Base Camp Believer

"You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; to be made new in the attitude of your minds; and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness." (Ephesians 4:22-24 NIV)

Life for me is anything but predictable. The last few weeks have been a mix of highs, mid lows and extreme depression. My desire to change my life is sadly not matched by my ability to make it happen. Willpower is something I seem to have very little of and the reality of this situation has really hit home in the last few weeks. The annoying thing is, I want to get better. I want to live a beautiful life before God, loving my neighbours and also loving myself. I want to feel a sense of belonging, a purpose, a reason to live. I want to treat my body as a temple and nourish it with good food and regular exercise. I also want to learn how to use my over analytical brain and obsession with personal growth and understanding, to be used in a positive way, rather than as a cruel tool to taunt my lack of ability to fulfil any of the above desires. They also, sadly, do not stop there. Since my teens I have made a habit of daily compiling lists, some for immediate needs for that day such as cleansing my skin, hoovering, appointments etc., to the more elaborate and some what larger, life wants/desires list. I still do them to this day and sadly a lot of the 'life' things I want to achieve are as basic as eat healthy, exercise, stop self abuse, but yet I find myself unable to do them. The last two weeks all of my hopes and my fears of failing at this life have come to disturb me and several of my days have been spent camping out under the duvet for fear of facing another non productive day.

I am lost again and this is no uncommon ground for me. In fact, the land of the lost seems to be where I have spent much of my life, but this times its suffocating me. I don't want to be lost anymore, God found me down here ruining my life and He saved me, but there’s only so much He can do if I am unwilling to offer myself fully to Him. The problem I have you see, is that I find real, actual life too difficult to embrace. So in the past I have created characters to allow myself to fit in to what I believed school/work/society needed me to be and whoever the real me was, was slowly but surely pushed into the darker recesses of my mind. I spend most of my life living in my head, not experiencing the reality, as if this sobriety to life would actually damage me more than I already feel I am. When not writing lists or reading books aloud, I am faced with the option to deal with life head on, to get out there and achieve something, to come closer to God, to improve my health, to live fully. But this terrifies me. Instead I reach for the nearest form of sedation, be it alcohol, prescribed sedatives, drugs and marathon TV watching. All activities that allow me to step outside of the world I am in and somehow not feel the full impact of what is going on in and around me. This is life as I know it and it has to stop.

Since the major melt down last year, I have found faith in God and I also have been given a lot of help and support from my mental health team. Not only do I have the most high Father, but I also have psychiatrists, councillors, occupational therapists, psychiatric nurses and attend self help groups to deal with my anxiety and depression. No one can say I am not getting enough support. I am forever talking about my feelings, coming to terms with my habits, my ways of thinking and my self sabotaging behaviours. This is no easy journey let me tell you. The more I uncover, the harder the climb to happiness and peace seems, so I run back to the safety of a sedated life and try to forget about the mountain that looms ever closer before me. I am still at base camp and I recognise in myself the desperation to cut off the chains that are keeping me here. I can assure you, this is not through lack of trying. I am always optimistic about the start of a journey, but after the first step has been taken, I retreat back into my shell, unfamiliar with the prospect of actually freeing myself from the life that keeps me back from really living. Its not only exhausting, but the more I fail at achieving the freedom I want, the more I can remind myself of how useless I really am. Its being trapped in a web of my own making and this you may think, would mean that I know the key to get out of here, but I don't. If I did, I sure as hell would have been using it.

I am ready for my life to begin. I want to really live, really experience life, not feel the need to escape and sedate at the mere sniff of reality. I need to break out of the smoking weed cycle I have somehow fell back into, a cushion for life that hangs over my every evening, sapping me of both motivation and hope. I need to challenge the belief that I am nothing and never will be and turn my focus back to God, who has shown me a new way of life that can be mine. The ups and downs as they have been recorded along this journey seem cruel and unfair at times, but they are me, they are my life. I almost wanted to stop writing on here for fear that whoever reads it may believe I am merely rewriting the same story over and over again, but I want to be honest and show that although I may not be there yet, I am at least learning along the way. That’s the beautiful thing about all this. Even though I seem stuck in a year long rut of depression and self sabotage, I am growing. Not albeit at the pace I would like, but there is growth none the less. I am not the same girl who started writing on here and the recognition of that fact is what will keep me getting up in the morning and trying with all my might to face another day. I am desperately seeking freedom, willpower and above all; faith. Not just faith in God, which is growing by the day, but faith in me, in who I am, in what I can do and be. Without faith, we are merely spectators in this vacuum of time, watching as life passes us by, unable to feel any real emotions except the ones created by your minds view on who you are. I may not be there yet, I may still be down here at base camp, but I am not giving up. I am putting a smile on my face and offering myself again as a living sacrifice to the Lord and someday soon, I know He'll help me get the courage I need to face my future and live it. Really live it.

Love Always.x