Well, world, I feel like I'm starting to wake up from a really nasty dream. Turns out that I have been walking through several months of stress-induced depression, spiked at the start with a bout of clinical depression. I had actual stress and emotional reasons for both, but what turned them into the nightmare crazy-trip I've been experiencing is most likely a magnesium deficiency. Only two days ago, the last day of my time at home, I did a Google search for "recovery from depression" and "headache," in order to find out if the nonstop headaches I've had for the last five months had anything to do with the situation. My first hit was a 135-page website detailing this largely-ignored deficiency. Probably 80% of Americans are deficient in magnesium, which leads to a world of chronic ailments, from heart disease to insomnia to anxiety and depression. Stress sucks magnesium out, and then calcium consumed in excess prevents the appropriate absorption of more magnesium, especially in our American diets, which are already deficient in the mineral. I've been consuming plain yogurt, one of my favorite foods, at the rate of almost a 4-cup container per day. That + heaviest and longest stress of life = perfect magnesium disposal unit.
No sooner did I read this website then I went out, bought some Epsom salts, and soaked my feet for 45 minutes. This is a good way to absorb magnesium. Almost immediately, my mild frontal lobe headache blossomed into a tremendous, splitting headache, like blood running into a foot that had fallen asleep. In a few hours I already felt more... myself. If I can remember myself. Later that day, I was able to put up a respectable fight against my older brother in Risk 2010. I could hardly think through the initial game moves earlier in the week.
Increased frontal lobe activity is supposed to be a sign of people coming out of depression.
Early symptoms of magnesium deficiency: irritability, anxiety (including Obsessive Compulsive Disorder), anorexia, fatigue, insomnia, muscle twitching, confusion, poor memory, poor attention and reduced ability to learn, dry eyes & mouth...
I had all those symptoms for months, especially when my depression first hit (well, not anorexia, but that's only 'cause I've built habits of healthy eating for years; I didn't
want to eat at all). I thought I was going crazy! Imagine everything, including all you knew was right,
feeling wrong. Constant sadness and a feeling of loss. Indecisiveness where one is used to a haughty, almost careless selection of the Right Thing. Emotional situations that would have been uncomfortable and terribly sad the previous year suddenly turning into a black hole of death.
I have not made my New Year's resolutions yet, but I've been thinking and praying for the last two weeks about what they should be. The steadily growing answer for 2008 seems to be: rest and recovery.
I start every year's new journal with a prayer. A few weeks ago I read through the journals for 2006 and 2007. I found that my prayer for 2007 was that God would show me my limitations. It appears that He answers prayer.
I am not bitter about the last months. Rather, I am grateful. How do I explain? I met God every day in so many ways. I can say, "to live is Christ and to die is gain," and I know what it means. I told a friend at the start of it all that I had joined the human race. Again, how can I explain? All my life I've felt apart and separate - different, because of my different upbringing as a homeschooler. Even in my own family, I am the only person who has chosen to pursue humanities instead of math and science. Somehow, now I understand. All that up 'til now was the best preparation for life that my parents could give me. Now I'm an arrow launched, and I'm living this thing with all the rest, the same as in every generation through all of history. I'm just the same as everyone around me, in a different package.
For years I told my mom I thought I would die young because I didn't like the world. That was exactly how I felt, but it was selfish. Now I'm gathering an idea of my life's purpose. In the words of a boundless.org article I have taped to my office wall, quoting Frederick Buechner, it is at "the intersection of [my] own deep gladness and the world's deep hunger."
I've known for years that I am a prophet-type, an intuiter and communicator of possible futures. Over the last several months, this has slowly refined and distilled.
My life purpose is to communicate truth, justice, beauty, and love to a desperately dark and dying country.I say "country," not "world," because I sense no call to go elsewhere when America is in such desperate straits. In August, just before the students came back, I reread the "callings" of all the OT prophets. The first chapter of Jeremiah used to be my life verses, but now I "found" the start of Ezekiel:
"And when I looked, behold, an hand was sent unto me; and, lo, a roll of a book was therein; and he spread it before me; and it was written within and without: and there was written therein lamentations, and mourning, and woe. Moreover he said unto me, Son of man, eat that thou findest; eat this roll, and go speak unto the house of Israel. So I opened my mouth, and he caused me to eat that roll. And he said unto me, Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee. Then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness. And he said unto me, Son of man, go, get thee unto the house of Israel, and speak with my words unto them. For thou art not sent to a people of a strange speech and of an hard language, but to the house of Israel; not to many people of a strange speech and of an hard language, whose words thou canst not understand. Surely, had I sent thee to them, they would have hearkened unto thee. But the house of Israel will not hearken unto thee; for they will not hearken unto me: for all the house of Israel are impudent and hardhearted..."
Ezekiel 2:9-3:7
I could go on. I've learned so much, and at last I can think to communicate it! What joy! But I should stop before this reaches pages and pages in length. God bless to anyone who has read through it all.
A few things are becoming more clear.
First, I believe I am called to marriage, as indeed almost all adults are. This does not, however, mean that I
will get married. I do not control that. It means that I will not be too afraid to walk (carefully) with any respectable man through the process of finding out if we should someday marry. I am not big enough to destroy my life through a "wrong" decision. Nothing can separate me from the love of Christ.
Second, I believe I am called to fellowship appropriately as a sister with all my brothers in Christ. This means that I will not fear the emotional results of an appropriate amount of friendship with single men (see above). We are not made not to hurt. We are made to grow like Christ. Naturally, the process of discerning the proper level of friendship is frought with peril. All good things are. I need not force it; friendship comes (or not) with time.
Third, my main focus must always be my relationship with and responsibilities to God above. I must answer to Jesus in eternity, and to nobody else.
Sometimes it can be quite nice to be sick. Let the ol' brain stop for a while. Stop and sleep. That's what happened this last week. I felt it coming on Wednesday, when I started shivering an hour before the final in Cold War Novel. I hadn't studied for my class either, so it was sheer grace that carried me through. Thursday, I called in sick. Friday I worked. Then on the weekend, I vegged.
I came in to PHC on Saturday to do some work on my little film project. It's progressing well. I hope to have it workable before I leave for home this next weekend.
It's not the destination; it really is the journey. Or rather, it's both, but the only part over which we have control of any sort is the here and now. The instant in front of me. This is very humbling. My tendency my entire life has been to create huge, immensely difficult goals and dreams - and then to berate myself when I fall short halfway. Goals are great, but mine have changed so often that it's not funny. I extrapolate on a passing interest and expand it into a life purpose.
The thing is, though, each closed road is a satisfying necessity. If I didn't try a path, I wouldn't know where it leads. I never want to look back in life and wonder, "What if?" I want to say, "I tried, and now I know where my limitations lie."
I have a habit of bashing up against those limitations at a breakneck pace and injuring myself dreadfully. As I grow a little older, God has been slowing me down. More than that, He's shown me that some boundaries are worth a second try - eventually.
Today I've been sick, so I stayed home from work. Mostly, I slept, but in between I read through my journals from 2006 and 2007 and then organized and recorded my spending for October and November. Both were bittersweet activities.
I have changed a great deal in a brief time. In some fundamental way, I died. So much in life altered all at once; my brain couldn't keep up. All its old patterns, disrupted. And this is good. What an opportunity to build good, godly habits in a vacuum!
When a situation won't change, the only solution is to ask God to mold me to match. "Seek ye first the kingdom of God, and all these things will be added unto you."
Only during the last week and a half have I begun to listen to music again. Makes sense. Music is like distilled emotion. It would have to be the last thing regained.
I am definitely not my old self. I feel like a stranger to me. I think I will have to spend the next few years getting reacquainted.
