Wednesday, December 7, 2016

Today is a new day.

I wrote a post Sunday talking about the depth of what I've been dealing with these last 8 months. I decided after yesterday that post was not intended for the public. So here is my public rebuttal to myself.

Yesterday somewhere in between surgery, being told I was cancer free, one nap, and a happy pill later, I found inspiration for this post. Please bare with me.. I'm not sure where this is going to end up.

For the last 8 months I have dealt with major depression and anxiety that started after my surgery in May. Out of no where, shit hit the mental fan. I couldn't smile, I could hardly get out of bed. I only saw the glass as half empty and not as half full. Reality that I couldn't bear anymore children sank in. I tried to put it away, but with each day it seemed to eat at me more and more...

I am a Mom, its the only thing I seem to be good at these days, why did it have to be taken away?

I stopped being able to handle stress. I was shutting down completely. I was told that depression and anxiety weren't really a thing. That I could be happy, I just had to decide in my mind that I was going to be happy. I don't really believe that's the case for anyone that has ever dealt with these types of crippling illnesses. Believe me, if we could just make the sadness or anxiety go away... we would do so in a heart beat.

My Mom got sick shortly after my surgery, I was gaining incredible amounts of weight for no reason, my eating habits hadn't changed and the pounds just kept piling on. Between the stress of worrying about what was to come for Mom, dealing with my already sadness, then being disappointed and regaining my self image insecurities, I was tunneling down a black hole like never in my life. And if we add in some family issues, I was just barely treading water and getting very tired.

Mom had surgery, everything was fine for a moment because my best friend was going to be ok... Then in the middle of our sense of peace came a war I now had to face and battle of my own ensued. My dermatologist called while Mom was in recovery and the biopsy I had a week before was not a cyst, it was Squamous Cell Skin Carcinoma. My world fell apart in those 2 minutes. A week later it completely crumbled to pieces, when a woman I considered to be more of a motherly figure rather than just my aunt, passed. For years I watched her fight back and this time, she just didn't have the strength anymore to do so. The world was already a dark place and she held some of the light that was left and now even that was gone.

Soon after that, I lost my will power to stay a float. Its like I could feel myself starting to sink. Every time I managed to pick myself up and dust myself off again, something else takes a blow and knocks the breath right out of me... again. I am depended on by a lot of people, people who need me to stay strong regardless of what I am facing.

I was trying to be strong, I was trying to convince myself and everyone around me that I was fine, that everything is fine... but at the end of a busy day, I would still lay down with a busy mind. My mind never stops, it just never stops. The thoughts I am sometimes too busy to think of that day come creeping in and I deal with it silently, the best that I possibly can without breaking down and seeming weak in front of all these people who count on me to be the strong.

I had so many questions. Mainly, "Why God? What have I done?". The next 2 months were pretty awful. I was barely managing to keep my head above water. Everything around me was deteriorating. My faith, my will, and mainly my personal relationships.

I don't believe God put me through this, I believe he used it to make my faith stronger. I believe on day one of my life God instilled into me faith, hope, and knowledge of his grace and love for me.With that comes a will to fight back with him by my side. To believe in him, because all things are good with and through him. All things are possible with God.

Amen? Amen.

I try to surround myself with really faith strong people. A little spiritual support. Because sometimes, if we're being honest, we all lose forget how mighty he is and we need a reminder to our tail ends, a swift kick in the butt with a little faith, if you will.

Those people have continuously reminded me to not give up, God will heal me again and he will never leave me. He has not forsaken me. The stronger I become in my faith, the more the enemy sets out to destroy it. There is power in the name and belief in Jesus.

He proved that yesterday, yet again, he had healed me. I am officially cancer free for the 3rd time in my life. At this point I'm either too stubborn to die or Jesus isn't done using me... Its probably a little of both. I mean I admit, I am really stubborn a majority of the time.

So when I started thinking about all the stress I had been under given the latest diagnosis, I realized... I was not fully relying on my faith in the Lord. I said to myself (while watching the good doctor stitch up the gaping gross hole in my foot), look at the miracle he had once again performed right in front of me, inside of me.

God is good, yall. He is more than that, he is great!

The truth is, you never really know what someone is facing on the inside or what they are dealing with in life. While they may be positive, smiling, and happy-go-lucky on the outside, doesn't mean they are not battling something on the inside or in their personal every day, off social media lives. Life is not always what we perceive it to be for others. I can promise you that most of who read this would never have known this is what I have been facing for the last 8 months had you not taken 5 minutes to read this drawn out post. It may come to a shock to more than few of you that I am not always positive or happy. My anxiety gets the best of me most days. I literally wake up in a cold sweat and ask Husband if he still loves me at 4 in the morning. (His response is always, DUH! I married you, didn't I? Its too expensive to divorce you at this point anyways... GO BACK TO SLEEP CRAZY WOMAN.)  I worry about everything and I tend to create bigger problems out of smaller ones because of it...and that's just life for me lately.

I realize that so many people in life feel alone with their selves and their thoughts. That's why this post was written and publicly posted. To be a reminder that everyone is dealing with something.

There are plenty of people we as friends and family look at and perceive their lives as "perfect". I am guilty of it. As for me and my own experience, I am going to change that.

I try to practice kindness every day of my life to everyone I come in contact with. Because like myself, I was and have been battling things inside no one else knew/knows about and you may just help someone greater than what you can imagine by being kind, by being a friend.

And to the ones dealing with what feels like a unconquerable mountain, just keep hanging on. Just because it feels like life is over, its not. It does get better, even if it is for a brief moment. God is there with you, you are not alone. Believe me, I have wanted to just let go and give up so many times. Just keep hanging on and instead of giving up, let go and let God instead. Because to us it may be a mountain, but to him it is nothing but a mere pebble.

Love yall, mean it.

Chrystal Louise