A little to much reality for a Friday, sorry about that....

Looking back I'm not sure when it started. I can only tell you that as long as I can remember it follows me, I am constantly looking over my shoulder in fear I have lost myself again. I have prided myself in the fact that I have never had to depend on anyone else, I have always managed to work through things on my own. I've pulled myself out of countless pits and patted myself on the back for a job well done. I have become so skilled at telling people what they need to hear in order to think I'm fine that I end up convincing myself that I am as well. Then when I end up back where I was or worse I feel blindsided, shocked and unprepared. You can only run into the same wall so many times before giving up. I've given up. I hadn't realized it until recently but I have. I've accepted my reality as truth. I've lost my fight and chosen to live in fear and stand firmly paralyzed where I am while the world moves around me.

Rod told me recently that I'm hiding again, in a physical sense. I had to stop and think about it but he's right. I'm not calling people or returning phone calls, I don't answer the phone or my emails. I go out more so people won't ask me why I'm not going out than for actually going out. I have no desire left, I feel joy so rarely now I don't bother looking. I had actually convinced myself that this was normal, that life was supposed to suck all the happiness and pleasure out of living, that if you kept putting one foot in front of the other you were winning. I think I'm tired of being fine, of saying I'm fine, of pretending I'm fine. I feel like such a fake, I've always been the one people come to for help, for advice, or just a sympathic ear. I've always been the wet shoulder, someone safe to lay your head on and cry. I've come to see that much of the advice I give I don't follow or believe myself. It was all well meaning and said in much love yet I can't take my own advice. What a hypocrite.

I am so thankful I know God and I thank God for Payton. Through God and Payton I still feel moments of great joy, even for a moment it is something to hang on to. In the moments where I think I've won there is peace, but it is fleeting as I check over my shoulder again. When the darkness starts to creep back in I always wonder "is this the one?? The one that will envelope me so completely that I won't be able to escape?" I used to believe that I pulled myself out of my pits completely and just kept finding new holes to fall into, now I think it's always been the same pit, I've just pulled myself up onto a ledge. And since everything looks so much better on the ledge than in the pit I think I've made it, that I can breath fresh air again. But that ledge leaves me so little room to move, the littlest bump and I fall again.

I need help. There I've said it. I'm tired of doing it on my own. I'm tired of pushing through only to find myself stuck in a place that is barely livable. I don't want to be in this place anymore but it's all I know and I don't know the way out. Here in this place is where the guilt lives. I feel pathetic as a Christian and worse as a person, a failure. I know to a certain extent that it isn't true but I can't escape the darkness that tells me otherwise. It whispers lies in my ears and I am to tired to fight them anymore.

I realize all this now, God has helped me to see myself. I don't like what I see but can't make the next step. I would have to admit there was something wrong with me, admit that I couldn't handle it, but the worst is admitting that I don't have enough faith and trust in God to let him deal with it. I feel like if I see my Dr. and I start taking anti-depressants that I've failed, not only myself, but God. I feel liked I'll be figuratively slapping him in the face, telling him he's not enough for me. Now let me make a note here that I don't feel that everyone else on anti-depressants doesn't have enough faith in God or should be able to handle it on their own. I know that many people need them due to chemical imbalance or other things out of their control. Here's where the double standard kicks in, for others it's fine and normal and I'm completely understanding, but for me it's just not acceptable. Which in turn makes me unacceptable. There are so many people out there with major problems and here I am complaining about my life. What's my problem?

Then there is the whole anti-depressant debate. Are they even a good thing? How long will I be on them? Will I get addicted? Do they actually solve anything? My mind starts to spiral right about here and I havn't even seen the Dr. Maybe he'll say I'm fine, get over it and I'm just borrowing trouble. But I don't think so. I realize that some kind of therapy is probably a good idea, but am I ready?

So here I stand unmoving, unready or unwilling to make my decision. I pray. I wait. Searching for truth.