The Rollercoaster

One day up, the next day down.

Yesterday was a rather exciting day as I put some finishing touches on my plans for the future. As I had alluded to in an earlier post, I've been considering going into the law profession; namely advocacy.

Even before I got fired I had started the process of reconsidering my career and possibly changing my direction. I've had two appointments with a career counselor and they have been very informative and insightful. The extra time off I've had as of late has allowed me to do a little more soul searching so I can figure out exactly what I want to do. And because my faith is such a large part of my life, I've also been considering and trying to figure out God's plans for me.

I had an epiphany last week about my purpose in life. It started in my Bible study, where we have been learning about our "S.H.A.P.E."

S -> Spiritual Gifts
H -> Heart
A -> Abilities
P -> Personality
E -> Experiences

All of these aspects of a person contribute to their purpose in life, what God has made them best suited for.

Everyone in our Bible study was encouraged to do an on-line spiritual gifts test. My top-scoring gifts are faith, discernment, mercy, writing, teaching and knowledge.

I'm sure some of you are wondering, "What are spiritual gifts?" Well, here's what the Bible has to say about them.

There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.

Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom, to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines. (1 Corinthians 12:4-11)

That is just one passage of many dealing with the different ways God enables people to do good works in the world. A few of my gifts were mentioned there: knowledge, faith, distinguishing between spirits (discernment).

In summary, God gives His people abilities so that "each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms"(1 Peter 4:10). All of the abilities are for serving other people, not for ourselves.

The rest of the "S.H.A.P.E" stuff is fairly self-explanatory. Heart as in what I'm passionate about, blah, blah, blah....

• Heart: I care about justice. I want to see people overcome injustice. I also like to influence people. I love writing and researching and learning.
  
• Abilities: I'm a good writer; I can teach, counsel, research. I'm a little artsy-fartsy too.
• Personality: According to Myers-Briggs I'm an INFP which means Introverted, iNtuitive, Feeling and Perceiving. I know what it means and if you're really that interested, you can google it.
• Experiences: I have plenty of experience with mental illness! And I have my school experiences and work experiences....Too much to go into in depth here.

After considering all of these different aspects of my life and also thinking about the work I had done in my career counseling sessions, I realized I'm suited for work in advocacy!

So then I started looking into law schools. Don't want to bother with university because I really don't want to be a full-fledge lawyer. I looked into college programs and found something perfect for me. And I can start in January!

Yesterday I filled out the application and paid the application fee. Now I just need to wait.

Needless to say, it was very exciting for me yesterday, having something figured out for myself. A direction, a place to live. Now I'm looking for temporary employment. I have plans!

Today, Sam's consultation with a surgeon about the possibilities and complications of surgery for the pancreatic cancer.

Today was a downer. Especially now that Sam has a full understanding of what his disease is and how he could die very soon.

Part way through our talk with the doctor, Sam said, "So you're saying I'm going to die?" I was shaking the whole time, making it difficult to take notes. Sam has been crying off and on throughout the day.

I can't imagine what it must be like to find out it's likely you're going to be dead in a year.

New Cancer and Other Health Developments

Sam is again on his way to the emergency room. His urine is getting dark again and his bowels aren't moving normally either. I'm scared something may have happened with the stent. Is the tumor growing and putting pressure on the stent, causing it to collapse? Is it something else?

I really didn't think he would be heading back to the hospital so soon. Maybe I'm just naive about pancreatic cancer and death.

I've had some more catastrophic health news involving my uncle. He is suffering from a head injury from a fall in his home. No one is completely sure what the fall was from because he was home alone. Stroke? Seizure? Both? Was he drunk?

When I first found out about my uncle, I really thought he was going to die. It sounded so dire. He seems to be okay right now, but he's still in the hospital and the doctors are still not sure what is going to happen. They aren't sure about the extent of brain damage. I guess he's still unstable.

This is an uncle of mine on my mom's side of the family. My mom's family doesn't talk about things very openly. It's so frustrating! I hate feeling so in the dark about my uncle's state.

I've been more anxious and depressed this weekend. Last night I would have loved to have seen UFC 121, but I just couldn't take being around a crowd of people. I was out with my dad earlier in the day and I borrowed his truck to do a little shopping while he was busy at his church and I was not doing well with driving. I later told him I never want a standard transmission vehicle because it is just too much stress. But I was just one big ball of anxiety yesterday.

Housing

3-9 years.

....is how long the wait is for subsidized housing in my city. I need to move in less than 3 months!

Some form of subsidized housing was a big hope for me as a person who is out of work and with a disability.

The wind has been taken out of my sails.

My prayers for a home include space for a garden and laundry on-site or at least right next door. I don't want to have to take a bus across town in order to do laundry. Especially since I take martial arts and need to wash my gear fairly regularly.

We'll see what happens.

I was feeling pretty depressed after going to the Housing office. Wandered aimlessly around downtown for a while. Now I'm in a coffee shop using the free wi-fi.

I'm thinking about going back to school.....for law. More about that later.

Thought Battles

I have been struggling for the last while. The weekend was hard. I slept in Sunday and didn't go to church which is important to me. Actually, it's not even that I slept in. I got up early, had breakfast and then was just so tired I decided to rest a little while before getting dressed. And I couldn't peel myself from my mattress.

I haven't been taking care of myself. The professionals call it neglecting my self-care.

Self-care for me includes journaling, exercising, getting proper sleep, eating well. Doing the normal healthy things keep my mind healthy too. But when those start slipping, other things slip too. I'll just stop caring about things in general.

And then there are the negative thoughts.

And there are the thought records to help challenge them. They are ever so helpful.

Being fired from my job has begun to weigh on me a lot more recently. Maybe it's because I have rent and medications to pay for. Maybe it's simply because I'm depressed. Regardless, here is a sample of some of the thoughts that went through my mind this past weekend:

'I'm a loser.'
'I'm a failure.'
'I'll never get married.'
'I'm not a real adult.'
'I can't do anything.'
'There's no point trying.'

The "not getting married" thought weighed on me maybe more than you may think. I think it's because marriage is a dream and desire I hold onto so dearly that it's one of the first things that comes under attack when I'm depressed. I feel more deeply lonely when I'm depressed. (And the depression makes me withdraw and isolate. What a disease!)

So, I'm pulling myself out of this funk and it's a real struggle. I have my medication, but meds only help to a point. They give you the boost that helps you do the rest of the work in getting yourself well. It sucks. No cure. It's all a process.

Usually in a thought record I'll write out my thoughts, feelings, etc. about a specific situation, but I'll be a little more general here.

For example, the thought distortion in the thought 'I'm a loser,' is called labeling. Same thing for the thought 'I'm a failure.' I've labeled myself as a loser and a failure. I can challenge those thoughts by asking myself what do the words "loser" and "failure" mean. This strategy is called "Define the Terms." This strategy may not actually work as well at this period in my life..... considering what is going on. A loser is someone who has lost something -- have I lost anything? Yes, my job! Failure means to not succeed and a failure is someone who fails or doesn't succeed. Am I a failure according to the definition of the word? Well, I failed to keep my job. It is a stretch for me to really completely believe I'm a failure though.

But I'm still thinking I'm a loser which is a problem. I can employ the "Double Standard" strategy. In this case, I would ask myself if I would say the same thing of a friend in the same situation. And I definitely would not! My view of myself is becoming a little more gentle.

Another one of my favourite strategies is "Examine the Evidence." What is the evidence that I'm a loser, that I'm a failure? What is the evidence that I'm not either of these. When I think about it I have plenty to support a more positive, balanced thought about myself.

'I have lost my job, but I won't be unemployed forever. I have many skills and abilities. I'm an intelligent person. Things will be okay eventually.'

There are several other strategies I use regularly and several other thought distortions I battle with regularly too. The identification and challenging of thought distortions is part of Cognitive Behaviour Therapy. I have to admit, I'm not always so great at keeping at myself to keep up the work, but it is sinking in more and more so that it almost becomes something I can just do in my head instead of getting out a pen and paper.

This work makes me think of a verse in the Bible that I have been studying recently in a Bible study. It's 2 Corinthians 10:4,5:

"The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds. We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ."

I'm attempting to take captive these distorted thoughts of mine, and I have some mistaken beliefs too that are also part of depression and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, and make them obedient to Christ. I know God doesn't think I'm a loser or a failure. He thinks quite the opposite! Analyzing my thoughts and challenging them helps me see myself correctly, according to God.

BTW

Yeah, and by the way, feeling more crappy about my future. What's going to happen to me? I'm unemployed, needing a place to live by the end of the year. And how do I pay for my meds?

It makes me uneasy looking into the future and seeing a vast, white nothingness.

The Cancer Issue

I've briefly mentioned it a couple times that a person close to me is possibly dying of pancreatic cancer. I say "possibly" because he has not yet been properly diagnosed, which is just another frustration piled on the stress of losing someone.

Here's the story.

He, I'll call him "Sam," lives in my home. He has an Acquired Brain Injury from living for years with epilepsy. He has had thousands of seizures and has been knocked unconscious and suffered amnesia from them too. His sister, "Rose," who I also live with, is his caregiver. She has had him living in her home for 7 or 8 years.

When Sam first started living with Rose, he had a lot of anger problems. He had actually had them for years. Through a lot of really hard work by both Rose and Sam and a dedicated nurse practitioner, Sam has been the happiest and healthiest he has ever been for the past couple of years. Rose and Sam learned how to communicate and resolve conflicts. Sam has had his independence which he greatly values and he has been treated with dignity. He participates in a lot of programs such as an Acquired Brain Injury group, an adult literacy program and church activities for people with mental disabilities.

Sam began inexplicably losing weight this year and his nurse practitioner determined to find out why. A CT scan was scheduled about three weeks ago. The results showed a tumor on his pancreas. The next day I went with Rose to an appointment with the nurse practitioner to go over the findings and what the next steps would be. We noticed Sam was a little jaundiced. And he mentioned that his urine was "black and red," so a sample was taken. It looked like tea.

The CT scan was on a Wednesday and on Sunday Sam was in the emergency room. Those anger issues resurfaced and he had gone into a rage. He had gotten angry earlier in the week too and now looking back, we can see that his behaviour had been subtly changing for quite a while. Rose had been in fear of her life, Sam had gotten so angry.

Sam was admitted to hospital and more CT scans were done to see if the cancer had spread to other parts of his body. And finally on the Friday he had an ERCP (endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography) during which the surgeon put a stent in his common bile duct because it had been almost completely closed by the tumor and the surgeon took some scrapings of the tumor for pathology.

So many doctors and other health care professionals were involved and every one had a different opinion. All of them talked about the tumor as if it was a done deal that it was malignant. The gastroenterologist said there was no way it was benign, but we also found out that an oncologist won't even look at a patient until a sample has positively identified cancer cells. We are still waiting on pathology...... It has been over a week.

Pancreatic cancer is really nasty. It's one of the most aggressive forms of cancer and a psychiatrist has informed us that it usually greatly contributes to changes in mood and behaviour like we had already seen. The prognosis is really bad. So far, Sam could be dead by the end of the year or he could still live for a year. There is so much unknown at the moment.

This is a nightmare.

I've never had anyone close to me die.

Sam and I get along really well. We go to different events together sometimes. He invited me to his work's Christmas banquet last year and I went to the ABI strawberry social. When I was in the psychiatric hospital this summer he came to visit me. What is funny about that is he didn't let me know he was coming, so I had gone for a walk in the trails around the hospital. He waited for almost an hour for me to get back to the ward before deciding to leave. A nurse transcribed a letter he left for me. In it he said we were like brother and sister. Very sweet.

This "anticipatory" grief is hard. Compounded with Sam's impending death are all the problems and complications with health care professionals and the unanswered questions. It's overwhelming.

So there you have it. Almost everything I know about Sam and his tumor. More to come about this I'm sure.

Clay Pots

I've got a full, full belly. Love Thanksgiving. Love pumpkin ice cream!

Today I was seeing some of my cousins for the first time since, I think, Easter. A lot has happened to me since then. I'm not sure how much they know. I do know that one of my cousins had posted on Facebook something about finding out there is a history of mental illness in her family around the time I landed in the hospital.... My guess is that at least she knows a little about my psychosis. It's not that I really care.... maybe I do a little more than I would like... it just occurred to me as I was walking over to my aunt and uncle's that I may have to put up with some stigma and I wasn't looking forward to that. But things were fine. Phew.

Stigma. The Canadian government recently published a report about the problem of stigma when it comes to mental illness. It's called the Kirby Report. Here's a link for more information:

http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/full/178/10/1320

Stigma is a particularly nasty problem with mental illness because it has prevented people from getting well. One item of interest in the Kirby Report is that the Canadian government has never done a report on mental illness or mental health services in Canada before, but has done countless studies on a number of physical diseases.

I'm fortunate that I haven't really encountered a lot of stigma. The only place would be at work and I'm just not getting into that now. Several co-workers throughout my life have expressed opinions along the line that depression isn't really a disease, but an excuse.

But one place I have experienced some shame in my illness -- a place I think should be the last place I should experience any feelings of exclusion -- is the church.

Now, I am a very strong Christian and I go to church regularly. I'm feeling quite at home in the church I'm going to right now. I'm hoping my upcoming move will not take me away to a different city, one reason being I want to remain in my church. There have been churches in the past, though, where I have felt lesser for having a mental illness. I dared not say anything about it. And that really shouldn't be the case! We're not supposed to be wearing masks in the church! We are supposed to "owe no one anything, except to love one another; for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law"(Romans 13:8).

There are a few ideas that have gotten in the church that seem to perpetuate negativity toward mental illness and in a lot of cases, physical illness too. For example, there is a misguided idea that if you're ill, your faith just can't be big or strong enough.

There are Christians who believe God doesn't want us to be ill, therefore any illness we have must be our fault, some kind of failure, again, in our faith and trust in God. Bologna!

Actually, it's not all bologna. I do agree that God doesn't want us to be sick. It wasn't His intention in the perfect world He made for us in Eden. There was no death, no illness. But since human nature has been to rebel against God and disobey Him, we have had to suffer the consequences, one of them being illness. We brought suffering on ourselves.

I know that the reasoning in their argument is that God needs His people to be healthy and able to perform to the best of their abilities so they can go and "make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything that I [Jesus] have commanded you"(Matthew 28:19,20). Let's not forget the last part of verse 20, though: "And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age." Jesus is the one enabling us. We don't go by our own strength. Isn't it a beautiful thing that I can be used by God because of my illness????

"For we do not proclaim ourselves; we proclaim Jesus Christ as Lord and
ourselves as your slaves for Jesus' sake. For it is the God who siad, 'Let light
shine out of darkness,' who has shone in our hearts to give the light of the
knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.

'But we have this treasure in clay jars, so that it may be made clear that
this extraordinary power belongs to God and does not come from us."(2
Corinthians 4:5-7)

I've said this kind of thing before. My imperfections make it so people can see the work of God in me. As the Scripture in 2 Corinthians describes, I'm a clay pot with the light of God glowing inside me and it is shineing out through my cracks and holes, for others to see.

So, God didn't want me to be sick, but my illness helps people see how He cares for me, how He strengthens me every day, how my faith is real.

Drano

Okay, so....a few hours later and I'm already feeling better. I received what my best friend has coined "God drano." I had a lot of yuckiness clogging me up and a quick quiet time has drained some of it out. I still feel stressed, but I'm looking at things from a different angle now. So much better.

A video emailed to me from the aforementioned Best Friend started the drano. It's a video of Sarah Groves talking about a pivotal time in her career when God gave her some encouragement. The Scriptures that encouraged her, and in turn have also encouraged me are:

"But you, O Israel, my servant, Jacob, whom I have chosen, you descendants of Abraham my friend, I took you from the ends of the earth, from its farthest corners I called you. I said, 'You are my servant; I have chosen you and have not rejected you. So do not fear, for I am with you; do not be dismayed, for I am your God. I will strengthen you and help you; I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. All who rage against you will surely be ashamed and disgraced; those who oppose you will be as nothing and perish. Though you search for your enemies, you will not find them. Those who wage war against you will be as nothing at all. For I am the LORD, your God, who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear; I will help you." Isaiah 41:8-13

I've been humbled from my crankiness from earlier. My best friend and God helped me understand that it's not pessimism, but preparing for the worst and that has to be done in the situation going on in our lives right now. It's hard, but God is with us, He is on our side.

One victory I've realized today: I'm not depressed and anxious about the kinds of things I was depressed and anxious about before going in the hospital. Before being hospitalized, I was depressed and anxious about the things I want in my life and don't have. And more specifically, I would always be so scared of what other people were thinking of me. I was scared of judgement and rejection. I couldn't care less about those things now! I've got bigger things to worry about. But it's not just that they're bigger things to worry about, but real things to worry about. I'm now experiencing real sadness, grief and stress. It's not manufactured from chemical imbalances in my brain.

Therefore, although my situation definitely sucks, it's comforting that I'm mostly responding in a healthy way, in a way mentally healthy people would respond.

Hard to Breath

Today is the first day I've started to unravel. I'm feeling like I'm trying to hold people up to support them, but I'm about to collapse. It's all getting to be too much.

So when I got a surprise call from my psychiatrist's office for an appointment, I could at least see that God was taking care of me. It was a relief just talking out my burdens.

But I started to feel more stressed and anxious as I got closer and closer to home after my appointment. My chest got tighter, breathing more shallow and my head started to hurt. I don't want to be here right now. I need some time to myself. Or, it's just that I need some space to ruminate, sort through the mess in my brain.

I can't be responsible for other people's pessimism, for other people's attitudes. This is what is weighing on me so heavily today. What can I do? I can't change another's mind, but it affects me too.

Most of the time I can handle it....it's just depression brain today. Blah!