Depression: The Fear of the Fight
As a Christian, I have had a hard understanding why I can’t just pray through this depression and God will heal me. Why do I have to go through the “fight”? But I had a long talk with a friend of mine a couple of days ago and as she explained it to me she said that sometimes God needs us to walk through the storm and then the blessing will come. God needs me to fully rely on Him for His guidance, His direction and to do it in His timing and His way. He has equipped me with all the things/people I need for the journey, I just now have to be ready to step out in faith and do it!! When I think about stepping out in faith, I picture myself walking all the way to the end of the light of what I can see and then taking ONE more step. To me that is scary. I am fearing the fight.
What’s in the fight? I am not really sure, but I think it is going to be a matter of looking at some past experiences, past relationships, and bringing those to the forefront. I think I will be looking at current coping skills and learning some new ones that will be much healthier for me in the long run. I think we can tend to get comfortable in our situations whether they are good or bad. You settle in because it’s what you know and stepping out would take a lot of work, focus and energy and you are stepping into the unknown. Isn’t that what fear is really all about….the unknown?? I have started to understand why women stay in abusive relationships. They are already so worn out in their situation that stepping out and making change to just seems overwhelming and exhausting. But if I am going to step out of this deep, dark pit of depression, I am going to have to step out and FIGHT!
So, in just a couple of hours I will be entering into a 10 day inpatient hospitalization for treatment of depression. My feeling is I will never be able to fight the changes that RA has brought into my life unless I am first willing to fight the depression. My goal is to live life with RA….I will still have mobility issues, I will still have joint pain, joint swelling, mtx hangovers, vision problems but I will be having all that while I am LIVING!! I want to feel joy again, I want to laugh, I want hope in a lifelong battle that is ahead of me and the only way I see to do that is get my brain, emotions, moods functioning properly. So I will step out today and face my fear!!!
I AM A FIGHTER!!!!!
