Hurting people, hurt people

I've always known this saying...."Hurting people, hurt people." But there is no greater lesson than experiencing it for yourself. I don't think it is any secret to anyone that I have pretty much completely abandoned church and many of those who call themselves "Christians." Yes, I know some of you reading this right now are already constructing an email in your head to me telling me how Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven. And I've heard it all before that at church, there are "No perfect people allowed." I've heard all of the little sayings such as "They're only human."

If you are a follower/reader of my blog, you know my story. You know what I have been through and you know what I have endured right along with my children. I have not been blogging much lately, let me finally explain why. When my divorce was final, I lost my health insurance and for me to get Obamacare, it was going to cost me $600.00 per month. I have spent about $200.00 this entire year on doctor visits and medicine. Anyway, since I lost my insurance, there was no way I could stay on the medication I was taking after my attempted suicide. I had been diagnosed with severe situational depression and PTSD. It is my belief that chemotherapy caused this depression and as I have said repeatedly in this blog, I have never been the same after taking chemotherapy. I have had doctors and psychiatrists completely agree with me and tell me it is their belief that chemo causes this as well.

I was doing really good off all the meds. I was actually very happy and proud of myself. It is nearing two years since my husband walked out on us. I started feeling like it was finally time to start dealing with it all emotionally. Just as I started to work on it, I fell into a very deep, dark, scary place. Worse than the place I was at when I attempted to take my own life. Only those VERY close to me, which are very few, knew what was going on. I spent every minute of every day not wanting to live life and being very angry with God that he allowed me to live. Enduring 60 seconds of life was excruciating for me. If you have never struggled with this, you will not under any circumstances understand it.

Since he left, I have cried just a little, a handful of times, over the entire situation. At this time, I didn't realize I had sunk right back into severe depression again. I spent 5 entire days straight unable to stop crying and couldn't even keep it together in public.

When I was like this before, I did not tell a single soul and I never, ever cried. No one, and I mean NO ONE, knew how bad I was. No one knew I thought of death as my friend, the only thing that could possibly bring me relief.

I have always been very skeptical of anyone who tells people they want to kill themselves because I have always thought it was for attention. I now know first hand that that might not always be the case. This time, I knew I needed to reach out to someone. THANK GOD, I have one very faithful and true friend left. I haven't known her too long, only a few years if that. But I knew I had two options on this particular day. I could end my life or I could make a phone call. That day was the beginning of my downward spiral that led up to all the crying.

As I got worse, I had some very disturbing things happen to me by someone who has never been dearer to my heart than any other soul. I have been accused, slandered, belittled, humiliated, gossiped about, lied about, and there isn't enough space here for me to continue. And yes, this not only happened to me, but to another person as well. Both of us at the time were extremely depressed, seeing a life-coach and seeing a psychiatrist. When I got wind of the first bombshells, it was on a day I spent trying to talk myself out of jumping off a damn bridge. This also came on a day this other person was fighting suicidal thoughts. Had it not been for me and my newer friend being able to talk so frank and openly that day, I believe I for sure might not be here today and who knows what would have happened to her all due to someone else's ignorance.

So hurting people, hurt people? Words cut very deep. If you claim to be a Christian or anyone I guess for that matter and you are hurting people, please remember that you have literally NO idea what someone is going through. Something you do or say could send someone over the complete edge and all for what? I wish I knew the answer. My suggestion is that if you give a damn about anyone, pray for them in your OWN prayer closet. You know why there even IS a prayer closet? So you and GOD and you two only can hash things out. If you go to any other person and tell them something all so they can "pray" for the person, it is only pure gossip and is straight from the pit of hell. This behavior causes more and more people daily to end their relationship with church, church people and potentially their very own lives.

 This is a VERY SERIOUS matter!!!!

I don't let too many people get close to me and I'm guessing I never will after this experience. But the good news is, I am back on medication and although it was about three weeks of complete mental hell, I feel like I am back to my old self. I have a new friend who was very helpful to me during the darkest of those days. If you feel suicidal, please reach out to someone. I had a couple of friends, my sister, the lady I live with and my adopted sister that I reached out to for the first time about this issue. People suffer in silence. Why? Because so few understand or know what to do. But you know what? Every single time I got up enough courage to call one of these individuals it helped me get through another day. One friend and my sister were able to just listen as I told them I did not wish to live life. They listened as I bawled my eyes out like they had never witnessed me do before. They listened with love and without judgement. They prayed with me and for me. They didn't go share my issues with other people or in their weekly "Prayer meeting." To those people, YOU are the ones who give me hope that there are still genuinely good people in the world. Don't be alarmed, I have a very close relationship with God and I always will have. He will never abandon me, nor I him. He alone is the only constant and faithful friend until the end of time.

I know these people were very scared for me. Hell, I was terrified of myself. I felt like I was a danger to myself. But I know for a fact that if I had not had them to talk to, I probably wouldn't be writing this blog today.

I hate having to take medication. I hope it is not something I will have to do forever. But, it is a must for now. I cannot be ashamed of it. And, I think that there are too many people just like me out there that need for this to be talked about. I guess my biggest message to anyone out there today is that sometimes, suicidal people don't take their own lives....it's someone else's cruelty that actually pulls the trigger.

 DON'T BE THAT PERSON!!

A life should be honored and valued while the person is still living, not after they are gone. Some consequences for mistakes made are totally and completely permanent. Sometimes, there are NO take-backs.

Just for today

Last week I blogged about choosing to have a good day....deciding to. It has been 8 days today since I got up that morning and CHOSE to get ready and face the day. I am so pleased to report that the last 8 days have been the best 8 days of 2011.


Today started out kind of shaky but I just did my routine of getting up, getting ready to face the day head on and then....I started to praise. Praise and pray. It is amazing how your day can get completely turned around if you will just praise God. Before I put on my worship music I caught myself starting to worry about things that are ALL out of my control. There wasn't one thing I was concerned about that I could control. The key is to catch yourself early on in the thought process. Many of the last 8 days including today, this has happened to me. But what I have done is just say to myself each day that every single one of those days have passed and here I am and everything is fine. Today, I did the same thing. I just said to myself that I am not going to let myself or my thoughts get out of control. I can just "be" in the moment today. And then you know what happens? I wake up tomorrow and it is day 9!!!!

I used to do this very thing religiously. But when major events happen in our lives, it is easy to get out of our routines. But that is when we need to do it the most!! The word does say that the enemy is out to kill, steal and to destroy. So the moment we let our guard down, he will attack. He is on the prowl and always will be.

Are YOU worried, concerned or stressed about some things in YOUR life? Then I challenge you everyday to do this. Just try it for one day and see how awesome it works. Right now, are you thinking worrisome thoughts? Give yourself today off. Just say that everything is going to be just fine and if you need to you can pick up that worry again tomorrow morning. Then when you wake up and see that all is well you can challenge yourself to do it for one more day.

I am certain you will have an amazing day if you just stick to it. I would love to hear how it goes for you. I can't wait to hear from you saying you are on day 365!!!!!!

Events on April 13th

Kelley says.......... Events that occurred on April 13th

The gynecologist scheduled my appointment with the breast surgeon for me. My original appointment was for April 21st at 7:00 am. But they called me the next morning after having scheduled the original appointment to tell me they wanted me to come in on April 15th at 6:00 in the evening. I was still thinking at this time that I just COULD NOT believe this. Surely I don’t have cancer, how can this be possible. I am too young, why? I just couldn’t make any sense of it. I wouldn’t say I was full of fear or worrisome thoughts or anything like that. I just had so many questions. I was just anxious and afraid. The questions were coming into my head so fast that I didn’t have time to get consumed with what the answers to those questions might be.

One thing at this point I did know was that God was going to use this. I just started at that moment to pray that whatever purpose this is for would ultimately be accomplished. I know when I lost my child and then when I lost my mom that it was only by the grace of God that I got through it. 

Deryl says.......... This was the worst day for me. I was driving to work alone in the car. All I could think of was what if this is worse than I think? I mean I didn't think this would be cancer. Did I have a part to play in this? I had done a lot of research and read how diet and stress were major factors in cancer. I had known this before and we had discussed changing our diet but we never made any significant changes. Why didn't I push us harder towards a healthy diet? Did my forgetfulness add to her stress? Emotionally I was just hanging on by a thread.
At work I felt useless. I couldn't make any sales calls. I couldn't focus on my work. I found myself doing internet research on cancer. I managed to get a few productive things done but it was difficult to think about anything other than Kelley, Heather, Rachel, and cancer.
I went to lunch but couldn't eat. I went to the bookstore to do some research. I could feel the fear and sadness swelling up inside of me and it stuck in my throat. I almost ran to my car and as soon as I sat down I broke down. I cried so hard I felt as if I was going to throw up. My head was throbbing and my throat was sore and I had only been crying for a couple of minutes. Just then I got a phone call. It was Kelley. As soon as I saw her name on my phone I busted out laughing. God was looking out for me in that moment. I don't remember much of our conversation other than me telling Kelley how I had just finished crying my eyes out. She laughed and said she was glad she could be there for me.
From that moment on I felt better. I was more hopeful and positive. I was glad I was in that place when I called my parents to give them the news. Dad didn't cry but I heard his voice crack and all the positive emotion that was normally in his voice seemed to drain out immediately. Mom was strong at first but was in tears by the end of our call.
It is almost more difficult to tell your loved ones the news than it is to hear it yourself. I mean how do you tell someone your wife has cancer. They want to be supportive for you but they are in shock so you feel as if you need to be supportive for them. There are so many people you feel should hear this news from you but your mind is so busy it becomes easy for important people to slip your mind. Breaking the news became a very emotional chore, especially for Kelley who has such strong empathy for others. We want to keep everyone informed but calling everyone after ever stage of this journey would be too emotionally taxing. That is why we came up with the idea of this blog. It will keep everyone informed and be therapeutic for us.
Many of you who know me know that I am a spiritual person. We are a part of a church that really exemplifies the love of God. Being a part of this family, because it is more like a family than a church, has been so good for us. I believe with all my heart that God loves everyone of us just as we are right now. And we have experienced His love through this challenge. I have felt it directly in my heart and especially through others. They have showered us with love, encouraging words, and kind acts (Colleen your chicken pot-pie was yummy). I feel so grateful to God for all of our family and friends. It saddens me to think of others that go through this without experiencing God's love or having the support of your friends and family. Thank you God for all of these people you have placed around us.