2017, December, and Depression

The past year, but especially the last month and a half, I have found myself in a place of deep introspection, reflection, self realization, growth, and even depression. For the most part 2017 was a good year for my little family. We are, and have been, taking steps to grow and move forwards. While not without speed bumps or hiccups, forward movement is still forward movement.

Many of the highlights of last year have been, and were, easy to share. That's the best part of highlights is in the sharing. However, I also experienced some very low parts and times where I was forced to confront things, feelings, and ideas that I have tried very hard for many years to avoid.

The saying "I'm not where I once was, but I'm not where I want to be" holds very true for my life, especially right now. It is very, very seldom that I willing choose to open up and share, mostly because people tend to feel sorry for me, and pity is not something that I ever desire to receive. However, I am hopeful that opening up to share the gritty messy parts will encourage others to press forwards, even in bad times.

Last year it became necessary to confront and deal with many false ideas, problems, and unhealthy relationships that were in my life, many since childhood. I was forced to come to the painful realization that a certain family relationship in my life was extremely unhealthy and abusive; and that many of the relationships intertwined within it were also unhealthy as a by product. This realization broke my heart and forced me to come to the truth that said family relationship will likely never be what I hope and prayed that it would become. I have held on for 30+ years to the hope that change will happen, or that the relationship will improve.

Sadly, I was forced to confront the truth that the unhealthiness of it was only revealing the parameters in which that relationship would exist in. Parameters that I had no say in, control over, and that did not take my feelings, or personhood into account. In those unhealthy moments the other party was showing who they were in the relationship, exactly what value they placed on me and the relationship as a whole, as well as their goals and desire for what the relationship and those affected by it would be. While these instances were nothing out of the ordinary, nor were they anything worse than they always have been in the past; I was forced to realize the truth of how toxic and abusive it was.

I found myself in a place of mourning for what might have been, what I hoped for, and the potential that was lost in that. And mourn I did, a mourning that left me in depression, self-doubt, questioning, and loss. While there has been no loss of life, I mourn for the loss of possibility of what this could have been, my hope for the relationship and the affect this has had on my extended family, my daughters and husband. I found myself in a tailspin of emotions, questions, self-doubt, and depression.

The toxicity and abuses that I was faced with forced me to confront many things which I have long known to be true about the extent that this relationship and those intertwined with it are unhealthy. Problems, status quo, thoughts, and realizations that I have tried for many, many years to avoid or to change. I tried for so long to avoid admitting the truth of how toxic it was in the hope that it would change. I finally came to a place where I had no choice but to realize that I cannot make this relationship heal, change, or evolve into a healthy relationship. I was forced to realize that the only solution, for this time, is to draw boundaries to protect myself, my husband, and my daughters from the abuses and toxicity.

I have learned a lot in this time, both about myself, and about toxic relationships. In the admission of how unhealthy this family relationship is came the realization of the truth of it all. These realizations and the boundaries that have come with them have caused me to learn more about myself and who I am. The verbal and emotional abuse I have been faced with and subjected to in this relationship and the removal of that from my life have caused me to realize that the abuse has shaped how I see myself, in a detrimental way that should never have happened. I have come to take ownership, and continue to take ownership, of who I allow to speak into my life and how I allow them to do so because of this.

Once I began to remove the toxic poisons of the abuses and insults of this relationship, and others from my past, from my thoughts and my heart I began to grow. I am coming into the realization that in this moment and time I have the opportunity to get to know myself and grow into who I truly am. Free from the insults, belittling, blaming, abuses, and bullying I have this amazing fresh start to create in myself the person that I am, the person that in the past I have not been allowed to be or become.

I am still in the process of growing through this pain, and find myself slowly emerging from it all into something and someone new. I am learning who I am, who I have been all along, and finding new freedom to be me. This is still a process, some days the pain hits me again and I mourn, but each day is the first day of the rest of my life and I am choosing to be me.

5 Minute Magnet Bookmark

This evening I decided to take a craft break while the girls were finishing up their math work. I have found that when I do something crafty while they are doing school work they tend to work better for some reason. Maybe it's a feeling of solidarity in working, I don't know. But whatever the reason I will take it.

Magnetic bookmarks are a big hit in our house. They are so popular with my girls that they tend to get abducted and never reappear again. I imagine all of my bookmarks are somewhere in our bin of Barbies being used to style Barbies' hair or some other such imaginative idea.

I had an idea in mind for how to create my own magnetic bookmarks but didn't find anything on Pinterest that matched what I was looking to do. Gasp!

I decided to make it up as I went, and I actually surprised myself with how well it turned out.

Here are the directions in case you would like to make one for yourself!

What you will need:

- Washi Tape

- Scissors

- Magnet from any sort of sales insert or business advert

I used a magnet that came from a handout that they were doing at Target during Christmas

Cut the magnet in half which ever direction suits you. I wanted a fatter magnet so that it would be easier for me to grab with my carpel tunnel. I could probably have made 2 bookmarks out of this magnet otherwise.

My gold washi tape that I picked up in the Target Dollar Section.

Cover the magnet with the washi tape leaving a gap to fold at later and an overlap along all 4 of  the edges.

Now add as many strips of washi tape as needed to cover the surface leaving an overhang on the edges. Be sure to over lap the first strip to prevent gaps or holes.

Three strips of washi tape covered the first side of the bookmark.

Flip the whole thing over carefully. Now you can see the nice space along the middle to fold the whole thing later, and the extra overhang on the edges.

     

Cover this side with washi tape the same way as the first side.

Using your fingernail press along the edges to stick them all together nicely.

Trim all of the edges where you left the overhang before, leaving a small amount of edging all around to "seal" your bookmark.

After I finished I decided that mine needed a bit more sparkle so I added some glitter washi tape to the middle.

For my first time making this project and doing everything "freehand" I think it turned out pretty well. Next time I make one I think I'll cut the glitter washi tape into a point or some pretty design to make it look a bit more "finished", but over all I'm pleased with my 5 minute craft project.

Minimalism, The Documentary

I have a confession to make. I have, to the best of my knowledge, never watched a documentary before. Gasp, right? In the past I have enjoyed National Geographic specials, wildlife shows, and various other educational programs on Discovery Channel and such; but I have never found the documentaries I've encountered appealing.

Fast forward to two nights ago and my trying to find something interesting to watch during my almost nightly routine of laundry folding. I decided to make an attempt at watching my first documentary, with the thought that if it were horrible I could always switch back to my routine go-to's of watching Gilmore Girls, Star Trek, or Fixer Upper for the umpteenth time.

I happened across the Minimalism Documentary on Netflix, thinking that it would help inspire me for the decluttering projects I have planned for the New Year, (anyone else cleaning out house for the New Year?). I have found the premise of Minimalism interesting for some time now and the prospect of having less to clean up is greatly appealing.

The documentary itself is a bit dry, so I haven't finished it yet, hopefully that will happen during tonights laundry folding. Although it maybe that I find it dry because that is normal for documentaries, I have nothing to base that thought on though.

What I did find while watching Minimalism was that the thought of minimializing the stuff in our lives can go far beyond physical objects. Again and again, the various people in the documentary state that minimalism is about weeding out the things in our lives by only keeping that which adds value to our lives. The idea being that we only keep that which adds value to our lives and discard that which deprives or detracts our lives of value. This premise means not getting rid of stuff just for the sake of having less, but getting rid of things that do not help our lives to grow to the full potential that we would like them to have and experience.

I began to realize that this thought of minimizing that which detracts value from our lives can also be applied to the relationships and activities of our lives. For a very long time I have been in the process of evaluating the "WHY" behind certain thoughts, ideas, and things in my life. Do I want that object, relationship, or to participate in that activity solely because I have been told that I should want it? Are my ideas for an ideal home, possessions, relationships, or appearance based upon things that I truly like? Or, instead, are theses areas based upon advertising telling me what I should and should not like? And if these things are based upon external sources, what do I truly like?

The idea of focusing on things that add value to our lives isn't something new, yet we are bombarded with advertising designed to warp our ideas of what is useful, necessary, needed, or wanted. Every piece of marketing is designed for the sole purpose of making us believe that we NEED whatever is being advertised. Additionally, we are now faced with Social Media attempting to advertise and dictate to us what our ideas, opinions, relationships, and friendships should look like or be like. None of it actually taking into account the wellbeing of the audience.

I found this train of thought tying in with my last blog post about boundaries and mental health. How often do we NOT draw boundaries because we have been told that we should not have boundaries in that area of our lives or that boundaries are bad? We witness similar relationships through the lens of Social Media and assume that is what our relationship should be like as well. We even go so far as attempting to replicate relationships we see in tv or movies, good or bad. In attempting to copy what we see or assume should be are we actually doing more damage to ourselves or short changing our own wellbeing?

I am not necessarily advocating the dismissal of relationships. We already saw too much of that just from the politics and opinions surrounding the last election and are now learning to live with the fallout of those presumptuous burning of bridges. Instead, I would suggest evaluating the relationships we allow free reign in our lives and the demands we allow to be placed upon us. Perhaps in the process of cleaning, decluttering, and New Years resolutions we include an evaluation of our own boundaries and wellbeing. Maybe in the process of cleaning up our homes we evaluate if and how we should clean up our relationships and lives.

Depression and Religion

Have you ever typed something into a Google search just out of curiosity only to find yourself surprised by the search results? What starts as an innocent search out of curiosity leads to a small tumble down a rabbit hole, or further questions, or, in the extreme, a reevaluation of information you previously knew. Google is great for solving debates, answering curiosity, amusing, or finding information easily. We use it for so much, yet there can be times when the search results return information that can take you off guard, surprise you, or confirm something you already knew.

For many years I have heard it stated that religion can be a insulator for believers, helping them to cope with depression and preventing them from becoming depressed. On a fluke I decided to Google 'depression rates by religion" hoping to have the search results return a quick, easy statistic in answer to my query. Instead I found myself looking through pages of information.

The information I found confirmed ideas that I had already suspected, but thought no one had acknowledged. Religion does not prevent people from becoming depressed, it does not act like an insulator for believers, because religious believers are still human and therefore, susceptible to depression just like anyone else. Religious beliefs don't inoculate believers to prevent depression. To hold to that idea grew increasingly flawed as I read through the articles in the search results.

Unfortunately, the majority of the articles and research papers I found reached a conclusion yet stopped just short of offering any form of explanation, solution, or even valuable insight. They were filled with factual data pulled from studies, research, and experiments. However, they offered no helpful solutions nor conclusions. What's more is that these studies appear grossly outdated with no further research or attempts to understand the problem. It was as if the researchers came to the results and then deemed further investigation unworthy of pursuing. The information, while cold and factual, left me puzzling as to the CAUSE of the higher rates of depression among religious believers.

CBC News practically attempted to portray the information as a reasoning for the conversion to atheism. Drawing upon scientific research from done in a psychiatric study done in 2013. While the article attempted to offer a conclusion the results of that conclusion come across as biased and predisposed in opinion.

The further I read through everything the more I realized the lack of conclusion, or rather the lack of helpful solutions. It began to appear to me that the researchers and authors all recognized a problem, yet offer no solutions or even attempts at helping those who are religious and suffering from depression. As I puzzled through this I began to form my own hypothesis. In an attempt to test if my hypothesis was correct I turned to the Pinterest to test my ideas, very scientific, right?

The more I scrolled through ideas posted by real people the more it seemed to confirm my hypothesis. My theory being that the increased rates of depression among believers is highly due to the discriminatory way that they are allowed, or rather disallowed to draw boundaries to protect their mental health without being attacked by accusations of being intolerant. This regulation of healthy boundaries creates a dynamic in which unhealthy relationships and abuse can be perpetuated unchecked. Should a believer attempt to draw boundaries in order to protect their mental health they are accused of being unforgiving and unreligious; thereby, manipulating them into being in toxic relationships or worse abused. Cries of intolerance go up without allowance for the persons wellbeing or mental health.

Religious believers are faced with demands that they be tolerant in the face of toxic behaviors and treatment. Society as a whole demands that they allow themselves to be subject to mistreatment under the guise of religious observance. Should the person draw boundaries for their own mental health they are then faced with demands to cease practicing their religion or accusations that they are not truly religious. This demand doesn't seem limited to the restraints of their religious peers, and instead seems to be reenforced by society as a whole. I have observed that when the non-religious set up boundaries in the name of preserving their own mental health, wellbeing, and self care they are applauded and encouraged; however, the same reaction is not given as response to religious people setting up the same boundaries for the same reason.

Society seems to have created or is in the process of creating a caste system as to which groups are allowed to care for their own mental health, and wellbeing through the drawing of boundaries. This caste system cannot help but to cause people to remain stuck in unhealthy patterns, and toxic, or abusive relationships through the abuse and manipulation of that persons religious beliefs. It is also demanding that religious beliefs be used as a license to abuse people, and keep them from drawing boundaries to escape toxic relationships or abuse. This discrimination is, perhaps, the largest reason I believe that the statistics show higher rates of depression among religious believers.

This discriminatory behavior seems to scream that if the person not allow themselves to be abused or remain in a toxic relationship they cannot practice the religion of their choice. As if allowing oneself to be abused were a merit badge, or pass required to allow the practice of that religion. Not only does this set up a system solely beneficiary to the abusers but it also creates a culture that, if carried out to it's extreme, denies mental health care to those deemed of the "wrong caste", offering the full benefits of mental healthcare to only parts of that society.

This manipulation of beliefs must stop. Everyone should be allowed to draw boundaries for their own mental health, and wellbeing, irregardless of beliefs or religion. If we are to have an equal society, with equal access to mental healthcare, and equal allowance for the creation of healthy boundaries we cannot allow the perpetual abuse and manipulation of religions as a whole to entangle people in toxic situations and relationships. We also must do everything necessary to stop abuses wherever we can, including learning and teaching the difference between intolerance and boundaries.

40 Days

The other night I was reading in Luke 4 and one single word stuck out to me that changed the entire way I was reading. That one word popping out changed my perspective on the entire chapter. It's funny how that can happen some times, right?

Luke 3 ends with Jesus being baptized by John the Baptist in the Jordan river. A powerful and beautiful moment that is immediately followed by Jesus being led into the desert by the Holy Spirit. Chapter 4 begins there, with Jesus being led around the desert by the Holy Spirit.

Luke 4:1-2 HCSB - Jesus, full of the Holy Spirit, returned from the Jordan and was led around by (under the influence of/in) the Spirit in the wilderness for forty days being tempted by the devil. And He ate nothing during those days, and when they had ended, He became hungry.

I have read this passage many times, yet the other night one thing in it stuck out to me. Verse 2 starts by stating that FOR forty days Jesus was tempted by the devil. Reading this in the past I jumped to the conclusion that it was at the end of the forty days that the devil showed up and tempted Jesus. It hit me in that moment of reading the passage again that it was over the course of the entire forty days that Jesus was tempted, not just at the end.

In that moment I realized that Jesus wasn't just sitting around doing nothing, or sitting around praying the whole time. He spent that forty days being tempted the entire time. Never once in the following verses does it say that it was at the end of the forty days when the devil showed up to torment Jesus, it just says that the devil did tempt Him. Jesus wasn't just tempted when He was hungry, He was tempted the entire time, and we are given only 3 examples of how He was tempted.

HELPS Word-Studies gives this interesting thought on the forty days.

(Link)

Following this thought from HELPS Word-Studies this time period was to grow Jesus in the knowledge of God's approval of Him. Interesting when we consider that the last thing that Jesus heard from God was "You are My beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased" (Luke 3:22 HCSB).

As I was studying this a few things went through my thoughts. The devil, as we know, tries to steal, kill, and destroy; often in the very midst of God revealing His love to us, or more deeply to us, depending on where we are at.

You see, what God approves, the devil tries to steal or destroy. The devil attacks us, in that moment of closeness with God, in order to hurt God. His goal is to hurt God as much as he can in his war against God, using us like pawns to inflict hurt and harm, in order to win the war.

The devil is a narcissistic manipulator. He lies and manipulates. He twists everything to confuse and trick us. He warps and twists every word to entangle and mislead us to the point where we think down is up and are left wondering how in the world we became so confused and lost. Outsiders in that moment, looking on, staring in rightful confusion, wondering how we got in that place of such confusion. The devil comes into that moment of closeness with God and tries to lie and manipulate us into letting go of or giving away what is rightfully ours.

The devil will never receive God's blessing so he tries to steal ours instead. If he can't steal it he will do his best to make us miserable. The saying goes that misery loves company and so does the devil. He will do whatever he can to drag as many as possible down with him.

During these forty days that Jesus was in the desert He was tempted by the devil the entire time. Given that details of this are in the Bible, I can only come to the conclusion that Jesus either told His disciples about it or the Holy Spirit revealed the details to the disciples after the fact.

We are only given 3 examples of the temptation that Jesus went through in the desert. I find it interesting what was chosen to share with us.

Jesus was tempted in His flesh by bodily hunger. The devil taunted Him, mocking His physical hunger by trying to get Him to eat rocks. Yes, Jesus could turn the rocks into bread, but in the natural humans are not able to transform rocks to bread. The devil didn't truly believe that Jesus was the Son of God. He was testing to see if this was true. Either way in that moment the devil would have thought his victory sure. If Jesus wasn't the Son of God, had He given in to the taunts, He would have been eating rocks. Yuck! The damage that would have done to His body in that moment would have been a victory for the devil. Had Jesus turned the rocks into bread He would have been giving into the devil and taken 1 step down a slippery slope of listening to the devil instead of to God, becoming easily taunted into disobedience. Jesus ends up doing what the devil didn't expect in that moment and speaking truth into the face of manipulative lies.

Jesus was then tempted in His pride. Jesus knew that He was the rightful ruler of all the earth, He was there at creation, and knew that in finality all the kingdoms of the earth would bow before Him. The devil throws the temptation for immediate gratification at Him. The devil offers rulership and the gratification immediately to Him, if only He will serve the devil. The devil appeals to His pride in His identity. Satan in that moment attempts to twist Jesus's previous quotation of scripture back on Him. Tangling scripture in a very narcissistic manipulation of Truth. Twisting scripture trying to make himself the worshipped instead of God. Jesus doesn't fall prey to confusion, holding to Truth as one lashing themselves to a solid foundation in the midst of the chaos of a hurricane. He refuses to bow to the devil, seeing through the manipulation to Truth.

Jesus was finally tempted in His identity. The devil couldn't confuse Him into idol worship so He attacked His very identity. Jesus was taken to the very top most parts of the temple in Jerusalem. He is taken to the very seat of God's throne on this earth. The center of worship of God, the place where God's Spirit rests among men. Where God meets with men and speaks. Where atonement is made regularly for sin and offerings made daily to God. In this place Satan mocks Jesus, and in reality mocks God's ability to protect and save His creation. The devil isn't just tempting Jesus at this point, he is flat out sending the message to God that God isn't stronger than him and saying that all of mankind is his for the destruction. Perhaps at this point it was starting to dawn on the devil that just maybe Jesus was the Savior. In that moment the very temple erected to worship God was also the tempting ground and a place of battle for Satan and Jesus. They stood toe to toe in that moment sizing each other up, getting a measure of their opponent. One trying to assess the success of the coming battle, the other knowing the outcome of the battle. Jesus stood toe to toe with the devil, and took a swing. Jesus lifted the full weight of scripture, and hit Satan with it. Sending Satan reeling backwards to gather himself, reassess his strategy, and plan his next attack.

Satan had his forty days of attacking Jesus, assessing Who Jesus was, testing his merit against Him, and ultimately failing. Satan spent not just the finality of those forty days attacking Jesus, but the entire time. Unbeknownst to Satan in that moment, he inadvertently further enabled Jesus to relate to the very people Satan sought to destroy; and thereby gave us an advocate against himself to equip and enable us for victory.

Not only was Jesus tempted in those forty days but he also passed through that refining period as one passing through fire, emerging fully ready for victory. What Satan intended to use to tear down Jesus was used to sharpen and equip Him for battle. Jesus left that desert fully knowing and understanding God's approval of Him. He became the victorious battle champion, honed and ready to win every battle forever more.

Be a Part of the Picture

With the 4th of July holiday upon us I felt that this needed to be shared (again).

So often moms are left out of pictures due to self-consciousness, self-criticalness, and just plain logistics, but in our modern era this doesn't have to be.

Dear sweet mama's,

Your children won't remember you through the negative filter that you see yourself through, they will remember you with love and appreciation. They won't remember of your rolls, lack of makeup, under-eye circles, 5, 10, 20+ extra pounds that you can't shake. That is because that isn't how they see you.

Think about it, when you remember your mom from your childhood what do you remember? We remember the laughs and time spent together. We don't remember our mom's for their flaws, we remember them for their laugh, and by the way, my mom has the best laugh! We remember the good times and the fun. We remember the tears and the hugs. We don't remember our mom's as having flaws because in our eyes they are beautiful and amazing. And dear mama, so are you! Your children will remember you with the same love and adoration that you remember your own mom with.

So often moms are left out of pictures due to self-consciousness, self-criticalness, and just plain logistics, but in our modern era this doesn't have to be.

In the age of selfie cams, use those gadgets to your advantage. Turn the camera around and smile because there will be a day when your kiddos go off to college and they WILL want to take a picture of you with them (whether they admit it or not).

Ask someone to take a picture with you in it. Buy a selfie stick. Whatever it takes, just save the memory! The days are short, but the pictures will last forever.

Let's leave our children boxes full of pictures of the WHOLE family, not just themselves.

We Are Just a Bunch of Coconuts

I have had a lot of time lately to ponder various ideas. It's funny how keeping your hands busy doing easy things allows your mind time to more freely think and ponder ideas.

Anyways, recently I had this thought that I can't shake. I've been pondering relationships, friendships, and the human need for them, as well as the need and desire to feel fulfilled by all of the various relationships in our lives.

It occurred to me that it is likely impossible to feel 100% fulfilled by any amount or quantity of relationships nor is it possible to feel 100% fulfilled within any relationship.  No matter how deep the relationship or the type of relationship there will always be parts of you that the other person will not appreciate or accept. Yes, they may treat you with love and kindness, but they may also ask you to stop doing certain things.

For example, I love my kids to the moon and back, but I don't love it when they whine, or throw tantrums, or just scream to get heard. There are things that I can do to cope with those things and make living together easier, but likely I will never come to enjoy the whining or tantrums.

Fast forward to me washing the dishes and pondering this while the kids are watching Moana....

Well, it turns out that the coconut has hundreds of uses. Seriously, I never realized it but the coconut has many different parts and facets that have many different uses. Just like people.

Just like the coconut, there will be parts of you that others might not fully appreciate. I love coconut milk and dried coconut but can't gag down coconut water. That doesn't mean that coconut water is bad, I know that there are many people that love it, but it's just not for me. That doesn't mean that I ignore the whole coconut or that coconuts are bad. That just means that coconut water is just not for me.

The same thing goes for people. We all want others to love and accept every single part of us, but there might just be some parts that others don't care for or appreciate. That doesn't make that part of you necessarily bad though, or mean that all of us is bad or rejected. Instead we have to work to the understanding that no one person is going to love every single part of us, and find freedom on the other side of that.

On the other side of realizing that people are not capable of loving every single part of us IS freedom. Once we are able to realize that not everyone will love every detail about us is the ability to realize that we are wonderful, no matter which parts others love or appreciate. In the end it's not about what or how much of us others accept, it's about learning to accept ourselves. That is what matters.