My Year

 We are hard pressed on every side, but not crushed; perplexed, but not in despair

(2 Corinthians 4:8)

Just over a year ago today I started on a journey that would forever change the way I viewed and lived my life. As I sit here reflecting on the last twelve months and looking forward to the coming year, I am amazed by how much really has changed, already at this early and crucial stage of my development. I came to God last year a broken vessel, the world and my vicious perception of it had terrified me into self sabotaging behaviour and I no longer recognised myself in the mirror. I had been living in such darkness that I was convinced that only death itself could end the pain and confusion I was suffering with. Life hurt and it wasn’t enjoyable, even bearable at most times. I self medicated on a concoction of illegal substances and the only spiritual thing I did was pray for my families health and protection before I closed my eyes at night. To put it bluntly, I was surviving, not living and it had become such second nature to me that I almost stopped questioning if there was any other way to live.

A year down the line a lot of lessons have been learnt, a lot of habits broken but also a lot of areas seemingly made worse. My cocaine addiction has come back to haunt me twice, both times severe and scarier than the last. I am still reliant on cannabis to get me through the day and the darkness of my recovery has almost blinded me on many occasions. I have wept, hidden, attacked and broken down over the past twelve months, sometimes with life threatening results. I have become more aware of my pain, my acute isolation and separateness from the world and have learnt that inside of me a lot of bad has built up and the habits I use to deal with these are barely appropriate. So in some ways I could look at the last twelve months as the year that broke me, the year that woke me up to my life with a crashing realisation that I didn’t price it highly enough. I have spent many nights crying myself to sleep, nursing a comedown or a frequent attack on my own mind by my own mind. I feel  like a wounded soldier walking home, wondering how long I can continue with my injuries and if that light I see will ever get closer. In simple terms, I have had a rough time of it.

But and this is a big but, there is also another side to the last year that has both surprised and soothed me. In the last year I found God, a saviour and a friend who I undoubtedly believe rescued me at just the right time from a ticking time bomb of an existence. He reached in and shone the light on all areas of my life so as if for the first time, I could really see the life I had been living and would continue to live if I did not get help. He watched me cry as I came to terms with the thoughts I had of myself, but he also wiped the tears. He held my hand on the days when life seemed too much for me to cope with and he left me with lessons that he not only imprinted on my mind, but etched on my heart as well. Without the Lord last year would have been the same as the many before it. A roller-coaster ride of emotions, up and down and round and back again to restart the journey that was slowly but surely destroying me. I had wanted to get off the ride a long time ago, I just didn’t know how.

In the last year I have been clean off of cocaine for nearly 10 months, an achievement that I don't take lightly. Its been hard, in fact its been bloody horrendous, but it has been and I am still here to tell the tale. Yes currently I am back to fighting my addiction again, but this time I have reached out to the support groups available to me and I am no longer mindlessly filling my time, I realise why I use and how much I actually want it to stop. I have also learnt the power of the inner dialogue, the conversation with myself that is always running on empty, always shouting, insulting, deceiving. I have learnt to reign it in, but more than that I have learnt that it can be replaced with a better, more loving voice, mine. I have learnt that inside of all this front of happiness, pain and fear, that I am good, that I am worthy and that I am loved, despite all  my apparent shortcomings. I have learnt love in a way which has completely changed my perception of the entire world within and around me.

Somewhere along the way I decided that this was a fight for my life and I meant it. What is life but the thoughts we think and the actions we then play out in this world. I am one of the worlds people, one of Christ’s sisters, Gods daughter, a human. I have faults, I have pain but I also have strength and courage and compassion and love. I have found that in God my good qualities are unpacked and delivered to me guilt free with a freeing acceptance that is difficult to put into words. Above all I have learnt that I am me and that’s ok, whatever state I may be in. The battleground I walk across from my last year is scattered with ditches, broken promises, empty thoughts, desolate feelings but the atmosphere of the air has changed. It is infused with the love of the Father, the understanding of his heart and the freedom that comes with realising that I am never truly alone in this world unless I choose to be.

I now look out to the year ahead and wonder what new lessons I will learn, what new experiences will be taught to me and who will I become. Because I am becoming, we all are, becoming the destiny He has seen fit to bless us with. Its up to me, to us, to decide whether we get on board that journey of truth because I can assure you that once you do, you'll never look back. Its a fight to the end and that light, that peace is only ever around the corner, its up to you to get to it.

Love Always.x

My Dad & I

 "You've kept track of my every toss and turn through the sleepless nights,each tear entered in Your ledger,each ache written in your book."(Psalm 56:8, MSG)

Its 2pm and I am unsure of what to do next. The remainder of the day stares at me mockingly, waiting for an answer to fill the void of my existence till I can close my eyes in the late evening hours. What to do?

I have been at the crisis unit this morning, feeling rather miserable I sulked off alone to read and then was given a reflexology treatment at the crisis house as they had free appointments on offer. Usually this would put me in a good  mood but today I just feel a sea of emptiness and my boat is lost somewhere whipping it up in the stormy waves. What I would give for Jesus to walk over to my boat and stop the storm........

I think the really frustrating part is that I have so many goals I want to achieve in life but honestly for all the lists I write, I never really seem to be making any actual progress. I flutter aimlessly from one hour to the next, not exactly making the most of the beauty of life that I have been given. I am well read and insightful enough to appreciate and honour the value of time, of life passing through my fingers but I am powerless to clutch on and make something of it. I am just a ball of frustration, waiting expectantly for an answer to come and save me from this never-ending maze of misery. The day stretches out before me, waiting to be filled with something exciting, productive or at the very least non sabotaging. My cravings for a spliff are stronger than ever, a desperate reach for some much needed peace which normal reality simply cannot offer. I imagine that I will spend the rest of the day stoned, trying to absorb slowly the gravity of the situation I yet again find myself in.

On the positive side, yes there really is one, my dad came over last night after I had my recovery meeting with my mum and the ladies from the recovery group. It was such a refreshing group as well, a chance to meet with other people who were also suffering the addiction disease and the love I felt in that room was intense. I told them about God saving me and they all showed an interest in coming to the next gathering, so I feel proud to be shepherding Gods lost sheep in the right direction. I think this is really going to be a beneficial weekly meeting for me and can only hope it aids my recovery. So, afterwards my dad came over mine with a lovely chicken dinner and we spent some real quality time together. I actually took my mums advice on board to listen more and I'm so glad I did. My dad is like a fountain of knowledge and after years of being so opinionated, I had forgotten just how wonderful his advice could be. He talked honestly and helpfully about my situation and what I could do to make progress and he gave me so much great advice to take forward over the following weeks. My heart burst with love and pride, I am so lucky God blessed me with a family as wonderful as mine. I am truly grateful beyond words, for this gift of immense love and support. It was a real quality bonding time and one I hope we can do more often.

So as for today, I am meeting with my weed dealer later this evening to stock up and aside from that I would like to get some exercise done and do some reading of the addiction book I borrowed from the recovery group. I guess the rest will just have to fall into place....

Love Always.x

In Crisis

 Why are you cast down, O my soul, and why are you in turmoil within me? Hope in God; for I shall again praise him, my salvation and my God. (Psalm 42:11)

I am in crisis. Yet again the walls of depression have seen it necessary to close in on my life and this time I have been powerless to stop its affects. For the first half of this week I was relocated from my flat to a crisis house at the local mental institution. I spent three nights attempting to work out where it had all gone wrong. I have now been allowed to leave and instead am back at the crisis unit during the days, which I was attending around October last year. So here I am again.....in crisis.....depressed.....suicidal.

Its hard to pinpoint exactly what it is in my life that has caused the last weeks upset to have happened and taken over my life so quickly. Yes the usage of cocaine I am sure has had an affect, if not on my mood then on my sheer unbelief that I can be so weak willed yet again. Also, I have come down from my several high weeks of mania into the usual pit of stinking thinking known as depression of my mind. I am now at my wits end, unsure of how if ever, I am going to make a recovery and attempt some sort of a life. It all seems so impossible now, the thoughts of me having a job, raising a family, staying out of the mental hospital. I am more than slightly dismayed that I am back to the place I was sure I was never going to enter again six months ago. But even I am not naive enough to register that this time I need serious intervention or death or its brutal sidekicks, self abuse and self sabotage, will wreak havoc on what is left of a fairly miserable existence.

I often wonder why I was born to feel things the way I do. Is it from birth or is it an accumulation of horrific memories from my past that keep me trapped in this coffin of no air and no freedom. I am unsure which came first so to speak, the chicken or the egg? I am also sure that my soiree into the world of drug addiction has not greatly helped the cause but I can no sooner eliminate that than I can the fact that no matter what reason, I sit here today at crisis point.

Tonight, in a bid to get as much help as possible I will be attending a women’s group in an effort to prevent me relapsing and as a place to seek refuge from the brutality of my everyday world and its evil thoughts. I am going with my mum and hope to find some much needed answers to the dilemma of attempting to outlive the devils plots to put an early end to my life. This time more than ever I feel the need to improve my mental health throbbing loudly in my head. I am unable to continue on like this, year after year, to-ing and fro-ing with my mental health like a crazy boomerang. This is not a life, it is a half life and somewhere out there I hold hope that I will come across a key that will finally end it all. I keep hoping the next book (my house could double as a library), the next therapist, the next group or whatever intervention will somehow unlock the happiness bubble in me and give me a chance to fly, genuinely, not as part of a manic episode. This is difficult. I am confused, hurt, broken.

My faith as always is there, but its difficult for me to even pray at the moment. Not because I do not believe God hears me but because I feel like a failure. I feel that I am not just failing me, but I am also failing my family, my friends, my Lord. I am embarrassed that I am here again, I am exhausted and at the point of running out of options. So meekly and with as much strength as I can muster, I utter the words I have said so many times before, " My Lord, please please help me. This time I really need help, and this time I'm really willing to listen. Amen." I'll let you know how the answer goes.

Love Always.x