“But for the Grace of God…”

“There but for the Grace of God go I.” I am blessed to be here today. I have been blessed with the willingness to keep growing and changing as needed to live not just survive.

Omg! I am so late with this latest blog. I have had it started for a while, but never went back and proofed it. Well this is it; I hope you enjoy…

September was an extremely hard month, and these past few weeks I have been working hard at changing some of my behaviors, so that I can stay out of my deep dark places of my depression. I am thankful that I was able to tell on myself, and am still here to carry the message of recovery not just with my alcoholism, but with my mental illness as well. I was just scared enough and that was a blessing in disguise. For me fear and pain has always been my best motivator.

My depression was at an all time low. I am thankful that I got on a new medication and have gone back into counseling. So often in my mind feelings and situations get all distorted by about the hundredth time of going over and over them in my brain. That is part of my dis-ease of alcoholism and also part of being a highly sensitive person with mental illness. Today I’m doing the next right thing to stay sober and sane. I hope that I never have to go to that dark place again, and that I continue to be aware of how things get spiraled out of control my mind if I don’t talk about them.

The truth is that throughout my sobriety I have continued to struggle with my depression and anxiety. I really didn’t know the heavy burden I was carrying was my dark depression. Omission is a form of being dishonest. I thought if I didn’t talk about my suicidal ideation that resided in a deep dark corner of my mind that it would somehow just go away. Well it didn’t go away and I definitely needed a wake up call. My PA who prescribes my mental health meds asked me if I was suicidal, and my answer was that those thoughts have come and gone many times throughout my life, starting as a teenager. But, thanks be I am not today.

You know that in the program mental illness is talked about some, but not enough. There are far too many of us who are plagued with this undeniable darkness and sense of impending doom that we just push aside, assuming that we are the only ones. But, we’re not. I like, many of you, I have a co-occurring disorder diagnosis. And for me I have been emotionally unstable for a long time and for years I drank to self medicate until I couldn’t. I stopped counseling a couple of years ago. I hated to admit it, but it was definitely harder to do life without having that place to just say my stuff no matter what it was. Some how, some way I spiraled down over the last few months into one of the most darkest depressions I have had in many decades.

Thanks to my new counselor and the EMDR technique we are using I now know it wasn’t just being a highly sensitive kid that caused me so much pain. It was the distain I felt for myself because that little girl inside me never understood why her mommy left us. I believe that day of the funeral when I couldn’t understand what was going on much less come up with a better reason for why she left; I decided it must have been because I was a bad little girl and not worth fighting for. I not only came to that conclusion that day, but also became seriously broken inside. And for 50 plus years I have been trying fill that empty space with whatever and trying to put the pieces of my heart that broke that day back together. So far so good, and I believe I am finally on the right track and with the right counselor to do so.

It seems as though now a days that many people’s lives are full with hardship, loss and anger. My family continues to go this through difficult things. Recently I lost another family member to suicide, my second cousin. Life becomes to be too much and causes people who suffer with depression to commit the unthinkable act.

My Mom told me a long time ago that if I killed myself my Dad would never survive, and that has kept me alive most days. What my Mom did by saying that made me stop and made me think about how the people that loved me would feel, and how selfish of an act is suicide. I never want to be the cause of that kind of pain that still plagues me today.

For me the key is to get through to the other side while gaining the skills and the knowledge to prepare me for the next detour on my journey of life. If I continue to pray, go to counseling, attend meetings and work with my sponsor I will have a much better life. I being the self centered person I am have to do for others without expectations of getting something in return. I love being of service to others; it makes me feel so good inside and is good medicine for a wounded soul.

Our mental illness needs to be addressed; many times it takes outside help get us through to the other side. Living one day at time is the best medicine I can take for myself, my friends and my family. God Bless and continue to keep the hope.

This blog is dedicated to all of those who have lost hope and for my cousin who lost his way back to the light of the spirit.

“Expose yourself to your deepest fear; after that, fear has no power, and the fear of freedom shrinks and vanishes. You are free.”
Jim Morrison

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline

1-800-273-TALK (8255)

Co-Occurring Disorders and Other Health Conditions | …

1-800-662-HELP (4357)

Treatment referral and information, 24/7.