Your Body is Your Friend

Well, an update on me seems necessary but daunting. I put these things off for too long and don't ever know what you want to know about what seems like a lifetime of events happening between each entry.

I got worse before I got better. My anxiety and emotional rollarcoaster hit a boiling point on the Thursday before Thanksgiving when I woke up in the middle of the night with a searing, unbearable pain in the very back of my neck. I didn't know what to do. I was a lifeguard for many years and we took anything related to the neck/back/head/ as NO JOKE. I panicked and I called Liam and asked him to pleaseplease come over and take me to our after hours health center. He of course did. At 2:30 in the morning. And then he drove me to the ER when they sent me there and slept in a hard uncomfortable chair all night sitting by me while I got pumped full of painkillers. They took an x-ray and praise God it was nothing too serious. A muscle spasm. But a severe one. They gave me more drugs and a soft neck brace to send me on my way and I asked them why this happened. How could I have prevented it?

Well it could have been any number of factors. Sleeping on one's stomach (check). Too much straining of the neck sitting in any one position like reading a book (checkcheckcheck) and....a manifestation of stress. My body FREAKED and rebelled and said it wasn't going to take any more of my shit. Praise Jesus. :) (Please excuse my language, but when I am referring to my emotional experience and my approach to this first semester, only a curse will do).

It was a wake-up call for me. I have got to change something. I am not just stressed. I am depressed and I need to really change things. So I did. I came back from Thanksgiving break and quit my current job with the crazy hours in exchange for an on-campus job with no nights or weekends. I went to see my counselor and I reached out to a couple fellow students in a way that I have not before. And they received me. They helped me and one who came at JUST the right moment said her first semester her was the worst time of her life. It's not just me! Thanks be to God. But I have seen a problem. My thought pattern has not been healthy. My counselor gave me an excerpt from this old, pop-psych book called Feeling Good, but it lists all these cognitive distortions that we do. And it is dead one about me. I overgeneralize, diqualify the positive, magnify the situation, live by 'shoulds', etcetc. I do those things and it is possible to change them. That book is still a bestseller because apparently millions of people saw themselves in what he said. So that helps a lot. I may not be able to change my feelings all the time, but I can work on my thought life.

And I am not making room for God to reach into my life. I crowd God out with my schedule. And that is going to change. Even if only for the sake of my health. But for more than that too. Access to God is access to joy uninhibited by worldly evidence. And I want that again with all my heart.

Other things I really have to tell you about:

1. My parents and Liam astonished me with their tenderness and compassion during the break. They literally had to brace me as I got out of bed and surround me with pillows and let me cry over and over. And they did it. And I am just overwhelmed that they would. Especially with Liam. My mom is sold on him now. She sent him a card. :) That is so her to do that. They saw how selfless he was in taking care of me, and I don't think I will ever forget that. This neck thing for me is a turning point in my relationship because it gives me a deeper more profound trust in Liam's love for me. That came at a good time.

2. One of my oldest friends got married on 11/18/05, and I had the privilege of being in my first weddding as a bridesmaid. They are passionate people and they often bump heads quite forcefully, but to see her walk down the aisle looking so pure and beautiful and to see him just burst into tears and her to follow moved my heart. Love is real. And nothing is scarier and more real than committing to something so big: another human soul! To bind yourself to another person seems to me like taking the other hand of God.







And on that note, I have been as per usual compulsively staying up late. But now I sleep. Thanks for your love and prayers.