Wednesday, June 24, 2015

Power

http://www.astro.com/cgi/atxgen.cgi?btyp=cf  This link is to a color test that will give you an emotional and psychological assessment.  It was spot on for me.  Give it a shot!  It was very detailed  and quite interesting.   


Power.  It's an interesting concept.  It can spring from all kinds of sources.  I guess I don't feel like I've had much in my life ~ awe, at one time I suppose.  I've had to, being a person that has chronic pain, fibromyalgia  assorted oddities, addiction, childhood trauma, I suppose one could say my life has been mostly about recognizing my powerlessness verses finding power in my life.  Not to come off as some weak, sniffling, victim - because I'm far, far- from that.  I suppose what I'm attempting to communicate is that I've never been a person that's been power hungry.  I do know that type.  I've just been one to be mindful of the soul.  I'm a heart person.  I'm a spirit and a hope junkie.  My life has been about getting back up -- dusting myself off and starting over, as many times as that takes.  

It's hard to find a sense of  power in depression.  Finding your sense of self is hard.  It's in there, but buried deep in the masses.  It's actually so complex it's impossible to simply express.  The ebb and flow of the healing path is one peppered with good choices, and some behaviors that seemed like a good idea ...at the time.  This is my greatest challenge.  Instant gratification.  It's been a problem of mine for a long time.  I know when I'm doing it, before I'm going to -- and while I'm in it -- but I don't change it.  It's one of the stickier ones, that I have difficulty changing.  I guess I like it - and this always is hard to change behaviors, even if they're consequences.  I'm broke all the time.  It's my own fault. To a degree.  I'm a "stuff" junkie -- self confessed.  I love makeup.  LOVE IT.  It makes me feel good.  So I order it, or get it locally - or "virtually" shop for it.  LOL.....  I salivate over it!!!!  I just buy some and I want more!!!  It's ridiculous.  It could certainly be worse.   

I suppose we all have things that make us happy.  I don't have people or  people nearby, so I shop when I can.  It fills a big void.  I have made some really crazy choices though.  I suppose difficult times bring about abhorrent repercussions.  I'm my own worst critic. 

I don't like the word "try".  I've didn't allow my clients (when I was counseling) to use the word.  It's like "trying" to pick up a pencil, you either pick it up or you don't.  It's a lot like Yoda -- "Do- there is no try".  I believe in that little dude.  

I am trying to heal.  The best way I know how. Honestly it's a challenge each and everyday.  Maybe I've softened since those days - and yes I need to exercise self-control, but I'm not getting high.  I don't think a new  eyeshadow pallet is going to really hurt me.  It sure does make me happy though.  In all reality with as much as I have to deal with, it's not a bad vice.  I'm not hurting anyone - just my finances.  Everything needs to be about balance -- that is what I want.  I pray for this -- a steady balance of  everything, God, self, people, life, money --- if it would just line up.  I wish money didn't control everything.  It makes me sad.  

On the other hand, my job is going better - and I'm getting more hours, which means that I get to see people and interact more.  This is always a good thing.  Still waiting on that Knight (horse optional).  I've prayed and I know he is out there.  I know, that  I know, that I know.  God answers prayer.  I am not meant to be this alone.  

Things are turning around.  I feel it.  Good things are happening.  God is answering my prayers, I just can't see it all yet.  I thank Him in advance for all that He is doing, and has done!  
Thank those of you that are taking this journey with me..... 
Grace and Peace to you all,
Gina


Saturday, June 20, 2015

I miss friends

It's hard for me to admit when I struggle.  I'm not sure why.  Everyone struggles.

For me it is loneliness.  It is nearly impossible to make friends nowadays.  People are so distanced by phones, iPads, whatever the latest device.  It's like a coat of armor.  People carry them around like an impenetrable shield that protects them from real life.  At least this is how I see it and how it feels trying to get close to someone.  I've had the opportunity in the last few months to get somewhat close to a few people to only be disappointed once again.  I think these devices are mostly to blame.  They give us a false sense of security.  I mean it's a damn machine.... for crying out loud.

I feel much like a person so alone in this world, that I must be the only one.  Yet I know that this cannot be true.  I know that if I'm going through this, there must be others.  It's just how life works.  I see other people with all these people, family, and friends in their lives -- and I'm so taken by it.  I want to scream at them to not take it for granted -- because so many people do.  Few folks truly comprehend what it is like to spend endless hours alone, wishing, waiting, desiring accompaniment.  I only wish I knew what to do?  I've even thought of going to bars -- if I thought that would help -- but I KNOW that isn't an answer for me.  That would only make my life worse than it is... but it feels pretty bad right now.  Oh I'm not depressed, I'm oppressed.  For what reason, I have no clue.  It just seems to get worse and worse.  I pray and cry -- and nothing changes.  I've befriended people and given my all -- only to find that when I need a friend, they don't know how to be one.  This is a sad fact of this world.

I even understand this form of shallowness.  I can accept it and move on -- but move on to what?  Move on to where?  Further depths of sorrow and depression?  Feeling increasingly more and more hopeless?  I hate even writing these thoughts much less having them.  I am a very hopeful person.  I dispensed hope for a living.... but yet -- here I am with little of nothing and almost no one in my life.  The kicker is I don't know why?  People tell me I'm an inspiration.  People tell me that I'm the person that can help others change their lives -- but I cannot heal my own?  I cannot make people want to be in my life!  Are people so leery now that they won't even give someone a chance at friendship?  I'd had plans with one person from work -- after work and then I just totally got blow off - and for some reason unbeknown to me, I didn't even deserve a call back?  Are people that rude?  I guess they are.  People have no intentions upon letting anyone into their inner circle.  This is how shut down the world has become because of technology.  This is why someone can lie bleeding on the sidewalk and people step over them with no thought of helping.  We're walking dead.  I'm of a mind that technology is to blame.  It's the one thing that's between us.  I don't know too many real people that exist anymore.  Oh there's plenty that act "as if"... but they're not real either.  It makes me sick inside.

I wonder what this does to God.  If I'm affected emotionally and impacted negatively by this -- I wonder how He feels?  I talked to a guy yesterday that said he didn't believe in anything.  How sad.  No faith -- things just are.  Wow.  I'd been dead a long time ago.  Seriously.

As I fight this depression and anxiety -- and I do it with just God and I - it's very difficult.  I have one friend.  Oh I have professionals.  That isn't the same.  They're paid to talk to me.  It isn't as if they don't care, they do but you understand.  They're compassion can only go so far.  All of this is affecting my confidence, my self- esteem, my hope for living.  How could it not?  These are basic needs.  I don't feel like I belong anywhere.  This is a destitute feeling.  I have very distant family - and one friend.  I'm strong - but not that strong.

So those of you that read my blog -- I ask for your prayers.  Sincerely.  This has been going on for a long time.  Usually I can handle it --- but I'm growing weary.  Between the pain (physical and emotional) the depression, the anxiety and the sense of separation that I feel from the world  --  it's beginning to feel like I'm separated from God too.  Just void.  Empty.  The hope junky has giving away all she's got.  I know how sad that sounds, and please don't mistake it for self-pity.  Pity it is not, it is just reality.  We were not created to be alone like this.  We all need a sense of community.  It just baffles my mind how I am and the degree in which I'd go to help my fellow human --- and what I really get in return.  Baffles me.  Not that I expect people to be like me - because I do not - I'm smarter that that.  I do "hope" for people to be however, human.  To have drives, desires, needs, and wants just like me.  Maybe the world has changed so much that this just ins't true anymore.  Maybe I'm the odd one out.  To be brutally honest:  I just don't know anymore.

Friday, June 5, 2015

I am not alone.

I'm struggling still.  It is difficult too because it makes the pain that I have harder to manage -- and my anxiety has been through the roof.  As I attempt to learn and function at this new job, it feels impossible some days.  I vacillate between feeling like I'm going to get fired one day - to "maybe I got this", the next.  I'm just damned unstable at this particular time in my life -- and I abhor it.  The effects of the depression make everything harder --- EVERYTHING.  I'd just as soon give up - but it's just not in me.  Besides the fact that I'm no quitter.  I mean we don't really have that option, now do we?  I've never seen it listed!
   
                                                              1.  Keep going
                                                              2.  Give up

Thank God I haven't lost (completely) my sense of humor.....


I have many that wonder (or will) where my faith is at a time like this.  All I know to say is, I don't know.  When you can't feel anything, and you grapple for every little morsel of stimulus from life - all the while feeling much akin to a dead stump... it's kind of difficult to access your faith.  I know in my head that God is still there.  I even know in my heart as much -- and I have brief moments when I can emotionally grasp something  close.  However there's the void.  The void that I'm living in.  Trust me - I full well know that faith isn't about feelings.  Albeit -- depression wipes everything out.  Alas, I'm sure that this is exactly how satan likes it.  For I know that my current mental state is and does lie to me.  What I mean by that is that is it tells me things about myself that aren't true.  Awful things.  It's a horrible illness.

I will forge on.  I have some things on the horizon.  I know that God is with me, ever step of the way. I also know that there are people with a whole lot worse problems than I have and that this is temporary.  A large part of what is going on with me is about not having many humans in my life.  I've prayed for this to change.  I believe in prayer -- and I believe that this will change.  Isn't that faith?

My pastor once told me that the Word was inside me.  I have awful problems with memory.  I cannot recall scripture like most people.  I can remember it when someone starts to recite it - but as far as knowing it by heart - I don't.  It isn't because I haven't read it. I have.  I know that He has a plan for a future for me and that it is good.  I just have to believe this.

I guess I've just lost my purpose.  This goes back to loosing my ability to counsel.  I know that this is the gift that I was given by God.  It was/is what I excel at.  It is where I feel I'm the most useful.  It is simply what I do best and what I love.  Helping others makes me feel alive.  It is my purpose in life.  I have to find a way to utilize my gifts in my present life and I will because.... Jesus knows my every need.  He hears my every prayer -- even when I cannot pray.  And I know that I am not alone.....




Amen.

Chemicals no longer needed.

  I agree with this wholeheartedly.   I'm going on day three... of little sleep, I'm in a transition with my depression medications....