Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Freedom From Guilt?

12:06 PM by Christi Bowman

I am reading a book, "The Wounded Heart" by Dr. Dan B. Allender. On page 13 Dr Allender states: "One of the central messages of most books on abuse, this one included, is freedom from the guilt of the past abuse." I excitedly underlined "freedom from the guilt of the past abuse" because I was hopeful, but then I read "What occurred is not your fault.", and I was crestfallen.

I do suffer from guilt, but, unlike most, maybe, I understand that the abuse was not my fault. I don't need anyone to comfort me in that way. I struggle with the continuation of the cycle. I struggle not with anger towards my abuser, but with anger towards people in general and my children specifically. I struggle a bit with OCD. I also struggle with depression when my OCD is unmanagable because I have small children running around. I struggle with control, and personal space. When people, besides my children, disturb the order of things I choose to not be around them which, I will admit, is very limiting, but, my kids, I cannot choose to avoid.

When my children disturb the order of things I find that sometimes I can control myself but at other times I just can't. I do things that I don't agree with and that, my reading friends, is what I want freedom from...and no, I don't just want freedom from the guilt of the things that I do...I want freedom from the things I do.

Please pray for me; I covet your prayers. I am being proactive. A friend of mine told me that people don't change until they find that they are in to much pain to continue on in the way they always have. I did not quite believe her because I was very aware that my anger has always caused me great pain and I have always believed the pain of it to be unbearable, but I could never change no matter how bad the hurt or how hard I tried.

That all changed on a Wednesday night two weeks ago (05/13/09.) I couldn't sleep. I was journaling about this most recent healing season I have entered, and a memory of past abuse grabbed me and yanked me back to my past. I woke my husband at 2 a.m. desperate not to be alone. I told him I was tired, tired of holding it all together by a single, bare thread. I was tired of not knowing when I was going to have a bad day. I was tired of desperately trying to behave myself when a bad day was upon me, and I was most tired of failing and doing and saying things that I regret to those I love most in this world. One of my biggest fears is that my little ones whom I love will in some way become like me and this cycle will continue for generations to come. I want to be the cycle breaker!

There have been days when I have not wanted to get out of bed, but I have done it anyway for the sake of the children. There are days when I wanted medication to ease the insanity and take the edge off, but I had none. There were days when I wanted to tear apart the house with my bare hands but I chose to yell and belittle instead. I felt as though I was my own worst enemy because I looked like I was doing just fine, but I wasn't. On Wed night I told my husband that I was tired of behaving, but that I didn't know how to stop. I didn't know how to just let go and so I wanted to die. Wednesday night was the first night I have ever been suicidal and I was in indescribable pain.

On Thursday we took the kids to their paternal grandparents house and we started looking for places to help me get well. On Saturday we settled for inpatient treatment at Linden Oaks hospital and I checked myself in. I was there for five days and they were well spent. Life on the outside was like finger nails on a chalk board everything around me was overstimulating to the point of absolute craziness.

Those five days taught me a lot about myself. On Thursday I was discharged to an outpatient program and aloud to return home in the evenings. After I have completed the outpatient program I will continue to see a therapist. I was able to see my three beautiful children over the holiday weekend in St Louis and I was overjoyed to spend some time with them. They will remain with their paternal grandparents for about two more weeks as I continue to stabilize.

I want freedom from abuse...both past and present.

Labels: abuse, anger, Depression, freedom, suicide

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Friday, May 1, 2009

Rock Bottom...again

10:58 PM by Christi Bowman

Matthew 5:3-5

"You're blessed when you're at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.

"You're blessed when you feel you've lost what is most dear to you. Only then can you be embraced by the One most dear to you.

"You're blessed when you're content with just who you are - no more, no less. That's the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can't be bought.

I am a strung out next best thing junkie. God has stripped me of anything tangible to place my hope in. I stand here filled with the knowledge that I do not know how to put my hope in Him. He is not the source of my joy; the next best thing is. He has made me painfully aware that without the next best thing to hope in I can barely get myself out of bed in the morning. He has finally brought me to the painful realization that He is in fact not what I live for...I have hit rock bottom...again.

A little over a year and a half ago I hit rock bottom for the first time. I had squeezed the last drop of pleasure out of every single addiction I had and they became nothing but an evil presence stealing life from me. I was living for my next fix...my next high...and it was in that wretched state that God came and rescued me; He lovingly stripped me of every single addiction I had, and He taught me how to live without them. He was my source of strength and comfort when, without my addictions, I dealt with why I was an addict. He made walking through the pain almost enjoyable as I got to soak in His presence as He made everything beautiful and worthwhile.

but that is not the end of my story.

I am on a long and hard journey with plenty of gigantic hurdles. Jesus has offered me a lot of healing but He has also been a sharp shooter; He has not hesitated to show me where I continue cycles of pain and hurt many people as I have been hurt. Owning up to the part I play instead of playing the victim has been especially painful with no vice to turn to...or so I thought.

This year and a half has been a period of cleansing but it has also been a period of emptying. Healing comes in layers, and after taking away the obvious more socially inappropriate addictions He has begun His work on the addictions that don't look so bad to the naked eye.

I like things to happen...I like excitement. I do not like hitting brick walls. I do not like to be still and wait. If the house were to sell that would be something to put my energies into. It would take up all of my time and the future would be something I could put my hope in. Our house is not selling...no one will even come and look at it. If we had people in the market to buy coming over to walk through our home every now and then that would be promising...it would be a next best thing...something to look forward to...something to put my hope in...

For the last two weeks I have been on a juice fast of sorts. Nothing but freshly pressed vegetable juice all day and a plant based meal at night. The first week was easy, but this last week has forced me into a depression as I have nothing to look forward to...nothing at all. It is as if sugar, and salt, and caffeine were my last bastions of tangible hope, and without them I might as well be giving up alcohol for the first time all over again.

A clean house is how I have always kept a firm grip on my reality. If my house was in order than I was too. Lately I have lost all of the energy I need to keep my house in good shape; it is all I can do to keep the sink clear of dishes. As I watch things pile up I feel hopeless but powerless. I have never understood, in the past, how people could just give into depression and quit fighting, but from where I am standing right now it doesn't seem so much like me giving in as much as it is taking over and I am powerless to stop it.

So here I sit at Rock bottom...again...with all my addictions stripped from me. There is no exciting future right around the corner to hope in...there are no potential buyers to hope in...there are no socially acceptable stimulants to get me through this funk and there is no ability to clean a house and so there is no place of order to retreat to and find my sanity...

I have finally arrived at the place I have unwittingly been avoiding for as long as I can remember. I have no where to run and nothing to hide in. God has stripped me of everything I have used to prolong this moment...both the acceptable and the unacceptable things. It is just me and a whole lot of pain and nothing tangible to soothe it and bury it in. I am learning the hard way how to hope in Him because I have nothing left to hope in but His promises. So I will sit here waiting and hoping in His healing presence because He does not give to me as the world gives...He does not want to gloss over the pain or bury it until the next time...He wants to truly heal and remove that ever present nagging ache in my soul that I am forced to face whenever it chooses to rear its ugly head...and that is worth the setting down of all that is tangible.

He is not coming fast for me as He did last time because He is teaching me to hope in Him.

"Speak to me in the light of the dawn
Mercy comes with the morning
I will sigh and with all creation groan
as I wait for hope to come for me"

Labels: Depression, Hope, waiting

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