided me with. More than that, I’ve returned to my first love – Jesus.

For a long time I was trying to please a man while trying t make myself believe that I was a Christian; I attended church(albeit a Sunday morning); I read my Bible(not with the discipline my Pastor spoke of recently or with the hunger I had when first converted); I prayed(not with the fervency of the young woman on her knees surrendering her right to motherhood to the Lord or the student who organised prayer meetings and nights of prayer for CU) and I served the Lord(not with the urgency or dedication of my younger self who had taught Sunday School and took part in various other roles before marriage).

I had been trying to please a man, not my love – my Saviour, my Redeemer, the One with whom my relationship is more important than anything else. My relationship with Him is one that is going to last forever. After that, God came close and spoke to me through Scripture.

Our Pastor’s wife had given out the card in the photo at one of our women’s meetings and I’ve been using it as a prompt each week in my prayer journal which I began at the start of 2019. The title says – You Are Who God Says You Are. So far, I’ve covered You Are Beautiful, You Are Unique and You Are Loved which led to this post. The verse accompanying it is Jeremiah 31:3.

“The Lord has appeared of old to me, saying:’Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love; Therefore with loving kindness I have drawn you.'”

Jeremiah was speaking of a time when the Lord was restoring the nation of Israel just as I am presently living in a time of restoration in my broken life! Wow! How amazing to think that the same God who loved a nation to restore it, also loved me – an individual, enough to restore me.

This was when my mind went into overdrive. I’m a visual person. I am an artist. Restoration made me think of a masterpiece in an art gallery. Over the years, dirt, dust, grime, moisture, pollen and particles of goodness knows what will silently adhere to the painted canvas until a curator decides it needs to be restored to its former glory. It is x-rayed and examined and worked on and quite often when the layers are taken away there may even be objects that had been hidden so long they change the look of the masterpiece.

What has this to do with me and my restoration process? I too am the a masterpiece. I’m not being vain, my Bible tells me in Psalm 139:14

“…I am fearfully and wonderfully made…”

Not only that but when I first came to Christ He made me new. 2 Corinthians 5:17

“Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation. The old has passed away; behold, the new has come,” ESV

I feel like a papier-mâché model covered in glue and sheets of newspaper with printed words. For years, words were spoken over me that I believed until I became someone I didn’t even recognise myself in the mirror. The Lord is restoring me. He is carefully dissolving the glue and peeling off the layers of newspaper. Every now and again ‘she’ shines through. Friends and acquaintances have remarked I ‘look alive ‘ or that ‘I’m enjoying life more’. Some people who have known me since forever have even stated that they can see ‘the old me’. I have to correct them there.

That is not the case. Just like the once hidden objects that change the look of the masterpiece, it’s not ‘the old me’ they see but a revelation of the person God wants me to be.

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Thanks for reading x