If ever I imagined that I would have to battle something as I got older it was never this. Sure, perhaps I would have anticipated ugly break-ups (though thankfully, this is not the case,) terrible financial difficulties (you can scratch out the word terrible,) diseases (which ironically I think I have a plethora,) fighting for women's rights, fighting to be heard... those battles I anticipated.
Never, ever, would I have guessed my worthy foe would be anxiety. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale. Exhale. At any given moment, this is all that I can do. Sometimes I go frighteningly silent in the middle of conversations and I simply breathe. Inhale. Exhale. Inhale 5 seconds. Exhale 7 seconds. Inhale 5 seconds. Exhale 7 seconds.
Sometimes, even more fun, are those moments the anxiety turns into panic and I jump up from sitting down or run away while standing up, terrified that I am dying at that. exact. moment. Considering I am still here and writing this down, you can probably imagine that I've not yet died.
This is the darkest of worlds. Hell on earth. I wish I were exaggerating but as I've experienced and also read countless stories of other sufferers I have concluded this is a terribly, taxing trial. To think that there is constant, impending doom every, single moment of a day. To think that you are going to die every, single second. To think there is absolutely no hope. To think nothing will ever get better. To have your body experience symptoms of heart attacks, brain tumors, infections, and countless other maladies. To barely be able to function alone, let alone interact with people. To be expected to get up and go to work, to be kind, to show up at parties, events, gatherings, coffee dates when all you really want to do is hide in your room and wait for the next panic attack to pass. It's the most miserable thing I've yet experienced. To want so desperately to die, but to be so damn fearful that that's exactly what's happening. Well. Well.
And please, let me assure you, neat little Christian platitudes do nothing to fix anxiety of this measure. Believe me, were it easy enough to simply read my Bible, pray, or have others pray for me I would be 1,000% better. Now, I do not blame God for what is happening, though I do submit that He allows me to suffer in this fear, this pain, this shame of what people must think. He allows me to go through this fear and suffering and knows that I will never get better unless I go to therapy and remain on medicine for a long time. Our God, who is Love, allows this. And honestly? I am okay with these things, are you?
This journey has taken me deeper into the world of science, psychology, faith, and religion more so than any other thing or combination of things in my life. My understanding is much different. My boxed-in God who is always on my side, is now also a God who allowed Job to suffer immensely at the hands of evil. My boxed-in God is not only God who calls us to take care of widows and orphans, but also a God who orders the killing of every single man, woman, and child in villages, my boxed-in God who invites all people to the banquet table also allows terrible events like the Holocaust and the Sex Slave Trade continue to happen though by all measures he is powerful enough to stop it. This is the truth of things. This is the reality of God and Christ and Holy Spirit. I am angry, but also okay with that.
Tony Jones believes that the cross helps Jesus and God and the Holy Spirit understand firsthand our loneliness and our sense of abandonment that we all experience at one time or another on earth. That is perhaps why I still believe in God even though so much has slipped away.
No comments:
Post a Comment