Making a little room....

Well holy crap.  Just wow.  Sometimes muddling through feelings is like trudging into a wall. You sink deeper and deeper and the wall just keeps closing in, looming like a giant waiting to knock you down.  Well by golly, maybe that's for the best sometimes.  Sometimes the only way to look up is by being knocked down. Hard.  I won't lie and say it doesn't hurt, but the vision from the ground is better than the vision from the hole of self loathing.   I guess I've been pretending....angry at people and at life, trying to cover the anger I feel towards myself.  I pride myself on being happy, on loving people but how loving am I really? If there is anger and hate in my heart, how can I really love anyone?  I feel like hate squeezes love out of its rightful place.  Holding onto hate puts the person who is hated into the place where there should be loved....how arrogant is that? My desire to hold onto hate is more important than the love God has given me to give out freely? Well I'll be....

So I've been angry about years of wasted time.  More arrogance....isn't God the keeper of time? Didn't he put me where he wanted me, when he wanted me there? I say I've been running on a treadmill, getting no where, making no progress.  What a load of crap I've been believing.  It hasn't been a treadmill at all, it's been a ladder.  Each vertical step taking me closer and closer to the truth and the final plan of God.  The view around me seemed the same the whole time, until I reached the top and realized....the world is so different after a change of perspective.  They say it takes more muscles to frown than it does to smile.  Maybe I've been the one wasting my time.  Holding onto grudges for years, who knows what that has held me back from? God I am so sorry. 

Well I will let go of all of the room my hate has been taking up and I will make some room for you.

Bitter root

There's no doubt that my progress has been hindered lately on my path to recovery, but I think it's because I've found myself slipping away from the desire to improve my situation.  I've been taking a slow move into apathy, and I'm not finding the right gear.   Neutral is a comfy place to be, and I can't seem to shift into drive.  I'd rather roll backwards down the hill....

I'll get by...

Why is it that sometimes when something is right it feels so wrong? I've been running at a zillion miles an hour and I reached the edge of something...something steep and it was either turn around or jump and wish for the best.  Well, I jumped.  As I'm falling there are so many thoughts buzzing through my head faster than the wind through my ears.  There's the "why am I so stupid?" thought.  The "I could have turned around" thought. The "how the heck is this going to end?" thought.  God, please let me have a soft landing, I'm not sure I could live through breaking again.

Regaining an Identity

Well hello there, Elizabeth here.  Elizabeth, Liz, Libby, I've been called all of those names but who am I really? The question seems so simple and commonplace.  A nickname is nothing more than that, right? Or is it? In some ways I feel like each name is an alternate version of me.  Do the people who know Libby really know Liz? The people who have known Liz have never met Libby.  And what about the people who had Liz, and are suddenly getting Libby? What are they to think? What are they going to expect? And is there really a difference? Which side of this multi-dimensional self are all  these people getting? And which side of me am I getting? Which one of me is the real me, and how do I decide? Libby did some bad things in her time, but hasn't Liz, too? Never before have I decided who I actually want to be, nor have I ever really identified ME the way I want to be known. My parents made a good choice, naming me Elizabeth.  Biblically speaking, Elizabeth was Gods chosen one.  Geez, sometimes I don't feel very chosen at all.  So how do I figure it out?  How do I reconcile all these different versions and land on one that calls me by the name I truly am? I am Elizabeth, but I won't make everyone call me that...people are lazy.  Maybe I'll just be El. Or maybe that is pure laziness.  I know my identity is a child of Christ, a follower of him...and my middle name is Christine.  Maybe my parents knew when they looked at me for the first time what I cannot grasp in this moment.  Then again, what is a name, really? I don't think it is exactly the literal name that I battle with...it's the identity I've formed and attached to all of these possibilities.  The Libby I was, and the Liz that I became are two different people entirely.  The question is, who am I know? A combination of both? Or maybe a better version of the two? An Elizabeth.

Miserable Failure

God, I've been failing so miserably. I've grown into an apathy all of my own.  Settled in like a warm blanket, but this blanket is not doing me any good.  Knick by knick I chip away at my own canvas, as if struggling to reach some unknown goal.  Drip by drip of my own blood brings me farther from where I'm trying to go, yet I continue.  A little more shame bubbles up each time a bandage comes off, revealing a dismal progress that is far from satisfying.  Maybe I'll never be satisfied.  Maybe this is the natural state of things....an innate inability to fix oneself. God, why am I such a mess?

day by day.....

OK, so for the longest time, my hubby kept telling me, "Liz, that looks really bad." I'd smile and nod, "uh-huh."  I would tell him, usually because I didn't really know how bad it was.  Usually the spots that are visible aren't THAT bad, but when there is a spot that I can touch, but NOT see, well, let's just say it becomes the grand canyon. So finally, Ez and Brad caught some peeks at my back, and told me "Liz....that really is bad." Needless to say, my soon-to-be-a-nurse of a Husband demanded that he doctor me up as soon as we got home.  It was oozing, bleeding, all kinds of nasty medical words to describe an infection.  So, I let him bandage me up.  He had to put two bandages on, because I've actually been known to pick UNDER a bandaid.  Needless to say, the results are amazing.  Take a peek.

Looking at these pictures I realized...I have a lot of scars all around that sore.  If you look at the top picture, every white patch surrounding the red spot is some type of scar.  Really is a different perspective when you look at a picture...

A Little Bit More

So after my last entry I got to thinking, if the choice to pick or not to pick, to be or not to be is entirely up to me, it's going to take a whole lot more work and attention than I've been giving it.  I've been going at it half-way, all the while still clinging desperately to the label I've created for myself....I'm a picker, and that's it.  Wow.  How I've been demeaning myself all these years!  Thinking it was an inevitability and then degrading myself when I failed?  What kind of twisted logic is that? I guess I have to hold myself more accountable than I have been.  Quit blaming the caffeine, quit blaming the circumstances...nothing is twisting my arm and making me inflict harm upon myself.  (Yes, I have finally come to terms with calling it that.  Calling it what it is. Deliberate self harm in an innocent disguise of a "stressed-out mom." Yeah right, let's quit lying here.)  The fact of the matter is I am the responsible one.  God cannot magically free me of this burden, but he can cover me with his grace and love and give me the strength I've been meant to have so I can help myself.  I think that's what he does, and that is the point of my faith.  I think "God" said it best in Evan Almighty:

"Let me ask you something. If someone prays for patience, you think God gives them patience? Or does he give them the opportunity to be patient? If he prayed for courage, does God give him courage, or does he give him opportunities to be courageous? If someone prayed for the family to be closer, do you think God zaps them with warm fuzzy feelings, or does he give them opportunities to love each other?" 

God can lift me up, and raise me to a higher standard than I've been holding myself to for twenty years.   He is able, I alone am not.  God...make me able.