My second book in the “Lessons I’ve Learned” series has arrived on my doorstep. It’s available on Amazon and shortly I will have some copies to sell locally.
Here is the back cover blurb:
Are you mired in depression?
Can’t see through the clutter?
For decades this author’s struggles with her mental health made it nearly impossible to keep a clean and organized home. There were no easy solutions, but years of counseling and family support helped her find her way out of the mess.
In this book, she shares her journey through allegories about household décor and furniture she has found in her many garage sale and thrift store ventures.
This book is very personal to me and my struggles. I’ve shared a lot of my journey with mental health, depression and anxiety on this blog in the past four years. You can find most of the posts under the category: Life’s Journey.
I hope you will take time to read it, either the Kindle version or the paperback edition. And maybe something in it will help you along your own personal journey.
I’m so thankful for God’s mercy upon me. Many things could have turned tragic but He delivered me from them all. He pulled me out of situations where my faith would suffer or my values would be compromised. And He allowed my personal mistakes to turn out for the greater good.
There is hope for recovery and healing no matter what mental health issues you find yourself in. But it may require you to seek out professional help. To tell someone who is trained to help you understand your personal struggles and put your past into perspective.
Healing will likely require proper medication prescribed by a doctor. And adhering to the restrictions that come with the prescription. To stay on it and talk to your doctor about side effects or ongoing struggles so they can adjust the doses.
Support from family and friends is also vital for recovery. If you don’t have that or have burned those bridges then a support group in a professional setting can be helpful.
And also finding a church that allows you to be honest about your mental health issues is essential. There are churches and people who believe faith and prayer are all you need for healing. I tried that and ended up in worse condition.
I have found that my faith in God has been strengthened throughput my many years of struggles. I have learned to lean into Him during especially trying times, to trust my health care professionals and to be honest with my support system and ask for help.
I’m here to tell that you that you can manage your mental health condition and live a normal life. You will struggle however. Likely in times of personal loss, unexpected changes and fractures in relationships.
It’s important to learn to read your emotions and test your responses. To seek counseling to get you through those difficult times. And just as importantly, not to turn to unhealthy ways of escape including substances.
I’ve struggled with my mental health most of my life. I had a complete breakdown in 2003 and was hospitalized. But God and all of the above have helped me keep on the path to a good life.
Last week I shared insights from my Christian counselor. When I was in the pit of depression, the truths that I learned were the rungs that helped me climb my way out of the pit.
I first had to recognize that what I believed about myself was not the truth about me.
In one session, my counselor was trying to print something and had to change the default printer to a different one. She said that it was similar to what takes place in my thought process.
My “default” feelings:
Blaming myself when something goes wrong
Thinking that everything bad that happens is my fault.
Feeling that I am not worth anything or a bother to someone else.
Believing that I am less ____ than anyone else
Harboring resentment
Feeling guilty for past sins or mistakes
To find healing from the depression, I needed to let go of these thoughts. I needed to learn to Stop, to Catch my Thought, and to Change the Default.
Replace the negative thoughts with the truths about who I am. (See Previous Post: Climbing Out of Depression: Key Steps to Healing).
Phillipians 4:8 gives us an illustration about the things we as Christians are to think about:
8 Finally, brothers and sisters, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things.
Often times I feel like people don’t like me, or I did something dumb and they now think poorly of me. My thoughts turn against me, telling me that I’m a bad person or I’m unlovable.
When I think like that, I turn inward and pull away from people who care about me or stop going to the places where the events happened.
I am my own worst enemy. But my feelings are not facts.
A few of the facts about me are:
I’m not dumb.
I am who I am because that’s how God made me
I’m okay the way I am.
I’m not like everyone else.
I might have made a bad choice but that does not make me a bad person.
When we catch ourselves in a negative thought, we can turn it around and replace it with a positive truth, or affirmation. We can learn to change the default thought.
No one can do this for us. We can only do this for ourselves, and by the grace of God.
I’m not suggesting that this is easy. In fact, it’s very hard to change the way we’ve thought about ourselves for so long.
We need to take this healing process one step at a time. One day at a time.
Don’t look at a week, a month, or a year.
“THIS is the day that the Lord has made. I will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24)
Autumn is my favorite season. We call it “fall” around here. Living in the rural community in Michigan where we experience four very different seasons, there is a thrill in the air when the temperatures cool at night, the trees begin to show their colors, and pumpkins and squash are at all the roadside stands.
It’s too early to fret about blizzards and icestorms.
If the heat is unbearable during a few hours in the day, we understand that cooler weather is right around the corner.
Gardeners are reaping the last of their harvest and preserving it for the winter.
The season is changing.
This summer I struggled with my mental health. With a medication adjustment, counseling from a Christian therapist, and the support of family and friends, I have come through the hardest season I’ve experienced since my original nervous breakdown and hospitalization in 2003.
The past few days I’ve wrestled with depression. Earlier tonight I cried on the phone with a friend over things that happened 30 years ago. (Thankfully I go to an appointment with my therapist tomorrow.)
Now that evening has settled and the house is quiet, I am remembering and meditating on truths that I learned in the early days of Christian counseling.
One of the first things I learned about in therapy was that Scripture gives us rungs of truth to help us out of the pit of depression and despair.
Some of my truths:
God loves me.
God accepts me.
God forgives me.
I am a child of God.
He has a plan and a purpose for my life.
He has never left me nor forsaken me.
He is with me now.
Instead of looking back on the past and remembering failures and disappointments, tonight, I choose to look forward, not backwards. I’m not going that way. I’ve been there, and it’s time to put everything behind me, tie up my shoelaces, and step into the next season in my life.
The photo above was taken by a friend of mine. The Light of God is shining in this fall season, just as it is shining in my life.
I first learned these truths during counseling session #1 in October 2013. Tonight, I needed to reread this and remember these steps. I thought sharing it again might be helpful to others.
Week 1 of my Journey out of the Pit
I started going to a Christian counselor in October 2013 to help me through the grief and depression I was stuck in.
I’m certain God led me to this counselor, as she and her husband were missionaries in Saltillo, Mexico, around the same years that I studied there. Not only that, but she studied Spanish at the same language institute that I did there in Saltillo, just not at the same exact time. It was enough of a connection to believe that God brought her into my life to help me heal.
One of the first things my counselor did was share with me Psalm 40:1-2.
I waited patiently for the Lord; he turned to me and heard my cry. He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand.
The verses describe what it feels like to live in depression and grief.
My counselor gave me the word picture that there is a pit of depression, but there are rungs to help us climb out of it.
The rungs are truths that we know. For a Christian, those truths are founded in the Word of God.
My late husband had made notes in the margins of his Bible. I had come across these words he’d written in the book of Ephesians:
God loves me.
God accepts me.
God forgives me.
These were three truths that I could count on. They were rungs that I could use to help myself climb out of the pit.
I added a truth of my own:
I am a child of God.
My counselor agreed with these truths. She also added some.
I am who I am by God’s design.
God gave life to dirt. He made us in His image. My value comes from being made in the image of God.
God sees us as His children.
He delights in us.
He loves us for who we are.
Whether we believe it or not, it’s still the truth.
As a person thinks in their heart, so they are.
These are the rungs of truth that I could use
to climb out of the pit of depression.
Before I could grasp hold of a rung, however, I first needed to catch myself thinking negative thoughts.
I had to picture a stop sign.
Once I caught myself thinking a negative thought about myself, I could stop the thought from taking root.
The the next step was to replace the negative thought with a positive truth. After a while, these truths became a part of who I was.
The process of climbing out of the pit did not happen overnight. Sometimes it was two steps forward and one step back. But I continued to go to counseling and built on that foundation.
Over time and through much prayer and determination, I can say that I am safely on the topside. Occasionally I slip towards that pit, but God has helped me to remember what I’ve learned and keep from falling back in.
Edited to Add:
I haven’t read this post for quite some time. I was amazed at how much I’ve forgotten about it. God wants me to remember that He is my heavenly Father, that He loves me and accepts me just as I am. I am His child. And so thankful to God for His faithfulness in my life.
Inspirational Author 