For Those that Hurt

I'm back home now after visiting with Frank a while.  Well, in the trailer that we rent.  Alone and lonely again.  The emptiness and four walls closed in pretty quickly.  I'm thinking about moving back to more familiar territory.  Not that that will make a huge difference, but it's something to think about.

Unfortunately, that thinking led to confusion and anxiety. Wound up tight, my emotions rising with the hot frustration of hating this then sinking to the drowning desperation of hating this, I called Patrick hoping to change the subject and the energy flows that were engulfing me.  He obviously didn't want to talk to me.  Was my state of being that transparent?  Probably.  I could hear the edge in his voice as he said:  "What do you want?".  I said: "Never mind", hung up the phone, and broke into pieces.

After a good cry, some choking and gagging and struggle for air, and some despondency laced with thoughts of suicide; the pressure broke and a numbing calm took its place.  Rise above.  Find your way out.

I opened "My Documents" on my computer, opened my "Writings 2010" and "Meditations".  I was looking for, and found, an entry from March.   I don't remember what the issue was then, but I remember receiving it at a time something like this.  With the calm comes listening and receiving the Voice that comforts me. Sometimes I open a page and type what I hear.

I've been wanting to share this with you for some time.  It's one of the first that I decided to share from the personal writings that I don't really call mine, but gifts of guidance and love.  I guess now is the time.

March 2, 2010

Do you think that when you’re suffering I don’t feel it?  I do.  I am right there with you.  We are never separated.  I experience your suffering and your joy.  The difference is, I know it need not be. 

I cry for you.  I hurt with you.  But I cry for your needless “sacrifice”.  There is nothing you have done wrong.  There is nothing you need to punish yourself for.  If you choose to experience suffering, I will be there with you.

When you chose to leave suffering behind, I am also with you.
You can do whatever you choose.  You don’t have to make yourself into something different for me.  I accept you as you are.  I love you as you are.  I am with you, as you are, in all ways, in all moments.

The times that seem particularly difficult for you are those times that you do not recognize this.

There is always another choice.

You can move from suffering at any point you choose.

I don’t ask you to suffer.  I know you are perfect.

Love your life.  Experience all that there is for you.  I will be there.

You have done no wrong.  Nor has any other.  If you think you have, that they have, you are mistaken.  Let it go.  Let that thought go.  And choose another.  Getting caught up in thoughts of hate places you in a place of hate, pain and suffering.  Your choice.

But if you don’t “like” it, you can simply choose again.

And so I make the decision to choose again, believing there is One that loves me and Guides me, knowing that the trust I place will lead me beyond this place of pain. 

Who Cares?

When my children were infants I changed their diapers, cradled them, and fed them at my breast. When Patrick broke his wrist, Beth placed her hand fully on a burning wood stove, and Neil broke a front tooth straight off, I jumped to the emergency and saw them through to recovery.

Now that my daughter is an adult and I am sick with depression, anxiety and despondency; how do I help my beautiful girl who is crying out for help, who lives with emotional pain, fear, and turmoil every day. Tonight my depression is taking its toil on me. I'm tired. I'm sick with worry. I hurt that the recent efforts I have tried to make have led nowhere.

I don't have the strength or courage to be an active public advocate in the community all by myself. Beth doesn't have the ability because of her condition. At the moment she is reclusive; shying away from all social and public interaction because her symptoms are dominating every waking moment. Her sporadic sleep patterns add to the problem.

Yesterday we tried to go shopping. "They" were everywhere... strangers in the store making sharp comments aimed at her, the music on the store system specific to her past unhappy experiences, bumper stickers and license plates all "planted" by "them" to hurt her and let her know they were watching, judging, and enjoying their power over her. The paranoid delusion of a network of people conspiring against her, enjoying the living hell they making of her life. Will medication ever make that one go away? Is my beautiful child, now a lovely woman that no one any longer sees, doomed to live this nightmare the rest of her life, alone?

This morning she came over crying, asking me to take her to her scheduled mental health appointment, as she wasn't strong enough to make the drive herself, or go into the drug store to get the next new medication that the Nurse Practitioner hopes might help. It takes time to see if the new med will work, so her next appointment is scheduled for a month away.

As I started to write this post I was crying... working out the words makes that issue come and go... I was crying because no one has read this blog. No one has watched the "Minds on the Edge" video or gone to their website, though I post and post to my Facebook page links and info and ask and ask.

Who cares about the mentally ill? Apparently no one. There are no pink ribbons, no concern over the fact that my daughter is in extreme need of compassion, caring, and support; no uproar over the fact that services to assist her and others like her as so limited; no charitable giving of heart, mind or dollars anywhere.

How do you engage them?

Helpless... I'm helpless and ineffectual as a Mother now, the one that she should be able to depend on. I'm all she has and I'm not up to the task, or getting it done. From my sense of worthlessness I wait and hope for the day that my life is over. From my sense of responsibility and love for my child I pray for some help, some strength and courage for us both, for the determination to go on, and hope that maybe somehow, some way, some day it might get better.

And the cycle of mental illness goes on and on.....