28Then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble,
and he brought them out of their distress.
29He stilled the storm to a whisper;
the waves of the sea#
:29Dead Sea Scrolls; Masoretic Text / their waves
were hushed.
30They were glad when it grew calm,
and he guided them to their desired haven.
31Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love…
(Psalm 107:28-31)
I think we have finally reached a point of speaking….
The words that will flow in this will be words that are painful for me to say out loud, but maybe that is the purpose. This is Brie. I will never be anything other than me. I will never be anything other than “crazy”.
So…. Hi, my name is Brianne and I legitimately struggle with Bi-Polar Disorder on a daily basis.
That almost feels amazing to say out loud. I almost feel less crazy than normal….Wait, nope still having a thousand racing thoughts. It was worth a try.
I am definitely not an extreme end of the spectrum, but I am on it. I am always a little ball of bomb ticking away. I speak before I think, I listen, but usually my perception of it is skewed and my ability to trust people is slim to none. I love, with my whole heart, I love. I am happy. I am absolutely joyful. I am weird. My ability to not care about what people think about me is devastating and freeing at the same time.
Every single day, I have to battle myself. I am my own worst enemy. I don’t need the devil, I wake up with myself on a daily basis.
I am 98.2% always as normal as normal can be. I am controlled by my trips to the gym and a therapist that has spent countless sessions with me on my knees in prayer. I am thankful that she understands that sometimes, talking to her isn’t who I should be talking to and I just need her to hold my hand a bit.
The issue is the other 1.8% that strays from what is normal. The days where there are so many storms that come from so many angles. The days that I can’t control and have even been known to contain moments of time that I can’t remember. I say things I would never say. I do things I would never do and I have nothing left after these moments other than giant piles of debris to sift through and organize what is left. In these moments, I spend a lot of time here as my reminder to stay focused:
6The mind governed by the flesh is death, but the mind governed by the Spirit is life and peace. 7The mind governed by the flesh is hostile to God; it does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. 8Those who are in the realm of the flesh cannot please God. (Romans 8:6-8)
This time, I lost my ability to stay focused on God.
The last four months have been flat-out hell though. I had the chance to:
Listen to my daughters dad say awful things about me that were not true, and I let him get in my head
I got become homeless, yet the kind hearts of my friends kept me with a roof over our head
I worked two jobs through Christmas thinking it would help me get ahead only to find out I didn’t think about after and it wasn’t how I planned
I worked hard all year to try to get out of debt (you should not be a slave to the lender) only to find out I missed something and it came to bite me
While trying to find a new home, I found myself living an hour and half away from EVERYONE
The boy we love was gone for 4 months straight with the exception of three days
The list really does just keep going…..
Please know that I am not a victim… I am the product of decisions made in a past where I was so far from God that there wasn’t any way I was about to make a right decision…..
I was stressed to the max. I should have seen it coming and I should have backed down. I allowed not only a severely manic episode to break thorough, but I let spiritual depression set it. I found myself drifting away from the love of God. I tried to open my mouth and pray and sing His praises, but it was hard.
I also should have tried to stop so I could see God’s grace working around me. I found a home that was literally right down the road from a little girl and her family that I love and am so thankful for in my life. Then, I managed to sign the lease on that place and then I randomly was able to pay to turn everything on. I then found out that my neighbors literally beside me was another family from church who are parents to another little girl who has a piece of my heart. My new neighbors, are getting ready to give birth to their first baby, and have already asked me about coming to church with me someday after the baby is born. I have met a couple of other families and even Allie G has friends on the street and she is excited about coming home.
If you hear nothing else in this, hear this: THIS COULD NOT HAVE HAPPENED WITHOUT GOD’S HAND….This could not have happened without his grace and mercy. After the last four months, this is all I know.
I ignored it. Let’s be honest… I lost it. I lost it on a level I will never allow myself to get to again. I said things I didn’t mean and should have never said. I only know this because it was so graciously tossed in my face this week. As I went back to my phone on that day, I have a few people I will sweeping up the dust from. I will be trying to restore friendships destroyed in a 60 second moment I can’t get back. I will be trying to save a relationship that God straight up handed me, because of a moment I couldn’t control. I said so many awful things to him…. the boyfriend and God……
That moment reminded me just how out of the circle I had been. I lost my ability to do the only thing I knew I was doing right.
In a moment where I thought there could be grace and mercy, there wasn’t. There was a moment that I created, that I thought there could be forgiveness for. It was really just a moment for something else. There was no compassion. There was no love. There was no grace and there was no mercy. There was nothing. I spent a long time in my car in the parking lot that afternoon. I prayed and talked to God until I was able to forgive myself for something I did and I found peace.
I almost let the devil win. I almost believed that I wasn’t good enough. I almost believed that I was not usable and I almost believed that I wasn’t capable of being loved by God. I almost…… but I didn’t. I knew this wasn’t true and my insides told me the real purpose of what had happened and I had to agree that it was something out of my hand. Jesus forgave me. He forgave me for sleeping around in my younger years, for kids out-of-wedlock, for being an excessive party girl, for doing so many things wrong, and He forgave me for this moment….
I am now very medicated and in a very exciting program…. Ok, that might be a stretch. I am on the uphill climb though.
I found myself honestly feeling like I had been dropped in the middle of a forest. I was not ok and it felt like it was not ok to not be ok. Please listen to me though, it is ok to not be ok. It is ok to be over stressed by life. It is ok to be confused about why things are happening in your life and it is ok to be crazy. Jesus love you. He loves you crazy and all. That is the great thing about God’s grace and mercy. It is not limited to how perfect you are. It is not limited to how involved you are. It is not limited to if you make mistakes or not.
You are not defined by a chemical imbalance. You are not defined by your positions in your life. You are not defined by the world. You are not defined by the labels you or someone else has created about you. The only person that has permission to label you is God. I see crazy, unlovable, messy, sex before marriage, bad decisions and unworthy. God sees, beautiful, loving, giving, cherished, funny, loved, and so much more.
I don’t know how God chooses to reveal himself to everyone, but for me,as I drove out of that parking lot, I got a phone call saying that my store hit a goal I had been trying all month to hit. I got another phone call saying that the beds I couldn’t afford would be delivered that afternoon and the door of a project I have been working and praying about was completely opened. The one last bill that I couldn’t afford to pay, will be officially taken care of on Monday.
So for a girl who thought that she all of a sudden needed to be perfect and struggled with knowing she couldn’t…
For a girl who tried to be everything and in a moment she had no control of, watched everything come crashing down…
For a girl who struggles with crazy on a daily basis, and could never say it out loud…
For a girl who will was defined by her level of out of control, and forgot to give it God
And for everyone, that struggles with knowing that when you wake up, you have to pray for God to protect you from yourself, because your mind is a strong enemy….. Just remember, keep your eyes looking to heaven. Stay strong and remember that you have a Godly purpose. Stay focused on God’s word. Take the time to bury yourself in it and read the words. Pray. Pray and did I mention pray. If you are in a moment where you can’t stop and you don’t know what is happening, but you can’t stop, pray. God will answer when you cry out to Him.
Please, go see someone. It is ok. Do not lose yourself in the world of “taking medication is wrong”. If your kidneys were failing, you would take something. A mental disease is the same way. It is ok. Even in the bible, Timothy was told to sip some wine for a stomach problem.
Find a support group….No really, find a support group. There are people out there just like you. You are not the only person out there struggling with something like this.
Did I mention pray????
Always remember that Jesus loves you… Crazy and all…
And for some daily reminders:
and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ. (2 Cor 10:5)
May the Lord direct your hearts to the love of God and to the steadfastness of Christ ( 2 Thess 3:5)
And he who searches our hearts knows the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for God’s people in accordance with the will of God. (Romans 8-27)
38For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, nor heavenly rulers neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, 39neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8-38-39)
lifethewayitgoes 