Relocation!

Hi, all.

I have great news (from my perspective anyway!); I am moving my blog to a platform where I hope to be paid for my posts! The platform is called Vocal. However, one of Vocal's (completely understandable) requirements for posts is that content submitted to them cannot be anywhere already published on the web at time of submission, even if it's absolutely you're own work.

So, unfortunately, I have to delete all this wonderful work that is on here before I can post to Vocal. But I didn't want to leave you hanging, so this post is just a heads-up to let you know that I'm moving. But with any luck, I'll have new content up fairly soon.

Thank you so much for supporting me thus far, and I hope that support will continue after the move.

Enough is Enough

Okay, I have a bone to pick with some of the Christian community. I have heard so many cases of the scenario this post will describe, and of the sometimes irrevocable damage it inflicts, and it makes me weep with heartache and fury. Those of you who say the phrase I'll be addressing almost certainly have the best intentions, but your ignorance causes so much harm that you will never see, and I want this post to save as much future pain as possible.

When Christians confide in each other about how they are suffering currently - it doesn't even have to have a label of "depression", it can just be a really rough patch - a response they apparently often hear is: "But God should be enough for you." No matter how noble your intentions, this is one of the most unhelpful and damaging things you can say, and I really hope this post explains clearly and faithfully why and how you can change.

Firstly, let me show you how this is faulty logic. You say that God should be enough. What do you mean by "enough"? Do you mean that God's omnipotence, generosity and boundless love fills our spirit so we feel no other desires or distractions, as described in the Bible? This is true...or it will be, when we have perfect unity with Him. We still live in a fallen world, and we ourselves are still fallen, because we still sin. How/why do we still sin? Because we don't love God with all our heart, soul, mind and strength. Because God doesn't feel enough for us even when we're in a period of our lives where we are showered with His blessings, let alone when we feel distant from Him. What I'm trying to say is you're right; God's love should be enough for us, for everyone. But the very fact that we are fallen, that we are still sinful, is both the cause and the symptom of our sickness, that we don't think He is enough. No one does. And saying that is not helpful; the person suffering also reads the Bible, also listens to the sermons. They know God should be enough, but the reality is that in that rough period of theirs, He doesn't feel like He is. So instead of helping them, you have told them no knew information and instead reminded them of something else they lack.

Which brings me on to my second point. Let me show you how damaging saying that is. Picture the situation; a young woman from your regular service walks up to you, shy and nervous and steeling herself for a task that is very difficult. She tells you that her work life is extremely difficult right now, that she's feeling really insecure in her love life - whether in a relationship or single - that she had hoped for praise for a piece of work she put her heart into, and she has approached you, terrified, for comfort. Do you really, in that moment, think it's a good idea to turn to that lost and broken woman and say: "You're a bad Christian, too"? Because that is what people hear when you say that. That is such an awful thing to say, another knife in their heart that, for His own purposes, God just won't pull out no matter how loud they cry out to Him. It is especially painful if that is the only "help" you give them.

Now here is something I learnt in a recent sermon that really stuck with me. In the Bible, does it say that we should just pray for the hungry, the naked, the persecuted, etc? Of course not; we are to feed the hungry, clothe the naked, defend the persecuted. All very practical commands, all about action. That broken woman who walked up to you is in need of your practical help, though the effect may be psychological. Tell them you know how much that piece of work meant to them; tell them about a hard point in your own work life, emphasising that you feel their pain; tell them that you understand love life difficulties, because almost all of us would have felt those insecurities. God does not call us first to convert our neighbours but to love them. So love them.

I Know

Again, sorry for the delay in updating!

As I said, self-harm is a really complicated subject, so I'm touching on it again following immediately on from my previous post to make another strange thing clear.

Sometimes, when I thought about hurting or even killing myself, it wasn't to remove my existence or even to relieve stress in that weird way I explained in my previous post. My motivator was, in one very real sense, spite. At one point, there were multiple parties in my life whom I felt didn't value me as much as I wanted. So, often, a passing thought would be something like this: "If I throw myself in front of this lorry and end up in hospital or dead, then they'll be sorry. Then they'll realise how much they love me."

Now the other side of this reasoning is a lot more normal, if you think about it. I thought I wasn't getting recognition for trying. Like my efforts were just passing unnoticed. And hurting yourself is a very drastic - and sometimes unsuccessful - way of getting noticed. The Goo Goo Dolls had it right in their song Iris: "You bleed just to know you're alive."

As always though, God gave me a simultaneous rebuke and reassurance for each of these misconceptions. God, He who is Love, flooded my memory with all the wonderful times I'd had with each party involved, all the times when I had keenly felt their love, and He said, "Do you really think they don't love you already?" And He knelt down to my small, confused, angry, desperate self, curled up in a ball on the floor, and looked me right in the eyes: "Do you really think I don't notice you? Do you think I don't notice how difficult it is and how hard you're trying? Dear daughter, there's not a single breath you take, a single blink of your eyes, a single tear that you cry, that I don't notice. I noticed how frustrated you were with that essay because you couldn't get the feeling of worthlessness out of your head. I noticed how difficult it was to force your body to move and cook dinner last night. I notice it all."

It took a while, but I learnt that I could never be invisible to or unloved by the Father who always watches over all His children because He loves them beyond all love I could ever comprehend.

I'm A Balloon

Hi people!

I did not intend to go this long without posting. I've been planning my wedding (it happened in October) for so long, and I've been so busy with it I haven't had time to write anything. But now I can!

So, after that happy introduction/reunion, I now need to move on to some tough stuff. In this post, I'm going to talk about self-harm, both my own experience of it, some stuff usually reported about it, and also some science behind it. Please don't just close the page because this subject makes you uncomfortable; we really need to talk about this more in our society. However, there may be some people in psychologically dangerous situations right now reading this. If you think this will be too distressing for you, to the point where you think you may actually self-harm, leave this post until later. Do not under any circumstance feel obligated to read this post if you think it will be detrimental to your stability right now. If you think you are in danger of self-harming right now, ring someone you trust, ring an organisation like the Samaritans, ring the emergency services, just do what you have to in order to get help now. I really don't want to be the cause of distress for anyone.

Okay, now that's been said, I can start explaining what self-harm and self-harm impulses are like. As I said in my previous post, many people self-harm for many different reasons. For me, it was to relieve stress. This is where the title of this post comes in: in times of intense anxiety/stress - often a trigger for my depression - I would feel like an over-inflated balloon. An over-inflated balloon with steam coming out of my ears, I would swear blind to you that it was like my skin was being stretched painfully and that it would explode under the pressure. What do you do to relieve the pressure of an over-inflated balloon? You pop it. You let some of the air out through holes. Self-harm doesn't have to involve razors or cutting, despite this being the usual way it is imagined; it can involve anything from razors to glass to acid to fire to your own body parts and much more. My method of self-harm was digging my nails into the back of my hands as if to puncture the skin. I never did puncture the skin, but I still used enough force to leave my hands covered with red crescents that would stay for two days then fade away, as if nothing had happened.

People use self-harm as a way of distracting their brains from mental distress, among other reasons. And here's the sickening truth: it works. Very briefly after each episode I self-harmed - as in, for maximum two seconds after my nails first dug into my hand - I felt relief, like I was actually letting out some of that pressure. You may not realise it, but there is actual evidence that hurting yourself to make yourself happy makes an awkward sort of sense. When your body is hurt in some way, it releases chemicals in order to counteract the pain, called endorphins. You may have heard of them; they are the ones that are released during exercise, during physical intimacy, during moments of genuine enjoyment. They are the "happy hormones". The automatic release of endorphins after you self-harm is exactly why you feel a very brief sense of relief...and the part that you can become dependent on.

That rush of endorphins that relieves the mental distress can become something you can't live without. In times of mental distress, your first thought is to self-harm, and that reliance becomes stronger and stronger until it is your only coping mechanism. And so, I found myself stuck in a vicious cycle where I would feel stressed/anxious, I would want to self-harm, I self-harmed, I felt a brief relief, then I would feel agonising disappointment in myself because I indulged in a behaviour I knew was damaging. And so it feeds into itself.

Now, self-harm is not an addiction; an addiction is something where you cannot control the withdrawal symptoms your body experiences. Self-harm is a chosen behaviour, a coping mechanism. As with all other coping mechanisms, you can replace it with another, healthier coping mechanism. This takes time and effort and, more often than not, times of failure, times where you simply cannot resist that urge. When I admitted to a Christian close friend that I had self-harmed recently, he took my hands in his and stared directly into my eyes. "Your hands are beautiful," he said fervently, "and God made these hands to write, and to play music, and to clap, and to hug people. He didn't make them to hurt themselves." I didn't self-harm once after that encounter. I'm not sure what happened, I'm not sure what other coping mechanism I used instead (probably writing). But any time I had the urge, I remembered what my hands were meant to be used for, and I felt God take my hands in His, cradling them like they were precious diamonds.

[I've said nowhere near enough on the huge subject of self-harm in this post, and there are so many other things I'd like to say in the future. If you have any suggestions you'd like me to talk on specifically, please feel free to leave a comment or message me. If you are interested, here are links to some sources I used for the scientific side to this post:
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3625678/
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2016.00008/full
http://studentsagainstdepression.org/get-support/check-suicide-and-self-harm/understanding-self-harm/
http://www.lifesigns.org.uk/self-injury-addiction/]

...Solutions! (Bad Ones)

In my previous post, I explained how problems are compiled; how some have grown from insignificance simply because of lower tolerance to stress etc, how some completely defy logic due to flawed premises, through falsely perceived issues. So if you already have skewed problems and have already used faulty thinking to get there, the solutions are going to be just as harmful, if not more so.

First thing we should note is that, because of this lower tolerance of stress - which encompasses the feeling of things just being "wrong" - you're often more willing to do drastic things just in order to make the feeling go away, and this is often just plain avoidance. The door that gives you a panic attack: don't go out, stay inside all day, all week, all month. That awful piece of work that makes you feel like you can't do anything right: leave it until tomorrow...and the day after (ad nauseam). That supermarket that's the only one around for ten miles but is just too full of people and crowds: starve for a few days before you absolutely have to go.

However, while avoidance in itself is an active process and can be very tiring (something I'll discuss in a later post), there are other ways you solve these problems, ways that actively "rectify" the "problem".

General example: some people use self-harm (another topic I'll discuss later) as a method of control. So their thought process might go something like this: "the problem is that I have no control over the things in my life. The solution is to gain control of the pain my body feels." Something that seems so counter-intuitive, that sometimes they themselves know is awful for them mentally and physically, becomes the saving grace they cling onto in that moment. It becomes the solution, even if just the short-term one.

Personal example with a bit of context: I despite catcalling. I imagine many people who have been catcalled do, but many other women - yes, mainly women - I've spoken to don't seem to have the same physical reaction I do. Sometimes when I've been out and a guy is paying a little too much attention to me to be comfortable, I've had to go to the bathroom so I can dry-heave and/or have a panic attack and/or calm down the acid boiling in my stomach. Even without the mental health difficulties. So when I was suffering and a guy on the street said I looked "sexy" in my skirt, my reaction was explosive.

I saw a problem but not as I see it now (ie catcalling is wrong). My problem was that I was too pretty. Three guesses what my solution was: make myself ugly. That inconsiderate and self-centred man was completely ignorant that his words set off a mental obsession in me, luckily one I never followed through with actions. For three months, I had a persistent fantasy of dragging anything sharp - although my fingernails, broken glass and barbed wire featured heavily - repeatedly across my face. I wanted desperately to rid myself of this problem, and I was prepared to do it in the most violent way possible if needed.

Then, of course, there is the solution to the most common problem that makes itself known that I mentioned in the previous post, the problem of being alive: the solution that people see is to end their lives.

These "solutions" seem to be the only things available to us, and sometimes even seem appealing; I know that, at some points, I wanted my barbed wire solution above any other, because its sheer violence would be a catharsis for the anger I felt at the time. These solutions don't make sense - or make a sick, unhealthy kind of sense - so, as with the problems, using logic and reason to dissuade someone may often not work. This is a part that is painfully difficult for someone caring for a sufferer; how do you stop someone from hurting themselves while not offending their currently fragile self-esteem and/or taking away their autonomy?

Whatever way you find that helps in the case of the particular person you're caring for, please know that your continuing patience and care for them/us means more than they/we will ever be able to express.

Problems...

Depression, along with many other mental disorders, completely messes with cognitive functions. That is, broadly speaking, the thoughts in your head, the logic that you follow.

Take the example of problem-solving. Practically, problem-solving takes two things: a problem and a solution, of varying numbers. I'll tackle solutions in my next post, but in this one I want to show you how problems change when seen through the depression filter.

Simply put, your problems will increase in number and intensity, because things you would never have even considered before will become sometimes debilitating issues. For example, before I had depression, here are a few of my problems: "I have a lot of uni work, and I want a good grade, but I can't be bothered to put in the work"; "I wonder if I have enough money"; "I still have washing up to do, but I don't like doing it". All pretty normal, if lazy, student thoughts, right?

Contrast the problems I had while I had depression: "I have a single worksheet to complete for uni, but I genuinely can't find the effort to do it"; "I'm such a loser, I can't even manage my money"; "I know there's that washing up to do, but I feel like a failure for not doing it earlier, so I feel like crying if I even think about it". Other examples include: "I want to go to church, but there will be people there, and I can't deal with people", "it's so loud", and "I have a panic attack if I even think about leaving my room".

Like I said, new things appear in the list. Leaving my room had never been a problem before - I mean, it's just walking, isn't it? - and yet now my bedroom door was the biggest hurdle I would face.

There's an expression: "making a mountain out of a molehill". It meas you're making something, often a challenge, bigger than it actually is, that you're making a big fuss over a minor inconvenience. Well, depression does that, except it's real. Those molehills actually do become mountains. And if the molehills become mountains, the mountains become.... I don't even know the right word. Either way, looking at all of those mountains before you pushes you to your knees before you've even taken a step.

Now the Bible says that humans are completely powerless. Not that we're a bit weak, not that some things are beyond us, but that we're completely powerless. We can do nothing...without God's help (see 1 Samuel 2:9; Psalm 73:26, among others). This really takes a weight off us; we don't need to face those mountains through our own strength, and curse ourselves and our weaknesses when it's difficult. (Because it will be difficult; just because God is the one who gives you the strength to climb doesn't mean it's an easy ride.) When we fail, we don't say, "It's because I'm not strong enough for this". We say, "Maybe God will let me succeed tomorrow, and learn whatever lesson He is teaching me today."

Although, I do need to point out that it's also perfectly normal to have moments of despair and desperation and fits of crying before you can say that second sentence, even if you've been able to say it before. It's not a disappointing sign of weakness if you can't immediately - at each and every hurdle - brush aside and accept you're own weaknesses. It's a sign of humanity.

Where He Is

In my previous post, I gave my personal emotional experience of knowing God within my suffering. But, of course, in order to properly know God, and to test these theories and experiences, is to compare them to the Bible.

The Bible is what Christians call "God-breathed" which means that, although it was written by flawed and sinful human beings, God inspired these authors with what to write, almost like a dictation. So the words of the Bible are trust-worthy and perfect and correct, provided you take the context of the time and location and author into account. Jesus himself is described as the Word of God - the same name we give to the Bible - and so we cannot accept Jesus and reject the Bible; they are one and the same.

So what does the Bible say about where God is in suffering? The answer is simple; right beside you. It's hard to imagine, the Creator of the heavens and the earth holding you in His arms. Many people, including Christians, sometimes (or always) think of God as distant or aloof, either deliberately uncaring about our suffering or that He simply can't understand what we're going through. First, God definitely does care: 1 John 4:8 (read: the first letter of John, chapter 4, verse 8) says "God is love." He is love incarnate and the same verse says whoever knows love knows God, at least to some degree. Second, because God loves, he can understand our pain. Have you ever been so moved by someone else's suffering that you feel their pain on their behalf? Jesus did in His time on earth. Someone who loves feels other people's suffering, and as a God who loves all of Creation, he feels our pain. Keenly.

So, God is love and feels our pain. That doesn't mean He's with me now, does it? True enough. But there's more. In Genesis (Genesis 28:15), the Lord says to Jacob "'I am with you and will watch over you wherever you go'"; Psalm 37:24 reads "though he stumble, he will not fall, for the Lord upholds him with his hand"; Psalm 147:3 says "He heals the broken-hearted and binds up their wounds"; and Hebrews 2:18 explains about Jesus "Because he himself suffered when he was tempted [on earth], he is able to help those who are being tempted."

I guess my point here is that, because Jesus lived and because he is also God, at one with the Father our Lord, he knows. He feels everything we do, at the same time we do. When we're curled up in the foetal position and sobbing in psychological agony, He's there sobbing with us, clutching us to Him. As we're having another panic attack when we're even considering going out into public, He knows what it's like to be gasping for breath in fear of something you can't even describe. And as we're coincidentally standing on a bridge over a busy road, He knows that you're thinking about jumping off it. And it breaks His heart.

I take great comfort in music, it's one of the biggest...things in my life. I honestly can't tell you how much it moves me sometimes. So, naturally, some hymns/songs we sing in church really struck a chord with me at my worst time. I'll probably do a whole other post on some songs that have really helped me. There's a whole song by Casting Crowns called "Praise You In This Storm" on the subject of praising God while in pain, and it's wonderful. The lyrics are beautiful.

But some specific lines from other songs really helped me. The first are from a song called "Rejoice (Come and Stand Before Your Maker)": "All our sickness, all our sorrows // Jesus carried up the hill. // He has walked this path before us, // He is walking with us still; // Turning tragedy to triumph, // Turning agony to praise, // There is blessing in the battle // So take heart and stand amazed." The second set are from "From the Squalor of a Borrowed Stable": "Yes, He walked my road and He felt my pain // Joys and sorrows that I know so well // Yet His righteous steps give me hope again // I will follow my Immanuel."