Sunday, January 16, 2005
A couple weeks ago I was finally able to make an appointment with Dr. Franco. The appointment would have been last Wednesday, but he cancelled my appointment, referring me to Life Skills. My guess is he didn't want to add another person to his workload. Life Skills is the catch-all place to go to talk to head shrinks. Well, I already know that they're booked two months out. Besides I specifically requested Dr. Franco because of RELIGIOUS PREFERENCE. Anyone else I'd talk to couldn't help me get to the root of matters. In the mean time, I'm still taking those wacky meds (Effexor) that the family physician prescribed. He told me to see him in 30 days if I didn't get to see Dr. Franco. Well, that's coming up. Boy, does it make me sleepy & apathetic. I really want to talk to someone who GIVES A DAMN ABOUT ME and cares to help. So I guess I'll just talk to my blog.
BTW, Sandi, who's inches away from her PhD in pharmaceutics (I have bragging rights to that too, since she's my friend -haha) gave me some great information about medicines for bipolar disorder (I still wonder if that's my problem). So thanks to her. My family physician said that I may have a family history of mental problems even if undiagnosed, when I told him about dad's suicide. But his suicide stemmed from his struggles with substance abuse, which I wouldn't dare play with. I tend to feel that my mental/emotional frustrations stem from the unresolved struggles that he had, and that I lived through with him. I heard it said recently that "It's dime store psychology that all of our current issues can be related back to a childhood trauma." Well, that makes me feel paltry and petty for always brooding on my childhood. I'm so dime store.
Ever since my dad was struggling with crack cocaine addiction, even years before I knew about it (me: 7th grade), I knew something was wrong, and I slowly became a sad, confused person. Dad was raising us on his own, and I guess he figured that we were self-sufficient enough that we didn't need him any more. I missed a lot of high school because I just needed time to think. I'd stay home and sleep, hoping that after a good nap I'd feel better, like when I was younger. Well, I slept and slept, day after day, and just felt worse and worse. So not only was I suffering from lack of a parent, but I was adding to the anguish by missing school. I returned to school intermittently, and eventually my Spanish teacher, who was concerned, referred me to the school psychologist. I was relieved that someone cared. I told the psychologist about Dad's cocaine problem, but it didn't faze her. She said nothing was wrong with me, and I just needed to go to school. Yes, I should've gone to school, but I just couldn't concentrate. But I should have gone anyway. I did graduate though. Make no mistake about that.
Dad committed suicide in 1996 when I was 20. My brother Chris, 22 at the time, found him hanging in the garage when he got home from work. Thankfully I wasn't there to be a part of the finding-him-hanging-there-moment; we had spent the last Christmas together, I guess he considered that his farewell to me, without ever telling me. Hearing of his death was kind of just a continuation of a bad dream to me. To be honest he had truly died 10 years before that, when he started taking cocaine. So in that light, it was a relief when he ended his life. I just didn't know how to help him anymore. I couldn't. I loved him like crazy, and just like in that movie "Contact" (go on a tangent with me for a moment) he was as much God to me as I could imagine. Before the cocaine, he was perfect in every way. He had an awesome work ethic, love. He was my best friend. My favorite person in all the world, without a doubt.
When he died I'd been in the army for almost a year. After flying out to Wyoming for the funeral (which was somehow a happy occasion for me; got to see all the family) and I was back into a routine going to Russian classes, I just wasn't feeling right, and really hadn't been for years and years. Oh gosh, and if I really want to go into all the details of my life at the time, my virginity had just been STOLEN by some cunningly manipulative control-freak who wouldn't let me NOT be his girlfriend. He broke up with me oh, so conveniently just before he PCS'd. Jerk. BRENT LOPER. I slander that name!!!
With my dad dead, and my boyfriend out of my hair, I decided to get my emotions in order, so I went to see a psychologist. He told me that the only thing he saw wrong with my life was my "belief system." I certainly hope he didn't mean my religion. I'm afraid that's what he meant. So I went elsewhere for help.
I turned to God, and whaddya know...He helped! That took a lot of hard work. I can't even imagine describing in words what emotional/spiritual angst I went through to get feeling better again. In a nutshell, it was prayer, honesty to myself & God, laying it all out on the table, reading the scriptures, choosing new friends, attending ALL church meetings and activities, and keeping the commandments...ALL of them, without any hesitation. The transformation was amazing. For the first time I really had a relationship with Christ, and our communication was two-way. I experienced miracles. My eyes were opened to the every day miracles, but I was actually even blessed with a miracle that is beyond scientific explanation. I've told people about it before, but since then I've learned to keep it to myself because it was meant just for me at that time, as an undeniable manifestation of the Lord's truth... just for me to experience.
So God truly did heal me. The catch was that I had to keep up my end of the bargain too. I had to keep doing all the right things. Any little deviation, no matter how small, would wrench my soul and send me into sincere repentance. I felt so good to be so good. I was working hand in hand with the lord, but humbly, and knowing that I had made a great stride but still had oh, so far to go.
Months later I PCS'd, and with a whole new life to get used to at this different place, little things started creeping in that threw me off course. Nothing bad, I just didn't adapt my spirituality well to the new place and new people, and didn't see it happening until I gradually felt secular again. And I felt like I'd really messed up, and couldn't fix it again. It had been so much work to get to where I'd been, and I didn't take the time to try it again. Probably because I felt I had a measure of worldly favors, so didn't feel the overwhelming contriteness that it took to get me on my knees in the first place. Oh, to feel so contrite all the time. What pain it is, but what rewards come from working through it.
So why don't I go to God now? I came across something that answers that question so completely perfectly. It's not an excuse, but it's a reason, and it gives me a foundation to start working from.
posted by Angela Marie at 3:19 AM
