I went to therapy today. The last couple of times have been really good. I left smiling and laughing. Today I went and I happen to be sort of sleep deprived right now and couldn't think of anything important to say until 15 minutes before I was going to leave I remembered that I had written "Dodging Teapots". I read through it again while my counselor read it. I had forgotten that I had even written it.
Those were some pretty intense feelings but they didn't stay, obviously since I had forgotten about them. Which I could use as hope (as my counselor suggested) for future times when that happens again. Saying to myself, "Hey, this isn't going to last. Get it all out now and then it's out of me instead of inside of me. I'll be able to let it go without a problem."

I look forward to the day when I'll be in control of my own mind. But with the acceptance that there may be sometimes where I might not be in control, but that it will still be okay. And that I don't need to be a control freak when it comes to myself.

For some reason the fact that I had forgotten all those feelings feels good. It feels like progress. It feels like I know it was a big deal for me at the time, but I was able to and did let it go. That's wonderful!

Now, I have to go to bed. I'm so dang tired and really need sleep.

Until next time :) keep your chin up.

Loves

Dodging Teapots

Alright.
My life is changing. I did the very best that I could the last four months, yet I'm still having bad repercussions.
I feel like I'm in The Sword in the Stone where Merlin is packing up everything in his house and things are banging into one another and everything is flying everywhere all at once!!
And I'm just standing here trying not to get hit in the head with a teapot yelling, "Okay, okay! What is going on?? What's going on?? Everybody just needs to CALM DOWN!"

Nothing is really listening to me :( that's what you get trying to get ten thousand inanimate objects into a little bag. My friend gave me some advice last night that goes as follows, "Step one: don't give up. Step two: don't give up. Step three: have patience." There were two other steps but they applied to something else.

Okay, so I'll have patience. I learned something about patience five years ago that has stuck with me ever since. "Patience is not indifference. Actually its caring very much but being willing nonetheless to submit to the Lord..." Neal A. Maxwell.
5 years ago that's exactly what patience was to me. Making myself indifferent to whatever it was I was desiring at the moment. I've since changed that and now willingly admit to the Lord when something means something to me. When something matters a great deal to me. I guess...now I need to exercise more faith, or more likely remember my faith. Because...there are things that I'm not getting that I very much want. And it's not like I'm praying for ten thousand dollars (though that would be nice). I'm praying for things like, a whole heart again. Feeling appreciated. Feeling worthwhile. Feeling hope that someday certain things in my life will work out and more importantly (for I know that all will work out with the Lord) that I'll be at peace in the meantime.

I'm reverting back to some old ways, ways that I thought I'd gotten rid of. Things like feeling I have to be perfect when it comes to most things. Or feeling like if I don't receive something I work for than the obvious reason for me not getting it is because I don't deserve it or I'm not good enough for it.

I need friends but in order to have friends I feel like I have to be all happy and chipper and giving the vibes that I just love life and all that jazz. When, truth is, though I do love my life very much, it's just hard right now. My logic is telling me, who would want to be friends with someone who is going through what you are? And who wants to help someone who is experiencing what you are? I'm thinking, no one should have to deal with this. No one should have to share my burden. I know that that isn't the right way to be thinking, but it's hard to believe it in eye of the tornado I find myself in. I was actually even writing this on my other blog, but thought, "Hey, that blog is supposed to be inspiring and I feel pretty far off from inspiring right now."

This blog I can be more real on. Why do I feel like I can't be real other places?
Hmm, I think I know why, I think it's because after a while of being down in the trenches, you should be able to pull yourself out or buck up or something.

Man...you wouldn't think that I know anything about depression, huh? Saying that last thing. I'm just tired of faking it most days. When people come up to me and ask me how I am I want to be able to say, "I AM FANTASTIC!" and mean it. I try to tell the truth by saying, my outside life is wonderful. Nothing is amiss in my outside world.
My inside world is a whole other story. When I tell people I'm not doing well on the inside they give me a hug, tell me they're sorry and then walk away. Can you blame me for feeling some of what I feel? People don't want to help me with this. Not really. That doesn't make them bad people, but it also doesn't make me want to be friends with them, because they don't seem willing to help me with what I need the most.
I had two friends, one who is a good friend of mine, blow me off completely when they asked me how I was doing and I replied, "not so hot." CHANGED THE SUBJECT COMPLETELY.
Thanks. Thanks a lot.


-sigh- Guess I gotta just keep dodging teapots; one teapot at a time.

Still

Painfully truthful:

I could sure use a lift for my own hopeless heart..

I wish I could find a better way to remove all the filth that fills me up sometimes.

I want someone with me always.

I wish everyday were sunny and warm. I wouldn't take it for granted. I would relish every moment, I really would.

I wish Kendall was still my best friend.

I'm waiting for someone who really cares about me.

Sometimes I want a "good reason" to yell at someone..sometimes I feel like looking for a fight. I felt like that today.
But I would never. Not intentionally. Not pre-meditatingly so. Yes, I just made that word up.

I wish I didn't feel upset that Callie is still good friends with him. I wish I didn't feel alienated, cut-off and like an awful person because of it.

I hope, that despite myself...

At this moment...my own hope is just a glimmer. But it's still there.

I want to quit my job instead of having to try and fix the problems I'm having with my manager and working twice as hard as I already feel I do to prove to someone (who doesn't believe) that I'm more than worth anything having there.

I hope school isn't always such a thorn in my side. Not the learning...I love learning. But the technical, financial, administrative stuff.

I'd like to come across more shiny/sparkly things.

I wish people would stop pointing out how skinny I am and telling me they've noticed that I've lost weight.


Hum the tune to More Holiness Give Me and Have I Done Any Good in the World Today?

Night

Dream

Something incredible happened last week in my therapy session. I left laughing! That's HUGE! I have never been in a laughing mood after leaving a session. It felt really good :)

I want to tell you about a dream I had the other night. Just as a refresher, I have cRaZy dreams that are more often than not disturbing and leave me feeling sort of ill in the mornings. But a couple of nights ago I dreamt that I had gone to a hospital because I wasn't feeling well. I was sitting on the floor against a wall and a doctor was crouching in front of me asking questions and watching me closely. I was hallucinating things which was making it hard for me to focus on him and what he was saying. He was very concerned with my behavior. And admitted me and took me into a non-conventional examination room where there was a psychiatrist and another doctor.

Now, something interesting happened here. I was actually me in this part.

Normally, when I dream, I am always viewing myself from an outside perspective. There have been only two dreams to my recollection that I have actually been inside of myself and both of those instances have been in the last couple of months.

So, as the psychiatrist asked me questions and was watching me very closely, I, all of the sudden, was very tired; to the point where I just put my head down on the arm of the couch I was sitting on and closed my eyes. For the rest of the dream (which consisted of hours and hours passing by) I floated in and out of consciousness. Every time I came to again I felt that sensation when you're heavily drugged; physically heavy and mentally just...heavy. You know, all drugged up. But I wasn't on any drugs. By the end of the dream there were several more doctors in the room, all observing me closely.

At first this might sound like another disturbing dream, but I woke up (for real) feeling quite different. And later in the day I figured out why. It wasn't disturbing because I was safe in that room. And every doctor that was in there was in there for me. I was under professional care.

After a day of pondering this dream its become one of the best dreams I have ever had. I was safe. And despite the fact that there was obviously something very wrong with me and that I was weak and basically helpless, I still had many people who were truly watching over me.

I asked one of my friends what he thought this dream might have meant and he said, "Well, perhaps it symbolizes that you're starting to look at life through your perspective and not how other people might see you."

I really liked that answer, too. Either way that to me, is progress. Progress deep down inside.

And just as a side note, I don't read into every dream like this but this dream was special.

I didn't quite know which blog to post this on...

Do you like potatoes? I do. Especially ones cubed and then smashed on my plate with a whole lot of butter on them :) Have you pealed a lot of potatoes? I have. Have you ever come across one that has a whole lot of bruises on it? But your mom (or you) insists on using every good part and so you end up meticulously cutting out each bruise?

I feel like I'm doing that right now. I feel like I have to do that. And I don't know, honestly, if I have to or not.

I will warn you now that I'm going to be a bit vague from here on out because I just need to write down my thoughts with the chance that maybe someone will read it, even if they don't that's the not point. It's just the chance that someone could read it. And let's face it, you're probably smart enough to see through my ambiguity anyhow.

I feel like I'm meticulously (yet not exactly obsessively) cutting little parts of my heart out;
a memory here and there...and here and here and here, too. There goes a little section for seeing reality. There goes a section for another memory. There's a piece for a day dream. Another one for mentioning a name. And here for driving past a street. A building. Hearing a song. Smelling a smell. Again for recognizing reality. Another piece for shame, one for hurt, for betrayal, several for little sadnesses...( <-- not a real word, btw)

I wonder. I ponder. Sometimes I ask. Other times I ignore. I embrace, I shove away.


And yet mercifully, despite everything Heavenly Father still lets me know on a daily basis that it will all fade. In fact I was promised that the past will not matter and it will fade like a dream.

I look forward to that day while at the same time doing my best to make today count. Despite everything. There will still be times when that paragraph above may happen again but I know I won't look back on right now with regret. I'm still living with no regrets.

I'll look back on right now, or maybe I won't, either way I'm content again, after writing this, with my situation. I am where God has led me. And how can anyplace (even a miserable jail named Liberty) where God is be ugly? Where God is, it is beautiful. A jail can become a temple, a place of revelation.

And a life that has scars can become a smooth plain where God dwells. He loves being with us. He loves making our lives, earth-stained as they are, become as clean and fresh as the whitest, cleanest linen.