My Recovery Series: This is NOT a Mother’s Day Blog Post

++ Disclaimer: this is a post written before I got help for my depression. In an effort to be as transparent as possible with my story, I am posting these stories so that if you read them in chronological order you can see the progression of recovery.  This is the third time I wrote, still not understanding that I was ill.  

Yesterday was mother’s day.

I don’t usually care too much about things like “made up holidays that are an excuse to buy stuff”. But yesterday felt really “bad”. Just one thing after another that helped me stumble into a bad attitude. Babies awake at 4 am, arguments with teenagers, husband not being perfect, forgot my coffee, and the house is a mess, just to name a few. All that before I even made it to church. HAPPY MOTHERS DAY!

I know that there are so many people that are going through so much more than me, maybe they are fighting cancer, or their babies are sick, they might be sitting with their mother in the hospital on this mother’s day,  or maybe they don’t have their mother here at all anymore. I should be so grateful.

But I wasn’t.

I should have been grateful for all that I have. But sometimes my gratefulness gets overwhelmed by my blues.

I was just so frustrated! I know I shouldn’t be, I know I should be happy and loving everything that is going on in my wonderful, God filled, blessed life. But that blue cloud wouldn’t lift. I wanted to stamp my foot like a child and shout “NO! NO! NO! Get out!” But the cloud persisted.

Its’ like being on a treadmill, and the darkness is lurking behind me, waiting for me to stumble, waiting for me to trip up, even slow down just a little, and it will suck me under. And once I’m in that cloud, it is SO HARD to get out. It’s oppressive and the voices in my head tell me it’s ok to just sit there in the dark, because it’s easier than trying to get back on that treadmill.

“It’s so hard to be on the treadmill” says the voice in the darkness. “Just sit here where it is easy” it continues, “No one will even know you’re gone.” And the sly voice knows all my hot spots. It says things like, “You sounded really ignorant when you said that” and “you’re a failure because you forgot that” or “You acted completely abnormal, be ashamed” On a daily basis the voice tells me “You can’t do this today, this is too much for you, you are destined to fail. just. give. up.”

Yes, that cloud is oppressive, and that voice is seductive.

And today, I don’t have the “uplifting end-of-story” I usually do. I would like to think that my faith is unshakeable, but in cloudy times, maybe not? Like I said, the cloud is thick, and the voices in my head are loud. I want to say that there’s something magical in scripture that makes all the darkness go away, but it just doesn’t work like that in a real life setting. I read, I pray, and I wait. I focus on others in hopes that it minimizes my self-absorbed brain. I put my “problems” in to perspective by counting my blessings: I’m healthy, and my kids are too, I have a home and I am taken care of by my husband. I focus on scripture that talks about being called out of darkness, and I listen to music that reminds me of how mercy works.

I trust. I trust that the darkness will lift, and God will still be waiting patiently on the other side of this cloudy part. I trust that God is still talking to me, waiting for me to listen to HIS voice, even when I am lost in my dark, self-inflicted, isolation. I trust that there will be light again.

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 1 Peter 2:9