Blanket Cocoon

Tonight, I write to you from the comfort of my blanket cocoon, long after I should have been asleep. But sleep isn't likely to come tonight. See, today I proofread legal documents that will change my life forever. Tonight, I realized that I've exhausted all other options known to me. And yet I hate it. Yet I fight it. Yet I wonder why I'm not worth fighting for.

But even in the sleeplessness, there's a kind of peace. There is no turn to self injury.

Today, I realized some difficult things about my future. But today I also realized that I won't face it alone. And for that, I'm truly thankful.

"People will never satisfy your deepest longings."

Most of us would instinctively agree with this statement, but only because we know we should agree with it. However, the truth of the human condition is that we tend to seek satisfaction from other human beings. As my pastor puts it, "we're like a bunch of ticks trying to feed off each other when what we actually need is a host who can meet our needs." 

There is no person, not even a group of people, who can meet your every need in this life. Neither can you meet all of your own needs. The only way I know to get my needs met is through my faith, not that I've got it down pat, either. See, in order to get your needs met, by anyone, you have to trust. It's hard enough to trust people, who you can harass and badger into compliance (although it's clearly not recommended). It's even harder to trust a God who you can't see. Still, if you can trust, even just a little, you'll find that, ultimately, your needs will be met. After all, as Jesus says in John 6:35, "'I am the bread of life. Whoever comes to me will never go hungry, and whoever believes in me will never be thirsty.'" 

How do you do that, though? 

I can only share what has worked for me. I am certainly no expert in trust, but I am working on it. Remember - faith is like fitness in that you can always get better!

Tip #1 - Learn to wait. God doesn't work on your timetable, but neither do other people, so this shouldn't be a shock. When I think I can't take it anymore, I tell myself to just make it through one more week, day, hour, minute, whatever the situation calls for. Try not to get so impatient that you begin grumbling and stop looking for the good.

Tip #2 - Learn to take action. I know, this seems like a contradiction. I've seen far too many people, myself included, who are waiting on the Lord's guidance and refuse to make any decisions in the meantime. For example, if you're waiting on guidance in a relationship, that does not mean that you shouldn't be exploring job options, ministry options, etc. In fact, sometimes guidance for situation A may come through situation B. 

Tip #3 - Stay in touch with God. So many times I've gotten frustrated with waiting for guidance and I've stopped praying or spending time in the Bible. HUGE mistake. How can you get guidance from someone you're not speaking to? So yeah, this shouldn't need to be a tip, but I'm guessing some of you do stupid things like this sometimes, too.

Tip #4 - Consult trusted, faithful people. God can and does speak through Godly people. This is not to say that you should do everything the people you trust tell you to do. Always test their advice against scripture and your own conversations with God. But also don't overlook those people as mouthpieces of God's wisdom.

Hope this is helpful. Leave me some feedback or questions in the comments or click here to email me a hopeforsi@hotmail.com. Love y'all!

Don't Touch the Apple

"It's one thing to not want something; it's another to be told you can't have it." 

- How I Met Your Mother, Season 7, Episode 12

Have you ever experienced this harsh reality? I have. I didn't want kids until I had to have a hysterectomy. Now, I really really want them. I didn't really want to go to my friends' parties or go dancing and such until I discovered that I have a husband is just pretty much never going to want to do those things. Now, it's my definition of fun.

What is it about those things we're told we can't have that makes them all the more enticing? Some people have told me that my desires for kids and socializing purely because I can't have them is a result of the Fall (of humankind, Adam & Eve, etc.). Not true. See, Adam and Eve were told not to eat the apple. They did. This is BEFORE the Fall, okay. There is simply something intrinsically interesting in what we can't have. I can't explain it. I can only say this: when you want something you've been told you can't have, slow down and take some time to make that decision. You can also try to find substitutes that might tide you over until the craving passes (just never try to substitute anything for chocolate - it's not worth it). For example, instead of rushing into adopting a baby, I got another kitten, who insists on waking me up periodically throughout the night, is extremely talkative, and chews on/eats everything in sight. In retrospect, a baby might have been the better choice there...

Wanting what I can't have also contributes greatly to my depression, self-injury, and suicidal tendencies. When I get wrapped up in mourning the one that got away, the babies I'll never have and hold, the farm I'll never have, and the husband's love I'm not likely to have, I begin to unravel. Those are times when I tend to self-injure in some way, whether visible or not, and often consider suicide. So, I haven't figured out how yet, but these are things I now know that I must not think about. For now, my temporary coping mechanism is to recite to myself all the bad things having that thing would/could bring. It's certainly not a permanent fix, and it may not even be truly healthy, but it keeps me safe for now.

What do you want that you can't have? How do you cope? Does it contribute to your health and safety issues? Comment here or shoot me an email at hopeforsi@hotmail.com.

Unending Love

This entry was inspired by an incredible message at church this morning. As always, you need not be Christian to read, comment, or take something from this blog, though. (See this link for the message which inspired this post, which will be uploaded in the next week. It is called "As in Adam, So in Christ")

Who are you? Take a moment to think about it. Consider the aspects you try to keep hidden, the things you try to keep yourself from believing, the things that have enormous impact on our identity, and even the things that depend on the perceptions of those around us.

We have, essentially, two options of ways to identify ourselves. The first is through Adam (as in the first man), which is to say through humanity. This option reflects the broken world we live in, in which we experience spiritual, psychological, social, and physical death. (This is a common choice of non-Christians and is the source of sayings such as YOLO.)

The second option is to identify ourselves through Christ. That is, through the resurrection. This allows us to experience spiritual, psychological, social, and physical death both now and (more fully) in the next life. 

So in what ways are you experiencing the results of the life of Adam?

For me, this list includes depression, self injury, and marriage issues, among many others.

In what ways are you experiencing life through Christ?

This list, for me, is short, including only the limited ministry I have through this blog.

It was quite shocking for me to see that I'm experiencing the results of Adam's actions more than those of Christ. Still, in the midst of my struggle to see myself the way Christ does, it is encouraging to know that "neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans 8:38-39). In my life, this means that no cut, no burn, no marriage issue, no amount of low self-esteem, nothing can make God stop loving me. Nothing.

This is not to say that we don't do bad things. We do. Only that those bad things cause us to distance ourselves from God, but God does not stop loving us as a result. God never stops loving you, if you only believe. Now that's the kind of love we all desire.

Resting

I decided to take this past weekend off from all of my normal work. This meant I would have free time to do things I enjoyed or even just do nothing. Those of you who struggle with self-injury know just how dangerous this is. When I'm busy, I think about cutting/burning less. However, I felt I needed to take this weekend off because I was simply burnt out.

So, Saturday morning, I helped some friends move. It was therapeutic, and I came home in a great mood. Then, a friend decided to cut off all communication with me due to starting a new romantic relationship. Immediately, the self-blaming began. I wondered what I had done wrong. I cried in the bathtub for two hours. No matter how much my friend assured me that it had nothing to do with the status of our friendship, I couldn't help but feel I'd done something wrong. As you can see, my weekend off was spiraling out of control. I was depressed. I was triggered. I was hurting more than I'd hurt in quite some time.

But I vowed to continue taking the weekend off, even though work would have helped me cope. I headed to a friend's party, where the sheer number of babies and pregnant women present painfully reminded me of what I would never have. Then, that night, the serious issues with my own marriage relationship were re-exposed. Talk about a double whammy. I slept on the couch that night, though I use the word "slept" quite liberally. I didn't sleep more than about fifteen minutes the whole night. It was the kind of night where I had to make a very conscious decision to stay on the couch and ignore the calling of the blade.

Still, in spite of all of the trials that popped up during my "restful" weekend, I did learn something about rest. Resting, truly resting, takes effort. When you're struggling with an addiction, that effort is doubled. When you're also dealing with relationship issues, it's quadrupled. Why? Because addictions and relationship issues are things that we (or at least I) tend to bury in work when I've done all I can otherwise. What I should be doing, when I've done everything in my power to fix the addiction and the relationship issues, is to rest in God. After all, my SI addiction and my marriage and friendship issues are bigger than me. But they're not bigger than Him. They will never be bigger than Him.

Relationships & SI

I've done no formal research, but based on my own experiences and my conversations with fellow self-injurers, it seems that there is a strong link between relationships and self-injury, both positive and negative. Those of us who self-injure seem to tend to define ourselves by our relationships. If someone tells us we are ugly, we believe them. If someone we expected to help us out ignores the wounds they clearly see, we assume we are invisible. But it's not true. And lest you think I say that lightly, let me tell you a little story.

The initial trigger for my self-injury was a boyfriend who seemed distant at best. When I started self-injuring, he didn't notice the bruises or cuts, or said nothing if he did. The self-injury continued through our engagement and marriage. He still said nothing. About four years into our marriage, I was diagnosed with depression, and I sat him down and talked to him about my depression and self-injury. I asked him to keep me accountable, to simply ask how I was doing with the SI and to ask if he saw suspicious injuries. He never has. Not once. The man who is supposed to care the most refuses to even acknowledge the cuts and burns he saw on my arm yesterday.

Depressing, right? Except it's not anymore. I've come to the conclusion that who I am married to says nothing about who I am or what I am worth. Yes, I chose him, so it says something about who I was when I married him, about what I wanted back then, but the way he reacts (or doesn't) to my SI issues does not mean anything about me. Rather, it says something about him. He is, for some reason, incapable of dealing with these issues. And I can't blame him. SI is scary stuff.

So, here's the thing. How your boyfriend, girlfriend, husband, wife, family, friends, acquaintances, classmates, teachers, coworkers, or anyone else reacts to you does not indicate your worth. That being said, surround yourself with people who do reflect your worth. My husband may unintentionally convey to me that I am not worth his time, but I choose friends who do care and make the time to help me without getting annoyed or overwhelmed.

Find yourself one person who will always react positively. Message me here if you need it to be me, though I encourage you to find someone you can meet face to face. Find someone like this: One of my friends is actually a former drug addict, which has been helpful. He understands how hard it is to give up an addiction. And when I relapsed a couple days ago, his response was "Time to start again. Forgive yourself and move on."