THE NERVOUS BREAKDOWN...

You may wander "What happened?" since I posted last December since it is now practically October??? Well, I promised myself that I would not blog until I had my life together and my household in order...so that's what I have been madly pouring all my energy into!!!

And you will never guess how that endeavor turned out, but it was not a pretty sight...

I don't even know where to begin.  But July 15, 2012 I had a nervous breakdown.  I had no idea they were real.  It presented like a seizure that started with unquenchable thirst and feeling faint...while I was at church.  Then I had all kinds of other neurological symptoms...stuttering, tremors, twitches, pacing and I couldn't control any of it and went to the ER two days in a row...I thought I was about to die.  The doctors all said it appeared to be anxiety but they weren't sure and I thought that they were crazy to even consider me to be the type of person to have anxiety...AND I was tremendously offended!  I trust God...and I was living my dream...my dream to be a wife and mom of 5 4 kids!!! How could a person like that be stressed out???

I knew I hadn't felt well the past 3 years...just extremely inexplicably tired and worn down and worn out and not sleeping well and no appetite (I would feel AWFUL almost every time after I would eat) and unable to take deep breaths...I felt like I was running on empty every day physically and emotionally and spiritually and mentally.  I was DETERMINED to get healthy and totally exercised like a nut and totally changed everything we ate to a farmer's market diet.  I went to my doctor and then all kinds of alternative health professionals for help...most of them gave me sold me millions of vitamins and mentioned how I needed to minimize my stress and I was like, "Yeah, thanks a lot for the help."  None of it was helpful.  And I knew I wasn't stressed out.  So I just kept plugging away.

I really can't describe what a poor wife, mother and household manager/keeper I've been...all I want is to do a great job at these things...but I am HORRIBLE at them...the house is NEVER clean, dinner is NEVER on the table (or any other meal for that matter) and there is no schedule or structure for the kids and just forget about the marriage...it's about 10 miles behind the back burner.  Thankfully Jon is a SAINT and never complained and just pitched in whenever his long office hours ended he came home to a his second job (my job).  It's been hard....really hard....and quite frankly it makes me extremely angry that I do not have my act together and am not the amazing mother, wife, Christian and woman that I want to be!  I feel like God promised he would not give us more than we can handle and I have more than I can feed, clean, handle and I totally hate the custodial duty aspect of being a mom and I think it's depressingly isolating from the rest of the world to stay at home for my job...I really hadn't realized how much HARD WORK I was signing up for by becoming a mom (even with a wonderful weekly housekeeper) and in my opinion each child we have added has added a lot more work and a faster pace to our lives...and I feel so incredibly guilty for not loving my job to care for my sweet kids and not daily cherishing the privilege of staying home with them.  I think about moms in other countries that are in wrongly in prison because of unjust governments or enslaved in the sex industry or even just had their kids kidnapped and these moms don't get to be with and influence their kids while their kids are still living here in an evil world without a mother to hold them and love them at the end of each day and I burst into tears at that thought - I can't imagine anything worse!


I read that the opposite of anxiety is not peace, but contentment which definitely seems to be true in my situation...it's the fussing, the messes, the incessant hunger and needs, the isolation day after day with seemingly no end that cause contentment to elude me...and if we are being really honest I feel like I was bred and raised to be more of a show-horse than a work-horse and I just can't help it, right?...it's so horrible, but it's true....and on a more spiritual level it translates into my feeling like I was made to be worshipped, adored, self-sufficient, given lots of affirmation and praise for the job I am doing, have unlimited resources to use at my discretion, and be in control rather than being made to worship, be dependent, to adore, praise and to let God be in total control...and when it's put that way I just get nervous...I am a horrible Christian! 

Lately I act like the whole mental health thing is over, but I think that it must be since it all hit the fan...things just couldn't get any worse than that.  In all honesty, I believe that I am recovering and I do feel a lot better.  It's good to know it's "just anxiety" and I'm not about to die.  But I had no idea that stress and worry could make you that physically ill when it truly feels like a very deep exhaustion and sickness of my soul that was easy to deny until it bubbled to the surface and there was no denying it!  I think I could have worried myself to death.  I am not even kidding. I think that the only way I have made it through it this far is that I have felt LOVED through it.  Unconditional love is VERY healing...it is the best medicine.  I have no doubt at all that I would be in a mental institution right now if I didn't have family and friends (and Dr. Welch from our church who was like a guardian angel through the darkest symptoms and Dr. Hampton who finally got through to me that it really was all anxiety and I was going to be fine) to love me and care about me even as (and especially as!) I fall apart into a huge mess.

And even more importantly to my healing is to be LOVED by God through it...to believe that God loves me?????  That's hard....especially when I feel so selfish and like such a failure...EVERY DAY. And then to daily witness (in the news) the pain and suffering God allows all over the world for those He loves?!? I long to feel safe...I long for my family to be safe...for my fellow man to be safe.  And yet I know that there is evil all around that wants to destroy believers and I cannot rest in trusting God...I feel like a sitting duck...He has promised us suffering for Pete's sake!...in my head I know God is good and won't allow anything that he won't redeem for their good, but I still feel fear in the depths of my heart...especially if I wake up during a nightmare in the middle of the night.  I found the book The Cry of the Soul by Dan Allender to be helpful.  And I think Homeopathy for anxiety has helped along my healing, too.  And music...music ministers to my soul...especially my old favorites Ginny Owens, Sara Groves and Watermark/Christy Nockels...oh how I LONG to stand next to one of them in the choirs of heaven one day.  And having a very sweet young lady come to do all our cooking and help out with the kids every day...priceless.  Other than that I am still processing it and figuring it all out...and I think I've still got a ways to go.  I heard a quote in church this morning - "The healing is in the telling" so I'm telling it...and not to counselors any more because that is way expensive and time-consuming!

So, all that to say...there is ONE thing I do know for certain...it is that I LOVE having it all together and looking like I have it all together and being able to tell every one else how to get it together....thankfully God in his infinite mercy, wisdom and goodness and will be sparing us ALL of my self-righteousness during this phase of my life :)
 

Update: The Breakdown was Refeeding Syndrome...I wasn't eating enough when nursing Peter and was very malnourished :(