This is How I Fight My Battles

I’ve had a couple of really tough days. A mix of medication changes, being involved with an intensive outpatient program, and still having to work despite major concentration issues and the weight of all the work from my program have triggered me to have a couple of really difficult days littered with crying fits, hyperventilation, panic, racing thoughts including thoughts of self-harm, yet still my heart beats on.

I’ve learned a few coping mechanisms, and to  my surprise, they’ve helped. I woke up crying this morning. I couldn’t seem to make it stop. So I grabbed my IOP notebook, and found a list of survival exercises. The one that was first was to place your face in icy water or find the equivalent. I took an ice pack and covered my face with it. It at least made me stop crying and literally cooled me down.

Secondly, the exercises suggested raising your heart rate through exercise. So I hopped on the the elliptical for 25 minutes and watched a show.

Thirdly, the exercises suggested eating something if you hadn’t. I had only ingested coffee, so I ate a high protein mini meal.

I then retreated upstairs to find a coping mechanism. I chose distraction. I watched celebrity interviews because they are light and mindless. When I was done, I felt the urge to be productive and started editing photos from a shoot that I’ve needed to complete for a long time.

My husband then came in and shared this song with me. The lyrics “It may look like I’m surrounded, but I’m surrounded by You,” spoke to my soul today, and I hope they also speak to yours.

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VERSE OF THE MONTH: December 2017

This verse has spoken to me over and over these last few weeks. Sometimes I feel like God isn’t moving in my life the way that I want Him to. However, it’s during these times that He is sustaining me. He does this because that is what I need in my journey toward healing, wholeness, and holiness.

May the God of all peace sustain you in the ways you need Him to this month. Have a happy Christmas, and a wonderful New Year!

VERSE OF THE MONTH: November 2017

This month’s verse is: The Lord will fight for you. You need only be still. Exodus 14:14

It takes a great amount of trust to let God fight for you, but He’s willing to so long as well let Him. I love how this verse says to “be still.” We may think that we are helping in the battle, but we may be hindering our own freedom.

My prayer for this month is for God to help me be still in mind, body, and spirit, and to trust that He’s got this. God, I believe. Help my unbelief.

VERSE OF THE MONTH: October 2017

I chose this verse for a couple of different reasons. One being its popularity. Folks deeply devoted or barely acquainted with Christ can more than likely prattle this off as one of the verses they have memorized. I also wanted to highlight it because there is power in it, and it has brought me much encouragement and strength these last few weeks.

I will not lie, last month was hellacious for me. Finding the right combination of medications for me has proved to be beyond taxing, and I’ve clung tightly to the Word of God during this time. I’ve constantly come back to Philippians 4 as a whole, prayed it – declared it over myself because I have had days where I felt like I couldn’t do anything. I would stand still in my bedroom, large chunks of times would pass. When my husband would come in, I would just weep because I couldn’t get ready for the day. I was consumed by fear and brought low by the unbalanced chemicals in my brain.

Through prayer and a medication change, I’m doing much better. This month has a bright start, but I want to remember that no matter the challenge, Christ will give me strength.

I pray that you will find strength in the challenges that face you this month.

Happy October!

Moving Thoughts as Heavy as Pianos

Have you ever moved a piano?

I do every morning.

My wallet was stolen a few months ago by a couple of creepy thugs, and I quickly became paranoid that they would take the information found on my license and come to our house and break in. Because of this new found paranoia, our Wurlitzer spinet gets pushed in front of our front door every night (Do not talk to me about fire hazards), and I assume the right position and push it back to its rightful place in the morning on my way out for work.

When I first started moving this large and dreadfully heavy instrument, I struggled to get it to budge. However, with time, I have learned where and how to plant my feet, which position my hips need to be in to assist with the push, and just how much weight I need to throw forward in order to get it to move.

This is my every morning, but it won’t always be this way. My paranoia will fade. I will be satisfied with the alarms we have on the door as well as the windows. However, until then, I must push.

This is where I am at with my mental health. In my mind, I have made no progress these last several months. My depression is OK, but my anxiety is heavy and hard to maneuver. I have been crying a lot, and I feel like I’m unsteady most of the day. I find it difficult to complete small tasks, but I keep saying to myself:

“Just push through.”

This thought of encouragement doesn’t make the task that I am facing any smaller or lighter, but it readjusts my posture for how I am going to face it.

While I feel I’ve made no progress because I still feel pretty awful, I have to remind myself that seven years ago, I refused to go to a doctor for help, I was reluctant to see a counselor, the idea of medication was offensive, I was having panic attacks almost daily, and I was painfully suicidal.

Now, I have more of a vocabulary to use to describe my symptoms, I see a psyche practitioner monthly, I’ve started counseling, I make a lot of my own phone calls instead of waiting for my husband to do them, I can often walk and talk myself out of a panic attack, I know when my depression is heading to a dark and bad place and unashamedly cry out for help.

I’ve learned a better posture for pushing against the heaviness of Bipolar 2 Disorder, and even though the heaviness of it hasn’t changed, I can push through it a little easier. It’s just taken practice. I won’t always have to repeat this small mantra in my head, but it is a tool that I’ll carry for when the need arises.

Just. Push. Through.

VERSE OF THE MONTH: JULY 2017

Brand new guitar strings fall out of tune more quickly than it takes to get them to play the right notes. At least this is true of the type of strings I prefer to play with. They require quite a bit of stretching and adjusting before they are able to hold their assigned note. However, after they are worked with thoroughly, they can produce the sweetest melodies.

Similar to these guitar strings, we must be pulled on, stretched, tested, and worked on until the tune of our heart is pleasing to the Lord.

My prayer for this month is that the Lord will tune me in a way that Jesus can be seen through me so that whatever good things He has planned for me can come to pass.

Happy July!

Unsteady: Medicine Induced Akathisia

I’ve been on Latuda for nearly a month now. Starting at 20mg, I’ve worked my way up to 80mg once daily.

It’s a difficult medicine to take in my opinion. I can’t take it with dinner because it makes me too tired too early, so I have to take it later with a snack.

In order for it to work properly, you have to ingest 350 calories with it. I don’t really snack after dinner, so this has been difficult for me. It also makes me very nauseous, so that only adds to my displeasure of eating.

After upping my dosage to 80mg, I started to experience some symptoms that made me feel very unsteady. After eating my hearty snack, it would only take minutes before I felt like my nerves became electric.

All I wanted to do was wrap up in a blanket and watch New Girl or The Office before retiring to bed, but feeling as though I was covered in live wires made that impossible. I would have to shift my body back and forth because the restlessness was too uncomfortable.

I felt like my insides were knocked loose and were being pitifully fenced in by my skin.

This made sleep impossible, so I would have to take one or two Trazodone to just knock me out. I needed that relief, because this also played heavily on my anxiety and induced two panic attacks where my husband had to heavily blanket me with his body to keep me from hyperventilating.

Finally, I told my psyche practitioner about it, and she said that I needed to lower my dosage immediately because I was experiencing a side effect called akathisia. It’s not really a serious side effect most of the time, it’s just terribly uncomfortable.

Fortunately it’s subsided since I’ve lowered my dosage of Latuda. I just added Lithium to the mix, so stay tuned to see how that works.

Until next time friends,