Kevin and His Amazing Multi-shaded Vision Coat

18 Thursday Apr 2013

Posted by boldkevin in Christianity, Healing, Journal Entry, Mental Health, Mental Illness

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Christianity and Depression, Christianity and Mental Health, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Personal Journal

Not knowing where he was, not understanding how he was where he was, how he got there, what had happened, he looked around.

What he was sure of was that he had not been here before. What he was also fairly sure of, well as sure as one can be in such circumstances, was that just moments ago he was laying asleep in his bed.

But now, well now, he was somehow somewhere completely different and completely new. And so, bewildered and bemused, he stood and looked around him.

There before him lay a long narrow path leading to a small hill. Next to it was a long crystal clear river. Looking down he saw his reflection in the river, and it was then that he noticed his clothes, or more specifically the long amazing multi-shaded coat that he was wearing.

Taking the hem of his coat in his hand he looked at the fabric. To his amazement it was made up of tiny pictures. Pictures of things that had happened in his life. Things he had done with others, to others, for others, and things that others had done with, or for, or to him.

As he viewed them he soon noticed that some were colorful and happy, whilst others were dark, grey or black and white.

Looking down at his reflection in the river once more he couldn’t help thinking how much more colorful his coat would be if it only contained bright, colored pictures.

Returning his attention to his surroundings he then spotted what he thought was a figure on the hill in the distance. Static, almost surreal, the figure seemed to be beckoning him onwards.

He considered his circumstance. He knew not where he was or how he got there. He knew not where he should go, nor indeed who the figure in the distance was. And yet somehow he was neither concerned nor afraid. Somehow he was but at peace.

Walking on he slowly approached the figure who had beckoned him and on approaching him he could sense such peace and love from this man.

“Can you tell me why I am here, or even where I am?” He asked the figure.

“Has not your life, for so long now, been leading on this self-same path?” Was the smiled and only response from the man.

Kevin thought for a moment or two.

“You seem confused.” The man suggested.

“Have I died?” Kevin asked. “Is my walk now over?”

“No my child.” The man comforted him. “This is but a vision, a momentary pause.”

“Why?” Kevin asked. “Why the pause?”

“Perhaps there is something you must learn.” Came the gentle response. “Is there something on your heart?”

At first Kevin remained silent, and then slowly he looked once more at the coat he was wearing.

“Yes my child?” Came the gentle encouragement for Kevin to give voice to his thoughts.

“Um, well, I mean, well it’s this coat,” Kevin spoke softly almost nervously. “It seems to be made up of so many wonderful pictures. Pictures of my life. Bright, colorful happy pictures, and yet amongst them are so many dark, black and white and less happy pictures.”

“Yes indeed.” The man smiled. “And?”

“Well,” Kevin continued, “I know that you have brought me this far and indeed through all of those times, but I wanted so very much to stand before you and make you proud of me.” Again he fumbled with the fabric of his coat. “And it’s just that, well I can’t help wondering, thinking, how much better my coat would look if none of the darker, sadder, black and white pictures were there.”

Sheepishly Kevin looked up into the eyes of the man before him.

Gently taking Kevin by the hand the man led him once more to the river side.

Look at your reflection,” he told him.

Kevin did as he was told and to his amazement all of the darker, sadder, black and white pictures had gone.

Tears began to form in Kevin’s eyes and then trickle slowly down his cheeks.

“What is wrong my child?” The man asked lovingly.

“It’s my coat.” Kevin offered through his tears, “It has lost all of his marvel and wonder.” He sniffled as he lifted the fabric to show the man.

“I thought that if all the sadder, darker greyer, black and white pictures were to go,” Kevin continued, “I would be left with wonderful, bright and happy colors.” He glanced once more into the eyes of his companion. “But instead there are holes, gaps, missing pieces, and even the wonderful bright happy colors of the pictures that remain seem less happy, less colorful, less bright.”

The man smiled. “And so the child learns the lesson he was to learn.” He smiled. “For many times in your walk will you face times less happy, less bright, less colorful. Many times will you face sadness, trials, difficulties and even great hardships. But remember even these times have their purpose, and even these times can be used for my glory. Yes even those darkest of times can I use according to my will and my purpose.”

“I, I am so sorry.” Kevin whispered. But his words were met not with anger or disappointment but with love and warmth as the man simply directed Kevin’s gaze once more to his reflection in the river.

There in front of his eyes his coat was restored to how it was before, no gaps, no tears, no holes, no missing parts. Happy parts, sad parts, shaded parts and glorious colorful parts all back together in their rightful place once more. Once more it was complete and whole again.

Looking up Kevin looked for the eyes that had met him with such love and compassion. But instead of seeing them all he saw was the wall of the bedroom he had been laying in before this had happened.

“Yes Lord, the child has learned the lesson he was too learn.” Kevin whispered through a yawn. “And he is grateful Lord.”

Discussing The Holy Weak.

27 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by boldkevin in Bipolar Disorder, Christianity, Depression, Faith, Feelings, Healing, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Relationships

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Bipolar Disorder, Christianity, Christianity and Depression, Christianity and Mental Health, Depression, Faith, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Relationships

Given the time of year and it’s significance to believers the world over I wonder how many of you looked at the title and immediately thought, “Oops Kevin you made a typo in your title in respect of the spelling of ‘Week’.”

Hey, it’s an understandable assumption But the truth is that it is not a typo and I deliberately chose to use the word weak and indeed to write this post at this time because it seems so appropriate and is so on my heart right now.

Holy Week in the Christian’s calendar is the time when perhaps more than any other time we remember Christ’s arrest, trial, torture, crucifixion, burial, resurrection and ultimately His ascension.

But if I may, for the purpose of this post, I would like to invite you to reflect with me on just one aspect of that time – that time after Christ was crucified and before he rose again.

I wonder how the disciples felt at that time? How would you have felt if you had been one of the disciples?

You meet a man who claims to be the Son of God and who changes your life in a radical and unmistakable way. You dedicate your life to Him and He rightly becomes the very center, and in many ways, the very focus of your life.

You spend all of your time with Him, eat with Him, talk with Him, travel with Him. You witness and share in His deep love and compassion for people, see Him speak prophesy, heal the sick, give sight to the blind and mobility to the lame. You witness first hand the miracles and wonders that He performs and you believe with all you heart that “truly He IS the Son of God” and “truly the Kingdom of God is upon us!”

And then suddenly He is taken from you!

This ‘Son of God’, this ‘Promised One’, this ‘Messiah’, this ‘Saviour of the World’ was; betrayed by one of your own, arrested, tortured, placed on trial, and then crucified!

“Will He come down off the cross?”, “Will God smite His enemies and rescue Him?”, “Will the heavens open and God Himself speak?”, “Does this sudden darkness mean God is about to act?” These are all understandable questions aren’t they? Realistic expectations?

But no. None of that happens? Instead He dies and is taken away and buried in a tomb.

He is gone!

As suddenly as He came into your life, He is gone from it.

All that is left is a sealed tomb and an empty cross!

All that you are left with are questions and a deep longing in your heart”

How would you feel? What thoughts and questions would flood through your mind? What would you do?

Go to that tomb? Wait for something to happen? Perhaps return to that now empty cross – standing there simply looking at it with so many thoughts, so many questions, so many emotions flowing through your heart and mind?

What now? What comes next? Surely that can’t be it? Surely it doesn’t end here? Surely something else has to come? Surely there must be more? Surely this newness must continue!

Step forward in time with me, if you will, to more recent years. 1985 and a young 23 year old man. A young man who had believed in God all his life and indeed who could never remember a time when he did not believe in God.

And yet somehow that wasn’t enough and he knew it. Somehow knowing there was a God but not having a relationship with God left a void in his heart, an emptiness, a sense of “there must be more to life.”

Then an evangelical mission came to town one preaching on Christ Jesus.

It would spend two weeks in local school and village halls and then 4 weeks in a 4000 seated Circus tent.

Every night there would be a service with praise and worship, a guest artist, a sermon/bible teaching delivered by the evangelist Eric Delve and then an invitation to respond and invite Christ into your life and to have a living relationship with God through Christ and the indwelling of the Holy Spirit.

I had a lot of time on my hands in those days and so for the first two weeks I was heavily involved as a steward, traveling to all the venues and helping out. Then when it moved into the Circus tent I took on the role of security coordinator.

For four weeks I, along with other volunteers in my team slept, ate, worked and served in that tent and every night we would be part of the ministry and service.

It became my life. The more I heard about this Christ, the more I wanted, needed to know Him and to serve Him. The more involved I was the more involved I wanted and needed to be.

I was letting Him into my heart and giving my life to Him and I knew it, felt it, needed it, lived it.

Finally on the last night of the mission I too responded to the alter call and went forward. I wanted to make that public confession and witness that I too had given my life to the Lord.

And then the mission ended!

The evangelical team, counseling team, worship team, stewarding team, security team – everyone left and returned to their normal lives and to their home churches.

The circus tent came down was packed up and taken away and I returned to my one-roomed apartment and to, well to, to what exactly? What was next?

My life, my heart, my faith had been so full of Christ for those previous six weeks but then the focus of that fullness, the

I remember so clearly going back, a few days later, to the site where the circus tent had been and standing, staring at the huge empty circus of different colored foot-trodden grass where the tent had been.

Just as the disciples could have stood before the site of that empty cross all those years before, there stood I before the empty site of that mission – asking similar questions – searching for similar answers…

“What now? What comes next? Surely that can’t be it? Surely it doesn’t end here? Surely something else has to come? Surely there must be more? Surely this newness must continue!”

In truth I a have spoken about two very real and very specific episodes of doubt and of questioning. Understandable doubt and understandable questioning – one in the life of the disciples and one in my own personal life.

But of course many of us face times of doubt don’t we? Times of question? Times when perhaps the faith that we once had does not seem so real so vital as once it did?

And my personal experience is that for many of us who face challenges and difficulties with our mental health, times of doubt and questions and indeed times when the troubles of life seem to become overwhelming and get in the way of our faith are quiet frequent and normal. But doe that make us weak? Does that mean we are not Holy?

Indeed is there, can there, be such a thing as the Holy Weak?

Well I for one am convinced that there can and are those who are both Holy and who experience times of spiritual weakness.

Mark 9:24 – ²⁴Immediately the boy’s father exclaimed, “I do believe; help me overcome my unbelief!” (NIV)

Romans 8:26 – ²⁶In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans. (NIV)

Matthew 5:3 – “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. (NIV)

Yes I am convinced that there are those who do experience times of spiritual weakness for whom Holiness is still a part of their lives or can still be part of their lives. And what is more I am convinced that that Holiness is not taken from up when we face times of weakness but instead is afforded to us in greater measure when we face those times of weakness by calling on the name of the Lord and giving it to God in prayer.

Earlier, in what I now freely admit has become a fairly lengthy post, I shared about the first time when that spiritual weakness was faced by me. Shortly after I came to know Christ in fact. But there have been many other time when I have faced such weaknesses, such times of trouble and trial – such times of doubting and questioning.

And I am sure that there are others for whom that is also true – especially within the mental health community – and sadly often as a result of the way others within the body of Christ have treated us.

But I want to encourage you – you who, like me consider yourself at times to be part of the Holy weak and especially at this time – this Holy week.

“I will not leave you as orphans…” (John 14:18 NIV). These are the words Christ Himself spoke to the disciples when He was telling them of His having to leave and when He was (unbeknown to them) talking about that arrest, torture, trial, crucifixion, burial, resurrection and ascension that we spoke of earlier and which is so prominent in our hearts and minds at this time of year.

No matter how weak we may feel, no matter how un-holy our lives may have become, no matter how hurt or down-trodden we believe ourselves to be, I am convinced that God does not want us to either feel as orphans, live as orphans or be orphans.

Christ promised – in that same conversation with His disciples – the indwelling of the Holy Spirit for His disciples – for the believers. That same promise is, I am convinced and have personally experienced, available to each and every one of us who have made that commitment to Christ.

So the question I ask you is – do you feel orphaned? Are you living as an orphan? Have you let the hurts and troubles of life and any personal spiritual weakness that you have felt rob you of knowing the fullness of God’s love through that relationship with Christ by the power of the Holy Spirit?

Because if you have, I am convinced and certain that this is not what God – our heavenly Father desires for you.

When You Are One of The Toys Thrown Out of The Pram!

25 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by boldkevin in Aspergers, Bipolar Disorder, Christianity, Feelings, Journal Entry, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Relationships, schizo-affective disorder

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Bipolar Disorder, Christianity, Christianity and Depression, Christianity and Mental Health, Distorted Perceptions, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Personal Journal, Rejection, Relationships

Sometimes in life we come across folk who seem to react instantly and badly to things that happen or that they think have happened. Don’t we?

You know, those who seem to throw their toys out of the pram the minute something goes – or seems to go – wrong.

And the fact is that we have probably all, or at least most of us, done this at some time or other in life.

And in truth it is a behavior which we see in most toddlers.

Won’t they (and we when we were younger), at one point or another have done this – thrown their toys out of the pram?

When it first happens most parents will; bend down pick up the toy, brush it off/clean it, and give it back to the toddler concerned.

Sometimes, of course, the toddler sees this as a being fun. So naturally they throw it out again, and often the parent will repeat the whole returning process.

But of course with human nature being what it is, the more this happens the more rewarding it becomes for the child and equally the more frustrating it becomes for the parent.

So the process reaches a point where the parent cottons on to the fact that it has become a game and so – not wishing to reward the child or encourage it and allow it to become a learned behavior – they simply warn the child (if the child is old enough to understand) or simply refrains from returning the toy to the child.

It is, I think we would all agree, a perfectly natural and common place event in childhood and parenting is it not?

But what happens when it isn’t a child involved? What happens when it is an adult and not toys out of a pram but people out of a relationship? And what happens when the learned behavior is already their and that person – being discarded – is YOU?

I am, I think, many things to many people. Different people see me in different ways and that again is, I think very natural. To some I come across as very approachable and very caring. To others – or so it seems – I come across as detached and uncaring. To some the practical joker and yet others a very serious, deep thinker.

Actually, I can even remember one time when I was standing next to a lady in church – whom I had known casually for some months but never ever really had a cross word with or any long or noteworthy conversation with – when she turned to me and said, “I have to tell you Kevin, you really scare me. I just find you so intimidating.”

I have to admit that I was both stunned and somewhat surprised by the revelation and how it seemed to come out of absolutely nowhere.

I also have to admit that I was very saddened by that revelation. After all, it isn’t as if I am some sort of Ogre

Now don’t get me wrong, I understand that I am a big guy. Actually a very big guy and I accept that my size can make me a little intimidating.

I also understand that the way my mind works I am often deep in thought and do on occasion – either as a result of my schizo-affective disorder or my Aspergers – sometimes respond more deeply (or conversely say simply things) which others would perhaps hold back on.

But none of these are intended to push people away or intimidate. And neither of them demonstrate how deeply I do care about people.

Actually, I personally think that it is something that people often get very wrong about folk who experience mental health struggles and especially those of us who have Aspergers. They somehow think that we just don’t care or do not have emotions on the same level that they do.

The truth is of course, – or at least in my experience the truth is – that they are very wrong and we do care – sometimes more deeply than others may – we just demonstrate it and process it in different ways.

So when something happens and someone gets upset and throw’s YOU out of their pram, closing the door to you and ceasing all communication it can be very hurtful.

Not least of all because it means that you can no longer show them the love that you have to offer and which in a lot of cases they actually need.

It is of course quite natural to say, “Well good luck to you then. If you don’t need me or my love then who cares?” But the fact is that deep down inside, perhaps under the initial hurt, we do still care don’t we?

And to accept anything else, to stop loving that person, to allow our focus to be on any hurt, to allow those hurt to become bitterness and to fester is unhealthy for them, for us and as Christians to our faith.

No, I am convinced that the truth is that when this happens our loving them doesn’t have to stop. The only thing that stops is their ability to see and fully know how much we love them perhaps.

So instead this is when our love, which by now admittedly probably has a greater cost to us as we need to surrender those hurts, needs to take a different form and to be offered solely in prayer.

And whilst it is true that prayer should have formed part of our love for them all along, it is in the surrendering of those hurts – in the heartfelt love and caring for the person who has caused us that hurt by rejecting us – which will also guard our heart against bitterness.

And that in turn allows our doors to remain open for when they have calmed down or seen things differently – perhaps more clearly. And in so doing – to allow for the healing that needs to take place.

Why am I blogging about this now? Well because a couple of days ago this happened to me. A misunderstanding caused someone, someone I have known but a few days and yet already care so very deeply for, to throw me out of their life and to close the door on my love.

Did it hurt? Yes very much so. But as I have said, it is at times like this when our love must take a different form. Why? Because that is what love is and that is what I know God would want for and from us.

Who’s Failing Who?

18 Monday Mar 2013

Posted by boldkevin in Bipolar Disorder, Mental Health, Mental Health Stigma, Mental Illness, Mental Illness Stigma, Poor Physical Health

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& M.E., Bipolar Disorder, CFIDS, CFS, Christianity and Depression, Chronic Fatigue, Depression, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Stigma

I wonder how many times you fail to do something simply because to try is just too much effort?

Or because you are in “that place” again where doing anything, thinking anything, attempting anything is just too big a stretch for you?

But even more than that I wonder how many times you have felt forced to make excuses, to lie, or create some falsehood or some diversion away from the real reason why you didn’t do it, go there, participate?

Where other people’s expectations, or their inability or seemingly dogged unwillingness to understand creates for you either a silence where your voice simply isn’t worth using as it won’t be heard or a world of conflict where telling the truth simply doesn’t seem an option?

In my own situation, having hidden my physical and mental health issues for most of my life I suddenly had a full mental and physical breakdown back in 1999 and as a result of that the “cat was very much out of the bag” as they say.

Since then I have pretty much refused to hide my mental health issues and I have tried, where possible to be fairly open about them with most people that I meet on a regular basis and with whom I am likely to have any noteworthy relationship.

But here’s the deal. I am now 51 years old and I live alone and have very few people to whom I have to answer, or indeed care for on a one to one daily basis. And with that comes tremendous freedom.

But I recognize that not everyone has that same freedom and that my circumstances are quite unusual. I don’t face the same social pressures that many of us face.

But what about those who do? What about those for whom those things that I spoke about above – the hiding, the shame, the ridicule – the stigma is still so very real?

I cam across this video and it really spoke to me. I hope and pray it speaks to you also.

Perfect Love….

16 Saturday Mar 2013

Posted by boldkevin in Bipolar Disorder, Christianity, Chronic Fatigue, CFS, CFIDS, & M.E., Depression, Functionality, Healing, Heart Problems, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Obesity, Paranoid Schizophrenia, Physical Health, Poor Physical Health, Schizophrenia, Thanks

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& M.E., Bipolar Disorder, CFIDS, CFS, Christianity, Christianity and Depression, Christianity and Mental Health, Chronic Fatigue, Depression, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Obesity, Paranoid Schizophrenia

…casteth out fear.

There are a number of passages in the Bible which make me sit up and question, sit up an reflect on, their true meaning.

Indeed there are a number of passages that lead me off on wonderful journeys of discovery.

Likewise some passages which I thought I had understood will often leap out at me with new meaning, new significance, new revelation.

But then, more than any other writing, the Bible for me stands unique as a constant living and fluid unfurling of narration, a living explanation of the relationship that I have with God through Christ.

One such passage that has often caused me to sit and reflect is that of 1 John 4:18…

¹⁸There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear: because fear hath torment. He that feareth is not made perfect in love. (KJV)

“But perfect love casteth out fear.” Its an interesting one isn’t it? Especially if, like me paranoia, or anxiety, forms part of your mental health. And especially if thqt paranoia forms part of your schizophrenia or your schizo-affective disorder and those ‘voices’ or that inner dialogue asks such things as “see you have fear, so you are not made perfect in love – what does that tell you then?”

The key words for me here however, is that of “casteth out” or in the NIV ” drives out”. In the Greek the word is βάλλω (ballō) and means to throw out or get rid of. So in answer to those voices and that inner dialogue I have to say, “how can you cast out, drive out, throw out, or get rid of something that you don’t have?”

It is a valid point isn’t it? You have to have something in the first place in order to be able to cast it out or get rid of it? So having a faith in God through Christ doesn’t mean that I will never fear or have reason to fear, it instead challenges what I do with fear when it comes my way.

So let’s look at that for a moment…

I wonder how many of us as parents have had our child or children wake up from a bad dream or nightmare and in their fear automatically call out to us of come to our bedroom door in search of us?

Or if you have no children how many of us can remember doing that ourselves when we were children and had a bad dream or nightmare?

Just going to Mum or Dad and getting their reassurance and the security that that offered dealt with that fear didn’t it? The faith and trust that perfect love that a child has for and in and from his or her parents casts out that fear.

Isn’t (and shouldn’t) the same be true in respect of the fear that we face in life as children of God?

Can’t we go to Him in faith through Christ knowing that as our perfect heavenly Father we have that perfect blessed assurance?

God is our heavenly Father and His love is perfect. In Him we have comfort and joy, as the old song goes, and yet there is no where in the Bible – as far as I can see – that says that through a relationship with God through Christ all threats, all trials, all troubles will be removed from us. In fact there are several places that indicate that they may well increase.

I have long since said, that one of the fundamental roles of a parent for a child is in many ways to be representatives and representations of God until the child is able to understand and develop his or her own relationship with God through Christ Jesus.

That source or comfort, of reassurance, of guidance and protection that we should get from our parents – especially in our younger years – is an excellent example of this and I fully believe that as Christians it is the perfect love of our heavenly Father that enables us to cast out all fear.

Some students of the bible will no doubt suggest that since this verse being preceded by the words of verse 17…

¹⁷This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus.

it would indicate that this passage is speaking of the day of judgement, but I would point out that actually it is also about how we live our lives up to that day. Consider the words of verse 19 I would add…

¹⁹We love because he first loved us.

We love because He first loved us and it is that perfect love that provides is with the courage that we need to run the race for which we are called.

Yes things have and in many ways are still tough and I know that I am not alone in that and that many others are going through equally if not tougher times. But as a child of my heavenly Father, His perfect love gives me the strength to go on

Climbing Out of The Hole.

13 Wednesday Mar 2013

Posted by boldkevin in Bipolar Disorder, Christianity, Chronic Fatigue, CFS, CFIDS, & M.E., Depression, Functionality, Healing, Journal Entry, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Poor Physical Health

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Well it has been a long time since I have done a serious post. Certainly much longer than I had anticipated or would have wanted.

In my post “A. W. O. L.” (posted March 4th) I briefly explained how I had not been well for some time and how due to this (and the cold weather) I had not felt able to post anything coherent or noteworthy.

I also thanked everyone for their very kind concern and messages of encouragement and “well-wishes” and would very much to thank everyone again now.

The good news is that I am very much on the mend now and have been busy working away on a couple of projects that I have been wanting to do for a while now.

The truth is that I had found myself in a bit of a hole, quite a deep hole really – and I would wager I am not alone in experiencing these.

I knew that I was in one and indeed could see the light at the end of the tunnel and hope that I would soon reach the end of it, but actually reaching it was something entirely different!

Mentally I have been struggling also. Thankfully not so much that I couldn’t see the light at the end of the tunnel. Isn’t that often what depression can be like? That no matter whether the light is there sometimes we just can’t see it?

Physically I have also been struggling and sometimes, no matter how bright the light or how desperately I may have wanted to get to it, I just haven’t had the strength of means to reach it. So it was as if the light at the end of the tunnel seemed unreachable for that time.

Thankfully I was not alone in all of this. I had the kindness of many of you and the support and care and encouragement of my family and friends and my church family and even more I had (and have) my faith to help me get through it all.

So I am very encouraged!

Not only do I feel much stronger but now I even feel as if I am climbing out of that hole that I was in and I am looking forward to getting back into the swing of things! (Of course I have to exercise wisdom and caution and ease back into things)

As I said before, I am so thankful for all the care and support that I have had and for all your kindness. I am also extremely thankful for my faith which has without doubt helped me through this last episode

Acceptance

20 Wednesday Feb 2013

Posted by boldkevin in Bipolar Disorder, Childhood Memories, Christianity, Depression, Faith, Feelings, Healing, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Paranoid Schizophrenia, Schizophrenia, Self-Doubt, Self-Image, Self-Loathing

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Bipolar Disorder, Christianity, Christianity and Depression, Christianity and Mental Health, Depression, Distorted Perceptions, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Paranoid Schizophrenia, Self-Doubt, Self-Hatred, Self-Image, Self-Loathing

It’s a strange thing isn’t it? Acceptance I mean.

I mean it is something that the majority of us actually want, if we are truly honest with ourselves and something that we seek in life. To be accepted by our family, our work colleagues, our neighbors and friends.

It is also something which a lot of us, including those of us with mental health challenges, truly struggle with isn’t it? To be accepted for who we are – even with our illnesses.

It hurts and unnerves us or unsettles us, even angers us when we are not accepted. It seems harsh and uncaring, unjust and unfair when we are not accepted and can lead to a whole plethora of questions and soul-searching. And let’s be honest here, it can be emotionally crippling when it happens can’t it.

“I mean after all, what is so wrong with me, what is so bad about me, what is it that I have done, that they don’t like me, won’t accept me?“

Do they sound like familiar questions, a familiar thought process to you?

Or perhaps you have reached a stage or place in life where you have asked these questions so often now, where those thought processes have been so present in your life that you have simply stopped asking them, simply stopped questioning?

Or perhaps your past experiences – your childhood or past relationships – were such where any self-worth that you may have had was crushed or taken from you? Or perhaps worse still where you were never given any self-worth in the first place?

And where this happens what does it do to us and how we view ourselves? And as a result of that what does it do to what we are willing to accept in life?

This question has been on my heart of late and I can’t help wondering how many of us are accepting what we think we deserve (as a result of the poor self-worth or self-image that we have formulated as a result of those bad relationship or lack of positive affirmation in the past) instead of fighting for what we need?

If our child was ill and needed medical treatment we would do all we could to get them the best treatment possible wouldn’t we? Likewise for a parent were they to need medical treatment or for a loved one. So why are we not applying the same standards of expectations when it comes to ourselves?

Destroying the internal dialogues of the past and changing the way that they affect us is not easy is it?

As someone who experiences poor mental health I think this is one of my biggest battles. Add as a mental health advocate it is also a battle all too often present when folk share with me the things that are affecting them.

As a Christian – even one with poor mental health – I am convinced this is not how it is meant to be. Not what God desires for us. I am convinced that I, that we, need to combat these internal dialogues and thoughts, and I am reminded of some of the words Paul writes in his admonishment to the church at Corinth (2 Corinthians 10:3-5 NIV)…

³For though we live in the world, we do not wage war as the world does. ⁴The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. ⁵We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.

I am convinced that God loves us and wants the best for us just as any good parent would want for his or her child.

So that is my new challenge to myself and one I invite you to consider. “to take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.”

Mental Health and the Church

14 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by boldkevin in Christianity, Faith, Mental Health, Mental Health Awareness, Mental Illness

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Christianity, Christianity and Depression, Christianity and Mental Health, Faith, Mental Health, Mental Illness

My good blogging buddy Cate from over at Infinite Sadness or… hope? very kindly gave me the heads up on an article that someone had shared with her.

The article, entitled – “Jesus Christ ‘may have suffered from mental health problems’ claims Church of England” appears in the Express Newspaper’s online site.

It opens with the statement “Written by the Rev Eva McIntyre on behalf of the Church’s Archbishops’ Council and the Time to Change mental health campaign, it suggests John the Baptist, St Paul, St Francis and other figures from the Bible may all have been mentally ill.” which is then followed by a paragraph reading… “It even asks followers to consider accusations made in the New Testament that Jesus “had lost his mind”.“

Putting aside the whole issue of churches assigning “sainthood” on certain people – which I find erroneous and misleading – and the fact that, from what research I have been able to do, the Express appears to have completely misshaped and misrepresented the original piece written by the Rev McIntyre – gee now there’s a shock!

But even so there are some interesting points to be raised as a result of this article and I can understand the problems folk are having as a result of this piece.

As a Christian I have for some time now been very much aware of the difficulty that can be had reconciling the understanding that Jesus Christ was fully man and yet fully God. Likewise I can certainly understand how the mere suggestion that Jesus may have had mental health problems could seem offensive to some and difficult to comprehend for others.

As a Christian who suffers with mental health problems myself, I find that my mind is drawn to the question – “So what if He did, does that make Him any less the Messiah or any less Holy or indeed any the less worthy to be used by God?”

And there within lies one of the difficulties with this whole issue does it not? The extremely fragile counterbalance between Christ’s deity and his humanness appears extremely impacted by anything which appears to emphasize or increase his humanness.

And yet there is another consideration that arises from this article, one which speaks directly into and challenges not Christ and His human qualities verses His Godly qualities in respect of any mental health, but with we believers and our human qualities versus our Christlike qualities in respect of mental health.

It calls into question our own individual and Church attitudes as believers, to the whole issue of mental illness, poor mental health and those who suffer from them. But then is that not the whole point?

The Revd Eva McIntyre makes the statement that “Many of the people we read about in Bible stories might today be considered as having mental health issues.” and asks “Would Jesus’ family maybe on occasion have said, “Cousin John is a bit odd, bless him!” when John the Baptist took to his eccentric style of life?”

And I for one can see some validity in this point, but would have to make the observation that just because someone’s actions do not fit within the ‘norm’ it doesn’t mean that they are suffering from mental health issues. And I would make the point that the very fact that these biblical characters were being used by God for supernatural purposes indeed places them outside of the ‘norm’.

But it is an interesting point isn’t it?

If indeed “many of the people we read about in the bible” did have what we today would consider to be mental health problems and God still used them, what does that say for the way we believers and especially the church currently responds to folk who do have mental health problems today?

See here’s the deal as far as I see it. We simply don’t know if those biblical characters of old did have mental health problems or not. And the truth is that, as far as I can see, there is not enough real evidence to support any suggestion of such beyond the realms of it being pure conjecture.

So the question then becomes an “IF” based question. “IF” they did have mental health problems and yet were still, as we know from the bible, used by God, then why are so many folk who do experience poor mental health today seemingly either too frightened to admit it within a church setting or, as seems all too often to be the case, being hurt and driven away from our churches when they do admit it?

And having asked that question I do feel the need, in the interest of openness and fairness to make a personal statement here.

I personally am very open about my mental health and have not to my knowledge at any time experienced anything other then love, understanding and acceptance from the leadership of the church that I currently attend. Likewise in terms of it’s members I have received similar love, understanding and acceptance apart from in one or two instances where opinions where questions about my mental health were asked in clumsy ways. But I would expect that from any group and after all we are all human and do all make mistakes.

Similarly in my previous fellowship where I was far more involved and was also involved in leadership, my mental health was not seen as any great obstacle and I was again met with love and understanding and acceptance in most things.

That having been said, sadly the same isn’t always true for everyone and there is without doubt a very real need for the kind of questions raised by this article as a result of Revd Eva McIntyre’s piece to be asked by each and everyone of and by our churches and fellowships.

I have to be honest here, whilst the headline of the article and indeed some of it’s content appears, to this writer, to have been manipulated for dramatic effect, there are some interesting points made in it and some interesting questions asked.

And let’s face it, it is high time that all churches prayerfully considered they way they respond to the whole question of mental health.

Does my mental health challenge my faith? Yes absolutely, and yes absolutely it challenges it in ways that lots of folk simply can’t understand. BUT the truth is that all of our walks are to some degree or another unique and we all face individual challenges and more than that, so much more than that, my faith also challenges my mental health and provides me with such a richness of security and strength in the face of that mental health and I for one praise God for that!

When The Tears Won’t Fall

12 Tuesday Feb 2013

Posted by boldkevin in Christianity, Depression, Journal Entry, Mental Health, Mental Illness

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Bipolar Disorder, Christianity and Depression, Christianity and Mental Health, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Personal Journal

There is, I think, a certain pre-conditioning that sometimes takes place when you are a male and, I have to say, a British male.

Now I have to qualify that comment by admitting that it could well be that the same pre-conditioning could happen to you if you are female and indeed if you are not a British male. But being neither female or non-British I am of course not qualified to make such a claim.

Being male and having been born and raised in England and having educated along with and growing up around lots of other English boys I can tell you that the pre-conditioning – the “keep a stiff upper lip” mentality that I speak of was very common.

And in my childhood so too were statements such as “Stop crying! Boy’s don’t cry!” and “if you don’t stop those tears I will give you something to cry about” and “Stop your sniveling, I didn’t hit you that hard!”.

It – the “boy’s don’t cry” mentality is an approach and a mentality that I have sought to combat in the raising of my own kids. And statements such as those mentioned above, that I heard from my father, I have actively avoided saying to my children. They are all so very harmful aren’t they?

Crying, whether you are a male or a female, is OK! Not only is it OK, but it can be totally understandable and acceptable and even healthy. It can offer such a heart-felt communication and release. And after all did not Christ himself cry? (John 11:35) Wasn’t he male? And a full grown man?

But what happens when you can’t cry? What happens when every fiber of your being seems so much to want to cry but you simply can’t bring yourself to do it? What happens when the tears won’t fall?

As I said, I have fought against that “stiff upper lip” and “boys don’t cry” pre-conditioning and indeed can and do cry on different occasions, but for the past few days now I have so desperately felt the need to cry and yet have been unable.

Physically my health is as it usually is. Spiritually I am, as far as I know, as I was. I even managed to get to church on Sunday and bible study last night which was a real blessing and I even managed to stay relatively focused. But emotionally and mentally something is desperately wrong and it is so unsettling.

There is of course always hope and I know and recognize that and I continue to speak that hope into my current depression. It is hard, so incredibly hard isn’t it?

But I am not alone despite the fact that it feels that no-one other than a great and merciful God could even understand, let alone penetrate, such a blanket of darkness.

And yet He does understand and He will penetrate it, my part is to be open to that and to invite that and claim that. So out of that darkness, when the tears won’t fall – yet even so my prayers will rise.

Not As ‘Potty’ As You Might Think

08 Friday Feb 2013

Posted by boldkevin in Bipolar Disorder, Christianity, Depression, Faith, Functionality, Journal Entry, Mental Health, Mental Illness

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Bipolar Disorder, Christianity and Depression, Christianity and Mental Health, Faith, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Personal Journal

2 Nuns were driving down a fairly narrow jungle track in their jeep. They were working as missionaries in a jungle childcare facility and had taken the small child, now sat in a booster seat in the back of the jeep, to the local doctor and were on their way back.

Suddenly the jeep spluttered to a stop and the nun’s suddenly realized that they were out of fuel. “I noticed a place about half a mile back where we could get some fuel.” One nun told the other.

“Yes so did I Sister,” the other nun agreed, “but this jeep is too heavy for us to push and we have nothing to put any fuel in.” she observed.

Looking around the jeep all the nuns could find by way of containers was the child’s potty laying on the back floor of the jeep.

“Well it isn’t much.” One nun observed. “But perhaps one of us could walk back and get some fuel in this and God willing, if we are very careful, that will be enough to get the jeep started and get us back to the fuel station where we could then fill up.”

So that is what they determined to do and as one of the nuns remained behind to care for the small child and pray, the other nun set off.

After what seemed quite some time the remaining nun caught site of the other nun gingerly walking back trying not to spill any of the precious fuel out of the make-shift potty container.

Once the nun had reached the jeep the other nun opened up the fuel cap and as one nun carefully tried to pour the potty’s contents into the fuel tank the other nun prayed fervently.

Just then a local villager walked past herding his flock. As he approached the two nuns he could hardly believe his eyes. After all it isn’t everyday you see a nun pouring the contents of a potty into a fuel tank as another nun stands over her praying.

“I have to tell you Sisters,” the villager told the two nuns as he stopped opposite them, “I am not a religious man myself, but I have to admire your faith!” LOL

To be honest I am not really sure what brought the humorous story to my mind this morning. I think it was something that I said in response to one of the comments made on my post from yesterday. But it is kind of humorous isn’t it?

And of course there are several points and several truths that can be drawn from the story also…

Sometimes we do run out of gas/fuel don’t we? Mentally this can happen at the worst of times. Times when we really need to keep going but just don’t seem to be able to or to have the means to.

Such times call for us to work together and to use whatever resources are available to us. Of course sometimes we don’t feel we have anyone to help us or any resources available.

It’s at times like these when we really have to improvise. To look beyond the usual and to find ways of coping. Potty into make-shift fuel can for example.

It is also at times like these when we have to review our objectives, perhaps take a step back or two. The nuns in our story had getting themselves and the child back to their childcare facility as their objective. But they had to take their eyes off of that and look back a little bit before they could go on.

Don’t we have to do that sometimes, especially when we are struggling through a bout of particularly poor mental health?

And what about the faith aspect of that story?

After all the one nun had to walk half a mile with an open top potty trying not to spill the fuel and then carefully try to pour it out of the same potty (with no lip) into a small hole in the hope she would get enough in there in order to be able to start the jeep and get back to the fuel station.

Don’t we often face situations where the odds against us seem just a poor? Situations where the only thing we have going for us is our own determination and (much like that one nun with the other prayer for and over her) the prayers of others?

I have to be honest with you and admit that I can so very much relate to that story at the moment. I am so empty when it comes to mental and physical and emotional and even spiritual gas/fuel at the moment and the only thing ‘potty’ around here seems to be what I am becoming.

And yet I do have faith and I do have prayer and thankfully prayer support, and whilst this might not be understandable to some it is so very important – absolutely essential – to me. And most importantly I know that with God’s help, through my own determination and with prayer and prayer support I will come through this.

As I said, there are several truths that we could draw out of that little story and I know I have only drawn out a couple of them. But I did want to thank those who are praying for me at this time and I did want to let you know how very important they are to me.

And more importantly, I am so very mindful that so many folk seem to be struggling at the moment. I want to share that there is still hope and that if I can help in any way, perhaps by praying for you, please do just let me know.

Standing Firm In The Struggles…

07 Thursday Feb 2013

Posted by boldkevin in Christianity, Faith, Functionality, Journal Entry, Mental Health, Mental Health Awareness, Mental Illness

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Christianity, Christianity and Depression, Christianity and Mental Health, Faith, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Personal Journal

…and Surviving The Attacks!

Well it has been days since my last post. The truth is that I have been really struggling mentally of late. I haven’t even been able to get to Church or Bible study lately and I can’t begin to tell you how much this has been affecting my mental health.

I am incredibly mindful at this time, having read some of the blogs that I usually follow, that actually this is quite a minor thing compared to what others seem to be going through at the moment, and yet, as minor as it is, it is a huge thing to me.

But then that is often how poor mental health works isn’t it? Things that others may view as being small, insignificant or unimportant are so very important to us personally and certainly I try to remember that when reading other folk’s blogs.

That it isn’t how I would or do respond to such situations as they are going through but how they respond to them and I try to love and pray through that perspective.

In fact my mental health seems to be pivoting on a knife’s edge at the moment and I am struggling to keep myself stable. That is not to say that I do not know which way to lean if I sense myself staring to fall.

It is at times like these when I like to, need to, take stock. To look at what I have still been able to achieve and to build on those things whilst cautiously, carefully addressing the things that I still need to achieve.

There is little doubt that there are things that need attending to but the question is how to attend to them…

Prayerfully building on that which I have already been able to achieve is certainly a good place to start. But at the same time being realistic about what I still have to do.

Additionally I need to be mindful of what I am “able” for in my current state of mind, whilst at the same time being mindful of anything that needs my attention now.

This is so that it does not become a major headache or issue within the next few days thus negatively effecting my current delicate mental state.

Being open and honest with others when you are in this kind of mental state can be so very difficult can’t it? But then being open and honest with yourself can be equally as difficult.

But that openness and honesty is, in my opinion, the doorway to getting the help that you need at times like this. That is providing of course that such help is available to you and you know how to access it.

I entitled this post “Standing Firm In The Struggles…”…And Surviving The Attacks!” and I did that for a reason.

I have often written of how, in my experience and opinion, our emotional, mental, physical and spiritual health all interact with each other in respect of our well-being.

As a Christian I have long-since learned that my help comes from the Lord, and He has to be the very first port of call at times such as these.

But as a Christian I am not an isolated or solitary person and nor am I meant to be. I am member of Christ’s family and that help should also come through my brothers and sisters in Christ. I have little to no doubt that my not having been able to get to church lately has affected my mental health and I have little doubt that my current mental state is – to some degree or another – part of an attack.

So I stand on the encouragements to be found in the full armor of God as described in Ephesians 6 and I remember especially the words of Ephesians 6:13

And Carrying On From Yesterday.

23 Wednesday Jan 2013

Posted by boldkevin in Depression, Functionality, Journal Entry, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Physical Health

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Christianity, Christianity and Depression, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Personal Journal

Well yesterday I determined to combat the scattiness of my brain at the moment and get some things achieved regardless.

I prayed, chilled and wrote a to do list and then got on with it.

To be honest I had hoped, well a small part of me had hoped, that by doing so my brain would support me in this effort and kick start into gear.

Well that isn’t quite what happened although I still managed to complete some of the things that were on my to do list.

On writing my list I knew that I would not get it all completed in one day and had provided for the possibility that some of the things that I wanted to achieve I would have to do today and even tomorrow if needs be.

What was one of the attitudes I determined to have when writing my to do list? Oh yes, “Be kind to yourself – Don’t create too many expectations and allow for and tolerate any mistakes.“

I am so glad that I decided to do that as I really didn’t get as much completed as I had hoped. But then life, as I mentioned yesterday, does sometimes throw a curve ball our way and a couple of people needed my help and that reduced the time I had to do the things I had planned to do. And additionally I had not considered or remembered the fact that I am only just getting over my latest bout of illness and so am still not totally fit.

The good news is not only have I been able to achieve some of the things I wanted to do but I also have a good idea of what I want to achieve today also.

So my to do list is now revised and updated and I am all set to carry on from yesterday

To Do Lists

22 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by boldkevin in Christianity, Depression, Functionality, Journal Entry, Mental Health, Mental Illness

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Christianity and Depression, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Personal Journal

Getting back into blogging when you have been absent for a while can sure be tough can’t it?

Especially when you wake up with your brain in “scatter-brain” or “defiantly uncooperative” mode!

I have several things that I want to achieve this week but for some reason my brain is not willing to co-operate with me today. (Not sure exactly what it is I did to upset it) But such is life!

The truth is that we can all get these kind of days can’t we? Days when our focus seems to be a little off? Days when clarity of thought seems just beyond us slightly?

And the truth is, in my experience, that suffering fro mental illness or poor mental health does not make these kind of days unique to us it is just that sometimes the frequency and severity of these days can be greater for us.

But I refuse to be beaten by this! There are things that I want to achieve and achieve them I will.

One of the best ways to counter this kind of challenge in my experience – second of course to a good time of prayer – is to make a to do list.

They help me to focus where my brain seems unable to do so for me.

They provide a ‘grounding’ a foundation from which to build if you will.

They provide ‘direction’. You can map out your intended and your actual progress.

They provide a ‘safety-net’ so that the chance of things being over looked or forgotten is reduced.

Of course there are things to watch out for when compiling a “to do” list…

Be kind to yourself – Don’t create too many expectations and allow for and tolerate any mistakes.

Be calm – Prayer always helps me with this one. You already know that you are struggling so any progress you make is a positive isn’t it?

Be realistic – don’t overload yourself or set impossible goals.

Be flexible – life can often throw us curve balls

Be positive – is it really the end of the world if you don’t get it all done?

Be sensible – prioritize the things that are urgent and those things that are important and those things that are necessary as well as those things that you simply want to do.

Be objective – allow yourself to revisit your list and alter it where needed.

Be receptive – if you need help allow yourself to ask for it and accept it.

Be determined – writing a “to do” list is only part of the process, actioning it is equally as important.

So, Mr brain – you little monkey – I refuse to be beaten today and I will achieve that which I want to achieve! I am off to make a coffee, spend some time in prayer, and write my “to do” list!

I will let you all know later how I got on.

Of Convivial Christianity

21 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by boldkevin in Christianity, Depression, Healing, Journal Entry, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Poor Physical Health, Relationships

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Christianity and Depression, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Personal Journal, Relationships

Yes I know that this is a mental health blog and not specifically a Christian blog. But it is, at the end of the day, a blog through which I do share about mental health in general and more specifically about my personal mental health and since I am a Christian for me to ignore my Christianity and how it affects my mental health (and vice versa) would be impossible for me.

And the truth is that I had an excellent day yesterday

I managed to get back to Church – always such a blessing – and it is at times like these, when I haven’t been able to attend church for a week or two, that I really do realize just how much attending church means to me.

There is just something special, something beyond the physical, something so spiritual that happens to me when I walk into a church and immediately my spirit leaps at the praise and worships that is going on around me.

To stand in free abandonment and simply let go and let God is just something that I can never tire of and without which I would be so very incomplete. The truth I that I am at “home” when at church and I know and recognize this and it is such a blessing to be able to have a place where – even with my poor mental health – I can feel such peace and such acceptance and such love.

Immediately after church there is the usual gathering for tea, coffee, biscuits (or cookies as some would know them) and plenty of chat, and again this blesses me so very much. In truth I am -despite appearances to the contrary – a very private person and one who is very comfortable with solitude. But even so there is a special quality about joining with others and simply sharing; time, experiences, concerns, prayer needs, hopes and above all else love.

After church we went back to Leigh and Idele’s place (Leigh and Idele are a couple who, along with their children, also attend the church) for a time of convivial fellowship and that sharing continued. I so recognize the blessings of all this and yes I recognize how much these blessings permeate their way through into my mental health also.

But I am also very mindful of those for whom getting to church, meeting up with other believers, is not possible either because their mental health make that so very difficult or because other people’s reactions to their mental health have been so harmful, unhealthy or unhelpful.

Mental health should never, in my opinion, be a reason to exclude someone from God’s family OR to make someone feel excluded from God’s family and I am truly saddened when I hear that this is the case.

I am so very thankful that I have found a church where I am accepted and loved and where my mental health is no seen as a reason not to love but more a reason to find different ways of seeing and loving. My fervent prayer will not only be that others who experience poor emotional, physical or mental health will also find this but that those who have already been so incredibly hurt will find new church families where Christ’s love is present.

Today I feel much better! Mentally, emotionally, and spiritually I feel so much more aware, so much more healthier. Physically I know that being out so long yesterday took a bit of a toll on me but it was so worth it.

When The Crows Gather.

19 Saturday Jan 2013

Posted by boldkevin in Christianity, Depression, Mental Health, Mental Health Awareness, Mental Illness, Physical Health, Physical Health Awareness, Poor Physical Health

≈ 7 Comments

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Christianity, Christianity and Depression, Depression, Mental Health, Mental Illness

picture courtesy of wikipedia

I have, several times in fact, heard of depression being referred to as the ‘black dog’.

I have to be honest here and say that I really don’t like that label or the picture that it represents.

Yes I know that black is a color often understandably linked to depression and yes I know that dogs sometimes follow you around and get under your feet. But I just find the picture contradictory as a dog (of any color) is meant to be man’s best friend and actually I really like dogs. Whereas I really don;t like depression lol.

No, when it comes to my depression, I just can’t bring myself to think of it, or refer to it as ‘the black dog’.

Now a gathering of crows however, well now that is an entirely different story and a terms which I am more than willing to link to or use in reference to my depression.

I personally have a long and sinister link to crows. One featured very heavily in my childhood. Additionally they have long since been linked to sinister dark things and to cap it all off, the technical term for a gathering or group of crows is a ‘murder’. And if anything can murder happiness depression can. So yes crows are much more suitable as a picture of depression in my opinion.

So why am I telling you all this? Well because those darned crows have been a gathering i my life recently and I didn’t even realize it until a couple o days ago.

Regular readers and followers of this blog will know that I haven’t been posting of late and will know that this is because my health took a turn for the worst again.

Actually it started before Christmas and got progressively worse since then. I contracted some sort of flu like virus and it really knocked be for six! And no matter what I did I couldn’t shake it. Additionally, it aggravated my heart condition and fatigue took hold and stayed with me for weeks. All of which I was perfectly aware of and (as I thought) fairly used to as these things happen frequently in my life as a result of my general health.

What I hadn’t realized, however, was just how this was affecting me mentally and spiritually. Without knowing it I started losing my joy and my hope and this in itself was simply adding to and complicating my response to my physical illnesses.

I started losing my resilience and my ‘fight’ as more and more crows gathered (metaphorically speaking).

Actually it wasn’t until one of my adopted parents mentioned that they wondered if I had become more and more depressed as a result of this latest bout of illness, and I had listened to a recorded sermon from one of my pastors ( I couldn’t make church and was uploading the sermon to the church website anyway so I thought I would listen to it) that I realized just what was happening.

Depression is such a complex thing and I really do understand the genetic and neurochemical factors involved in some, including my own. depression. But the presence of genetic and/or nuerochemical factors does not automatically exclude the presence of additional circumstantial or environmental or emotional or psychological or spiritual factors.

I am convinced that regardless of the presence of genetic and/or nuerochemical factors we need to do all that we can to have a positive and healthy attitude of mind and of heart if we are to beat this thing. And that is a lesson I am constantly having to relearn or remember it seems.

Thankfully my physical health appears to be on the mend, at least to the point it was prior to this latest bout of illness and whilst I am still very fatigued I am getting stronger each day!

I am so grateful for this and I am so very grateful that I have people in my life who will bring positive messages and encouragements to me. I am also very thankful for all the prayers that folk have been praying on my behalf.

Hopefully I will be back posting as normal within a few days but I did want to post this update to everyone and to thank everyone for their love, concern, encouragement and prayers.

Each and every expression of love, each and every word of encouragement, each and every demonstration of concern, each an every prayer offered on my behalf has been an active and definite weapon against that gathering of crows that I mentioned.

And for this I am extremely thankful and I praise God for each an every one of you who have been a part of it.

Kind Regards and God bless you.

Kevin

Access All Areas

07 Monday Jan 2013

Posted by boldkevin in Depression, Mental Health, Mental Health Awareness, Mental Illness, Therapy

≈ 8 Comments

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Christianity and Depression, Depression, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Therapy

I wonder if you are familiar with those kind of lanyard badges that staff are often given at concerts and gigs and things?

Perhaps you have had one for work or something? I am sure that you know the kind of thing I am talking about, the kind of badge that affords access to different areas of a building or event ground.

Perhaps you have had one for work or for a gig or concert or show you have been involved with.

But what if instead of being the one wearing it you were the one giving them out? And what if instead of being in order to afford someone access to different areas of a gig or concert or show it was affording them different areas of your life?

Think, if you will, of your life as being one big house with many different rooms.

Each room contains an experience or set of related experiences or memories.

Some of those rooms you are more than happy to leave open and for folk to wander in and out of as they pleased.

Some, of course, you keep private just to be enjoyed by you personally or with those you hold most dear or trust the most.

It’s an interesting concept isn’t it?

Of course some of those rooms are very private aren’t they?

Rooms which contain memories or experiences that we are not willing to share or make publicly known or even share with very many of our closest friends or family.

Perhaps they contain experiences or memories of experiences that we have personally done to others or that others have done to us and which hold, for us and possibly for others, some form of hurt or shame, perhaps guilt or confusion.

So we lock them up and try to forget them or at least not revisit them very often.

And of course there are, for some of us, those rooms which we have locked as tightly and securely as possible and which we have pushed to the very recesses of our hearts and minds and which we have vowed never to return to again.

Rooms which contain perhaps the most painful or even the most shameful of memories or experiences. Things that we desire do deeply to be free of.

And yet are we? Are we really free all the time those rooms and their contents remain and remain unaddressed, unprocessed, unhealed?

Isn’t it true that related circumstances, similar events or situations portrayed; in films, written about in (or on) the news, expressed through songs etc, often instantly remind us of the existence of those rooms and the experiences and memories contained therein?

Isn’t this what happens when, for those of us who do so, we “trigger”?

And isn’t it true that for some of us, our depression – that which is not chemically induced – often comes from the existence of such rooms?

Indeed isn’t the very purpose of therapy to bring us to a point where we are able to safely unlock, open and enter those rooms. Processing and addressing and finding healing for that which was previously locked within them?

It is something that I have been giving a lot of thought to lately. And indeed something that I have been reflecting on in respect of who, if anyone, I would share the existence of, let alone access to, those rooms with.

So what about those lanyard badges and what about if you were the one giving them out and thus affording people different levels of access to those rooms – those parts of your life?

Who would you give them to? Who would you trust with them?

And here is a very interesting question in my opinion…

“Are there rooms in your life which you have not let anyone in or even know about and which, by doing so you might just be able to unlock and find healing for?”

Keeping Busy, Staying Positive.

28 Friday Dec 2012

Posted by boldkevin in Christianity, Journal Entry, Mental Health, Mental Illness

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This depression come deflation that has been stalking me of late is still pretty much hanging around in the wings just waiting to take center stage in my life for a while.

sad

I guess so many of us, and especially those of us who suffer from poor mental health, experience this sometimes don’t we?

The question is, “do we simply give in and allow it to happen or do we try to fight it off?”

And in some respects I guess how close it is – how much it is taking over will dictate just how we respond to that question. For once the depression come deflation has started to hit isn’t it natural to simply accept what we see as being “the inevitable”?

But why? Who says we have to? I for one am not willing to accept it as being the “inevitable” and I for one am not simply ready to enter into the “natural” response when perhaps a super-natural response is open to us.

If pushed concerning whether I was; a pessimist, a realist or an optimist, I would probably describe myself as a realist with a hint of cynicism LOL. But more than that I am a Christian and I do therefore believe in the power of prayer and the benefits of praise and worship in Christ.

These give me access to the super-natural where the natural fails me or is inadequate. In the natural I should simply accept the inevitable but in the supernatural I can hope beyond the inevitable and reach for the improbable even the impossible can’t i?

So that had been my response of late. To hope and focus beyond the natural and to surround myself in and with prayer and praise and worship.

Additionally I am taking steps within the natural. Eating healthily, trying to get good rest, keeping my mind and my body active. And all of these things are important for our well-being I think.

I have spent most of the day, when able, editing videos of a children’s amateur boxing tournament which my son filmed for the local amateur boxing club and this has given me a great distraction and helped occupy my mind.

I say when able as I have got the flu, yet again, and it is seriously kicking my butt. And I am sure that this has some part to play in how I have been feeling of late. Although I am sure that there are other factors too.

So all in all it has been another good day! The coping techniques seem to be working and at the end of the day the alternative is so undesirable!

Try Looking At It Through My Eyes Challenge – Day 11

19 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by boldkevin in Challenges, Journal Entry, Mental Health, Mental Illness, My Eyes Challenge

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Day Eleven of my Try Looking At It Through My Eyes challenge and today’s one is probably the one I will struggle with the most.
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Day Eleven – “The Forgiving” – Choose one thing in your life that you have done and feel guilty for and write yourself a letter forgiving yourself for that thing. Ps. You don’t need to name the thing you did unless you feel comfortable doing so.

Its a funny thing isn’t it? Forgiveness. And by that I mean it is funny peculiar not funny ha ha. But I do fully believe it is also something that can be either extremely freeing or extremely binding. Extremely freeing if given or received correctly or extremely binding when not.

The problem is that some times we are our own worst enemy when it comes to forgiveness aren’t we? Or am I alone in this? You see I hold myself to extremely high standards, punishingly, probably unachievably, high standards in some respects. And yet even with the knowledge that these standards are too high, potentially unachievable still I struggle to forgive myself when I don’t meet them.

Similarly I often get lost between the world of capability and incapability within my mental health. That world which classifies some things, thoughts or actions as being beyond our immediate control as a result of our mental health, and yet which we still refuse to accept were beyond our control and thus come down hard on ourselves over.

Yes if there was one thing which I would want to forgive myself for and yet feel I might still not have done so, it would be something to which both of those things are applicable. The hurt that I have caused my family and loved ones over the years most probably as a result of my mental health.

So here is my letter to myself in respect of that…

dear-me

Dear Kevin,

So here you are sat writing to yourself and not really knowing just what doing so will even achieve.

And hey, if talking to yourself is a sign of madness, isn’t writing to yourself putting that madness down on paper and isn’t doing so on the net simply putting that madness out there for all to see?

And yet is it? Or is it instead a way of creating a record of something important, something worth going back to when the need arises, something worth sharing in the hope that perhaps, just perhaps others might be able to relate and by doing so to find the very freedom you yourself seek?

Accountability is important to you isn’t it? To us isn’t it? To live, as far as you are able, according to the standards and expectations that you hold yourself within. To love and value and respect others wherever possible. Even when their behavior, their words or actions make that so very difficult sometimes?

But there is that phrase again, “as far as you are able”. What was I able of doing and what was I, as a result of my mental health, not able to do? Which actions, which statements, which reactions and responses, that in the past have hurt those I love came from me and which came from my mental health?

In the striving to achieve beyond the limitations of our mental health have we not somehow robbed our self of the very same understanding and tolerance that we would automatically afford others with the same challenges in life?

And what of that “love and value and respect for others wherever possible. Even when their behavior, their words or actions make that so very difficult sometimes?“ Should not that same “love, value and respect” be applied to yourself from yourself even when ‘your behavior’, ‘your words’, ‘your actions’ make that so very difficult at times”?

And what of your faith and of that second greatest commandment? “Love your neighbor as yourself”? “As yourself” the words are clear aren’t they? Are you not somehow failing to do that by failing to forgive yourself?

The fact that you have in the past sometimes hurt the very people you love is undeniable. Just as not knowing whether this resulted from your mental health or simply bad behavior on your part is unknowable.

And here’s the truth. You will no doubt hurt them again in the future and will no doubt still wonder whether it happened as a result of your behavior, attitude or mood, or as a direct result of your mental health. And here’s an additional truth – they will no doubt hurt you in the future.

Why? Because we are human and imperfect and because we all fall short when it comes to how we truly should treat ourselves and each other.

So what is important here? That you hold yourself to too high a standard and expectation and fail to understand or forgive yourself whenever you don’t meet those standards or expectations. Or that you hold yourself to high standards and expectations and yet do so realistically, lovingly, respectfully, realistically.

Which is greater and more desirable here? The freedom that love and forgiveness offers or the bondage that un-forgiveness demands. And with what do we measure this? Our often too involved, too personal, too biased, too harsh, or too emotional, a reaction or the plain simple truth?

That plain simple truth which says, ‘we all fall short when it comes to how we should truly treat ourselves and each other’. And the plain simple truth which says that, in Christ, providing you have sought to: apologize, to put things right, to learn from your mistakes and to try not to repeat them even God himself forgives you of these things.

Dear Kevin.

Accept that forgiveness, grasp that freedom, look to the future.

Because you cannot change the past, but you can learn from it and you can change the way it affects your present and your future.

Try Looking At It Through My Eyes Challenge – Day 10

17 Monday Dec 2012

Posted by boldkevin in Challenges, Christianity, Mental Health, Mental Illness, My Eyes Challenge

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Well it is Day 10 in my “Try Looking At It Through My Eyes” Challenge.
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And today’s challenge is a tough one for me personally…

Day Ten – “The Time Machine” If you could go back and watch one day of your life, what day would it be, why and what do you expect to see?

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As an avid reader H.G.Wells was one of the authors I would read a lot as a younger person and his work “The Time Machine” quite possibly motivated this particular challenge. Although it could quite as easily have been the likes of Hofstadter, Wolowitz, Koothrappali, Cooper et al, from The Big Bang Theory LOL.

When writing these challenges and including this one in them I honestly had no predefined personal reason for doing so. Consequently I really don’t have any great and wonderful event in my life in mind.

Right up there would have to be the birth of my son Matthew. It was a wonderful thing and one that truly did fill me with awe. But if I could choose one day, would that be the day? My wedding day, although my marriage subsequently ended, is of course a consideration, but again would I choose it over others?

Part of me would want to choose the day I gave my life to Christ. And yet the night before this day, just as the night before my wedding, was just as momentous in my life.

For purely personal reasons I would perhaps choose a day in my early childhood. One thing that I have written about a number of times previously has been how I have no recollection of my early years. I have had poor mental health for as much of my life as I can remember and as a result of having no recollection of my early years, I have no knowledge whether my poor relationship with my father resulted from my poor mental health or if my poor mental health resulted from my poor relationship with my father.

But there within I have a problem. Since I have no recollection of my early years I have no idea what day to choose.

There are of course times, days in my life, when I did things that I am particularly regretful of. Times when I have hurt folk and not only those folk that I love.

I was in many ways, despite appearances to the contrary, a fairly troubled teen and young adult and I got into all sorts of trouble and, being on drugs as a young man, often did things that I later regretted greatly.

But I have to be mindful of the wording of the challenge here. It says “If you could go back and watch one day of your life, what day would it be, why and what do you expect to see?” What it doesn’t say is “if you could go back and change one day in your life.”

So this presents me with a difficulty. If I am unable to change anything, in the going back, and since I could not choose one day over another, and have no recollection of my early years – which is the period of time which most interests me – would I truly wish to revisit any one day over the others?

And here the answer would have to be no.

The past is the past unless you let it infiltrate and effect the present or the future. It has, in my opinion, benefits only where those benefits are gleaned and where the negatives are not allowed to consume.

This morning (well yesterday morning now since it is now 5.14 Monday morning) after church I had a conversation with a brother whom I truly am growing to respect and who is already dear to my heart, He like me has battles with his mental health and I truly enjoy his company and our conversations.

As a result of this morning’s conversation he rang me this evening and shared three verses with me which were relevant not only to that conversation but also to this piece – thank you Lord.

Romans 8:28

²⁸And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.

and

2 Corinthians 4:17

¹⁷For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all.

and

2 Corinthians 12:9

⁹But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.” Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.

God is so gracious isn’t He? He is an on-time God and I am so grateful to Him and to my brother for these scriptures and for the encouragements that they bring.

and one more scripture comes to my mind…

2 Corinthians 5:17

¹⁷Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, the new creation has come: The old has gone, the new is here!

Are there things in my life for which I am sorry and regretful or remorseful over? Yes indeed there are BUT I have given them over to Christ for His glory and I refuse to give the enemy a foothold in them.

Would I choose to return to any day from my past were I able to? Only if God wanted me to and that would require no time machine.

Try Looking At It Through My Eyes Challenge – Day 09

16 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by boldkevin in Challenges, Christianity, Mental Health, Mental Illness, My Eyes Challenge

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Day Nine – “Questions for Heaven” What questions relating to your mental health would you ask God and why?

It’s an interesting question, or at least I think it is. Of course it really depends on the relationship that you have with God and indeed how you see that relationship.

For some, and I truly respect this approach, to ask God anything would seem disrespectful or to not be trusting of him. But I don’t see God in the same way and my understanding and relationship with God is that we can ask Him anything whatsoever as long as we do so respectfully and sincerely and that in the process we accept that He i after all our God and our loving heavenly Father and if He chooses not to answer we should accept that.

Some folk, would understandably feel that there are few questions worth asking concerning their mental health and that if God wished to remove it He would and since He hasn’t then He must have a purpose in our having it.

And that would I think be the focus of one of my questions for God when I reach heaven. “Not whether or not God did have a purpose in not removing my mental illnesses, but If God did have a purpose in not removing them did I do all that He wanted of me in fulfilling that purpose?”

See I don’t buy into the whole prosperity teaching of God simply giving us what we ask for in His name. I find no evidence of it in scripture and indeed I find the very opposite of it.

Additionally I find that there is a key phrase in the statement “God will give me what ever I ask for in His name” which is dangerously misunderstood and that is the “in His name” part.

God’s will is, in my understanding, experience and opinion, sovereign. Within that will He had granted us free will to obey it or not, to choose Him or not, but that doesn’t reduce or limit His will it simply confirms it.

To ask “in His name” means to ask something that Christ himself would want for us to have. And Christ’s primary desire is to do the will of God. So asking in Christ’s name is to ask within the will of God NOT within the will of man.

It is not therefore a ‘blank check/cheque’ that gets us whatever we desire. Because unless Christ desires for us to have something, we cannot truly ask for it in His name.

I am convinced of this and thus I am convinced that if God has a purpose in my having mental health issues, I have neither the right nor the arrogance nor the intention of asking God for anything that goes against his will.

Have I and others prayed for healing in respect of my mental health and do I believe that God can remove my mental health issues from me? Yes of course. But only where it is or becomes His will and I would no more ask for something outside of his will than I would ask for me to be placed outside of His love.

So what would be my questions for heaven in respect of my mental health?

“Father did I do all that I could do to fulfill your purpose in my life, even in my mental illness and did I love those you would have me love both despite it and within it?”

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Try Looking At It Through My Eyes Challenge – Day 06

13 Thursday Dec 2012

Posted by boldkevin in Challenges, Christianity, My Eyes Challenge, Self-Harming

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Continuing on in our Try Looking At It Through My Eyes Challenge

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Day Six - “The Support Group” If you could start a support group specific to your mental illness what would it do, what activities, what purpose etc and what would you call it?

I think if I were to start a support group, which I probably wouldn’t do in person for reasons of my ill-health and lack of mobility, it would be on the internet and in some ways this is what the Mental Health Writer’s Guild is all about.

But there are other blogs that I have started which are also intended to be of a support group nature and I find that I struggle with these.

Blogs such as “Resonate Freedom From Self-Harming” the name of which, I think explains it’s purpose.

Resonate

I started this blog as the subject is such an important issue for me and yet I truly struggle in keeping this blog going and feel that I am failing somehow with it.

I sometimes write things for this site and then think no it is to graphic and so don’t publish them. I am at a bit of a loss with it. My heart says it is needed and will take off but my head says, close it down and don’t give yourself the grief.

Another blog/site that I run – also for the purpose of offering support and information is Christian Concern For Mental Health. Its purpose is several-fold but includes the support and encouragement for Christians who suffer from poor mental health or from mental illness.

CC4MH

It is still in the early stage and I am praying over the direction for both this one and for “Resonate Freedom.” But support will, I am convinced, be a big part of each of them.

Try Looking At It Through My Eyes Challenge – Day 05

12 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by boldkevin in Bipolar Disorder, Challenges, Christianity, Depression, DID, Dissociative Identity Disorder, Feelings, Healing, Mental Health, Mental Illness, MPD, Multiple Personality Disorder, My Eyes Challenge, Paranoid Schizophrenia, Self-Doubt, Self-Harming, Self-Image, Self-Loathing, Self-worth

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Day Five - “Younger Self” Write a letter to your younger self telling them the things you think they will need to know about when they are diagnosed with your condition.

Well I am going to cheat here slightly if I may. The reason for my cheating is that actually I have already done this exercise. It is an idea that I gained from reading something Stephen Fry had done and in response to that I wrote my “letter to a younger self” back in November of last year. Wow that year seems to have gone fast.

So having already done this exercise I thought I would republish that last – which can be found here, – but add to it and highlight the additions by placing them in red text…

Kevin1 Dearest Kevin,

I know that you do not really know me and that this letter is going to come as a surprise to you. And I apologize if it comes as a shock but hope that you will see that I had to write it.

To be honest, it is my sincerest hope that if you; get this letter in time, if you take time to read it, and if you truly take my words to your heart, you will never ever know me and never get a chance to become me. Not the full me at least.

You see, I am “you” or at least I am the ”you” that you have become many years in the future. It is confusing I know, but I so very much wanted to write to you telling you some truths that somehow we – you and I – have never been able to understand or accept.

Truths that I now, after years of struggle and no small amount of healing I now know and understand.

You see I know the thoughts and feelings that you (that we) have had for so long now. Thoughts and feelings of; being unloveable, of worthlessness, of guilt, and of shame and of being somehow damaged, even irreparable.

Yes Kevin, even now some forty years into your future I still struggle with these.

For as long as I can remember I too have heard and sadly listened to and believed those voices, those thoughts, those feelings that tell me I am not worth anything, that I am ugly, dirty, useless, worthless. Voices, thoughts and feelings that convince me, convince us, that we are not worth loving and that seeing as we are not worth loving that those who want to hurt us or abuse us can do so.

But you see those voices, those thoughts, those feelings are wrong, so very wrong. And we have no right to listen to them let alone to believe them and I so desperately want for you to know that and to know it now before everything goes so terribly wrong.

You are so very young. Only ten years of age, and trust me I know how already things have gone astray in your young life and how desperately alone you feel.

When you slide into your bed at night and lay there unable to sleep, scared, and alone, desperately trying to face those thoughts and feelings and voices not knowing how to stop them, to change them, to heal them, I have been and am there with you also.

I know only too well, how much you try to hide the way you feel, the thoughts you have and the voices that you hear, from your family and your teachers, and those around you for fear of rejection or ridicule or worse.

But I beg of you, dear sweet child, I beg of you to trust them (those who hold you dear) and to let them into your inner hidden shame-filled world. Because if you don’t, and trust me I am talking from experience here, it will go on to damage you and hurt you and destroy relationships that you should never have lost.

And even more than this, it will lead you to form relationships that you should never have begun and that will hurt and damage you even more deeply than I care to think of.

Kevin, dear sweet Kevin. How deeply I wish I could be there with you to hold you, hug you, guide you and help you find the healing that you so desperately need and so deeply desire.

I cannot begin to place into words, knowing now what lies in your future and my past if you do not get this letter, the sense of urgency that I feel in trying to change the course of life that you are on.

I desire so deeply for you not to go through what happens to you both in your very near future and beyond it and for you to NOT make those attempts that I know are going to come to try in an attempt to end it all. Not to mention those the decisions and actions that you take as a result of the misplaced feelings and beliefs that you mistakenly hold as being true.

Kevin, if you take nothing else from my words to you please, please, accept and believe what I am going to say to you next. Take my words, hold them in your heart and never let go of them…

“Life IS WORTH LIVING because YOU ARE WORTH LOVING and what is more YOU CAN BE LOVED and ARE LOVED despite the way you feel.”

Kevin, I know those words are difficult to hear and even harder to believe. But take it from me, (and let’s not forget that I am actually you – just and older and hopefully wiser and more experienced you) these words are true and the thoughts and feelings and voices – those hateful, harmful, deceptive and malicious, lying thoughts, feelings and voices – that you and I are so used to knowing and believing, are all wrong, so very wrong.

Kevin, I have to close this letter now. I wish so very much that I could write more, share more, show you more. And yet even as I have written the words I have just written, I have come to understand that actually a large part of who I am (who we are) today is in part as a result of what I have been through and what you may yet still go through.

There are so many things in my life that I am thankful for, and trust me Kevin, so many wonderful things that you have yet to experience. Love, marriage, parenthood, your ministry and the faith that I know you already have and yet don’t fully understand or appreciate.

Kevin, please trust me when I tell you that I know the things that you have done and I know the secrets of your heart – the questions, the confusions, the conflicts and the victories. The joys, the fears, the wounds, the guilts, the dreams, and the hopes that are all present there held safe and secure within.

Admit the things you have done sweet child, and accept the love and forgiveness that is offered in return. Trust your family no matter how hard that may seem right now. But trust your heavenly Father more. Because the years of love shared with them that you may lose as a result of not trusting them now can never be regained. Trust me I have tried.

And above all else please, please, know that nothing is greater than God’s love. Not those voices, those feelings, those thoughts, nor the guilt, the pain nor the hurt. None of them, whether individually or combined, are or could ever be greater than God’s love or God’s love for you.

With much love and deep hope,

Kevin. November 29th, 2011. Additions (in red) added December 12th 2012.

So there you have it my, albeit slightly amended, letter to a younger self.

As I said, I wrote the original version of that back in November of last year and I have to tell you that it was a painful experience then and (to a lesser extent) a painful experience now.

Did is serve a purpose then? Does it serve a purpose now? Well we are all different aren’t we but yes for me I believe it did and does.

As you will have possibly gleaned from reading that letter my mental illness had a direct impact on my young life and on the relationships that I did or didn’t form throughout my life. But there is one relationship which it had a huge impact on and that is my relationship with God.

So many of the wounds, the fears, the self-criticisms and so much of the self-hatred that came as result of my mental health and in some part from my unsuccessful attempts to end it all even as a child, had corrupted my perspective of my acceptability to God. So much of the relationship I struggled with in respect of my own biological father corrupted an distorted my understanding of the father-heart of God.

As I re-read that letter, as I reflected on it’s words and sentiments I reflected on the lessons that I have since learned and the healing that I have been blessed to have received in these respects. And in that alone it has served a purpose in helping me to affirm and cement the healing that I, that my inner child as received.

But there is, I hope, a greater purpose from this exercise and that i that if but one person – who is struggling with similar situations and hurts and fears – comes across this and benefits from it than it has been more than worth doing.

And that is my motivation and my prayer.

Try Looking At It Through My Eyes Challenge – Day 04

11 Tuesday Dec 2012

Posted by boldkevin in Challenges, Christianity, Depression, Mental Health, Mental Illness

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Day 4 in the Try Looking At It Through My Eyes challenge and today’s challenge is entitled “the Trade Off”.

Here’s the scenario set before us…

Day Four - “The Trade Off” – You walk into a fun fair or state fair and see a small tent entitled “The Trade Off”. Curious you go and look at the writing under the sign only to learn that for 1 dollar, euro or pound, you get to take a pill which will allow you to trade your mental health condition for another mental condition of your choosing for a whole week. The only rules are that you have to trade one for one and there are no returns until the end of that week. Would you do it, what would you choose and why?

When I was writing that scenario I did of course consider it for myself. And I have to tell you that my minds immediate response was, “Nope Never! Better the devil you know than the devil you don’t!”

But then is it not worthy of more than just an immediate response? What if that pill really was available to me?

TradeOffPill

There are I think three basic approaches/motivations to this scenario. ..

Firstly, to not take the pill

Secondly to take the pill in order to get rid of (albeit temporarily) what you have.

Thirdly to take the pill in order to get something else instead of what you have.

On face value it is easy to mistake two and three of that list as being one in the same thing but I would argue that they are not.

Certainly I have been in situations that have seemed unbearable and where I have asked for those situations to be removed.

Likewise I have been in situations where they have seemed unbearable and where I have asked for a different kind of experience rather than asking for that experience. “Oh Lord, please, I can’t take this, isn’t there another way? Any other way? Just not this!”

Of course one of the problems with this scenario, is that to choose another mental illness to replace your own might appear, to some, that you consider that other mental illness to be less serious or more manageable than your own.

But what if your desire to trade was not based on getting rid of or having a respite from your own mental illness but was instead about , experiencing that of others?

What if the motivation was so that you could catch a glimpse of the suffering of others so that you could perhaps relate better, understand better?

As someone who spends a great deal of time reading and writing about mental health and mental illness and who is on the blogosphere quite a lot I read a great deal about the experiences of others and sometimes feel so useless when it comes to offering support and encouragement.

Could it be that by temporarily trading my own mental illness for another mental illness I could gain an insight into how to support and love someone better?

TradeOffPill1 And yet I have reservations even in this.

When I was homeless and living on the streets, indeed when I was working with the homeless, I used to get frustrated by those well meaning individuals who would make comments such as…

“I know what it is like to be homeless as I was locked out of my house one night and had to sleep rough.”

Um no you don’t ‘know what it is like to be homeless’ because you knew it was only for one night and you still had a home even if for that short night you couldn’t access it. There is a world of difference between being locked out of your home for a night and not even having a home.

Yes you have had a glimpse at some of the experiences and issues facing the street homeless, but you were no more homeless or fully knowledgeable of what it is like to truly be homeless than I would be fully aware what it is like to be pregnant if I felt bloated for an hour or two!

Would I be willing to experience some one else’s mental health condition or mental illness in order to catch a glimpse of their suffering, yes I believe I truly would. But I am so mindful that I know that that would only be temporary and that that knowledge would make a huge difference.

And I have another thought resonating in my mind at this time. Whilst my experiencing what it is like to have that mental illness or mental health condition may afford me some understanding of the condition or illness, it cannot afford me the knowledge of what it is like to be you having to deal with that condition or illness.

Would the insights an experience of the condition or illness be useful? Yes quite possibly but I don’t want to get to know, support or love the condition or illness I want to get to know, support and love you.

So would I take this trade off pill? No I really wouldn’t.

An Excellent Day With WXCCC!

09 Sunday Dec 2012

Posted by boldkevin in Christianity, Faith, Isolation, Journal Entry

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Well today, despite having flu all week, I was determined to go to church.

Thanks to Natalie I was able to not only make church but also spend virtually all day in the company of other believers. And I have to tell you that it was just such a blessing.

Church at WXCCC this morning was ace and then I went for a coffee with Enzo Claudia, Natalie and all the children.

This evening saw the Church Christmas fellowship meal and I at on a table with Natalie, Claudia (hopefully the spelling is right), Enzo, Leigh, Edele, Alan and Michelle and we had a roaring time.

I have never experienced an evening like it in all of my life and probably won’t experience it again but I was just so blessed by the company and all the activity and the fact that it was all just basic good clean fun.

And trust me, for someone who spends around 158 alone out of the 168 hours in a week and really quite enjoys doing so, for me to say it was an excellent time really is a compliment!

So thank you one and all and especially those who were on the same table as me, and of course thank you Lord!

D-Sound-give-thanks

Try Looking At It Through My Eyes Challenge – Day 01

08 Saturday Dec 2012

Posted by boldkevin in Bipolar Disorder, Challenges, Christianity, Feelings, Mental Health, Mental Illness, My Eyes Challenge, Paranoid Schizophrenia, Uncategorized

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Challenges, Christianity, Christianity and Depression, Christianity and Mental Health, Depression, Distorted Perceptions, Mental Health, Mental Illness, My Eyes Challenge, Paranoid Schizophrenia

TTLAITMEC The other day I draw up, with the help of my daughter Nicky the above 12 day challenge and wishing to put my money where my mouth is, so to speak, I have been keen to take the challenge myself and to see how I get on with it.

Here is my response to day one’s challenge….

Day One - “She” (Or if you are male “He”) - Write a short story about someone who has just been diagnosed with your mental illness/condition and who is the age you were when you were diagnosed. What happened, what were they expecting, what are their feelings etc?

He…

He sat in the taxi, not physically alone, for his wife and son were with him, but mentally, emotionally, seemingly even spiritually alone and he knew it.

Within the hour he would perhaps, most probably even, know what had happened to cause him to come unraveled, to become undone.

Unraveled an undone. Yes they were good words. Horrible, rotten, revealing, naked, vulnerable, bad words but good for explaining for describing where he was at.

Questions and comments addressed to him as they journeyed towards the psychiatrist appointment echoed within the chasms of his mind as he journey back and forth between the urge to escape, the need to hide and the longing to understand.

To understand the very thing that he had hidden for as long as he could remember. The very thing that had begun in and that had tainted his own childhood and now some 30 odd years later was tainting his own child’s childhood.

The secrets of his mental illness – hidden for the past 30 odd years behind a mask of confidence and capability - had suddenly erupted, exploded, perhaps imploded, causing him to hide behind a closed bedroom door for the past 3 month and to steal himself from anyone and everyone even his own family, his own son.

As the car continued its journey towards the answers and his wife and son continued their conversation and comments of encouragement so too did his mind continue its journey into more and more questions and its conversation and comments of discouragement and of slanderous attack.

“They’re gonna lock you up” “They’re gonna put you away” the voices chanted and jeered. “All these years of running and for what? Just to fail and end up where you have always wanted never to be!”

His thumbs traced the furrows of his palms, skating off of the film of sweat that somehow seemed to be there.

“But I need to do this.” He silently screamed at the voices. “I have a son and a wife and they need me.”

“Yeah right” The voices screamed back “They need you like they need a dose of botulism!”

The car pulled to a halt outside it’s destination and he was helped out of it and led to a waiting room within the big old formidable house.

“Oh God,” his fears called out. “Will they see how damaged I am?”

The sense of panic was mirrored by the film of sweat on those palms he had been etching with his thumbs. Lines and furrows now flooded with sweat just as he himself was flooded with fear and apprehension.

“What would they ask?” “What would they ask his wife and his son?” “Would they even talk to his wife and son?” “Would they even talk to him?” “Is there survival from this point on?” “Is it even worth it?” Still the questions came. “What if they see the real me?” “Find the real me?” “Heck I can’t even see, can’t even find, don’t even know the real me!”

He heard his name being called and stood up looking at the doorway from whence it had come. “Is that the doorway to the rest of my life, or to the end of it as I know it?” He asked.

He glanced at his wife and son, there encouraging, concerned and loving faces pleading with him to believe.

To “believe”? To believe what? He didn’t even know what he believed anymore an belief had been a part of his life for even as long as his torment had been. “Did he still believe? Still believe there was any hope? Did that lack of belief speak of God or of him? Even in the depths of the torment he had never had trouble believing in God, but always in believing in him in God.

His eyes lingered before moving once more from looking at his wife and son back towards that doorway. How could he leave them, go through that doorway, and run the risk of not coming back?

How could he not leave them, not go through that doorway, and lose the chance to find his way back to them?

I think that is all I can write right now. It’s long, I know that and I apologize, and yet how can you write something shorter and do justice to the myriad of thoughts and fears and emotions and torments that took place.

In truth is has not been a place, a memory I really wanted to go back to and I am aware that I am left more out than I have put in.

But what is most painful to me is the look on the face of my son during that time and other times, back then. He was I think 9 perhaps 10 when this all took place. I can still see the look on his face at that time and at other times when he tried to reach out to me in the world within which I was trapped. But I thank God those times are behind us and that my son i who he is.

30 Day Challenge – Day 30

08 Saturday Dec 2012

Posted by boldkevin in 30 Day Challenge, Challenges, Christianity, Just for Fun

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30 Day Challenge, Challenges, Christianity, Christianity and Depression, Christianity and Mental Health, Just For Fun

Fanfare please!

mariachi-trumpet

Yes today is the end of my 30 Day Challenge and I am delighted!
30DayChallenge30 I have without doubt enjoyed doing this challenge and it has generally speaking been fun. But I am keen to get on with other things now and specifically to see how I myself respond to the challenge that I designed with the help of my daughter Nicky, namely the “Try Looking At It Through My Eyes” challenge.

So let’s look at the final challenge/subject in this challenge which is…

One Thing You Are Excited For.

There can of course be but one answer to this for me personally but before I get to that I want to explain something. It is something that I have written about before and something that I just don’t fully understand and that is my apparent inability to experience certain emotions.

I found this fairly basic and yet creative graphic on Pintrest and it demonstrate certain moods in the form of a wheel.

18295942206128391_paWvZ2Vx_c

And I have to say that whilst it is basic ad I may have a different view of the listing included it can be used to demonstrate my point which is that there are it seems certain moods which escape me and one (in respect of this wheel) which always seems to escape me.

18295942206128391_paWvZ2Vx_c1

I am of course referring to the whole ‘being excited’ thing. I just don’t seem to do it or experience it in any positive sense.

Whether this is a result of one of my mental health conditions or whether this is a result of my seemingly needing always to be in control of my emotions (which could be argued as being genetic in as much as I am English and we English don’t like to lose control or show the loss of control of our emotions old chap LOL) or whether it is because I have a tendency to intellectualize and logic most things out I have no idea.

But being excited in a positive or constructive way is just not something I am used to or seem to experience.

That is not to say I do not experience any form of excited state. Put the welfare of my dog at risk or confront me with extreme injustice and you will see a very different side to me. But even then it is likely to fall more into the (verbally) ‘aggressive’ region rather than the excited region.

Likewise that is not to say that I am not passionate. There are numerous things about which I am extremely passionate but in a more quiet warm rather than fiery explosive way.

So having explained that it is in that context that I am able to say that the one thing for which I would consider myself close to “excited” for would have to be heaven.

The chance to finally go home. The reward of reaching the end of this earthly section of the race. To be with my Christ and my heavenly Father. What a glorious thing to be able to have.

No more pain, no more sorrow, no more suffering. To have this damaged, altered or confused mind finally healed and to know the answers to the questions that have eluded me most of my life in that respect. Can you imagine it? To have the Father look into my eyes and to be able to look into His. Oh trust me I could go on for hours.

But I am mindful of Paul’s approach to this also.

For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. Philippians 1:21 NIV

I long for heaven, yearn for heaven and I am as close to “excited” about heaven as I could ever be close to “excited” about anything. But I live for Christ and the gain that I will get when I die must, if I truly do live for Christ, come in accordance with Christ’s will and I know that.

So there you have it. As predictable as it may seem that is the “one thing that I am excited for” And interestingly it may be the one thing that is the end of this my 30 Day Challenge,. but it is also the one thing that is the constant source of my daily life-long challenge. To fulfill the will of Christ in and for my life.

30 Day Challenge – Day 27

05 Wednesday Dec 2012

Posted by boldkevin in 30 Day Challenge, Challenges, Christianity

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30 Day Challenge, Challenges, Christianity, Christianity and Depression, Christianity and Mental Health

30DayChallenge27

And I am coming towards the end of this my 30 Day Challenge.

I have to say that I have enjoyed doing it but as I mentioned in my last post I have found some of the questions to be a little tame or that simply didn’t seem to fit me somehow. Which is why I ( with the help of my daughter Nicky) designed and launched the “Try Looking At It Through My Eyes Challenge“.
TTLAITMEC

Today’s question/subject in the 30 Day Challenge is, “a quote you try to live by.” and I have to be honest and admit that there are numerous quotes (mainly scriptural) that I really do take to my heart and try to live by.

But if I had to choose but one it would be this one…

picture courtesy of Mind of clay.org http://mindofclay.org/?p=16

“Soli Deo Gloria” sometimes also referred to as “Soli Gloria Deo”.

picture courtesy of Wikipedia

“Soli Deo Gloria” simply means “Glory To God Alone” or (put another way) “to God alone be the glory“. A Latin phrase and having been used by such artists as Back, Graupner, and Handel (see pic to the left) and I truly like this phrase and do try to remember it always.

Why?

Well here’s the deal….

Firstly, it clearly recognizes God’s place in our lives. Not only that He has a place in our lives but that He should be first and foremost in our lives.

Secondly, it recognizes that things are worth showing “Glory” and that said “Glory” should go solely to God.

Holmans Bible Dictionary defines Glory (in this context) as being “the weighty importance” or “honor”. Each and every one of us is, in my opinion a miracle in ourselves and a miracle created by God.

I recently wrote about humility and how poor self-image and humility are two different things.

Poor self-image is to rob ourselves of the very value God Himself places upon us. Humility is to recognize that value in ourselves and in others but to place these in the context of the worth and majesty and rightful sovereign place of God and to place that and then others before ourselves.

Used by ‘the Reformers‘ as one of the expressions that summed up what life should be about.
37defn-soli-deo-gloria

I use it not to devalue anything that I accomplish but instead to recognize that if I do have any gifts, they come from God and should be used for His glory and His glory alone.

So there you have it. The phrase I like to live by.

Of Retaining Control and Chemical Lobotomies.

04 Tuesday Dec 2012

Posted by boldkevin in Bipolar Disorder, Depression, Isolation, Journal Entry, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Paranoid Schizophrenia, Schizophrenia

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Bipolar Disorder, Christianity, Christianity and Depression, Christianity and Mental Health, Depression, Distorted Perceptions, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Personal Journal

psychiatrist 1 Well I saw the psychiatrist today.

I thought that since all I seem to have done over the past few weeks is complete the 30 day challenge each week and work on my books, it was time for a real and normal post

And today was, as I have mentioned my appointment to see the psychiatrist. I hadn’t seen one since way back in June and so wasn’t sure what to expect.

Actually (and thankfully) the psychiatrist I saw was nothing like the one in the clipart above Instead it was a female psychiatrist from the french part of Canada and she was extremely nice and very approachable.

I will be honest with you here. Sadly, as a Christian with mental health issues, there are two types of people with whom I have learned to be hesitant about discussing my faith and mental health in the same conversation.

Psychiatrist and some Christians. And again sadly, I am sure I don’t have to labor the reasons why.

Go to a psychiatrist as some one who hears voices and share that you speak to God and three things will immediately rise. Their interest, their eyebrows and their pen.

Go to some Christians as someone who believes in and hears God and admit that you hear voices and instant diagnoses of demon possession and the need for immediate deliverance will result.

But thank fully the psychiatrist I saw today, although having her own faith, did neither of those things and we were able to have a sensible cohesive conversation with each other which included aspects of my faith. And trust me, since my faith is core to who I am, and thus no amount of help will be effective unless recognizing and respecting that, it was a welcomed change.

Знак вопроса из медицинских таблет As a result of this I also fessed up to my struggles over my medication. My memory and focus difficulties often mean that I would forget to take my meds – folk who know me well will know the struggles that I have with these things – memory, focus and taking my meds.

Subsequently on realizing that I have forgotten to take my meds I would then decide to deliberately not take my meds, believing that since I haven’t taken them and seem ok I must not therefore need them.

Of course the keywords in that statement being “seem ok”, and often I am not ok. But I guess I am not alone in this and that others will be able to relate.

One difficulty is of course that in the past i have been medicated to such a degree that I am effectively being chemically lobotomized. Something I never want to experience as it affords no quality of life worth living and removes my ability to function let alone worship.

But we discussed this, the psychiatrist and I, and I have agreed to an increase in the dose of my psych meds on the condition that I retain control over whether or not I continue with the increase subject top giving it an adequate period of review.

I have to tell you, and I mean no disrespect to other psychiatric professionals here, but it is so refreshing to walk away from a consult actually feeling that you have been listened to and heard and that the primary purpose was not just the ticking of boxes and pushing of pills.

God is so good!

30 Day Challenge – Day 26

04 Tuesday Dec 2012

Posted by boldkevin in 30 Day Challenge, Challenges, Christianity

≈ 13 Comments

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30 Day Challenge, Challenges, Christianity and Depression, Christianity and Mental Health

30DayChallenge26 Hm. “Things you like and dislike about yourself” That’s the subject of today’s (day 26) challenge in the 30 Day Challenge that I am doing.

Interestingly I could probably name and more easily think of things that I dislike about myself than those that I like about myself.

As Christians humility – humbleness of heart – is seemingly encouraged.

Do not boast about tomorrow, for you do not know what a day may bring. ²Let someone else praise you, and not your own mouth; an outsider, and not your own lips.

To name but one example. Add to this the fact that I do have such a very poor self-image and is it any wonder that I do more easily, more readily think of those things that I dislike about myself over those things that I like about myself.

And I seriously doubt I am alone in this. Even if you yourself are not a Christian is the other part – the poor self-image, the tendency to list the things you dislike about yourself rather than those things you like, ringing familiar to you?

And in truth and love I have to ask the question should we really be like this? Should we even be allowing ourselves to be like this? Are we, by accepting this in ourselves, not feeding, reaffirming, this poor self-image in ourselves? Are we not defeating ourselves even before we have begun something?

dejected-football-player-uid

And what about where we do have a faith? Does this spirit of dejection of defeatism, this constant, albeit often covert often sub-conscious, self-criticism have any place in that faith?

In failing to recognize our good aspects are we not failing to recognize that which Christ himself and the indwelling of God’s Holy Spirit has done in us?

In 1 Corinthians 4:7 we read…

⁷For who makes you different from anyone else? What do you have that you did not receive? And if you did receive it, why do you boast as though you did not? (NIV)

In context this is about boasting of things in such a way that it gives the impression that they are of your own doing not Christ’s. And as such this scripture may not seem particularly relevant here.

But I ask, is not our poor self-image, the acceptance and feeding of it, failing to recognize what Christ and God’s Holy Spirit has achieved in us, just as boasting of any achievements as if they are our own, is failing to recognize the self-same thing?

See I know the person I was before I became a Christian and before inviting God’s Holy Spirit to work in, on and through my life. And I know the person I have and am becoming as a result of that.

And I know and stand on the promise of the scripture in 2 Corinthians 5:17

¹⁷Therefore if any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become new. (KJV)

But in the way I see myself am I truly standing on that promise and truth?

I like (even love) the heart that I have for other, the heart for others that Christ has given me.

I like (even love) the passion I have for God’s word, the passion that Christ has given me.

I like (even love) the fact I respect people and seek to respect people in the way that Christ would have me do so, because Christ has enabled me to do so.

I like (even love) the creativity that He has given me.

But most of all, I love the way that even though I had and still struggle with such a poor self-image, even though I have messed up so badly in my life before, still He chose me. Still He uses me. and that if I have achieved anything I have done so in and though Him .

God’s grace is so amazing and I am so very grateful for that and the fact that he chose to shine His grace on me.

So today, through this post I will not live the past, that poor self-image, nor will I boast of the present or future for myself but for what Christ has done in me and for me. And I will give thanks for that grace that I mentioned. That grace that He in his mercy chose, he chooses to shine on us.

Not Your Strength But Mine.

30 Friday Nov 2012

Posted by boldkevin in Christianity, Chronic Fatigue, CFS, CFIDS, & M.E., Depression, Faith, Feelings, Healing, Mental Health, Mental Illness

≈ 11 Comments

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Christianity, Christianity and Depression, Christianity and Mental Health, Depression, Mental Health, Mental Illness

I promised dear Ellen from over at Moonside, that I would write and post this and being true to my word is important to me. But I know it will be a fairly long post, so I apologize fr that from the outset and would hope that folk would still take the time to read it…

Not really understanding what was going on in my heart, I walked into the office after work one night, in search of Jim.

“PTL! PTL!” Came the ever-happy reply – it was short for ‘Praise the Lord’ and was, from Jim, a stock response to most things.

“Got time for a chat?” I asked him.

“Yes of course” came his instant response as he shut the office door and gestured towards a set for me to sit in. “I’ll make a coffee and then you can tell me what’s up” he added.

Jim was a really nice guy. A Christian brother and colleague and the Center Manager. Although definitely my senior in age and technically my senior in the staff hierarchy, being senior just wasn’t Jim’s thing. Certainly not with and not with anyone else from what I could see.

As Jim made us both a cuppa, I looked around the office. I would be moving into it soon enough as Jim was leaving to go to Bible College soon and I would be taking his job. On his desk sat a little wooden cross with a light green plastic Jesus nailed to it. “That’s going the minute I take over this office.” I thought to myself, “I am not into crucifixes and Jesus has risen!”

I was already the weekend Center Manager and was taking the job up full-time when Jim left. There was a strange connection there as the Bible College Jim was leaving to attend I was considering going to before deciding instead to go work at the YMCA and eventually replacing Jim.

“I don’t feel or experience God or see Christ any more.” I told him sadly as soon as he returned with our drinks.

“Well He isn’t hiding” Jim laughed but soon guessed from my face that it was no joking matter and was bothering me greatly.

Jim, like most people knew nothing about my mental health although he had always sensed that I was “slightly different” to most of the other staff there. That sounds very serious” He told me. “And I can tell that it is really bothering you.”

Jim was right and the conversation that then took place lasted for about 40 minutes and covered most of the bases when t came to feeling or experiencing or seeing God. But to no avail.

“Perhaps I am just incredibly tired,” I offered weakly. “It is almost Monday night and it has been a tough weekend. Apart from the odd nap here and then I have now been working since Friday evening.”

Jim agreed and suggested that we prayed together before I went. I agreed and closed my eyes ad lowered my head. “I’ll just turn the light off.” Jim told me. It will help us focus and hopefully will convince others that the office is empty so we won’t get disturbed.

Eyes still closed, I listened as Jim turned off the light and then started praying. It was a deep heartfelt prayer and I was touched by the intimacy of his pleas for me. I agreed with him by saying amen when he did and then struggled out a prayer of my own. Jim agreed with me throughout the prayer and then once I had said “Amen” he also did.

I opened my eyes and looked up in the darkness of the office waiting for Jim to turn the light on. But the minute my eyes were open there before me was a little green glowing Christ. For a moment I was stunned. I hadn’t realized that the plastic Christ figure on the little wooden crucifix was glow in the dark.

“Weird isn’t it?” Jim commented as he turned the light on and noticing my staring at it. “It was donated by an old supporter of our work and I didn’t have the heart to get rid of it.”

“Well it certainly surprised me” I told him.

“Can I ask you a question?” Jim asked me.

“Sure” I told him.

“What is the one place or one thing that always brings you close to God?” he asked me.

I thought for a moment of two. There were so many potential answers, or at least there had been up until a few days ago.

“Other than people, Creation I guess.” I told him. “I just have to look at creation at the stars, the sea, the land, plants, flowers, animals, birds, fish and I see God.”

“Well maybe that’s your answer” He suggested. “Spend some time with creation.”

I thanked Jim and left the office. It was the middle of summer and hot out so whilst I was dressed only in tracksuit trousers and a t-shirt I didn’t even bother stopping to go back to my quarters for a jacket. I just said goodnight and left.

Walking out of the front doors of the YMCA i lowered my head a little and started to pray as I made for the beach no more that 500 yards away. It was a deep heartfelt prayer telling God I didn’t know why I could no longer see him, feel Him, experience Him? Asking God what I had done wrong? Explaining that I was on my way to the beach to stand and look out at the sea, to watch the rolling waves which reminded me so much of his ever flowing power and mercy.

Right across from the YMCA where I worked and would soon live and running parallel with the beach there was a long grassy mound under which hid some naval defenses – a left-over after the war. Head still lowered I climbed the mound and then looked out across the sea.

There was nothing. No roaring waves, no foaming tips, no nothing. It was dark and a very calm night and I cannot begin to describe the anticlimax in my heart. “But I need the roaring waves.” I complained silently. “I need the reminding of your ever-flowing power and mercy.”

Still nothing. I am not even sure I even expected God to suddenly summon up a storm for me.

“Ok.” I thought. “Then I will look at the stars.” That beautiful blanket of stars which always remind me of a million tiny blessings sprinkled over creation.

I looked up into the night sky. Again nothing! Not a single solitary star could be seen.

“Oh you’ve got to be kidding me!” I complained. “What did I do that you would pull so far away from me?” I couldn’t understand it. It felt somehow personal. Of course logically it probably wasn’t. It was just a very calm night with an overcast sky, but I was in no place for logic.

“Ok Lord.” I called out defiantly. “I am not going anywhere until you give me a star. Just one star. Surely that isn’t asking too much from you, after all wasn’t it you who sewed together the very universe?”

I waited. Still nothing.

“Right then.” I told Him. “I shall just wait until you are less busy.”

I sat down on the grass looking up at the sky, glancing every now and then back at the sea in case a storm happened to roll by.

Just how long I waited, sat there expectantly I couldn’t say, but finally I got a sore butt.

“I am not going.” I told God, laying myself down on the grass mound, placing my hands behind my head and looking up into the blank night sky waiting for a star. A single solitary star.”

Still nothing.

“It’s just one star!” I complained. “Just one single solitary little star! It doesn’t even have to be a good one.” I turned my gaze from side to side and scanned the skies. Nothing!

“Ok God.” I explained in my defiance. “I am not moving from this spot until you give me a star.” I told him.

And then it happened.

The heavens opened and it poured down. A cold, heavy, clothes-drenching downpour.

“Oh that is just not funny!” I told Him. “But it won’t work, I am not moving without seeing my star.”

Just how long I lay there defiantly looking up into the night sky in the pouring rain I could not tell you. But certainly long enough for the dawn to break around me and the night sky to become the day sky.

Cold, soaked to the skin and incredibly tired and dejected I finally gave up. Without word I got up and started the long walk home. It was too early for a bus and what taxi driver would want a soaking wet passenger? And besides I didn’t want to talk to anyone.

I walked home along the beach but cannot even remember looking out to sea even once. What was the point? I had already got the message loud and clear – or so I thought.

The walk home was about 4 miles and I finally made it back to my parent’s house where I was living at the time, let myself in and climbed the stairs to my room.

What I was thinking I couldn’t really say. What can you think when you feel you have lost the most important relationship there is in life?

Going into my bedroom I peeled off my soaking wet clothes and let them drop to a sodden heap on the floor before standing there exhausted and naked.

Kicking the heap of wet clothes to the side I didn’t even have the energy to dry myself and simply slipped into bed. I was so tired. So very tired, tired beyond the ability to sleep. Laying on my back and placing my hands behind my head once more but this time on the pillow I listened to the sound of my mother moving about and then going down stairs.

Just as my eyes had desperately searched the sea and skies for signs of creation, signposts to God earlier, so my mind desperately searched for answers.

A knock on my bedroom door was immediately followed by its opening and my mother entering the room holding a hot mug of coffee.

“Morning son,” she greeted me. “You home very late, I made you a mug of coffee.” She told me as she placed the mug on the bedside table before turning and going to leave the room. But on reaching the open door she closed it slightly and turned her head back towards me and said, “Oh by the way, they think your dad is dying. But don’t say anything because we haven’t said anything to him yet.” And with that she left my bedroom closing the door behind her.

I could hardly believe my ears. “What was I hearing? What kind of night was I having? In one night was I truly destined to lose my heavenly father and my earthly father together?”

Turning on my side, I reached to my bedside table and took hold of my bible. Opening it I lay there blurry eyed and read it…

⁹And he said unto me, My grace is sufficient for thee: for my strength is made perfect in weakness. Most gladly therefore will I rather glory in my infirmities, that the power of Christ may rest upon me. (2 Corinthians 12:9 KJV)

And in that moment I had my answer.

Yes the roaring flow of the waves, the white capped crest of the waves would have shown me God and spoken to me of His ever flowing power and mercy. Certainly the brilliance and majesty of the myriad of stars in a sky would have spoken to me of His blessings. Absolutely the vibrant variety of colors and shades and textures and pigments of flowers would have spoken to me of the wonderment of God.

But none, not one of them would have been the message that I needed to hear and that God needed to give me. Somewhere along the way, even though I was still only a young Christian at the time, I had lost my way, stopped relying on God and started relying on my own strength instead of His and He, in His infinite wonderful father-heart wisdom knew that I needed His strength not mine.

The fear that my earthly father was dying turned out to be premature. The cancer they thought he had was not there when they tested again. He died several years later – although sadly we had lost our closeness long before then.

I hadn’t lost my heavenly Father either that night. He was simply and lovingly teaching me a lesson that I needed to know so very deeply. That He is my Father and the creator, and that creation is His garden. His garden for us to play in and grow in and love in with Him.

This site employs the Trigger Warning Sign.

I will, where possible, display this sign at the start of any post where I consider the subject matter to be of a sensitive nature and such that could cause possible distress to others.

Please understand that sensitivity is a very personal thing and thus I cannot guarantee that something posted on this site which I do not consider to be sensitive or to potentially cause distress (and thus does not include the displaying of this sign) will not cause distress to some. I therefor apologize in advance if this happens.

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Please also be aware that the author of this blog makes no claims to be an expert in this field or a mental-health practitioner of any sort.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog are exactly that - simply views and opinions of the author as a mental illness sufferer and it is strongly advised that readers seek professional advice before making any decision in respect of their own mental health and/or the mental health of those in their care.

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Voices of Glass

~ One man's journey through Paranoid Schizophrenia, Mental Health, Faith and Life.

Tag Archives: Christianity and Depression

Kevin and His Amazing Multi-shaded Vision Coat

Discussing The Holy Weak.

When You Are One of The Toys Thrown Out of The Pram!

Who’s Failing Who?

Perfect Love….

…casteth out fear.

Climbing Out of The Hole.

Acceptance

Mental Health and the Church

When The Tears Won’t Fall

Not As ‘Potty’ As You Might Think

Standing Firm In The Struggles…

…and Surviving The Attacks!

And Carrying On From Yesterday.

To Do Lists

Of Convivial Christianity

When The Crows Gather.

Access All Areas

Keeping Busy, Staying Positive.

Try Looking At It Through My Eyes Challenge – Day 11

Try Looking At It Through My Eyes Challenge – Day 10

Romans 8:28

2 Corinthians 4:17

2 Corinthians 12:9

2 Corinthians 5:17

Try Looking At It Through My Eyes Challenge – Day 09

Try Looking At It Through My Eyes Challenge – Day 06

Try Looking At It Through My Eyes Challenge – Day 05

Try Looking At It Through My Eyes Challenge – Day 04

An Excellent Day With WXCCC!

Try Looking At It Through My Eyes Challenge – Day 01

30 Day Challenge – Day 30

30 Day Challenge – Day 27

Of Retaining Control and Chemical Lobotomies.

30 Day Challenge – Day 26

Not Your Strength But Mine.

Follow “Voices of Glass”

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…casteth out fear.

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…and Surviving The Attacks!

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Romans 8:28

2 Corinthians 4:17

2 Corinthians 12:9

2 Corinthians 5:17

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