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Entry-15 Will I Ever Get Better?

Dear Marsha,

You asked me are there things that satisfy me? I’m desperate for satisfaction. Nothing seems to truly change. Desperation crushes my soul. It doesn’t matter when good moments happen, it’s all temporary. Work equals nothing for me. There’s always another depression episode. Another panic attack. Another sleepless night. One more trigger. My tolerance meter is completely drained. My hope is being extinguished.

Is there any chance I will get better? I’m being teased and toyed with, I try my best to think better, hope more, and pray more… this all seems like a waste. I’m at a point where I’m crawling on my hands & knees bleeding and wondering if this is even worth it. Is all this pain for something? I’m constantly questioning this path of full on loneliness God has put on me. And don’t give me this cliché that I’m not alone; that people understand. I am alone physically, mentally. It’s like a full-on torture chamber where light is constantly getting sucked out. When does this end? I long for someone to interrupt me. Someone that sees me and breaks my thoughts. If that’s asking a lot, I’m truly done.

-Miss Misery

Dear Miss Misery,

We have talked for quite some time about how your father has played a part in your insecurity. We talked about how you feel like you can’t distinguish the good voices from the bad. You shared the negative conversations you’ve had with yourself along with the struggle you have with finding really good relationships. In our more recent letters, you mentioned suicide and how it would seem like a way out but not an out for a Christian. In this letter you ask if there is a chance that you will get better. I don’t think I could keep writing you if there was no hope.

Over the last year or so of writing I have learned a lot.  You have showed me that serving God does not eliminate suffering but gives us hope during the suffering.  I know that it is hard to see it when you are drowning in pain but I saw how God God’s desire is to never allow our pain to define our destiny.  Depression, anxiety and fear have voices that keep speaking when we continue to engage with it.  I think of the main things I learned from you is that depression and other mental disorders want to rob from us.

Hope, I know, is dangerous because it keeps you believing for better when there is no evidence of any change. I believe, with everything in me, that there is better for you but better won’t come overnight. I know you want happiness now, but at your current state of mind, would you recognize it if it was in front of you or would your misery make you totally blind to it? Even worse would you grab for it or look at it and see it as a reminder of what you don’t have? If better came would you explain it away and not take that step of faith because of fear of disappointment? I wonder, does better first have to look like defeat so you can first embrace it? Many have accepted defeat in everything because it is what they are used to. Few allow for God to change defeat into an opportunity for better?

You also asked, is all this pain for something. I think only you can answer that. In every book of the New Testament, we are promised trouble. We are promised hardships and pain, but it is what we do with it, that takes the edge off the sting of pain.

Romans 5: 2b – 5

… And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.  Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance; perseverance, character; and character, hope.  And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

These verses describe what we must turn our suffering into. You see it doesn’t say anything about some people suffering, broken people suffering, those with mental disorder suffering…we all suffer. The problem at times is that we think that others don’t look like they are suffering so we feel their trials are obsolete or not as complicated as ours. We give them super hero characteristics or think that their lives are easier because that has to be the reason why they are able to get through life so well. We look at their resources and equate that to their success.

Once you are convinced that suffering is going to happen, whether we are with Christ or not, you must learn how to use suffering to make you into a better person. This verse tells us it is suffering + perseverance + character + hope= victory. God will not allow us to experience shame. So, in all, only you can interrupt hope for yourself. Only you can show the true fruit of desperation and that is perseverance and character along with hope. Anyone can suffer but not anyone can interrupt their own suffering by developing character and hope from it.

Miss Misery, thank you for being so candid.  I know this was not easy and I know there are others that have found your story eye opening and thought provoking.  Many related to what you were going through.  Thank you again for trusting me and the website with a part of you that was extremely vulnerable.  May God bless you.

-Marsha

For those reading I am happy to say that Miss Misery is not in this place anymore.  God opened up doors and taught her things that got her through much of her struggles.  She is in a much better place.  God is capable of doing anything as long as you stay open and obedient.