Am I cheating God by taking Prozac?

Life is supposed to be hard...............right?

I was living in despair for such a long time that I really don't know what life is suppose to feel like. I don't remember.

Am I allowed to be happy?

Because of or in spite of my Catholic faith, I can sometimes get all tangled up in thought of what is right and what is wrong. I can get turned around inside my brain and think my way into some bizarre notions. So.....life is hard, bad things happen, work, study, work, mental suffering, physical suffering, natural disasters, tragic death, work, sickness, work, work, work....suffering is a part of daily life. Bad or worse, it's always present. These things happen so often that I've just come to accept them as normal.

Sure, I know Coldplay told us that "nobody said it was easy". But did God tell us it has to be ridiculously, wicked hard?

We wandered back out to the desert, with Moses and the sons of Israel. We went out to get something, got lost, spend so much time away that, even when we found the door back in, we could not remember if we were allow back in. So we lingered by the entrance, thirsting, starving, dying. We were wandering around for so long that we forgot that God already brought us into the Promised Land.

I believe, along with the tradition of the Church, that God allows evil things to happen only so that He can make a greater good come from it. In that way, suffering can help us get closer to Heaven if we cooperate with grace.

I struggled mightily when I had depression. Wow, life was Hell. Am I supposed to deal with hell on earth in order to get to Heaven? Is that the only way?

I used to think that.

Before I started healing, I thought that I had to "offer up" my suffering. I thought I had to embrace it, "embrace my cross", as Jesus did. "Am I running away?" I often feared. Am I taking away my "path to holiness" by mitigating my suffering by taking an anti-depressant? I thought it was my burden to carry until the bitter end.

While suffering from depression, I was on the path to killing myself. The suffering was pulling me farther away from God. No matter how hard I tried or how many prayers I prayed, I wasn't able to grow closer to God through the pain.

But since getting help for depression, going to counseling, and taking medication, I am thriving in my faith. Grace is overflowing from my life. I am waking up early to pray and read the Bible. (The Bible, by the way, is coming alive! I used to go to bed looking forward to my cup of coffee in the morning. Now, I look forward to walking with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.)

I know there are Saints who have sought out suffering or kept their suffering to themselves in order to offer it up in union with the sacrifice of Jesus Christ. The hair shirts, the fasting, the torture, etc. However, they did none of it in spite of God, instead they did it to get closer to God. God blessed their efforts and gave them the graces to get through it. The Saints succeeded because God was with them, they depended on Him for everything, owing nothing to their personal efforts.

The fruit of my life before getting help for depression was death. The fruit of my life now is actual life. And I'm not talking about my physical body.

My family is doing great. My boys are a joy. They get to play with their mom all day. They are learning and growing and, most every day, ---happily living life. My marriage is thriving. I am able to show love and receive love. Friendship and family abound. I am surrounded by LIFE.

How can all these good thing reflect a wrong choice? Am I cheat by taking an anti-depressant? No.

I am not shrinking from suffering. Daily life is still filled with plenty of pain and sacrifice. But I have given it all over to God. The things that I cannot do, He does with LOVE. It is no longer my burden to carry alone. It is God carrying me through the burden.

Every Sunrise

Hmmmm....just start writing. That's the trick, they say, to achieving consistent, habitual output for the writer. Practice makes perfect, or at least, practice makes us satisfied with our efforts. If I put in the work, then I know I've tried as hard as I can and the rest is up to God. What I put out there doesn't have to make sense, just start typing and typing and typing for a few minutes to get warmed up...just keep typing. It's like stretching for the runner, because you have to get warmed up before you take off or you'll get injured.

I think this method would be a good experiment to try for painting as well. But painting is tricky business. There is paint involved! There is set up beforehand and clean up afterward, and I just don't have that kind of time right now. But I keep coming back to it....like the urge to eat. I get hungry everyday, don't you? I get hungry like 3 or 4 or 5 times a day......and I usually eat, regardless of the hassle, don't you?

I could set up some space in a room that would be a safe place to paint, drop cloths down or a "who care's about that floor" floor, supplies at hand, classical music ready to go, a lock on the door to keep out dangerously curious hands, etc. I could come and go easily. Situations with the kids change from minute to minute, and I'm often caught in a whirlwind of hundred things to do in about five minutes of time.

Nice. I like this exercise. It's reminiscent of High School Spanish class when our teacher would set the egg timer for a minute and we had to write exclusively in Spanish the whole time. Boy oh boy did we grumble! But, gosh darn it if we didn't get better and better if we just tried and trusted in the pen.

It is so hard to show our vulnerable side...our unedited side. We really like to Photoshop before posting and edit before publishing.

We're fighting a losing battle tying to be absolutely perfect.

Every sunrise is different, every sunrise is beautiful. The sun is not trying to create the perfect sunrise....the sun is just fulfilling it's potential as it was created. It is just, moment to moment, being what it was created to be, nothing more.

The Blind Leading the Blind

During the day, I often think of "great" ideas to write about for this blog. I tried keeping a little notebook to jot down a sentence or two so I could return to it when I had time and finally get the chance to write that "great" post. But it rarely happens because it's not my main mission. And right now, I only have time and energy for my main mission. Writing is an art and I love art. I love language. It fascinates me. But do I throw up on the page because that's all I have time for? Or do I spend morning after morning tweaking and editing my words so that they come across EXACTLY how I intend for them to come across? Eh, first world problems I guess.

I'll keep trucking because of a desire to help other people in the same way that other people helped me. I know I'm not the best writer out there, and that's totally ok with me. I just want you to know you're not alone. So I'll try not to get hung up on the notion of being perfectly understood anymore. It's a balance probably. Everything in moderation. Perfect is boring. cliché. cliché. Have I lost you yet? haha.

I can finally return to those dark days of major depression with just my memory instead of reliving the whole ordeal with my emotions.

Looking back on that time of despair, I had a lot of help. I used to read blog after blog about people like me, reading what they did to help themselves or suggestions they thought to try. I talked to friends and family and counselors, and they listened and tried to help. It was a time of extreme loneliness. Connecting with people who also had depression really helped me not to give up.

See, I thought I was the worst possible case out there. I thought there was no way I could ever get over "my problems". I thought I was unique in my depression and anxiety. I thought it was "my cross" to "offer up". Then, I started to meet other people who suffered in similar ways as me. Of course each person is different and what helps me might not help you. But it was similar enough for me to realize that "this depression thing" is a thing and it's worth talking about.

Also, once I let go of the idea that it was "MY" problem, I could really start to heal.

I don't know what I'm trying to say today. I guess I just feel the need to communicate because isolation is a depression trigger for me.