Acceptance
I have been struggling with anxiety and depression for several months. My greatest fear has been to be "crazy." I had been called this by people who should have protected me. This label was used to negate trauma. And I still use this label about myself when I feel embarrassed or ashamed. While I seek reassurance that I am not crazy, it has always been my greatest fear.
This week as I sat in the purple waiting room of the psychiatrist, I nervously texted a friend: "Feeling like a psych patient." Her response: "You are LOL"
And there it was. I really am.
I try so hard to have it together, to know the next move, to have options. I am the person that others rely on, the one who gets things done. But I haven't felt like that person in a while. To admit that felt like a betrayal of who I was made to be. I simply needed to keep trying and try harder, I had been telling myself.
I don't want to be fragile. I don't want to be dismissible. I don't want to be lost. I don't want to be a less than. These ideas all come from some misguided, prejudicial views about patients with mental illnesses. And all these ideas are reasons I struggled to not be one of them.
I studied self-care and ways to manage intense emotions. I learned the language of DBT and psychopharmacology. I learned the customs of mindfulness and distress tolerance. I learned the map of this land of treatment visiting such places as ACCEPTS, IMPROVE, and RADICAL ACCEPTANCE. But I kept struggling.
The day I realized that I was indeed a psych patient, I allowed others to see me and help me. I decided to tell the truth to others and to accept the truth for myself.
This acceptance makes it a lot easier to focus on self care. I must take care of myself because my brain betrays me when I am too tired, too stressed, too lonely, too busy. I must take medication to help balance my brain's chemistry. I must feed my spirit on Scripture and have found many echoes of my experience there, like Psalm 42. I must watch my schedule. I must manage stress. I must build into life giving relationships and release those that drain me. And surprisingly, I have begun to recognize that I am worth taking this time and putting the energy into this new journey.
I thought accepting that I am, indeed, a psych patient would be demeaning, but it has actually been empowering. This humility allows me to receive help. Instead of denying and fearing this part of me, I have identified and accepted it as I seek wholeness. Yet depression is not the whole of me any more than it would have been the whole of who David was. Like David, I seek God, even in this cave of depression. Like David, I will tell myself:
“Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.”
Psalm 42:11 NIV
This week as I sat in the purple waiting room of the psychiatrist, I nervously texted a friend: "Feeling like a psych patient." Her response: "You are LOL"
And there it was. I really am.
I try so hard to have it together, to know the next move, to have options. I am the person that others rely on, the one who gets things done. But I haven't felt like that person in a while. To admit that felt like a betrayal of who I was made to be. I simply needed to keep trying and try harder, I had been telling myself.
I don't want to be fragile. I don't want to be dismissible. I don't want to be lost. I don't want to be a less than. These ideas all come from some misguided, prejudicial views about patients with mental illnesses. And all these ideas are reasons I struggled to not be one of them.
I studied self-care and ways to manage intense emotions. I learned the language of DBT and psychopharmacology. I learned the customs of mindfulness and distress tolerance. I learned the map of this land of treatment visiting such places as ACCEPTS, IMPROVE, and RADICAL ACCEPTANCE. But I kept struggling.
The day I realized that I was indeed a psych patient, I allowed others to see me and help me. I decided to tell the truth to others and to accept the truth for myself.
This acceptance makes it a lot easier to focus on self care. I must take care of myself because my brain betrays me when I am too tired, too stressed, too lonely, too busy. I must take medication to help balance my brain's chemistry. I must feed my spirit on Scripture and have found many echoes of my experience there, like Psalm 42. I must watch my schedule. I must manage stress. I must build into life giving relationships and release those that drain me. And surprisingly, I have begun to recognize that I am worth taking this time and putting the energy into this new journey.
I thought accepting that I am, indeed, a psych patient would be demeaning, but it has actually been empowering. This humility allows me to receive help. Instead of denying and fearing this part of me, I have identified and accepted it as I seek wholeness. Yet depression is not the whole of me any more than it would have been the whole of who David was. Like David, I seek God, even in this cave of depression. Like David, I will tell myself:
“Put your hope in God, for I will yet praise him, my Savior and my God.”
Psalm 42:11 NIV
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