It's Going To Be Hard Work

The past two days, as in Thursday and Friday, have been interesting for me. Thursday I had a good therapy session. Well, it was hard but good. See, since I fell into this deep, dark depression these past many months I stopped going to see my therapist because I felt nobody could help me. And to be honest, I didn't want the help. I just wanted to stay in my bed and sleep as much as possible to escape being awake and feeling like absolute shit. But finally, I made the phone call and got an appointment to see her. My first session back I pretty much started crying as soon as I sat down on the couch and couldn't stop for the entire hour. Of course, because of the severity of my depression that she saw she wanted to see me again this week so I had another appointment for Thursday. Thursday's appointment was almost as much crying but also very productive. She was actually kinda hard on me, I mean not hard on me in a bad way, a good way. She's kinda kicking my ass into gear, which is good. I need it. She's basically told me that if I really want to get out of this horrible depression that it's gonna be hard work and I've got to be dedicated to doing the work. Not really what I wanted to hear because I just want there to be a magic wand that can make my depression go away and make me happy. But there is no such magic wand so I have to do the work. And it's going to be so hard and I don't know if I can do it. But I have gotten side tracked....what was I talking about? oh yeah....

So, Thursday's therapy session was productive and a kick in the ass but I felt good about it. And then I forced myself to get out of the house and go have coffee with one of my most dearest friends, as I have already wrote about. And that was so very great. So that leads me to Friday. I felt so good about Thursday that that night, I texted another very dear friend of mine that I've known since High School and asked her if she would go out to lunch with me. She agreed with enthusiasm. But Friday morning rolled around and I, of course, woke up depressed, feeling like shit and actually thought of canceling my lunch date. But then I remembered what my therapist said, it's gonna be work. I also heard my Pastor's voice in my head, who is also one of my most dearest friends in the world, threatening to kick me in the shins if I don't go. I also knew that I would feel much better about my day if I went out with my friend. So I did. And it was fantastic having lunch with her. And I was right, I felt better about my day. I still felt like shit, I'll admit because I'm so far down into a depression hole, but I didn't feel AS bad as I know I would have if I didn't push myself out that door.

So, here I am today, it's Saturday and the good feelings of Thursday and Friday are still lingering with me. I went out with my mom to run some errands and I bought myself a new pair of shoes that actually have a heel on them! I haven't worn shoes with heels since my accident and I LOVE heels! So I bought myself a pair of high heels (wedge high heels actually, but still a heel!) as well as some new earrings so that they will inspire me to get dressed and get out of the house and see my friends because how boring is it to stay in the house all day wearing my pajamas? It's much more fun to put on some clothes and those heels and accessories and get out of the house!

I don't know how this next week is going to go or tomorrow for that matter. I still have a long, LONG way to go to climb out of this dark place I've been and I know there are going to be many setbacks but I have felt good about the past couple days and that's what I need to focus on to get me through today because I have no idea how I'm going to feel tomorrow. Well, I have an idea because it's how I've been feeling for the past four months basically but at least today has continued on from the good feelings of Thursday and Friday. As Kirsten Dunst says in the movie Elizabethtown, "Sadness is easier because it's surrender." And though I am tired of fighting this fight and have wanted to give up many days, I don't want to surrender and let the depression and the accident win.

Getting Out of the House

Today I had two dates: one was with my wonderful therapist. The other was with one of my dearest friends, Kristen Larkin. The first date was productive but hard. The second date was wonderful. Kristen and I went to Whitehouse Coffee here in La Grande. It's a new (well, kinda new) coffee house here in town that's pretty spectacular and I have never been so Kristen popped my "whitehouse" cherry as she put it :) We got some coffee and then went upstairs to one of the rooms and hung out drinking our coffee and talking about EVERYTHING. I only expected us to be there for maybe an hour or little more but we ended up talking for two and a half hours and I had the best time with her! We just talked and reminisced. It was really good for me. I truly enjoyed her company. And it felt SO GOOD to get out of the house. To actually get dressed was a big step.

I am finding it hard to get up in the mornings and put one foot in front of the other anymore. I'm getting so tired of fighting this fight and being alone. But then a friend like Kristen forces me out of the house and I remember why I'm fighting. I still feel like shit, but I guess little moments like my time with her help me forget about my personal daily Hell, even if it's only for a couple hours. The unfortunate thing is it is only a couple hours out of the many hours that make up my Hell because then I come home and I feel alone again and I get hard on myself. I don't mean to make my home sound horrible because it's a loving environment but you get my drift. So, I go to bed and try to sleep and dream because that's my only way to escape. I'm tired of feeling like this. I'm tired of being alone. I'm tired of my scars. I'm just plain old tired and run into the ground from depression and this journey.

But I want to thank you, Kristen, for a wonderful morning. I truly needed it. I want to thank everyone who reads my blog. I hope with all my heart that I inspire you to live, to truly live because you never know what can happen in life. I never thought something like this could happen to me but it did. And it has cost me a lot, even possibly my faith and spirituality. God, I'm tired...

Easter Sunday Church

I know I haven't written in awhile but it's because I have fallen into a deep depression and I haven't known what to say, or even felt like writing. I haven't felt like a lot of things are worth doing lately so I've been pretty depressed, as I said. But I went to church yesterday for Easter but I didn't go because I believe in God or even Jesus Christ because to be honest with you, I'm so angry at God that I have lost a lot of faith and belief in a higher power. I went because one of my dearest friends, Clay, who is also the Pastor at my church, asked me to go. I couldn't deny him. So my mother and I went and it was the first time I'd set foot inside a church in months. Clay's wife sat by me as well, which was nice. So good to see her, by the way. But, Clay's sermon was beautiful and the music was beautiful. Throughout most of the hour, I just sat there and stared at the great wooden cross that hangs behind the pulpit and I couldn't stop the tears from flowing down my cheeks. I kept thinking to myself, as I stared at that cross, "Why? Why God? I am here! Please answer me!" But I couldn't hear any answer, I couldn't feel any answer. But I continued to stare at the cross, tears continuing to fall down my cheeks.

And then Clay gave a most wonderful sermon that made me cry even more. I felt like he was talking directly to me with the subject matter of his sermon. I went through four Kleenexes during that hour of church and went through so many emotions. I didn't come across some epiphany that made me believe in God again but I did feel like I was spoken to by someone who serves God. Maybe, when I was staring at the cross and asking why, I was answered by my Pastor who serves God, if there is one.

I am still very angry, very depressed, and feel very alone. But I think going to church on Easter Sunday was good for me. Thank you, Clay for making me go.

One Day I'll Fly Away

As the musical lyrics go, "One day I'll fly away. Leave all this to yesterday," I can only hope that that will happen for me. I just want to fly away from all of this, the sorrow, the anger, the self-loathing and hate for God, the depression, the crying. Leave it all to yesterday and move to my new city, which I will not name yet but have decided on, with hope, happiness, determination, and full of life again. I'm tired of all these negative emotions that harbor inside of me. But I don't know how to get rid of them. They feel like demons inside of my soul and I just want to exorcise them. I want to be happy again, to smile again. I'm sick of the roller coaster ride of emotions that I experience on a daily basis. One moment I'm sad, then I'm crying, then I'm angry, the next I'm simply flat, I feel nothing and I stare at the wall. I stare at the wall for so long that suddenly it's like I'm not seeing anything and I can't move. It's like I'm swallowed up into a hole where dark thoughts begin to fester in my mind and I think of the unthinkable. But after awhile in that hole, I'm back to the wall and now instead of going on a roller coaster of emotions, they're all at me at once. Attacking me from every angle so that I'm not just sad, I'm angry and sad and depressed and crying. Breakdown. I'm not staring at the wall anymore, I've hit it. Bottomed out. And this happens to me nearly every day.

So where are you, God? Why make me suffer every day not only physically but psychologically as well! I've been tortured enough! But yet, I face at least a couple more years worth of surgeries and recovery and I fear the psychological torture will follow with it. I almost want to be free of you, God, as you seem to be of me. Never in my most horrible thoughts before the accident did I ever imagine something like this could happen to me. These kind of things happened to other people, not me. But now, I, am one of those people that other people look at, hear about and then distance themselves from the news of it because it happens to other people, not them.

Last night, I cried myself to sleep singing, "One day I'll fly away. Leave all this to yesterday," over and over as the tears fell from my eyes, streamed down my cheeks and onto my pillow until I finally made my escape from it all into sleep.

Creating A Future

"The future is not a result of choices among alternative paths offered by the present, but a place that is created - created first in the mind and will, created next in activity. The future is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating."

Yesterday I had a major breakdown. I just couldn't see how my life was going to get any better. I'm scared that this next procedure is not going to work. Not for lack of faith in my doctor but for lack of faith in my own body and how it just never seems to do what the doctor's try. My body scars terribly, grafts don't take well and if they do they just end up in terrible contractures. Even the doctors say I'm one of the worst scar formers they have ever seen. So I'm so scared that what they are trying to do to fix my lower lip just isn't going to work. Then everything else about my life just came rushing up around me, my past, my life as it is now, and what is to be of my future. What scares me the most of all those three is my future. I don't know when all these surgeries are going to end, when I will be ready in my recovery to start my life again. And that brings me to the next question, when that happens, what am I going to do with my life, my future? My heart is bleeding to act again. It pumps with acting fever. But will all this reconstruction to fix me all work in the end so that I can act again? And I'm afraid the answer is a devastating no.

So this morning I found this quote and it's given me an insight, maybe even an epiphany. This quote offers a unique idea about our choices and our futures. If my future is first created in the mind, then my future is to act again. To be in front of that camera again and play a character. But according to the quote, it is also created in the will and next in activity. So by that equation, I must have the will to be strong enough to get through every day despite how bad I feel and that's the hard part. I still avoid the mirror only looking into it when I have to put make-up on to go out, which is rare.

But the unknown author of this quote also says our future is created in activity, that it is not some place we are going to, but one we are creating. So what am I doing to create my future? Right now, the answer to that question is a big fat nothing. I hide out scared that I have no future anymore, hating God for taking it away from me. How do I get out from under this blanket of self-loathing, God hating, and depression to get active and get started on my way to creating a future? To be honest, I really don't know how. That blanket is awful heavy and I'm awfully weak in the mind and will to throw if off and say enough! I day dream all day long about the future that my heart aches for. And sometimes my heart aches for that future of acting again that I actually feel like it's actually crying tears for what may never be.

What remains is simply that if I'm going to have a future again, I must create it. But I'm scared that I can't create the future I have dreamed about since I first got a taste for it in the 6th grade. I always thought I was lucky that I knew what I wanted to do with the rest of my life since I was very young. I thought it was my destiny. Now I'm just lost in the present, unsure of a future that I can create.