Try Looking At It Through My Eyes Challenge – Day 12

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Challenges, Just For Fun, Mental Health, Mental Illness, My Eyes Challenge

Well it is day 12 of the Try Looking At It through My Eyes Challenge and it is the final challenge.

And today’s challenge reads…

Day Twelve – “The Roundup” – Spend a little time looking back over all of your responses in this challenge and write a short roundup of how you tackled them, how they made you feel, and whether or not you think/feel you enjoyed or benefited from them.

When I designed this challenge I wanted for it to be something which was not only short, but also fun whilst at the same time presenting an opportunity for light personal reflection and possibly some personal growth.

So in assessing the challenge – doing the “round up” I think it is only fair that I consider whether or not this has been possible or even whether or not is has been achieved.

So here goes…

How I have tackled them…

In all honesty I have tried to tackle them how I try to tackle all things on this blog – head on and with integrity and honesty and candor.

And looking back I think I certainly have achieved that.  In some of the challenges, I have simply shared light-hearted insights (“Questions for Heaven”, “The Miracle Button”, “The Trade Off” and “The Support Group”), whilst in others I have invited your insights (My Eyes) and am grateful for those shared with me.  In yet others (“She or He”, “Close Friend”, “Letter to Younger self”, “Time Machine”, “The forgiving”) I have delved even deeper and been brutally open and honest.

How they made me feel…

Here again I have experienced mixed emotions.  The light hearted ones brought me joy or amusement whilst the deeper ones challenged me and even brought me to a deeper level of understanding.

Some I was able to do easily whilst others took much more soul searching and even filled me with a certain amount of apprehension.  And yet I have to honestly say that I do not regret any of them really.

Have I enjoyed or benefited from them…

Well here again it depended on which ones.

In respect of those I enjoyed it would have to be “The Miracle Button”, “The Day Out” and “Questions for heaven”, the others took a different route in the writing although I did without doubt have a sense of achievement, which was enjoyable,  once I had done them.

In respect of which ones I feel that I benefited from, I have to be honest and admit that actually I am surprised by saying I think I have actually benefited from all of them.

Some, without doubt, took much more than others and some I am still, days later, thinking about even though I have already finished and published them.

Am I glad that I have done this challenge, heck am I glad that I designed this challenge?  Yes absolutely and it is in my opinion just as it is with so many things in life – the more you put into it the more you get out of it.

So yes that is how I feel about the challenge and indeed that is my answer to this the last of the 12 challenges – the roundup.  And yet there is something else that  I need to say here…

One of the greatest benefits and enjoyments that I have realized through this challenge has been through the comments shared in respect of my own answers but also the answers given and the comments made in regard to them by others doing this challenge.

Some have already finished this challenge and I really enjoyed reading your answers and their subsequent comments and some are still doing it and likewise I am enjoying reading your answers and subsequent comments.  But whatever stage you are at with it – finished, part way through, or yet to commence – I want to thank you for being you and for sharing you!

Try Looking At It Through My Eyes Challenge – Day 11

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Bipolar DIsorder and Sleep, Challenges, Christianity and Depression, Christianity and Mental Health, Mental Health, Mental Illness, My Eyes Challenge

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.

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 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

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Challenges, Christianity and Depression, Christianity and Mental Health, My Eyes Challenge

Well it is Day 10 in my “Try Looking At It Through My Eyes” Challenge.

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?

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

²⁸ And 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

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

and

2 Corinthians 12:9

⁹ But 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

¹⁷ Therefore, 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

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Challenges, Christianity and Depression, Christianity and Mental Health, Mental Health, Mental Illness, My Eyes Challenge

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?”

 

Try Looking At It Through My Eyes Challenge – Day 08

Day 8 of the Try Looking At It Through My Eyes challenge and I am pleased to have been able to get this far really as some of them have been quite tough.  Certainly tougher than I had at first thought.

Today’s Challenge is:

Day Eight – “The CLOSE Friend” – If you had a friend who spoke to you or treated you the way you speak to and treat yourself, how long would you allow that person to be your friend and why?

It’s a fascinating question isn’t it?  Certainly one which I personally find challenging and one demanding of a lot of consideration.  And in my opinion, consideration not only in respect of our psychological or emotional well-being but also our spiritual well-being.

There are two parts to this question and we are invited to respond in two ways to each of them…

The first part focuses on how we talk to ourselves, which can be a difficult thing to consider, whilst the second part focuses on how we treat ourselves.  And that can, I believe, sometimes be missed.

So let’s look at each of them in turn…

How we speak to ourselves…  If a close friend spoke to me the way I speak to me how long would I allow them to remain a friend and why?

There is perhaps an indicative flaw in this question, I have realized.  Which is that since a great deal of the way I talk to myself stems from a very poor self-image and a lack of self-worth, the self-same poor self-image and the self-same lack of self-worth which creates this dialogue would also create a willingness to accept it.

And here I really need to bring in the spiritual aspect of this whole question.

As a Christian I believe not only in the existence of God but also the existence of Satan. How could I not when, as a result of my experience and relationship with Christ, I believe the bible to be the inspired word of God?

The very same bible which testifies to the existence, nature and will of God also testifies to the existence of Satan and warns against the nature and will of Satan – he who seeks to rob, damage or destroy our rightful relationship with God.

I really can’t express how much I believe that if Satan can destroy our belief in God he will do all he can to destroy our ability to believe we can be a part of God, loved of God.

Likewise, I really can’t express too clearly how much I believe that one of the most subtle and effective techniques he uses in order to achieve this is through destroying our own self-image.  Tragically, so very tragically, doing so by using the very same people who God intended and desires to install a right and healthy self-image and self-worth.

Each and every aspect of the internal dialogue which says, we are: ugly, clumsy,  harmful, useless, worthless and un-loveable etc, and which we take on board as a result of wrong, dysfunctional or damaged relationships with others, not only create a wrong, dysfunctional or damaged relationships with our self but also with our God.  A God who does love us, does care for us, and does hold us as’; worth something, valuable and precious – were we but to be able to believe it.

So addressing and combating those harmful and incorrect internal dialogues is essentially important not only for this earthly lifetime but for our eternal lifetime.  And addressing them is extremely possible once we recognize and accept not only their presence and effects but also the need to combat and change them.

And at this point I want to recommend that once you have finished reading this post, you pop over to the blog of my fellow blogger and sweet sister in Christ who is also doing this challenge and who has written, in response to it, an excellent post on the subject of harmful internal dialogues.  That post can be found here.

But before you do pop over and take a look at that post on internal dialogues and how to combat them, bear with me a little longer if you will and let’s look at the second part of this question…

How we treat ourselves… If a close friend treated to me the way I treat to me how long would I allow them to remain a friend and why?

Combating those negatively critical internal dialogues is, in my opinion, only part of the process.  Just as importantly we must, I am convinced, combat the learned behaviors and silent attitudes that result or that have resulted from them.  For if we don’t not only are we living out those harmful dialogues but we are also inadvertently feeding into those harmful dialogues.

And I speak here not as someone who believes he has ‘got it all together’ in this regard but as someone who still very much struggles with this issue and still fights to achieve it.

If it is true, which I fully believe it is, that those harmful, negative, critical dialogues are wrong then in truth we have no right and do not deserve to either accept them or be bound by them or to live them out.

But! Am I, are we not doing exactly that – still living them out when I, when we …

fail to believe in ourselves,

fail to look after ourselves,

don’t attempt something because we have already convinced ourselves we can’t or won’t achieve it,

don’t take our medication properly because we don’t feel I we are worth bothering over.

don’t share how we are feeling because we have convinced ourselves the other person doesn’t really care or that we are not worth helping.

don’t eat healthily because we are only worth junk food anyhow.

don’t bath properly because we can’t be bothered

don’t get out, don’t exercise, don’t treat ourselves, don’t…. the list goes on and on doesn’t it?

Yes countering and speaking truth into the lies or wrong, or undeserved negatively critical and harmful internal dialogue is essential. But so too is realistically living in such a way that we are a) living out the positive affirmations we are using to counter the negative internal dialogues, b) not feeding into those negative dialogues and c) (and most importantly in my opinion) also living the way God our loving heavenly Father desires us to.

⁹ But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God’s special possession, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. ¹⁰ Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy.

(1 Peter 2:9 NIV)

If God Himself, creator of heaven and earth, is willing to accept us, then what does that say to that critical internal dialogue and what should it say about how we should live?

²⁷ Whatever happens, conduct yourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Then, whether I come and see you or only hear about you in my absence, I will know that you stand firm in the one Spirit,^[a] striving together as one for the faith of the gospel.

(Philippians 1:27 NIV)

I truly believe these scriptures to be true and applicable to us all since God desires for all of us to know that we are His children.

BUT regardless of your personal faith and whether or not you feel they do apply to you, we have no right and are not deserving of those negative criticisms that our internal dialogues echo from out of our pasts and we do not deserve to be bound by or live by them.

It is something that I myself am learning daily and  something that I pray you have already or are now seeing.

“If I had a friend who spoke to me or treated me the way I speak to and treat myself, how long would I allow that person to be my friend and why?”  Well the truth is that I do have friends who in part treat me that way, mainly because I allow it as a result of my having bought into the lies those voices have echoed from my past.

But partly because they, like me, are still learning a different and much better way. 🙂

Try Looking At It Through My Eyes Challenge – Day 07

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Challenges, My Eyes Challenge

Day 7 of the challenge and this specific challenge is a much easier one.

Day Seven – “The Day Out” – If you could be taken any place fairly local for a day, where would choose, who would choose to go with, what would you like to do and why those choices?

This one is relatively easy for me in respect of where I would want to go but not so easy in respect of who I would want to go with.

In respect of where I would like to be taken it would have to be some of the places that I have already been to here in Ireland.  Ireland is such a wonderful place and you only have to look at some of the pictures that I shared a few months back in such posts as Drive Through Movies and Sometimes When You See The Beauty In Creation to see how beautiful it is.

So having been there already why would I want to go back to these places?

Well quite simply I wouldn’t be going back there for me but for those I would want to go there with.

My first choice would be any of my adopted kids in USA, UK and Canada so that I could share these wonderful places with them and so that they could see what really touches their Dad’s spirit.

My second choice would be some of you who follow this blog regularly and for the very self same reasons.

These places are just so beautiful, so peaceful and so awe-inspiring. Within the blogoshpere we have, I feel, built a community of folk who share similar challenges and who care for each other. To be able to take some of you to such places would be just wonderful.

To be able to sit with you, share with you, chat with you, whilst sharing with you an experience or bunch of experiences you are not likely to forget for years to come would be such a blessing to for us both I hope.

So there you have it why, where and who with 🙂

Try Looking At It Through My Eyes Challenge – Day 06

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Challenges, Christianity, Christianity and Depression, Christianity and Mental Health, My Eyes Challenge, Self-Harming

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

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.

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.

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

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Challenges, Christianity, Christianity and Depression, Christianity and Mental Health, Depression, DID, Distorted Perceptions, Mental Health, Mental Illness, Paranoid Schizophrenia, Self-Awareness, Self-Doubt, Self-Harming, Self-Hatred, Self-Image, Self-Loathing, Suicidal Thoughts

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…

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 01

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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

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.