depression

Another calendar year is nearly complete. This blog has been up and running for just over a year. Most of it has been about my journey out of religion. It has been an attempt to relate in writing my perceptions of my life over the past 3-4 years, mostly dealing with who I am to God and who he is to and in me.

Writing has been difficult for me lately. A combination of being unsure if I should continue with this blog and the fact that I have felt pretty awful lately… say, since July. In the past two months my body seems to have gone haywire. I finally “broke down” and went to the doctor. Yep, she said I have a few problems. I already knew that but she helped narrow it down a bit. She prescribed a few medications, at low doses, which haven’t really kicked in yet. The issues are not solved and I will be going to another doctor in a few weeks to hone in on the problems more precisely.

All this has led to a degree of depression. Self diagnosed, of course, but this “friend” has visited me often in recent years and is again with me. I think it is safe to say that my whole life has been lived with some degree of depression from time to time. Not continual. Just every so often… whenever outside circumstances seem difficult to deal with especially.

The fact that I’m even writing about it here shows a dramatic change in my approach to this subject. I used to either ignore it, deny it, or resent it. I don’t ignore it or deny it any longer and I’m ever so slowly beginning to accept it and go with it.

Some “experts” say that depression is nothing more than suppressed anger. I don’t doubt it. Expression of emotions has always been difficult for me. Lately my journey has taken me into what I see as new understandings about God. Knowing what to do with my old perceptions and how to deal with the years that I held them has been difficult. I’m ticked off about some of the things I was told by those “in authority” in the church and then believed. I placed undo merit on many who I thought were supposed to know the truth and yet didn’t. There was a form of godliness but no power demonstrated. And, of course, this was my life too. I didn’t know any different and didn’t have any power in my life either. I was totally buffaloed by my own beliefs and had no concept of where the power was supposed to even come from. Looking back at this reality, at times, produces anger toward myself, those people, and even at God.

Christmas past

Five years old…