Learning to Breathe: I reached out in my depression

Linda, Emmalee, Mom, and Kaylee making our 2020 sparkle sign!

So, I have an appointment tomorrow with my psychiatrist.
I haven't been to see her since October 2017. If I'm honest with myself, I did needed to see her between that time and now. But I was doing so much better. I was making friends, finding purpose in my life, feeling part of the community, feeling useful, feeling like a good mom and teacher, feeling I was being less of a burden to my husband, and even raising a pup with my family. But I'm not OK.

I went for my six month check up with my oncologist yesterday. Hooray! The labs are clean. He was a little concern with one test, but not too concern to raise any alarms. I can't convey emotion through writing easily so let me tell you that "Hooray!" was a sarcastic one. I'm feeling sick. I feel no energy. I'm tired all the time. I wake up feeling worse than when I went to bed. My head hurts constantly. My mood is terrible. I have no motivation, no joy, no excitement. I get out of bed out of pure obligation to my role as a mom and wife. If I were single, I would be stuck in bed til Kingdom come. Because my physical exams and check up came back clean, it was the oncologist who suggested I visit the psychiatrist to see what's ailing me.

"Do I have a mental illness?" I asked my oncologist through the tears.
"No. Everyone just needs a little help from time to time," he replied.
"But if I'm trying real hard, and I am, and I still need to see a doctor and take medication for it then I must be ill."
"Depression is an illness. You are right," he concludes, while he hands me a tissue paper to wipe the tears flowing down my face.

"Isn't there a cap to how much one can suffer?" I ask my heavenly Father. "If I already battled and still battle cancer, shouldn't I have a break from having other health issues?" I can't take it. Our finances can't take it. Do people realize how expensive it is to pay for my labs and oncologist appointments? How up the real zinger that I can't get medical insurance with a precondition of breast cancer! Now I need to add therapy and antidepressants to that bill. I've been battling with self.harm thoughts and the thought of spending more money on me just intensifies these thoughts.

I did something I was reluctant to do. I sought help from a friend. I've never been able to open up to friends about my self-harm thoughts. My husband doesn't understand that I bite my nails to the point of bleeding as a relief from these thoughts. I like the pain. I mean, it gets so painful that at times I can barely do the dishes or cook. And I really hate how my hands look. But I feel such a release from making my inner pain manifest somewhere.

The more I talk to God and talked to this friend of how I feel, I realized some things about myself: I don't feel I deserve to have survived. My self-harm stems from the thought that I deserve to have died from cancer and not survive. I'm not worth all the money we spent on my treatment and my surgeries. I'm not worth all the hardships I make my family go through. They don't deserve a mom who is always tired and always cranky and can get no relief. Is this what psychologist refer to as "survivor's guilt"? It's so much more than just having watched Kinsley and Kara die when they were far better people than me, but it extends to the pain I feel from putting my family through this ordeal. Whenever I speak of my cancer journey, I never say "I". I always say "we." It didn't just cost me a lot. It cost my husband, my daughters, my mother, my father, and everyone that loves me and supported me. And it just doesn't stop. I finally feel I'm getting better and this happens! I go backwards. I'm bad again. I become more absent, more isolated, angrier, and sadder. And I know the girls can see it.

It was hard recounting to my friend face to face the thoughts that go through my mind. The images that go through my head that I don't even tell the hubs or my mom. She fears for me so that she wishes I had gone to psychiatrist first and the oncologist later. She tells me to be hopeful since the last time she was able to help and was able to improve for many months. She listens to what to her are clearly lies from Satan leave my mouth. And she gives me an amazing piece of advice...

Are you ready for it?
It's really good...

"Lower your expectations."

Simple, right?
Correct?
I believe so.

She continues telling me: "Your anxiety lives between the distance of your expectations and your reality."
Now, that advice can mean many things. so let me make clear what she meant. Lower your expectations on yourself as a mother, as a wife, as a Christian. Don't expect yourself to be perfect, to have it altogether, to get it right right away. Be kinder to yourself and how you speak to yourself. Lower the expectations of a perfectly clean house, or getting all you wanted done today, or your kids behaving or doing this or that. You would never talk to someone else the way you talk to yourself. But if you are beating yourself up, you will give back that hurt to those around you, you will continue to believe you deserve pain.

She gives me a second gem of advice.
She says: "Allow yourself to be where you are. Let yourself acknowledge that you are going through a hard time and let that be your reality and let yourself feel it and grieve about it."

Oh, Dear God, Hallelujah! And by the way, I did not say that "hallelujah" sarcastically. I have seldom reached out in my pain and find someone who allows me to grieve. It's why I was so reluctant to reach out. I remember in 2017 when the strength of my thoughts finally convinced me to seek medical help, I was sitting alone in my apartment fearing for my life wondering who I could tell. Anyone that came to mind felt like an unsafe choice. Now, this was my prejudice, so it doesn't mean it was true. I could have been met with sympathy and care, but at the time I didn't feel safe opening up to anyone I knew. I had been burned with their faith talks and their "victory in Jesus" phrases of how to deal with my cancer, which is a very real and visible illness, to let them further wound me when I spoke of my very invisible and often denied illness as is depression. God was kind letting me hear someone else tell me my struggles are real, our time has been hard, and it's OK to suffer from our Valley of Death. After all, He never said we wouldn't walk it. He said He'd be with us when we did. "We have Getsemani," she says.

I often tell other people who suffer from depression that there is light at the end, there is treatment available, there is help at hand. I will live by my words and go to my appointment tomorrow and have hope that the scientific advances in medicine and mental health will help me out again. I open up this part of my life because I feel I'm not alone, but I also know that most won't open up about it. It's scary. When I open up about these struggles I have many women and even some male friends send me messages where they share with me similar experiences they've been keeping locked in.

Pray for me, please? Pray for that appointment tomorrow. Pray I can find the help I need to get the start of the year I wish I was having. Somehow, even with everything we're going through God has been spoiling me. I mean, this friend lets me meet with her in her house and talk while inside her very amazing hot tub. It's true what they say: Money can't buy happiness, but it feels better crying in a hot tub. LOL. In all seriousness, God has been spoiling me. We are currently staying at my cousin's house while she is visiting Honduras. We've been here since the 8th and will be here till the 20th. It's like a stay-cation. We really feel like on a holiday. And it's weird to feel that because we are almost through the mid of January and my husband has not been paid a penny from his work on December. That is very disheartening, and yet we feel on vacation? So amidst our hard, God shows us His kindness and how He is above our situation. The girls have enjoyed our stay here that they've worked on their school work faster and more efficiently to enjoy the pool in these summer months. Even the hubs has gotten to vent and enjoy the balcony sunsets. And that's how I carry through, searching for Him everywhere and finding Him everywhere I look. Isn't that amazing, even in my depression?

Dear God,
I am sorry I don't feel worthy of your love. As my God friend Sue told me: "Don't contradict your elders." You know better. If you say I am worthy of love, I am. If you decide I am worthy of surviving, I am. It must be that You still have purpose for me down here. And I want to be well to carry it out. Please continue showing up for me and showing me how much You love and care for us. Please, please, please let this year be different career-wise for my husband and help him find decent and just employment. Please let us find more stability this year. Please let us continue to rely on You for provision and dependence. Thank you for the ways Your body has showed up for us in carrying us through. I love you, Father. Help me get better. Amen.