Friday, September 27th, I said a final goodbye to my Aunt Marie. She lost her fight to a rare lung disorder that snatched her up faster then a kid grabs a cookie.
My heart physically hurts. I have been crying on and off since the viewing on Thursday and the day of the funeral, naturally, I was a tearful mess. I went through 2 packages of purse tissues. My husband hugged me and didn’t say much which was exactly what I needed at that moment.
The priest for the funeral looked and acted like someone had woken him from a nap to go and perform a funeral. He actually fell asleep at one point! Then he wound up going to the wrong cemetery so the funeral director wound up doing the grave side service. In his defense, this priest was new to the area so I guess we give him a pass.
My job does not give time off for aunts or uncles, only parents or grandparents (including step-parents and step-grandparents). I took off Friday for obvious reasons and Monday because I need it. I need to be able to wrap my head around the fact that she is gone along with my Uncle Peter a few years ago.
Every time I think about going back to work, my heart pounds out of control, I feel sick, and I start shaking. I feel the same fear I would feel if someone was chasing me with a chainsaw and not because they were excited to get to my lawn. My job has literally driven me to the brink of insanity. My boss changed my time sheet without even consulting me before turning it in which in itself made me angry. Then there are the twenty or so e-mail waiting to tell me how wrong I am in everything and how I’m not doing enough. Just typing this I feel ready to burst into tears.
I know it is long overdue for me to leave this company. While I love what I do, the pressure to complete more and more within the same amount of time per week is overwhelming and exhausting. It has caused me to spiral into a deep depression that I can’t seem to get out of. All I want to do is sleep or kill myself.
I’m tired of losing people, I’m tired of bills, I’m tired of going to church and feeling so empty and hollow inside. I’m tired of feeling like a failure. I’m tired of not having any energy to do anything, even things I love. I am just tired of life. And I’m really tired of trying to explain depression and anxiety to people that don’t understand and think I should just “snap out of it” “think positively” and my favorite “you just need to have faith.” My faith is dead. I know God is there but I don’t think he cares about me anymore. I have no more faith that things are going to get better and I’m too tired to try to get off the ground. If I wind up dead it is because I gave my all and I couldn’t give anymore. I feel that I am doing the world a favor by going away.
But I don’t even think God would be merciful enough to let me die. He’d rather watch me be miserable and hurt and cry. Sometimes I think he gets enjoyment out of it. But maybe I’m wrong. Sorry if this is bleak. This is my only safe outlet to say these things because I work in the mental health field and you can’t talk to your co-workers about it, definitely not your boss, and all my friends are busy with their children and their own lives. Nobody wants to hear this because nobody knows how to fix it. So if you read this thanks for being there.
stumblingfaith 
Who will rise up for me against the evildoers?
Who will stand up for me against the workers of iniquity?
Unless the Lord had been my help,
My soul would soon have settled in silence.
If I say, “My foot slips,”
Your mercy, O Lord, will hold me up.
In the multitude of my anxieties within me,
Your comforts delight my soul. ~Psalm 94:12-19
Start small, read Psalms, a verse or two. The Lord is with you even when the cacophony inside your head is too painful and thick for you to feel Him through it. I didn’t know how I survived during the years of rejection, disappointment, and criticism, for I thought I was surviving them, barely, alone, and yes at one or two points along the way I found myself planning my death, because I thought my loved ones would be better off without crazy me. You need to hear this through your pain, that is just NOT true, it is a lie of the evil one. But somewhere along the way, not over night, as I read the Psalms, God made me aware of His presence and gave me a safe spot to rest within His peace each morning. The chaos was still with me, but now God was slowly becoming louder than all the outside noise, and His arms of comfort became bigger than my pain. I still have bad, very bad, days, and I am still at the bottom of the dog pile when it comes to work and family, but the Lord has, and is, using all the bad in my life to produce a new me, and I definitely like this new creation better than the old one. Would I want to go through a lifetime of pain again? No, absolutely not, but if given a choice I wouldn’t change a thing, because to change the pain of the past, would take away the joy of my present, and I would not value, treasure, love, desire, the Lord as I do without having experienced my own personal the pit of despair.
Much love and hugs, Belinda