Rock bottom

I have never felt this alone in my life.

I am doubting myself and everything and everybody I have ever believed in. What if this whole bipolar thing is just a personality flaw and I am just too weak to make the grade in the concrete jungle?

Sometimes I cry (OK, every time I sit still and even begin to think, I cry) and sometimes I have outrageous ideas. I had an ant on my desk and called him Tony. My team played along. When the cleaner killed Tony yesterday, they did not see my tears. The Tony-thing was just a joke though, I do not hear voices and I am not delusional (but my heart was really sore when my Tony got killed). I know I am irrational and I find it really difficult to gage myself and other people.

I find it difficult to believe in a God that allows this kind of hell. I don’t understand how he decides who will get bipolar disorder (if it even exists) or how severe your moods wings ought to be.

I wonder if I will be punished for not believing when there might be a handicap locked up in my brain.

Skin

For as long as I remember, I have been a "Christian". My parents read me Bible stories and I used to pray for the men fighting on our borders and the people in hospitals long before I even knew what a border is.

When I grew older, I made a conscious decision to "follow Jesus". I studied the Bible, sometimes with friends and sometimes without. I tried to adapt my lifestyle to what I believe Jesus would want me to do. I battled with concepts like healing (I still do) and faith. Studying Theology was a logical step and getting a salary from the church I worked at made sense.

A few years later, I met an amazing bunch of people. We came up with (what I really believe God inspired) disciplines. These disciplines became a way for me to connect with God and kind of anchored me when times were tough.

Now I am in a strange place. I do not fit into my skin. I am battling to reach out to an invisible God. I am battling to believe in anything at all and those disciplines now became my accusers.

I have been avoiding my friends for months, because I cannot relate to them. I cannot meet with them to pray, because I stopped praying. I cannot 'break bread' with them, because I have nothing to share about my relationship with God. I cannot walk in another's shoes, because I cannot find my own feet. I cannot apply my talent to build up the community, because I think I make a mess of 'everything'. I still stick to downward mobility... I am pushing the boundaries on working hours, because it makes me feel like there is something I can still do. There is no way God is Number ONE in my life at the moment.

I feel like I am being sucked into a dark pit and I cannot break free. I have nightmares about how I am trying to resign from the church (as a job) and I cannot get away. I am crying when I get stuck in traffic. At the same time, I want to throw things and break it. I want to drive too fast. I just do not care anymore.

I saw my psychiatrist and she calls this a mixed episode. Apparently it is tricky, because I am experiencing mania and depression at the same time. If she takes away my anti-depressants, I might become more suicidal. If she leaves it, I might become more manic. If she introduces new stabilizers, I will gain more weight (and I really trying to loose weight). Bottomline - it is messy.

My skin does not fit. I am trying to be the me I always thought I was, but I am battling. I speak without thinking, I am hurting others. Not on purpose, I promise. It just seems to happen. I am both destructive and self-destructive and I do not want to be this me. I am just so tired of fighting this fight and not getting anywhere.

I do not love God. I do not even want to love God. But I want to want to love God. I want to want Him to be number ONE. More than anything... I want to be able to connect with this Invisible Being.

Teresa of Avila

"Oh, God, I don't love you. I don't even want to love you, but I
want to want to love you." - Teresa of Avila (and me)

Healing

I have been battling with healing for 20 years now. I remember my almost unstoppable enthusiasm when I just 'discovered' the charismata and the possibility of healing. I laid my hands on anybody with the slightest ailment and to this day believe that God healed my dog, because I asked.

At the same age, I decided never to take medicine and I used to pray for healing for myself when I had headaches and even when I had mumps at the age of seventeen. Sometimes I believe God healed me and other times not (I had mumps for almost a month!).

Ironically, the first time I came across skepticism when I studied Theology. The more I was told that we live in a broken world and sickness and disease is part of it, the more fervently I believed that God is a healing God who hears my prayers. In my second year at university, I decided to put away my glasses and ask God to heal my eyes. He didn't. Three years later I eventually had to put my glasses back on in order to drive.

I tried to figure out why I was not healed - did I not believe enough? Was there sin in my life? Did the people praying for me not believe? Was this simply not a priority to God?

I saw people getting hurt in the church as church leaders told them they did not believe enough or they didn't get healed because of hidden sin. I had to ask myself if we weren't doing more harm than good by laying our hands on people and raising their hopes? Was it fair?

After I have left the 'fulltime ministry', i.e. drawing a salary from the church, I started thinking differently about a lot of things. I read all of Philip Yancey's books and could relate to the 'hidden God' he describes. I wanted to know where God was while I was hurting and never quite got the answers.

When I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, I came to believe that I should take the medical help available and then make lifestyle changes. I saw the medicine and these lifestyle changes (healthy eating, exercise, enough sleep, a bit of sun and the fact that I had to stop drinking caffeine and alcohol) as God's way to 'keep me OK'. I never questioned it.

I know two people who are battling with cancer and saw their therapy as God's way to help. When my friend, Tom, had a heart attack and triple bypass I thought the same. It did not occur to me that I should lay my hands on him and pray, but rather for our community to support him and his family in order to facilitate his recovery.

And then... my mom got sick again.

Three years ago she was diagnosed with stomach cancer and her stomach was removed. A new stomach was molded from a part of the duodenum. A year later, the stomach grew closed at the top and had to be removed and yet another one was molded. She spent a substantial amount of time in ICU's during recovery and she was really very sick. There were times when I thought it is the end.

For the past (almost six) months, she has been displaying the same symptoms she had before the second operation. My first response was that I thought the stomach had grown closed again. My mom insisted that God would not allow it and kept going to the GP, trying different medicines.

Just more than two weeks ago, I finally got her to go to a specialist physician. He did a bariummeal and it showed that the stomach is closed at the bottom. He referred my mom to a surgeon. The surgeon showed us on the x-rays that the part of the duodenum shrivelled up and it looks like there is no blood supply to the area. She then decided that God will heal her and refused an operation to correct the problem. Bear in mind that she has hardly been able to keep a meal down in the past six months and that is losing more and more weight.

As a compromise, the surgeon agreed to do a gastroscopy yesterday. Afterwards my mom told me that it is 'just inflammation'. I want to believe her, but I know what I have seen on the x-rays and it feels like she is postponing the inevitable.

I have to ask myself if my belief in western medicine is a stumbling block to her faith? My instinct is to have the operation as soon as possible so she can eat again and her body can absorb what it needs. On the other hand, it is not my body and I know I should respect her wishes. The surgeon took samples for biposies yesterday and we should have the results on Tuesday. It just feel like this process is dragging on and on and in the meantime, she is starving.

I am at a loss here and after twenty years, I still don't understand healing.

Electro Convulsive Therapy

Over the past six months I got caught up in a steady downward spiral. Eventually the only way out that made any sense was suicide. This is not a call for attention - quite the contrary.

This morning we started ECT (electro convulsive therapy) where I get electrical shocks under anaesthetic. There are supposed to be 6 treatments in a course (Monday, Wednesday, Friday, Monday, Wednesday & Friday). However, this time we might have more as this morning wasn't really what my doctor had hoped for.

To make these treatments possible, I am also detoxing from just about all my meds. I am allowed 1/3 of my lithium and 300mg Seroquel per day. I am dizzy and nauseous. I am also not allowed to drive.

Tomorrow will be a better day.

Celtic prayer for 2011

CELTIC BLESSING
(author unknown - translated by Charles Mitchell)

"I wish you not a path devoid of clouds,
Nor a life on a bed of roses,
not that you might never need regret,
nor that you should never feel pain.
No, that is not my wish for you.
My wish for you is:
That you might be brave in times of trial,
when others lay crosses upon your shoulders.
When mountains must be climbed,
and chasms are to be crossed.
When hope can scarce shine through.
That your gift God gave you
Might grow along with you
and let you give the gift of joy
to all who care for you.
That you may always have a friend
who is worth that name.
Whom you can trust, and who helps
you in times of sadness.
Who will defy the storms
of daily life at your side.
One more wish I have for you
that in every hour of joy and pain
you may feel God close to you.
This is my wish for you,
and all who care for you.
This is my hope for you,
Now and forever."
**********

I believe

I believe in the sun -
even when it is not shining.
I believe in love -
even when not feeling it.
I believe in God -
even when He is silent.