I don't need new issues, I have old ones

Isolating has never really been one of my bigger issues. When I am struggling or something, I talk about it with friends, or I compartmentalize it, possibly never to be heard from again. I am far too social for me to consider isolation. Who will I make sarcastic comments to if I am isolating? It’s just not an efficient use of my humor. I have several friends who when they are going through stuff they isolate completely and don’t have any communication outside of the bare minimum with those in their world. I haven’t ever fully understood it until lately. I feel like I am slowly pulling back more and more and going deeper inside of myself. I have had increased anxiety lately and I am not exactly sure why, but I think that in response to it I have truly begun to isolate. It amazes me just how distracting anxiety can be. I am one of those types of people that if I am sitting too long without doing about 8 things at once, then I must be asleep. I am not one to get lost in my thoughts, which comes from the whole compartmentalization thing, if I think about it then I have to process/deal with it. Meh, I’d rather not, thus I tuck it away (and this is a constant struggle to not do this as I know good and well it isn’t a healthy behavior, it’s not always a given). Lately though I have found myself able to pass significant amounts of time just zoning, and doing nothing else. My anxiety will reach a climax and I will almost have to sit there, stare at a wall and just go over everything in my mind to try and diffuse the extra (and often unwelcome) rushes of adrenaline. The other day I was running, which is an awesome anxiety reliever by the way, and normally the only way I get through my run is by reading the whole time. I am able to set page goals for myself, and pass the time that way, (again, can’t ever just do one thing), but the other night I ran my entire run just staring at a point on the wall and thinking about stuff, not reading more than five pages. WTF?! That doesn’t happen to me…ever.

I haven’t talked to people like I normally do; not nearly as much texts, emails, phone calls, never mind personal face to face contact. It isn’t as though I haven’t wanted to, but I feel almost immobilized when I try to. I feel like I have so much going on inside my head but not really knowing what it is that how can I talk to people about what is going on? So I find myself pulling back, and when I do make contact, I feel totally disconnected from who I am talking to. I answer in vague generalities, again, not in an attempt to hide anything or be dishonest, but just because I don’t really know what is going on. Are new things trying to come to the surface to be looked at and dealt with? are old things trying to resurface and I am just not doing a good job of using the tools I have to deal with them? I really don’t know, but what doesn’t help is how sucky I feel as a friend, wife, daughter, sister, sister-in-law, youth leader, church member, counselor…the list of additional reasons to feel guilty just goes on. And what makes me feel better? Not much, I guess. Running helps, I am just lucky that is one thing I am not compulsive about or I might have another problem on my hands. Luckily my inherent laziness and lack of desire to push myself comes into play to balance it out. Talking does help, but therein lies the problem, isolation and sharing don’t really work cohesively. It is weird though, I don’t feel lonely, I don’t feel all alone in this world, I happen to know I have many people who are more than willing to listen and offer anything I need, so it’s not like I feel depressed, alone, sad etc. it is more the absence of any feeling other than anxiety, the complete disconnect that I feel that is causing my isolation problem.

Sigh. So what now? When will it go away? What do I need to do to make it go away? How can I keep it from leading to triggering all my myriad other issues? Well, frick, if I had all these answers I wouldn’t be needing to write this out and try and figure it out! Silly me. So I will keep trying to figure it out, deal with it, and push my way through it. I apologize for those of you who are affected by it, I promise it’s just temporary…at least I hope so.

An Ignored Beginning

Another beginning, another possibility...but this time no phone calls were made, deliberately. Wonder what that means...

Slippery Slope

Having been working for the police department now for about 6 months, I have discovered a slightly disheartening new characteristic about myself. My vocabulary has taken a decidedly sideways turn and I wouldn’t say expanded, but perhaps a better word for it would be downgraded so that words I wouldn’t have ever said before come more readily to my mind and sometimes to my actual speech. It didn’t take long, and we don’t even have that many cops who are superfluous with swearwords in their language, so I can only imagine how bad it would be if I worked somewhere less wholesome than SVPD. It was just something funny to me, but the more I think about it, the more an old and rather simple idea gets reinforced, it is easier to be pulled down than to pull others up. Not the most astounding and revolutionary idea I know, but one that then took me down a trail of thoughts leading me to my faith. It is a struggle to do what is right. It isn’t easy, for me to sit back and rest on the fact that I am a Christian and therefore I automatically know and therefore do the right thing means that I will find myself in some serious trouble. This actually takes work! I struggle with this often I think because I was raised in the church and can’t remember a time when I didn’t believe, so I feel like my faith is so deeply engrained in me, that it is no longer something distinctive, but just part of the background noise of my life. Which makes me wonder, what will happen when something – anything really – comes along that is louder than the “white noise” I have let my faith become? Chances are good I will follow that siren song because it is just so much easier to be pulled down, especially if I have failed to do the work.


Thing is, we don’t like to think of our faith, our recovery, or our relationship with God as work. We want it to be easy, smooth, and effortless. Isn’t that what we are taught faith should be anyway? the word “just” is put in front of everything “just” believe “just” pray “just” do the right thing. Those can all be very difficult to do sometimes.


Amazingly, I actually looked at some Scripture that I thought speaks to the issue. Ephesians 6, The NASB says “For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the powers, against the world forces of this darkness, against the spiritual forces of wickedness in the heavenly places” 13Therefore, take up the full armor of God, so that you will be able to resist in the evil day, and having done everything, to stand firm. 14Stand firm therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and have put on the breastplate of righteousness, 15 and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace 16in addition to all, taking up the shield of faith with which you will be able to extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17And take the helmet of Salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God


I like the God’s Word translation for the first verse a little better just to illustrate the point a little better: “This is not a wrestling match against a human opponent. We are wrestling with rulers, authorities, the powers who govern this world of darkness, and spiritual forces that control evil in the heavenly world”


Nothing about those verses indicates a laxity, ease, or gentle action. They are strong verses that indicate the need for work, for effort, for preparing for battle! Not exactly the picture of a background faith that I know I have let happen. This is a picture of something active, something that requires, nay (yes I said nay), actually demands the complete absorption of our entire being. You can’t go into battle with only partial investment, you would lose almost instantly. So why would our spiritual lives, which are apparently in a battle with the darkness of this world, be looked at any differently? It is so easy to get caught up in this world and get dragged down by things that appear to be harmless, and things that eat away at our morality and integrity. My example of my change in language is just a minor one compared to some of the darker compromises that we become so much more willing to make when we have relegated our faith to a backdrop rather than at the forefront of our lives. The sad thing is that we usually wait to hit bottom before we decide it’s time to rethink our priorities. I don’t want to have to hit that in my own life before I recognize the need for change, but I also know that relying on myself to motivate myself is insanity, and sometimes I don’t want to make that change, so I can’t trust myself with that decision. It won’t work, so I have to ask and trust that God will help me make not only that choice, but give me the strength and energy to kick into high gear.