the medication and prayer began to do some maintenance on the outer person i had divided myself into. i was able to return to public life, but still kept much of the inner person hidden and divided away in safety.
i got to the point where i realized that the prozac wasn't only keeping me from the negative emotions - it was flattening even the good ones. i felt zombie like. so even - almost flat lined. i hated it, and convinced liam that i was 'all better' and that i had to be off the prozac to be able to have a baby. so i went cold turkey, without the supervision of a doctor. BAD IDEA...
to say it is always darkest before the dawn slides over the length and depth of the darkness. i crashed. my 2 jewish angels had found me a receptionist position at their accountants and i spent my days dressing up (which i abhorred) and working in a windowless office being poorly treated by far too many accountants and their assistants. i hated that job more than anything i have ever hated in my life (with the exception of honors algebra). i was suffocating, infertile and crashing from the lack of mood stabilizers. it got so bad i was 'let go'. instead of being sad i was thrilled. i didn't have to go to that corporate prison any more.
the other thing that happened at that time was that we got internet service. now i no longer had to go looking for pornography and sexual stories, they came right into my home. no shame (yah, right) involved...
there were days i wouldn't get out of bed, except to eat and pee. it was also at the time i became physically violent with liam. he was avoiding being home by working as much as possible, and when he did come home he found a lunatic, a very angry lunatic. i didn't realize that his choice to work more was exactly the way my father solved problems in my family of origin. i began to resent him and my one friend became my greatest enemy.
you can't get pregnant if you don't have sex, but the sex was awakening a distant voice that i had silenced for years. it was this long loud howl of pain, and i did everything and anything to bury it back away where it came from.
it would not be silenced. the medication was given again and that flat-line persona re-surfaced. i didn't know which i hated more, the lunatic or the zombie. at least the zombie didn't scratch, bite and kick my husband. so we settled for the zombie.
i received a call from my jewish angel pharmacist and he asked me to open a dollar store for him at the old closet store location. i was thrilled. zombie girl could do that. it was fresh and new, and fun. he loved my ideas and i loved being back where someone respected me again. things were looking up. the fantasy suicide took a back burner to life again.
i can't for the life of me remember how i got off the anti-depressants, but i know i did, and it was slowly. with doctor approval, step by step weaning myself down dosage and then days between. it was a much safer place for me to be.
then came another angel on the scene. my doctor finally asked me 'how long have you been trying to get pregnant?' i told her 6 years and she about dropped her teeth. 'we'll get you into an endocrinologist and get all the tests done'. that angel in the form of an endocrinologist became jesus to me.
she looked at me and said 'bobbie, it is no longer your job to get you pregnant, it's now mine.' i was pregnant in two months. i loved being pregnant with my daughter. i had never felt healthier or happier. i was judged fit by god somehow and it validated so much of my female-ness. redemption was near.
we tried again to open doors to ministry, and each slammed shut, so we decided to purchase our first home and invest ourselves in our community. our daughter was born and within months we had an invitation to ministry. god's timing was 'off' again.
i'm not going to re-blog that ministry time again, if you haven't read it before you can find an explanation of it here.
but what i want to finish this with is the redemption that i found last summer. we were taking our youth to canada for a work project. on the way there and back we stopped at niagara falls to show them all the sites. we parked far away in the cheap parking and walked about a mile to the falls. the whole time i am having a spiritual experience, interrupted many times by my own children, and the youth trying to include me in their excitement. i explain to liam that i'm going to need a bit of space to feel whatever spiritual experience god had planned for me.
he engaged the kids, and i fell behind the group. i remember walking up to that coke bottle green water, feeling the mist on my face and thinking 'i'm free, i no longer want to die anymore. i want to live.'
we went into the tunnels below the falls and my journey continued. i had on my little saran wrap poncho and headed out to observe the thundering water as it hits the floor of the canyon. my tears were hidden by the drenching i received by the falls and i heard 'i baptize you in the name of the father, the son and the holy spirit'. i wept. i no longer wanted to die. i knew i wanted to live. i knew i had much to live for.
on the return trip we took them on the maid of the mist, and again, knowing the experience of the previous trip through i stood on the bow with my arms spread wide and worshiped god with my tears and hope. i left my hood down so that i could feel the cleansing water wash over me. it was the beginning of the next stage of my life. i knew i wanted more, that i was made for more. i knew that i had gone through those things and that they weren't going to be wasted. god was going to allow me to help others who were where i had been. i truly wanted to live.
thank you for bearing through this long journey with me. it was cathartic. i'm glad i'm through it though. i knew i couldn't let it go until tomorrow or i'd never finish it, or the emotions would poison the weekend. i feel wiped out, but like i've run and completed a marathon of sorts. i had been avoiding this are of my life for a long time and needed to 'go there' and get it all out. thanks for 'going there' with me. you make me stronger.
decade of pain - part 1
decade of pain - part 2
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