Depression

I have not written in so long time because I have not had words. The reality is I have been struggling a lot and only a select grouping of people know about it.



My physical health as a whole has had some pretty big improvements, I rarely need my wheelchair anymore, I walk and basically if I go down, I go down. It doesn’t happen too much anymore but often enough that I have to be very aware of my body because it still doesn’t know entirely what to do when I move. Overall, though, they are stabilizing. I do have of course some other things going on that still make daily life a big challenge.


You would think that I would be overjoyed but in honesty, being healthy scares me. It sounds crazy and that’s probably because I have been sick for 6 years. So much about the world has changed in 6 years and I do not know how to process and navigate it as an adult. I know how to be sick but being a functional adult is like being 18 all over again and starting life over. I have to learn again how to drive. I have to build up enough stamina to function. I don’t know if I will be able to work in the medical field again so a job is up in the air. It’s just so daunting.


Several months ago I decided to fight back. I knew that my only chance of hope is found in Jesus so I started reading my bible again. I started pulling myself up with the help of Jesus and driving in spirts. I started going back to church again without my wheelchair. I was really trying for once.



When  this virus hit the world  I crumbled.

I felt so lost, so alone, with no motivation or strength to even talk to people so self-isolation set in even before quarantine. I was struggling with the fact that My metabolism suddenly jumped off the face of the earth and even though I still don’t eat much I have gained 20ish pounds and I didn’t really want to be seen. The quarantine has affected me in multiple ways, one: it gave me freedom to isolate with no push back from anyone. Two: The things that were providing motivation to get up and do anything are temporarily gone. I miss family, I miss the times when I could get out and do something to lift my spirits. I know I am not the only one feeling this way, I would say most of us probably are. I think we can all agree it is a struggle.


I am still reading my bible and praying because it is the only hope I got right now. One of my prayers was direction on what my next step is and the other day I got my answer. Do everything I don’t want to do. For example:

·      Get out of bed in the morning—I would rather not

·      Stop sleeping days away—what else am I supposed to do and when you are asleep you don’t have to face depression or other trials

·      Get moving whether it’s a treadmill walk or an outside walk—complete LAST thing I want to do, I would honestly rather wallow in self pity

·      Spend time outside of my room and just be in a different room to break up the monotony of my days—again isolation, don’t want to.

There are plenty more but you get the gist! I heard this song the other day and it really hit home.


I have to keep fighting. It is not going to be easy but I know that through Jesus I can do this. My whole life is riddled with hard things and near death experiences and if I can look back now at those times and see that my pain had a purpose and His plan was perfect all along back then even though nobody could see it at the time why would this be any different. It isn’t. This is the truth I need to be standing on. 

struggling with everything

Guys, I will be honest. I have not written in awhile because  I am struggling. I don't really show it but inside it's a war zone. I am overwhelmed by every little thing these days.

As far as my health is concerned, it's complex:

first of all, My port was not working right so I went to a dye study at barnes which turned into a 3 hour very difficult surgery and I was told if I ever need another one it will be an invasive surgery with one implanted on my hip. Lovely. I then got a major allergic reaction from something used on my skin in surgery causing hives galore and a trip to get it looked at for possible infection but it ended up being "just" a raging allergic reaction to who knows what.

I think the last time I wrote something the word "remission" was being discussed. Well, I have increased near pass out spells to multiple times per day. My home health nurse said she has noticed a rather large decline as well. My endurance has greatly diminished and I struggle sometimes to do absolutely anything. I was taking a shower a  weeksish ago and I felt super faint, I barely made it out of the shower and to the floor before passing out. A decline is not what we want but it's what I got.

To add to that I have severe migraines caused by the dysautonomia. My mom called my doctor for me last week because I was in too much pain to call myself. They made me an appointment for October 9th with my neurologist and said to go ahead and go to the urgent care and if there are any issues they can call him. This is the doctor that has stuck with me and fought for me from the beginning so I thought I was covered. Well, the urgent care doctor refused to give me anything besides anti-nausea medications and Benadryl so I had her call my doctor. She returned and to my shock he said no to any other medications. This was a huge blow. Not only is my body betraying me but now the one doctor that I thought had my back turned on me. I was devastated and cried for the whole time we were there. Pure defeat. It is hard to even explain the feeling, I felt like he has given up on me and I had/have no where else to turn. Even going to the ER would be pointless if I don't have a doctor to back me up.  I have not felt so alone and helpless in a very long time. I know it is not hopeless because Jesus but I sure felt helpless and I still do.

I also found out I have to have a ridiculously expensive amount of work done because apparently dysautonomia also affects your teeth. (I am pretty sure there is nothing that isn't affected by dysautonomia.) but this will be done in 3 costly appointments. I oddly enough have dental PTSD from when I was a child and I have survived one of those appointments but I had a massive panic attack, freaked out and it was just bad. Now I have 2 more sessions and I am already petrified of it.

 finances are incredibly overwhelming. I seriously cannot comprehend how people live off of social security. I am beyond blessed that my dad is willing to let me take financial loans from him to avoid interest and I could not be ANY MORE thankful that I have that because I know a lot of people don't but it is daunting because healthcare, dental care and vet care are insanely expensive and incredibly overwhelming. It's just hard to be an adult and want to pay your own bills or even just help with them and you can't.

so, in conclusion please pray for me and my doctor's appointment on the 9th. I'm very nervous about it because I'm not in a mental place to deal with rejection. Also, that my symptoms will stabilize and that I will be disciplined in saving as much as possible so I can contribute to bills. I know most I simply can't pay in full but I need to be more diligent  above saving as much of my social security as possible to at least help and that it will not overwhelm me so much. Pray that my dental appointments will be smoother and that they will be able to figure out what's happening with the cat and that it won't end up costing an arm and a leg. I do have an appointment with my trauma therapist the day before the doctors appointment so Lord willing she will be able to give me guidance on that appointment specifically and basically my whole life.

HEALING IS HARD/GRACE

For those of you who actually read this you may have noticed I have not made a post in way too long. I usually have no problem being vulnerable but lately that has been a different story. Sharing and facing my improvements has actually been really hard for me. This has been my life for 5ish years, I had accepted and come to terms with it but that came with a cost and a lot of loss, shame and guilt. For those who have an illness I hope you learn from my mistakes

 I had to accept not being able to drive and sold my car. I lost my job, I lost financial independence. Chronic illness  doesn't just disable your body it disables your mindset. Leading to poor choices in that regard because I get disability but it is not a lot and I got stuck in this phase of just doing things whenever I could because I didn't think I would get better so why not enjoy what I can. Wrong. I am in NO way asking for money I am just sharing some of the struggles people with debilitating illness deal with. This has left me with so much guilt and shame because the improvements in health made now see the hole I dug for myself and jumped in. I am so blessed to have my parents help me through everything but despite the warnings I am left with no savings and with physical healing comes reality that I am getting the life back that I thought would never happen and that reality snapped me out of that bad mindset really fast. Into the realization that driving again requires money, medical bills are a thing, and adulting after loosing my mind is going to be oh so challenging.

A healthy life is now a reality and to be honest it's daunting. I don't know if I will be able to work again but if so I can't just jump back into my career field, healthcare is demanding and with continued issues I just don't know if I could do it again. It's the only thing I ever wanted and still ever want to do so I am a little lost with that one. I feel lost in general just from loosing everything and not knowing what to do with myself at this point. I had accepted my life and now I am realizing I have to start all over again. I am thankful, oh so thankful but also it's new and new can come with a lot of struggles.

BUT GRACE GUYS, GRACE. God has given me so much of it, I am getting better and although it's scary for me I know God has it under control and He has a perfect plan. He is doing miracles and giving me my life back but throughout it he gave me grace in having parents that have been able to support me and forgive me for mistakes, financial donations for treatments, rides to ER's, infusions and urgent cares, an army of prayers and support and love. Life would be unbearable without the grace God gives out in abundance every single day through the hills and the valleys and even in sin and poor choices.

John 1:16 

Out of his fullness we have all received grace in place of grace already given.

With undeserved grace and forgiveness I will get through these unknowns on the other side because I know God has a solution before I had any problems, this life journey is a marathon, not a sprint and we learn lessons as we go and I can say I'm learning a lot of them but I am also being restored to life and I have to give it back to the one who gave it to me in the first place and trust in His promises of hope and a future. It may be slow but it's happening.

CRISIS

I am something. I don't even know what. I know everything is in God's hands  where it should be but it FEELS like my whole world just crashed in on me. My worst case scenario is actually playing out and I am crumbling. As of this morning I was fired from home health due to a medication discrepancy. Home IV's? gone. home nursing? gone. Port access outside of a hospital? gone. It's all gone. Every part of me wants to throw my hands up and give up but I am well aware that is not an option. I'm fighting every second of everyday and sometimes things like this happen and it boils over and I feel lost and 100 percent helpless to do anything but watch it fall apart in like slow motion. AGAIN. For the 5,000th time.

*the problem lies in a miscommunication on medications from  both parties*


Going forward,
1. I have to let God in and guide me as I try to find a new home health care agency that is willing to do things the way my doctor wants. I have been told the odds of finding that are slim to none.

2. I could go back to the clinic 3 days a week for 3-4 hour infusions but due to the nature of the problem my doctor and staff are completely not happy people about everything and just the thought of stepping foot in there makes me want to cry and run away.

3.Done. I'm just over it, everything. I have no desire to even deal with this at all.  Literally Jesus take the wheel here because I can't. I CAN'T.


4.My doctor could easily try to blame this on any number of my medications and take them away.

MIA

I think this is the longest I have gone without an update. I have LITERALLY been trying to type  this for WEEKS. The truth is I don't have words, I don't know how I feel or how I am. I have so much floating around in this little brain that I begin to feel like I can't take one more thing. I have to block everything out and avoid distractions  in order to focus on  seeking God as my source of the  mercy, love, truth, promises, strength, and hope that I need to keep fighting. It's too much to put any sliver of the strength God gave me into anything besides literally staying alive. Which is a full time gig! 

 I'm an advocate for letting yourself have a pity party with the knowledge that tomorrow you get up and keep fighting.  When you have a chronic illness a mental illness is bound to come along for the ride. The battle of mental health is seriously so much worse than the physical side. I have been feeling really down lately even though nothing drastic is happening and it is just another day in the life with POTS and pity parties happen all the time,  but this time right here is different, I'm struggling to get back up again.  

The mundane stuff that shouldn't and normally wouldn't bother me is bringing me down. It's hard because  I feel like I shouldn't complain about the little bumps in the road considering how far I have come and should instead be grateful for the drastic improvements god has given me over the past 5 years. but yet here I am in my despair pit feeling SO MUCH GUILT for having such a hard time even though nothing major is happening. I'm just discontent to be real and feeling guilty over it. Then I read this this morning

"Maybe you are having a really hard day or Maybe like I have a lot, a mundane hard day like this is feeling really hard and maybe its kind of over a small thing but it’s still hard. it’s ALL  valid. Life is hard. This is why we have Jesus. SO WE DON'T HAVE TO GIVE UP when it does get hard."

Mundane hard. That sums it up. Despite nothing major I am still having to fight with all of me to keep going. The fight doesn't take breaks, it's always there, maybe the severity will change from time to time but for now just my daily  POTS battle is feeling particularly hard. The day to day tasks feel harder, coping feels harder, all of it. The struggle to get back up is real and raw.BUT POSSIBLE so here we go.

2 Corinthians 1:7

And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.

PLEASE READ/ WATCH Anxiety and Depression

THIS. So real, so true but I want to add something . As a believer, this battle has to be one of the hardest things. Ever to handle.  I have been told every one of these words at some point in my life but particularly since I got sick.

You are not trusting God

You are in what if land and you can't be there because Jesus

You are jumping into conclusions and they are all negative

You are not even thinking of what God has brought you through

You are being ungrateful to God for what he has done

Everything you say is not logical or real

Your feelings are sinful and wrong

How can you be struggling so much with things that never even happened

You don't know (fill in the blank worst case scenario) will happen

feeling scared over that next ball being dropped is wrong

feeling depressed when that ball does drop is not acceptable

You know who holds the world so just calm down

You have no reason to act or feel this way

I could continue but I won't. When I end up being told any of this you know what it leads to?

calmness? no

peace? no

Comfort? NO

In reality, it  more often than not  (always) leaves me walking away defeated, feeling like a failure,  lost, ashamed, depressed, alone, invalidated and the guilt, oh the GUILT. SO MUCH OF IT. I  end up believing that my feelings are sinful.  The guilt that comes with the shame over having these feelings in the first place is absolutely crushing.

  I don't want these feelings, I don't want to live in what if land, I don't want to live in fear of that next blow, I don't want to fail God. I want more than anything to pawn it off on Jesus, I want to trust him with my whole heart, I want to live in the moment, I want to have the peace that surpasses all understanding.

Despite my wants Satan has power and He knows how to use it and is pretty good at it. I mean c’mon Who would want to live in such fearful suffering at all times? nobody. That's who. The easy Christian remedy I am told is the standard Jesus will save you if you give it to him, stay in the word, and pray.

There are aspects of everything I just laid out for you  that are true. I know Jesus is my rescue. I know He can take it all away in the blink of an eye, I know I need to trust and that God is worthy of complete trust, I know I need Him to endure my anxiety suffering,  I know none of this is in vain. I know he can crush Satan’s influence with nothing more than a single word.  I know He is using my pain to reach others. I know, I know, I know. Loud and clear.

However, there is something I need YOU to KNOW.  Despite some of these things being true, these unwanted feelings don't (minus a miracle of course) just disappear. Making me feel beaten down and so ashamed of myself is not helpful. In fact, it makes me want to give up because I cannot just simply turn off these feelings and it seems as though people have an expectation that it works like that. . Let me just tell you right now I will not be able to ever meet these expectations so whether you understand them or not please, I’m begging you, think before you talk. Think if what you are about to say even with every good intention could make me feel like a complete failure.

ENCOURAGE ME WITHOUT EXPECTATIONS.

Let me repeat that.

ENCOURAGE ME WITHOUT EXPECTATIONS.

ENCOURAGE ME WITHOUT EXPECTATIONS.

ENCOURAGE ME WITHOUT EXPECTATIONS.

Support me with the hope found in scripture, tell me stories of how God brought you out of hard places and I am not alone. Sit with me in my struggles. Pray for me. You don’t have to know what to say. You don’t have to feel like it’s yours and only yours responsibility to bring me to a place where I have an epiphany and my heart, mind and soul do an instant turn around. Don’t expect an instant turn around. EVER. Sometimes, less is more guys, less is more.

uncensored version of my devotional

As most of you know I had the opportunity to share Jesus at the women's ornamnent party on Saturday. I want to thank you all for your support because  it was way out of my comfort zone but you all worked with me and made me feel more comfortable than I thought I would ever be. I said it was recorded but I have had download issues galore but I think I have it fixed. THINK. If you click the link it should pull it up via facebook even if we are not facebook friends. should. Let me know if it doesn't work and I will get frustrated with it some more LOL

https://www.facebook.com/allyson.hartman.3/videos/2230089540348792/?l=3523458466721859591



 I forgot to mention at the time but there is another version of my talk that shares some graphic reality that was not really appropriate for the occasion but if you are interested keep reading.

Romans 3:21-26 The Message (MSG)

The God-setting-things-right that we read about has become Jesus-setting-things-right for us. And not only for us, but for everyone who believes in him. For there is no difference between us. Since we’ve compiled this long and sorry record as sinners and proved that we are utterly incapable of living the glorious lives God wills for us, God did it for us. Out of sheer generosity he put us in right standing with himself. A pure gift. He got us out of the mess we’re in and restored us to where he always wanted us to be. And he did it by means of Jesus Christ.

God sacrificed Jesus on the altar of the world to clear that world of sin. Having faith in him sets us in the clear. God decided on this course of action in full view of the public—to set the world in the clear with himself through the sacrifice of Jesus, finally taking care of the sins he had so patiently endured. God sets things right through the hope of Jesus.

In an act of such mercy and love God sent hope to meet us where we are. Jesus was sent into a broken world to fulfill God’s perfect rescue plan that each one of us need. But sin can leave us in such oblivion that we don’t even know hope is out there in the first place or we wander so far away that we can no longer see the hope we once had. Both are detrimental, but the good news is it doesn’t end here.

Jeremiah 29:11

For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.

This plan doesn’t always make sense to us, when we are living it, it can be very hard to see how any good can come out of that circumstance but oh man are we wrong.

  I think back on a time in my life where I felt completely hopeless. I had been facing health battles due to some trapped nerves for about 2 years. The physical pain brought me to a place where I believed I could not possibly have faith in a God who makes THIS a part of His plan for my life. Having pushed Jesus out of the picture I still had to have a way to cope. I turned to cutting to escape this life that I could not handle myself.

This cutting coping mechanism I had began was soon not enough. I gave up and didn’t want to fight anymore. I landed myself in a pediatric psych ward. In the background God was still targeting me but I refused to even acknowledge it. My first day involved a mandatory group therapy session where we all went around telling our stories, I think I was maybe the 5^th person in the lineup and I have never felt like more of an idiot in my life. The first to go was actually my roommate who shared that they brought her straight up from the ICU where she was barely revived after her third suicide attempt. The second girl shared that she has had several suicide attempts because her boyfriend had taken her hiking one day and when they got to the top of the cliff he broke down, told her he was sorry but he had to go and jumped off  right in front of her. The third girl to go had been raped by her uncle and was now pregnant with his baby. The next had no one, she had been there for 3 straight months and never had a visit or a phone call because nobody cared about her.

I was stunned. I said a few fragmented sentences and we went on to the next person. When it was over I quickly shuffled back to my room with embarrassment. I had a nurse who immediately called me back out to sit at a table in the corner with him to talk. He asked why I was here and again I stumbled through fragmented sentences, but he stopped me. “You know God, don’t you?”. I quietly said yes, and he proceeds to ask me again why I was there. When I didn’t answer he told me to look around at all of these people with shattered and hopeless lives. I knew you were different. You have something that none of them have, hope in Jesus and yet here we are. I ask again why you are here but this time don’t answer me. He reached over and grabbed a bible and gave me passages to look up and sent me to my room to reflect. Letting God back into my life and trusting Him again took effort but I had learned that I really cannot do this myself. I had to be broken to the core in order to be restored. No matter where you run you are His and He will target you, love you, and fix your broken pieces if you let Him. He waits for your return with open arms.

Through the birth of Jesus our true source for hope and joy came to meet us where we are. There are so many hopeless people in this world who do not know they can be put back together. They don’t know the good news that there is a rescue plan out there. They don’t know they have a hope filled future, they don’t know that it’s possible to find joy in pain. They don’t know that they are loved, cared for and cherished. Jesus is desperately needed.

Once I grasped Jesus again my mindset changed. Only at that point was I able to look back at my life as a whole and see the blessings in disgiuse . The journey of life has many speed bumps that I used to  look back at and see nothing but hurt but now I am replaying how God moved mountains in ways nobody  could ever imagine.

 

Psalm 139:13-14 New International Version (NIV)

For you created my inmost being;
    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
    your works are wonderful,
    I know that full well

.,

 God has a reason for knitting you in your mother’s womb. You were wonderfully made for a designated God given purpose no matter what. Complications  of pre-term labor made The doctors really push my parents to abort me, they said I would be a vegetable and basically a worthless human being if I even survived in the first place Against all odds., I was born alive at 24 weeks weighing 1 pound 8 ounces but still with little to no chance of survival. My life goes to show that God doesn’t do “chances”. I spent 4 months in the NICU with a lot of hurdles, scary times but more miracles than can be counted. The doctors fully believed I would have severe brain damage and my lungs would never be able to support me but Doctors are not the creator and giver of life. The creator calls the shots.

Anytime a loved one is ill in any way affects others. My life events have not only brought me to despair also left my parents with some incredibly hard emotions and feelings.  I am fairly certain one of the hardest moments was the day my mom happened to walk by my bedroom and heard some weird noises. When she went to check on me I was unconscious, gurgling when I tried to breathe. Of course the ambulance crew was called and they were trying so hard to get my airway clear but for some still unknown reason my tongue was so swollen they couldn’t and knew I needed to get to a hospital because my brain and organs were not getting enough oxygen. At the hospital I had slipped into a coma because at some point my organs had failed  that night, nobody knows how long I had been without oxygen and the doctors were not sure I would pull through. This was the worst possible scenario.  They knew my brain was damaged but nobody knew how badly until I woke up.  When I did the damage manifested itself in severe short term memory loss, involuntary movements and I had the hardest time trying to connect words. The MRI showed that the back portion of my brain had died off from a lack of oxygen and doctors thought my deficits would be permanent. I slowly improved and over the course of a few months everything but the memory loss was gone and even that was significantly better. Not only did He destroy brain damage He restored the rest of me at the same time. My trapped nerve issues? Gone. My desire to cut? Gone. My will to live? Restored. My life? Saved.

God took the worst possible scenario and changed it to the best thing that could have ever happened. To me, He gave me my life back. The following 3 years were basically how you would expect a healthy persons life to be.  What I assumed was over was not and trusting is all I could do.

 Proverbs 3:5-6 New International Version (NIV)

Trust in the Lord with all your heart
    and lean not on your own understanding;
in all your ways submit to him,
    and he will make your paths straight.

.

 It will be 6 years on the 13^th since I was diagnosed with nervous system failure. This is where we have 2 options, fight with Jesus or fail to fight without Jesus. I have done both and there is no hope when we try to do this ourselves. We will fail every single time. This is why God sent us this little baby , He knows we don’t stand a chance without Him. This birth of Jesus changed my destiny, your destiny and the hope of a free destiny for the whole world. This is the good news we celebrate