Quiet I Wait

Fury simmers at a low boil
Waiting only for the recoil
As the lid they lift
And it blows--as they sniffed--
Into the face of the onlooker--
My pressure cooker.
My eyes stare cold like ice.
Cold tomato-red slices:
Blood is there,
Bubbling up as it greets the air.
For now the secret is hiding
As I wait and Time is biding
My Mind is taut; thought brims
To my frozen face, rigid limbs
With too great a misery
To move. My arms blistery,
Rage waits, quieted by new scores
With a blade as sharp and friendly
As an inciteful paramour

all rights are held by
Cynthia Lott Vogel

06-20-09
Any Reproduction in any form is forbidden without the expressed consent of the author
.

collision

Trying to describe where I’m at right now and the word that comes to mind is: collision. Faith colliding with insanity. Me colliding with my family. My efforts to stay afloat in the dead sea of despondancy colliding with a tornadic storm of despair. I’ve been dead as far as creativity goes. For some reason my creativity thrives on suffering and even madness. At least it will for a brief time and then I will become too ill to have ANYTHING thrive in me but paranoia and hallucinations and the rage and fear that always comes with that.

I hesitate to publish these admissions…because I had hoped and do want to be a source of encouragement to others…and to admit that I’ve seriously considered some of the things that these malicious voices are commanding me could prove a bit discouraging. I know it discourages me.

Right now my earphones to my Zune mp3 are in my ears blaring music at FULL volume trying to drown out the other cacophany which STILL manages to supercede this volume of music. I have lost a lot of my hearing due to nerve damage after my recent bout of meningitis but have even more seriously destroyed it with this kind of thing. Can a person lose their hearing from the volume of the Voices? Good question…if so I will pray for deafness because maybe then it will finally be quiet.

From the mouths of "babes.."..

This has nothing to do with mental illness, but everything to do with faith:

Last Sunday was my first time teaching the senior high school Sunday School class at my church. I decided in my "wisdom" to eschew the manual and to teach out of my own knowledge on the topic of integrity. I do have a lot of research on that topic because I am writing a book on that as well, so I thought, "No problem; we can just talk about it and I can show them some of what I've learned."

Well....that would have been fine, had I not had enough material to give a week long seminar and only 45 minutes to teach it!! I plunged in valiantly and then started to panic as I realized that most of my material was way too obscurely presented for the teens to really grasp it. At that point, my mouth got dry (literally could barely speak due to this) and my thoughts became more and more disjointed and what I said became less and less clear which only increased my panic.... You get the picture I think.

The kids were mostly tolerant of my difficulty--and a few of them tried to help me out by participating...but in the end, I left, dreading the next week and wondering why I'd ever promised to teach this class. My only prior experience in teaching was with adults and I felt completely out of my comfort zone with these kids.

So today I sent out emails to the students in the class and admitted that I'd been nervous to one of the girls who replied, "Hey, you're not going to crash and burn. Just have confidence, and God will do the rest. I will see you Sunday."

I got to thinking about that...Today, the hospital my daughter was in, cashed a security check that we had given them which we were not prepared for them to do... It wiped out our bank account and left us with a deficit, bank fees, and also no money at all until next Wednesday when my husband gets paid. I had just sent the following email to my husband as he was fretting and worrying about the situation:

Psalm 20:7

Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in
the name of the LORD our God.

Isaiah 31

1 Woe to those who go down to Egypt for help,
who rely on horses, who trust in the multitude of their chariots and in the
great strength of their horsemen, but do not look to the Holy One of Israel, or
seek help from the LORD.

Cynthia 35:3

Woe to those who trust in bank accounts--
In the
security of their wealth!
Better always to trust in the Lord, who never
fails us.

God used my high school friend to remind me that, just as He is able to help us with our needs right now; so can He get me through the upcoming class successfully...and He is also able to use last week's class to accomplish something--Even if it IS humbling me!

Medication Woes

I am reading a book called, "Surviving Schizophrenia; a Manual for Families, Consumers, and Practitioners." I am somewhat surprised that it is also "For Consumers" because the things it discusses can be really upsetting. But I am not sorry that I have gotten it because it has also helped me to understand some things about myself and my illness. For example, I learned that about 50% of patients lack "insight" and the other half do not. What that means is that some understand and recognize that they are ill and the others do not. I'm not positive which side of that coin I fall on...both are true at times. I think probably I am one of those who do have insight but at times am blinded by psychosis and at times blinded by "wellness"....and both of those times are recipes for my deciding not to take my medication anymore.

The author, E. Fuller Torrey, MD, talks about the main reasons why schizophrenics refuse to take their medication and I really can identify with most, if not all, of the reasons. I hate anything that I depend upon or am told that I MUST do or take. I guess that is my rebellious and prideful flesh rising up, but it really angers me that I have to take it...and a lot of the time, I really don't think I need to. Dr. Torrey talks about how some people may view going off it as an exciting or risk-taking act, similar to driving too fast. I can understand that as well...I often ask myself, "What really would happen if I go off of it??" and it's almost tempting to throw caution to the winds and stop it.

Another MAJOR reason for noncompliance in me and in many is the saide effect of weight gain. For many many years I have had the eating disorder of anorexia...and now I have an anorexic's brain trapped in a fat body. This causes immense and indescribable agony for me and I know that a lot of the reason that I am overweight is due to both that medicine and also to steroids which I must periodically take heavy doses of for weeks on end (due to asthma). Another side effect, almost equally distressing is sexual in nature...and that does not add any points to the popularity of the medicine.

Many people also begin to believe that they do not take medicine because they are sick, but that instead, it is the medicine MAKING them sick... I have also experienced many thoughts along those lines. Side effects, (which used to be MUCH worse with the older neuoroleptic medication) only contribute to this thinking. Side effects such as a horrible restlessness called "akasthesia" are intolerable if they are not treated seriously by the doctor. I've literally paced holes in the carpeting at times due to this reaction... You cannot sit or rest or sleep with that problem. Now it is reduced to an annoying tendency to bounce my knees or to shake my foot when I am sitting, but it would really be nice to be rid of it altogether.

Another problem I've had in taking my medicine is that I often have difficulty in feeling connected with my body or with my emotions. Some of this may be caused by depression when the Bipolar aspect of my illness is in an unbalanced state, but I think that the medication really deadens my ability to enjoy things or to respond to them appropriately.

There have also been times when I was fearful that the medication was being used to poison or harm me. I felt that it is a method that my family or the nurses and doctors in hospitals are using to control me and to keep me "manageable" and subdued. I have also felt that it was a means by which they could have access to my thoughts and know what I was thinking.

Right now my husband dispenses my medication to me twice a day and watches me take it....I HATE this; I feel that it is demeaning and I most of all hate that the option of refusing is lost to me. Added to that is the knowledge that if I were to refuse again to take my medicine, he would probably follow the advice of the social workers and doctors at the hospital, and take me to a state hospital and leave me there. This is not some paranoid idea...it is based on true conversations that my husband has had with medical personnel and the decisions he has had to make in the past year. A very basic reason that this is so distressing is that I feel that I have been robbed of some essential freedom; "The Right Not to take Medication"!! My husband says, "you have the right to refuse, and I have the right to decide to leave you somewhere" (not in those words, but you get the general idea!)

But there are times when I am glad that he deals with all of that. I am on four medications for psychopharmacological reasons. ...and on numerous other ones. My memory holds information less reliably than a sieve holds water, so I would probably go weeks on end without remembering it...and then take it three or four times in a day, having forgotten that I'd already taken it. So maybe it's "better him than me." But I still have days when I really really struggle with this issue. It is very important for the patient or "consumer" to have a doctor who listens to them and treats them with respect and kindness...otherwise that doctor just gets added to the list of people who are trying to manipulate and control the person with the illness (in their eyes.)

I have written this to give you a little insight into what goes on in the mind of a schizophrenic and why for them, taking their medicine is not "Just like a diabetic taking insulin" as I've been told hundreds of times. That analogy really has no similarity at all to my (our) situation and I do not feel that it is helpful. It may help those people who think that schizophrenia is a form of demon possession or the result of an unloving mother, but it doesn't help me.

Just a Note:

My "Vote for Me" button does not seem to be functioning. I have notified Blog Toplist and will let you know when it is up and running again. Keep coming back to visit. I will try to make more frequent posts.

Catching Up

I have not posted in a while...I honestly have not had a minute to sit down and do so...Right now it is 4:19 a.m. and this seems to be the only time of day unoccupied with cooking, appointments and cleaning dishes! I am hoping that things will calm down after my daughter returns to school tomorrow...At least there will be a chunk of time when I can catch up on doing my laundry!

I do not mean to give the impression that I am not glad that she's home! It has been great to see her and to watch her trying so hard to implement what she's learned at the center for eating disorders. She seems to be much more in tune with herself emotionally (and as we all probably know, that is not always an easy or enjoyable thing to be) and she is also sharing with us a little more of what is going on in her head.

For me, the whole adjustment has been quite big and a little strange. Due to my illness mostly, and secondly due to the fact that earlier, no one in this family communicated or had much of an appetite for sit-down meals around the kitchen table; I had not had to play the role of wife and mother much at all in a long time. The family therapy has made some difference in the ways that we relate to one another, so all of that has changed since my daughter came home. For a number of years I had also been too sick for anyone to ask me to cook or to clean and seriously expect much of a response from me.

So now, I have been plunged headfirst into the roles of motherhood and wife and while it is good, it is also scary. My daughter and my husband need me right now, desperately. It would be a disaster should I have another period of decompensation and require another hospitalization--at least right now. So I find myself clinging desperately to my precarious sanity and praying every moment for God to give me grace and strength and to hold me together emotionally and mentally...and physically.

Regarding the last area, my physical well-being, I just found out from my rheumatologist during my last visit, that a hip replacement is imminent. This was no great surprise; pain has been steadily increasing and it has been harder and harder to get around. I've recently begun again my yoga practice to try to forestall this eventuality. This, added to the pain I have in my hands, feet, and spine, has made it difficult to function, but in the past couple of days, there has not even been time to sit or to lie down to alleviate any of this.

I know that many of you are already doing this, but please continue to pray for my family and me. As my friend told me (she has already gone through all of this re-adjustment after her daughter was hospitalized for the same reason), "Now the real work begins."

A Praying Life

Okay, maybe it wasn't a good idea to post, what? ...3? blog articles on my struggles.... I was just reading over some of the last posts and it sounded like a whine festival! So I will offer you here some cheese to go with the whine!

No, actually, I want to talk about prayer. I am reading a book called A Praying Life by a man named Paul E. Miller. I am not exaggerating when I tell you that I have an exhaustive library on the topic of prayer...I must have at least 50 books dedicated to that topic (and yes, I've read them all!). Prayer is the highest priority of my life, because it is how I communicate with the One I love and it is my best means of influencing the world we live in. And I would like to really encourage you to go out and purchase this book! (No, I am not being paid to say that!).

Mr. Miller speaks from what is obviously firsthand experience of a Praying Life and also it is obvious that his prayer life has given him a look into God's heart for His people: what kind of a relationship He longs to have with us. I am so frustrated with stilted, artificial sounding prayers that address God as though we were talking to ....I don't know whom, but certainly not our closest friend!! Even people who pray with passion and regularly have terrible habits like interjecting God's name at every pause or talking in formal uptight phrasing that keeps God at a distance. And I find that I am not exempt from self-conscious prayer! What would happen if we only prayed GOD-conscious prayers?


When I was at the Writers' Conference in Philadelphia recently, the director of the conference was a woman who spoke frequently of "Father" and would drift in and out of addressing Him as though He were standing right next to her (which of course, He IS), but it was the "strangest" and most marvelous thing: her tone did not change, her type of wording did not change...just suddenly we would realize that she was praying! It was very funny to me as I looked around and people did not know when to close their eyes and when to open them!! And this struck me as a most admirable way to exist; to constantly converse with the One who loves us most and who never leaves our side....better yet, never leaves our hearts and we do not even have to speak to Him aloud.

I speak to God in my heart in this way; and when I am alone and talking aloud to Him, I also do; but what stops me from doing this all the time? It is fear of being locked up again, people!! Haha, I am ashamed to admit it, but listening to Marlene pray made me realize two things:

1. I am too conscious of those who are listening to my prayers . My prayers, while not addressing the people around me, are changed and affected by the presence of those people. I honestly would feel all too self conscious to pray this naturally.
2. I am also kept from praying aloud and speaking naturally to God because of the fear of my family who probably WOULD see to it that I was locked up! And the same goes for every other unbeliever I encounter.

But really, What would happen if we prayed this way to our Father and Friend and did not fear the reactions of others? I think, that while they may question our sanity, they would also be envious of such a relationship - that we could have such an intimacy with the One who made everything!

I think also, that we would find our own lives to be powerfully impacted by a life of this kind of prayer. This prayer, this relationship would change us to our very core...and friends, I don't know about you, but that is exactly where I need to be changed. With a constant awareness of the presence of "Father", we could not and would not dare to do the things we do and act like we act which we pull off while we pretend that God is not there and not looking! Jesus, please change my SELF-conscious heart and make it only conscious of YOU!

Remembering; Paranoia

I've been talking in the past two posts about my greatest areas of struggle. In reading these posts over, I felt that I had not adequately considered and put into words my current areas of difficulty...so I want to readdress that topic here.

One of my "top five" has to be in the area of short term memory deficits. I had over 15 bilateral ECT (Electro-convulsive therapy: i.e.: "shock treatments") treatments a year ago and suffered a great deal of loss of cognitive ability especially in the area of recollection. I could not recall (and still do not recall the majority of) the past three or four years. I have put the pieces of much of it back together through asking questions and re-reading journals etc. but I still have regained very little of my memory in a first-hand sort of way. This was traumatic as I came to my hometown upon discharge, and had no recollection of it: its layout, what stores it had or where any of my friends lived. Of course looking at my wardrobe was like a major Christmas present because I did not recall my clothes...how exciting to get all those "new" clothes at once! But finding things in my house, or bluffing it when a friend came up to hug me...and I had no idea who they were, proved to be quite frustrating and also frightening. By now I have "re-learned" most of all of that, but still daily, am confronted by things that are confusing to me because of gaps in my memory.

Also, and this is perhaps the most frustrating; my short term memory has been damaged in its current usages also. If my husband explains something to me or asks me to do something, very very soon afterward, I will very often have no recollection of it. I can almost never recall the events or conversations of the day prior to the one I'm in. This leads to constant embarrassment and apologies. (You do NOT want to loan me anything unless you are willing to remind me of it daily until you get it back, because I will absolutely and repeatedly forget about it!) This has turned me into a sort of undependable person--which I HATE because I never was like that before. I have to keep notes in my appointment book of everything that I have promised people I'd do and write also everything that I've done in a day, but of course, I've lost my appointment books several times and had to get new ones and start over! I have to label everything in the house such as my jars of herbs and food that I have prepared and frozen, because by the next day, I will not know what they are.

I've read that deficits in the area of memory are common in people with my diagnosis...that the illness does actual damage and injury to the brain, but either I have early Altzheimers or else the ECT has done a lot of damage, because what has happened to me exceeds anything I've seen in other people. So, obviously, this is a constant struggle for me and has necesitated several lifestyle changes in order to compensate for this deficiency.

My biggest struggle in terms of symptomology of my illness is the constant battle with paranoid thinking and ideas that I get which are not true representations of the reality around me. My family will often say to me, as I make some remark or other, "Mom, that is really paranoid," and I am almost always glad or relieved when they tell me that, because usually I have no idea. Sometimes, I will get an idea and begin to be lost in the fear that it generates and I will have a suspician that maybe it is only my fear and paranoia that makes it seem like a realistic likelihood, but I am never sure and usually not good at reassuring myself that it is only paranoia. This is most often a disturbing difficulty that I face in public places such as in town or in a mall, especially when I am by myself. I can talk about this tendency calmly and analytically now, but it generates some really frightening circumstances and maybe some odd behavior (okay, definitely some odd behavior).

I cannot really do the experience of paranoia justice because I know that when it is voiced and "sane" people hear the ideas, they can sound really like foolish or ridiculous things about which to be concerned or worried. But to me, when the thoughts or suggestions present themselves to me--they are terrifying and seem completely plausible. The main action that they spawn is the desire to flee whatever danger I feel is pursuing me...and if I cannot flee (usually this is in a setting like the Quiet Room of a psych hospital where I feel trapped) then I will strike out motivated by my need (in my eyes) to protect myself. I am probably the last person in the world who would be likely to be violent or abusive, but in those situations, under the influence of paranoid thoughts and supporting hallucinations: I am and have been just that.

Fortunately, the daily paranoia that I live with now, is not severe enough to spawn that kind of behavior outside of decompensations when I am hospitalized. Now, the ideas are just potent enough to make me miserable and to make me quietly keep my fears to myself because I do not want to be laughed at for things that to me are really serious and really likely. I am getting better at learning what situations will most likely leave me vulnerable to such feelings and learning to avoid them or to protect myself from them. For example, when I am in a medical hospital for asthma or something else, I am constantly in fear of what nurses are saying about me at the nurses' station. Every laugh I hear is aimed at me; every glance in my direction is significant and I become convinced that they all dislike me intensely and would stop at nothing to get rid of me! I have learned to bring my mp3 player and earphones and to leave them on all the time while there, because this blocks from my hearing any fragments of conversation or of laughter, and that gives my imagination less food for thought!

I realize that I've kind of bared my soul in this post and I am not sure what people's reactions will be. I've already been told that I've been "painfully honest" "transparent" and "brutally honest" in these posts...and I'm not really sure that I should be that open. So if you look for this post tomorrow and it's no longer here, it's because I've reconsidered, or chickened out! But maybe this gave you some kind of understanding of what it is like to live with a mental illness...and maybe that understanding will give you greater empathy for a loved one who suffers with it. That is my prayer at any rate.

Pain and its Relative, Fear

Yesterday I discussed my two greatest challenges, historically. Today I will attempt to pinpoint what areas I am tempted to trip over and which cause me great difficulty day to day in my current life. Honestly, the largest area of difficulty is not one that is related much to mental illness, but it does, however, affect my perspective on life and my daily willingness to get out of bed and face another day. You may have already guessed it but the answer is "pain." Asthma is bad; pain is worse. It keeps me a prisoner in many ways and one of them is through the bondage of fear.

Yesterday I had a church picnic to attend and I really had looked forward to it, but had a very miserable night with pain that I can't begin to describe. By 9 a.m. my pain was under better control but I was afraid. Afraid that I would get there and have a miserable time because of my pain...afraid that I would feel that horrible alienation that comes as a result of both my mental illness and my physical struggles. I waivered and probably would have chickened out from attending, but a good friend I chat with online, identified the source of my reluctance and told me, "If you don't go then FEAR WINS! and the only one to blame is you." (Isn't it great to have friends that lay it on the line?) So I went. It hurt. But I also had a fairly good time. True, I had to leave early. I knew that would probably happen, but I'm glad that I got to go anyway.

So pain creates fear. I have a friend in my Bible Study who has a bulging disc in his back. He received an injection of cortisone into his back and the pain was greatly alleviated, but he still is walking stiffly as though he has a board strapped to his back. When he said to me, "I don't know why I'm walking this way, when I'm actually feeling better...." I told him, "I do. You are AFRAID of inducing more pain by some inadvertent motion, so you are walking in a way that you think will protect you from that."

This has all kinds of parallels and implications to us as humans who suffer and to patients with mental illness. Fear causes us to stiffen; to dread; to cause ourselves new pain by the way we tense ourselves and keep ourselves from relaxing into life once again....once the crisis has past. This anxiety is one that my husband and daughter suffer from greatly...while they wait the (inevitable, according to them) breakdown that I will experience any day now. They do not enjoy the days when I am doing well, cannot relax and laugh and allow themselves to hope that maybe I'll stay out of the hospital for a while now. The anticipation of pain causes us great and often unnecessary fear.

I got off on sort of a tangent. This is maybe one of my family's greatest struggles now, but for me the actual daily struggle with physical pain is one that sometimes seems insurmountable. It causes me to have sleepless nights and exhausted days. It causes me to not have much pleasure even in events that should be relaxing and fun. It causes me to miss out on much of the "normal" events of people's lives and changes inconsequential things like a trip to the grocery store into a herculean task. The fact that my condition is one that will deteriorate even more throughout my future, makes me want to hide and not go there. It keeps me from having any pleasant anticipatory thoughts about what is upcoming. Sometimes, like last night, it is a teeth grinding, muscle-clenching, second counting effort to just make it through the minute I inhabit and I cannot look beyond that to imagine five more of them coming afterwards!

I've experienced such mental anguish that the same could be said of it as well. And honestly, if I had to choose between that mental suffering and my physical suffering, I would be at a loss to know which is worse. That is not to say that my pain is minimal...that is to try to give you a picture of how INTENSE the suffering of despair can be. That is why and how suicide can seem to be a logical option...to just END that misery.Thank you God, that you do not give us both physical agony simulataneous with mental anguish. Thank you that your Grace is sufficient for me...every second of every day. Thank you for humor...for friends...and for being there in those long, lonely nights when we suffer "alone."

My Greatest Struggles

As the title discloses, I would like to share with you in this post what my greatest struggles were and now are. Of course these things can and do change with time, so I will discuss my two greatest struggles from my past today and my two greatest struggles now in tomorrow's post. I hope that this post will give you some insight into what goes on in the life and mind of the one you know and/or love who may have similar issues to battle.

As I think I have discussed here earlier on, I had a period of about fifteen years in my twenties and early thirties where I was in an indescribably dark depression. This depression was worsened by the fact that I had strangled the only existing Voice which could have given me any inkling of hope. Whether we are aware of it or not, Life, without God, is painful, unfair, and pointless. We can busy ourselves with toys and careers and family but the truth is, if you have the guts to examine it, we have nothing to look forward to but suffering and death...All of our efforts in life, in building families and career and amassing fortunes or struggling with poverty--ALL of them are futile and without purpose or future. The grave stands victorious over the most successful lives.

I had closed my ears to God's voice; I was angry at Him for the injustice of my lot in life, so my response was to cut off my nose to spite my face! I extricated myself from His embrace and showed Him the door to my heart...the EXIT door. Having rid myself of Hope, I found myself (obviously) to be hopeless and broken. In an ocean of hallucination, false ideation, paranoia and guilt, I swam without mooring, firm footing, or a destination. Afraid to die and yet longing for death, I flirted with death and more than once almost attained it.

We all have days when we feel blue or down. The depression of the clinically depressed magnifies that one hundred fold. I lay awake all night, striving with thoughts and psychotic images that are like terrible nightmares, but all the time, I was awake. If I did drift off into a medicated sleep, it was usually restless and horrible, only trumped by the horror I felt when I opened my eyes and my nightmares seemed happy in comparison. That hopelessness and sleeplessness was one struggle that was a brutal agony in my life.

Because I was so depressed and miserable; and because back then, in psychiatric hospitals EVERYONE smoked...I was eventually drawn to cigarettes in search of relief. In the rooms in the hospitals hung a fog of smoke. Nicotine stained the walls to an even dingier shade than they were originally. But the cigarettes, as horrible as they smelled, seemed to bring some pleasure and relief to these patients. I was twenty two when I first tried a drag on one of them. ...And I was IMMEDIATELY hooked...I began to smoke over a pack a day right off of the bat. I was so desperate to feel better in any way, that I pitched all of my hatred of cigarettes and my determination to not ever smoke and leapt, head first into a land of smoky oblivion. While it was true that they offered some small enjoyment; they rapidly went from being an escape to being a prison from which there was no escape.

In years where I lived in a community residence (a group home), we were allowed to keep $36 of our Social Security Disability money each month to use for our personal expenses. Cigarettes then cost over $20 per carton and I smoked, at times, over a carton in a week. Now, you do the math! You'll quickly see that not only did I not have money for personal care items; I did not even have enough to sustain my habit. This meant at least two weeks of misery in every month.

My greatest struggle was the slavery in which I found myself as a result of cigarettes. I was not "happy" unless I had a cigarette...and I did not always have a cigarette. Add to that the fact that some hospitals would take our cigarettes and use them to bribe us to behave the way they wanted us to behave and you have, yet another recipe for hell.

I had a love/hate relationship with smoking. While on one hand, I would give my last dollar for a cigarette, I also hated the image, the smell, the control it gave other people over me, the cost, and the fact that I always seemed to have bronchitis while I smoked. So I was almost always embroiled in some wild scheme or other to try to stop. Much like people pursue odd diets and strange ways of trying to control their appetite, so I would try thing after thing to try to quit.

I smoked through my pregnancy...I smoked outdoors when I was married and when I was at my parents' house, shivering through snow, wind and torrential rain. I smoked in medical hospitals, I smoked in psych hospitals...None of my schemes to quit every lasted even a day. This bondage increased my sense of entrappment and hopelessness as well as took away every last shred of self respect that I had.

In every hospital I have been in, I have encountered people who are either struggling to quit; or struggling to supply their cigarette habit ...or both. I have found this to be a common denominator among psychiatric patients and I have read studies which link mental illness to cigarette addiction.

I am glad (and proud) to say, that in 1995, after having smoked for about 12 years, I finally (PRAISE GOD!!!) was able to quit with the invention of nicotine patches. I know that it was God's grace alone that enabled me to say goodbye to that prison....and to do it before I had a severe case of mycoplasmic pneumonia in 2000 which left me with a horrible case of asthma. I know that if I continued to smoke at that point, I would have died long ago. And I know that if I hadn't quit prior to getting sick, I would have been equally unable to break the habit even with the asthma and my life on the line.....I was THAT addicted.

Perhaps you have a loved one who struggles with either despair or with cigarette addiction...or both. Please try not to judge them for either thing. They are both bondages which only God's grace and mercy can break through...and I'm sure that your loved one would not choose to have either one of these if they felt they really had a choice. The reason I wrote this though, is to say that even in the darkest dungeon, God's power can shine and break chains... The most powerful tool and weapon you have to battle on behalf of your friend or family member is prayer. God can reach them where nothing else can. And there is no weapon that Satan has formed against us which can stand--especially in the face of an army of prayers. Do not lost hope. Do not condemn. Do not give way to despair. Your beloved one needs for you to hold tight to the Hope that they are struggling to find. Let the light of God's love shine through you into their darkness. Remember that love hopes all things, believes all things, always trusts, always perseveres.....You be the hands that cling to the hand of the Father on their behalf....with one hand hold tight to the Father and with the other, hold tight to the one who is suffering so intensely. Be the channel that God's love can flow through to reach the one who is floundering.

Looking ahead??

"Indescribable, incomparable, you are amazing God! Indescribable, all powerful--You are amazing God!" Those are the words that my computer is playing from my playlist that is embedded into this blog. Right now I am overcome with the sense of God's presence and His amazing goodness. I am thankful for the people I've met through this blog and for the opportunity to play a small part in their lives. I'm really thankful for the things that He is teaching me about Himself and am eager to see how He will begin to use this new knowledge in my life. I'm looking forward to the coming season of fall colors, harvest vegetables, cool days, and holidays.

But while I look forward to all of this, there is some part of me who is scared to death to think one day farther ahead than today. So often, within just a couple of days, my situation has changed in the past because of asthma or because of serious infections and because of relapses due to mental illness. My daughter is coming home in a week from the hospital and while she is doing very well and is eager to get back to school and to put her recovery into effect, I fear, at some level, the return of symptoms and worst of all, that awful depression.

Now the computer is singing "I will soar on the wings of eagles, I will learn to fly high above this world...I will lay my troubles at your feet." This is also true, we have to fly high and we can't think of what will happen if we crash...we have to lay those fears at His feet. God has plans for us and it is His strength that will carry them out and bring them to fruition, not our own. As we soar high in the heavenlies the worries of this world must remain but a tiny speck far below us...inconsequential...the only thing that matters is the wind beneath our wings...the Spirit who empowers and lifts us up and takes us higher.

I know this is all very erudite and abstract, but I think these facts are important ones for us to incorporate into our lives as people who must live with the reality that tomorrow can bring joy or possibly a relapse and further heartache for us or our family. This inability to predict tomorrow is true in a real way for everyone but it seems to be so much more of a problem for those who live with mental or physical illnesses. It is not enough to force ourselves not to think of the future; we must hand over the future to the One who truly holds it and then refuse to take it back from Him except in the daily allotment that He gives us.

So do we plan for the holidays? Yes...but we do so with an awareness that our plans may have to change and with a willingness to let that happen if it must. And if we are all at home on the holiday and if all is well, we will be doubly grateful for that wonderful gift.

God's Incredible Powers of Design

Something that I’ve been thinking about:
God made me to be exactly who and how I am.
Now, that may seem like a no-brainer: but really is it? Because, you see, He’s chosen to make me with blue eyes, brown hair,….psoriatic arthritis…and schizoaffective disorder. This was not the “luck of the draw” – it was a deliberate choice that God made.

Now some people will say, “Well, we live in a sin-tainted world…there is sickness and disease that came with the Fall.” That is true but God also says,

“The One forming light and creating darkness,
Causing well-being and creating calamity;
I am the LORD who does all these.”

These illnesses are not a “random” germ that I caught when someone sneezed. They are genetic illnesses that were programmed into my DNA. God gave them to me as surely as He gave me blue eyes. When His hands fashioned me in my mom’s womb, He arranged that DNA and then stood back and said, “It is good.”

Now I can hear the ethernet seething with murmurs against the “injustice” of this…but wait a minute! Firstly, I know that God is good and that He loves me…He’s shown me this time and time again. Secondly, I know that He is infinitely wiser than I can fathom; so from these two facts, I must conclude that He is up to something beyond my full comprehension that will be for my ultimate benefit and He has already granted me glimmers of understanding that corroborate these facts.

I can say that I have the privilege of knowing the depths of God’s compassion and the strength of His helping hands, in ways that most people cannot comprehend. As I’d thumbed my nose at Him in anger and went, for fifteen years, stumbling around in a darkness comprised of my own illness, rage and defiance aimed at God; I then experienced the mind-blowing brilliance of His mercy as He welcomed me back to His arms without hesitation, once I’d run out of my own resources and turned back to Him.

I daily experience the power of His sustaining hands as my own strength is so tremulous and faltering. When pain overwhelms me, He always grants me just what I need to empower me to get through that moment, those days…every minute of every day. When my illness leads me to do something rash or dangerous in the blindness of psychosis; He always has protected me and gotten me to a place where I could receive help…even in the years when I was still stumbling in blind rage away from Him.

I have even come to the point where I have thanked Him for this illness. I think He must think a lot of me to entrust me with such a heavy load. I also thank Him for endowing me with it because it has granted me the privilege of knowing Him in numerous ways that most people could not grasp. I have to depend on Him heavily every moment…and while, to some people, that may seem like a weakness or a “crutch” – it puts the power of the Almighty God constantly at my fingertips…So that makes me a vessel that contains a pretty amazing strength!

I also think that when I get to heaven, there will be extra benefits waiting for me because of what I’ve suffered on earth. I will appreciate, as few people will, how marvelous that new body and a healed mind will be and how valuable they are! I do know that almost no one I know has such a longing for heaven and as much of a minute-to-minute consciousness of it as I do. So all in all, I cannot—nor do I—get angry at God for giving me these difficulties or this pain. There are LOTS of times when I do climb onto His lap and lean my head on His shoulders and cry, but He’s more than good at understanding that and that too has grown the intimacy of our relationship, so I wouldn’t trade even those tears.


So when you hear the words of the doctor as he diagnoses you or your child or spouse with a mental illness; remember my words here…and begin to look for reasons to rejoice. God does not make mistakes; nor have accidents; nor does He make junk!

Fact or Feeling?

I have been so busy living my life and stepping so carefully around the bear traps of mental illness that surround my family, that I haven't had the energy or the inspiration that is necessary to write a new blog post. But I know that I really need to sit down and do this or you who read it regularly will give up on me. So maybe I should write about living around people who suffer with various psychiatric diagnoses and the implications these have in your communication with them.

For myself, communicating with ANYone is a challenge. I can write with reasonable clarity but try to put together a sentence, let alone a conversation, and I am often stymied by mental fogginess, obtuseness of emotional comprehension, or tongue-tied by my nervousness. The fogginess is often the consequence of anxiety. Mix that with the constant "white noise" of pain, and the conversation often leaves me in the dust. Today, however, my problem was the difficulty I have of "getting it" when it comes to relationships and emotional exchange.

My daughter is currently in a center for people with eating disorders. We went to see her over the weekend, and on Friday had a very intense family session with her and her therapist. This session was especially difficult on my husband, who suffers greatly from anxiety and also OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder). The topic we discussed, was one that sent him spinning into a frenzy of panic and although we were reassured by both my daughter and the therapist that his fears were unfounded at this time; he has continuously picked up that thread and run with it in circles until he became tied up in knots of anxiousness.

Here is a hint when dealing with a person who has OCD...Do not become impatient or sound "short" or condescending when they are possessed by an obsessive fear! Even if it sounds obviously unreasonable and unlikely to you; to them the possibility they fear is a realistic and an impending one. Their fear and panic and the lack of security that results, is also real and should not be ignored or disparaged.

I did not set out to insult my husband, but it was obvious to him that I thought that his persistence in allowing this fear to possess him was a bit unfounded and silly. I failed to recognize, when he started circling around, wringing his hands and voicing the same fear over and over, that he was coming to me for reassurance and comfort. So I kind of snapped at him saying in other words, "Get a grip, you are being ridiculous!"

Later, as I worked outside putting my garden into shape for the coming winter, I pondered our conversation, and I realized that I had been rude and inconsiderate of his need...When I went into the house and he saw me again, however, there was no time for an apology. He was very angered and insulted by my insensitivity and told me in no uncertain terms that that was the last time he would come to ME for help. This saddened me...not only that I had damaged his trust in me but that I had so badly misinterpreted the conversation in question. I had missed the whole "I'm coming to you for reassurance" implication and instead saw only that his anxiety was unabated by any reasoning I used or the number of times I offered my interpretation of the problem.

I think that the point that I should take away from this instance and the one that I will also offer you is this: When a person comes to you with a fear, worry, or panic about a situation and that seems to you to be an irrational response; do not try to talk them out of their fear by offering facts or common sense. Emotions generally do not respond to common sense. My husband was looking for comfort and reassurance, not for a logical assessment of the situation. Since he is an intelligent man, he could have offered that to himself, but anxiety does not always go away when logic rebuts it. Fear is not always rational and does not respond to simply being dismissed. I failed to look behind my husband's words and to see the pain. It was really the pain he wanted me to address...not the words. For him the thing causing the worry was one and the same with the emotion of panic that he was experiencing. So when I dismissed the thing that he was worried about, I was also dismissing and negating his emotions as well.

After twenty years of living with a man who has OCD, I still have many lessons to learn about how to interact with someone who suffers from that illness. If you are in a similar situation or if you have a family member with an anxiety or panic disorder, you may relate to the things I've expressed here. Be patient and learn to look beyond and behind words and appearances and to search for their underlying message or need.

National Day of Prayer for Mental Illness Recovery and Understanding

This will be held on Oct. 6th, the Tuesday of Mental Illness Awareness Week-MIAW-Oct. 4-10

I would like to suggest rather than a global "God bless all the crazy people;" that each of us choose one or two people we know personally who has struggles with mental illness (could be depression, bipolar, anxiety disorder...etc ) and bring them to the Father's throne; edging our way through the crowds of angels there --flashing our "sons and daughters of God" ID cards-- and place these suffering ones on His lap there so that they can receive the benefit of His love, healing and attention. And pray also for those who love these broken people and who must daily live with and care for them.

You might have noticed that I brought this up a month early...why not make it an area of prayer concern for the entire month between now and then?? Would it not be awesome to see how God will respond in the lives of individuals?

More Hints and Helps

I had some more thoughts on how a family member might best help their loved one who is suffering from a mental illness since I last wrote on the subject. These suggestions may apply more to a person who is having trouble knowing what is real (as in a psychotic disorder) than to maybe someone who is depressed, but some of these suggestions will apply across the board.

• Respect the person. This seems obvious...but it is very easy--especially in reference to a person who has trouble discerning reality--to be demeaning or to speak to them as though they were a child. While it IS important to speak clearly and usually in short sentences and to avoid long abstract conversations, it is equally important to realize that the patient is an adult; has feelings (whether or not they can disclose them to you acccurately); and can easily feel demeaned. It is also important to know that they feel horrible about their illness and the burden that it places on you, their loved ones; so don't make them feel worse!

• Do not allow this person to become your whole world and your only reason for being alive. While it may not be obvious to you how doing this would benefit your loved one; it is a HUGELY important factor in the happiness and wellbeing of the one for whom you are caring. If you fall for the temptation to have nothing else in your life -- no other interests, no other relationships, no time away, no other passions in life-- then you can easily become codependent and that kind of a relationship helps no one. If you become codependent, you will too easily feel insulted if a person, in a rage spawned by psychosis, says hurtful things to you; or even if they have "yet another" breakdown. You will take things way too personally and it will affect you way too powerfully, when they do not feel well or when they have negative feelings toward you which are merely symptoms of the illness. And if you get to this point, you will, unwittingly, place a heavy burden of responsibility on the person for whom you are caring by having too much depending on them maintaining a wellness that really is not in their power to maintain. If they have an exacerbation of symptoms, they will know, that they are hurting you way more than such a thing should, and this will lead to guilt, resentment, remorse, low self esteem on their part, and to depression, feelings of worthlessness and a sense of having no control over your life for you.

• Always maintain an awareness that the person who is ill, is suffering; that they did not choose to become ill; that they are doing the best that they can with a set of circumstances and symptoms that would be unmanageable for ANYONE...even for you, if you had that illness. Also be aware that on some level, even if it is not obvious to you, they are feeling a great burden of guilt and sadness for the difficulties into which they have unwittingly plunged their caregivers and family. Do not make this burden greater by your possibly insensitive comments. Do not discuss with them the burden or strain this has placed on your family financially as well. They are probably already aware of this, and do not need to have it reinforced.

• You should have a therapist, or at the very least, a good friend with whom you can discuss all of your feelings of frustration, pain, possibly resentment, fears, etc.. All these negative emotions should not be the added burden of the person who is ill. Believe me, they have way more negative feelings about themselves as a result of their illness than you could even imagine, and they do not need your surplus as well. Plus, you deserve to have someone listening to you who is able to respond to you with sympathy, empathy and who can maybe offer you some good advice on alternatives that maybe you'd overlooked or with ways of preserving your own sanity in the "insane" world that you and your loved one inhabit. Your loved one is not capable of offering you these things and you really need them, whether you think you do or not. RESIST the temptation to make one of your children your own sounding board and outlet. They are struggling with their own difficulties in dealing with the mental illness of their sibling or parent and are not able and SHOULD NOT HAVE TO bear yours as well.

• And lastly, fight the temptation of being sucked into the anger and even rage that can be directed at you during a psychotic episode. This is a like a tornado which will target anyone and anything in its path, and you can only end up feeling or being hurt by what may transpire. At such a time, you may need relief from the burdens of caregiving....in fact it may not even be SAFE for you to try to go it alone. Recognize when the person needs to be hospitalized or when you need some kind of respite services to help you care for your loved one. And please do not look at "yet another" hospitalization as a failure on the part of your loved one. These can be part and parcel of a mentally ill person's life...For someone with a psychotic disorder this is especially true. Do not burden your loved one with feelings of having let you down by needing to be in a safer place for a while.

Keepin' on Keepin' on

I've recently been asked "What, aside from your faith, has been most helpful in getting you through the years of illness to the point you are at now?" That was an interesting question, and it made me think. Honestly, I had several answers that popped into my mind and it's almost a toss-up between them. I will list them for you:

• The support of my church "family"- Loving me and praying for me regardless of the condition in which I showed up for services...or didn't!
• The support and continued love of my family--years of patience and, I'm sure, great worry and concern
• My husband finally taking the reins and GIVING me my medications twice a day...Previously I kept either forgetting them or deciding I "didn't need them anymore" and there was no consistency in my taking them.
• Writing--journals, poetry, blogs... This has been a great theraputic release for me and there were many times when, if I wasn't able to have vented into the written word, I would have done serious injury to myself. (It is true that there were still times that I injured myself, but the occurrences were greatly diminished by this outlet.

If I had to choose the "most important" I don't know if I could. But I can say that the one most frequently utilized-- and for the longest period of time -- was my writing. It is there when family and church cannot be...and my husband has only started dispensing the meds this year.

If you have a loved one or a friend who is struggling with mental illness or even mild depression, a great gift to them would be a nice journal, or pen....For myself, when I was no longer able to hold a pen (due to severe arthritis), my father gave me a small word processor called a NEO by a company called Alphasmart (http://www.neo-direct.com/intro.aspx). This is less expensive and smaller and lighter than a laptop and info from it can be downloaded onto a PC. And last year, for Christmas, my husband got me this laptop because I could no longer sit at the PC due to pain. So now, I happily type away in my recliner!

((I also just want to add a note. I am not "cured"...I have schizoaffective disorder and it is a chronic condition...There are times when things get weird. And I've been admitted to a psych hospital several times in the past year. I just have been blessed with the ability to put into words my thoughts fairly coherently (true: there are exceptions to that rule!!) If a few "strange" posts show up here and then followed by a silence...don't give up and abandon the blog...it just means that I'm in the hospital and will return.))

I hope this blog has answered some of your questions and been of help. I just listed this blog with the blog "toplist"...If you enjoy it, please click the "vote for me button" in the right column near the top. Thanks.

How can you Help?

I just received an email from a reader of this blog who has a son who has developed a mental illness over the past two years. She requested that I give some insight into how to best encourage someone who is struggling and possibly how to motivate them to seek the medical help that would most be able to assist them.

I think back over my years of depression, back in my twenties... I cannot begin to describe to you what an awful feeling that is. Psychosis is bad, but for me, I would choose it over depression. And the worst thing is that the two often occur simultaneously. I spent several years lying in bed staring at the clock watching the minutes crawl by and the years speed by. Looking back, I would give ANYTHING (almost) to have that healthy young body again with an ounce of motivation in it...Those years are gone, wasted.

But you can't tell a person who is struggling with the effort of breathing, that he or she is wasting his or her life. It won't help and it will only add to their sense of frustration, despair and futility. So the question is: what CAN you do to help them? Firstly, never give up on them...call or visit every day or as often as possible. But when you visit, do not expect them to be able to entertain you. Be like Job's friends (they were not all bad) and just sit with him or her in silence and share their pain. This is a difficult thing to endure...but it will mean a lot to your loved one. Help them with their daily activities of living...do their laundry, cook them a meal and encourage them to eat it (but do not be angered or insulted if they don't). Gently suggest to them that a shower might make them feel better.

The most important thing to understand is that EVERYTHING seems to demand more energy than they feel they have. Everything seems pointless and futile...and they are aware of their "failure" in being productive...and this just makes it all harder to endure. Do not be surprised if their powers of reasoning are impaired and they make some serious errors in judgment. Try to encourage them not to make any major "Life Decisions" during such a time. Most of all, instill in them the knowledge -- or even the possibility -- that the way that they are feeling will NOT last forever! Tell them that there is a whole generation of new medicines out now which can offer some real relief, but that they need to get to a doctor who can prescribe and then regulate them. Tell them that the medicines may take a period of time before they can offer real relief, but to be patient and to try to hope that it will happen. If it is at all possible, make sure that you can show up and "encourage" the person to attend their medical appointments. Physically go with them and sit with them in the waiting room....Fill out the forms for them if they need help...

I know that I am asking you, the families of these hurting people, to do what seems impossible: To not lose patience; to love and to never give up hope; to not keep a record of wrongs or hurt feelings that come from unkind things the ill person may do or say; to ALWAYS HOPE; ALWAYS ENDURE....Read 1 Corinthians chapter thirteen every day if that will help you. Maybe read it aloud to your loved one and let them know that that is the way the Lord loves THEM.

Resist the opportunity to preach to them; let your actions speak the Gospel to them. Say things like, "I know you may feel like you are a burden or a failure right now, but that is your illness talking. It is not true and you must resist the temptation to believe that it is true." Keep reinforcing the fact that depression does not last forever and if they get on a medicine that works for them, it can improve soon.

Keep encouraging them to get out of the house...but do not take them to places of bright lights and frenzied activity, like a mall. Invite them to your house for a meal ...and go and pick them up and give them a ride there. Choose intimate, calm settings, but ones that will not put them on the spot or make them feel worse. (for example, do not take an unkempt, unshowered person to a fancy restaurant where he will negatively compare himself to all the other people there.) Sometimes impersonal settings are better...they create less of a demand... For example; taking a walk around a lake with them; sitting in a park and feeding ducks; going for a drive to see the autumn leaves. This type of thing is better than going out to dinner with a couple of friends. People ask questions; they feel awkward or embarrassed...and sometimes they say ignorant or rude things. Don't put your loved one in a situation where that is likely to happen to them.

Most important is that you let them know that you are not disappointed in them; that you are not embarrassed by them and that you will BE THERE for them, no matter what. Show them that you love them and are hurting with them; but that you are certain that things will look up...Keep your own eyes fixed on Jesus and let Him grow your trust in Him through this hardship. Entrust Him with the care and protection of your loved one who is struggling.

If I can be of any more help, please do as this person did and either email me or comment with your questions or with topics you would like to see covered. I will do my best. I will also be glad to pray for your family member who is ill. And it almost seems foolish to say it; but YOU keep bringing them to the Lord's attention daily as well. It is only by the power of the prayers of a multitude of people who were praying for me, that I survived and finally came out of the darkness. I still have times when the darkness descends (but now I know enough to know that it will not last forever)....Prayer is your greatest weapon.