Feelings and thoughts can be funny things can’t they?  I find myself in conflict between my feelings and my thoughts at the moment.

And the only way I can describe it accurately is that I am currently feeling “deflated but hopeful”

It has been creeping up on me and I have been watching it without actually being able to see it.  You know that kind of ‘walking down a dark street and getting the feeling that someone is following you’ sensation.

My finances have been a wreck lately, mostly through no fault of my own, partly due to my lack of mobility – having to get taxis everywhere, and partly due to my mental health. Lack of focus – forgetting to pay bills or thinking you have already paid them, psychotic episodes where you buy stuff you just don’t want or need.

This of course all adds extra stress when the companies whose bill you should have paid start calling and getting stroppy on you. Especially when you just don’t have a reasonable answer that they will readily accept.

On top of this I have found my thoughts have been extremely negative of late and I don’t know why that is – other than the obvious link to the aforementioned psychotic episodes and financial worries of course.

Of course there is always hope and I try so very hard to remember that.  Additionally there are the obvious blessings.

Monday evening saw the Christmas Social for our Bible Study group and that was a really great evening which I really enjoyed.

Tuesday one of the Pastors of the church I am now attending popped round for a visit and that was a blessing.

I managed to blog and even managed to finish editing the fourth book in the Whispering Winds series and that I have now heard is already available on Amazon in either paperback or for the Kindle.

This morning some dear friends from my old church came round for a visit and that really was a blessing!  Additionally they delivered a small gift from my previous church as a thank you for keeping their website maintained and up to date.  It is I think the first one I have received in the 18 months since I left the church and came at a much needed time.  My microwave packed up earlier this week and so thanks to that gift I was able to replace it today   God is so good.

I even managed to get my eyes tested today – only four years late!  Oops and have ordered some new glasses which should help my eyesight problems no end!

So there are without doubt really good things happening.  Which leads one to ask why it is that despite these blessings and positives my mind and my emotions seem intent on dragging me down and causing me to feel so deflated?

But then isn’t that often the way with mental health?  That the rational doesn’t always apply?  I find that the suicidal thoughts have also returned of late and whilst they are nowhere near as bad as they have been I need to be very mindful of them.

There is hope and I am sure of it, but sometimes that hope doesn’t remove the anxiety, restless or deflating feelings that we feel it simply rises out of them leading the way through them.

It is a journey and sometimes the lesson is in the journey.