Well, guys.  This isn’t going to be the usual Crazy A post.  Probably because I don’t feel like the usual Amie.  I’m going to be brutally honest about my life right now.  Brutally.

I’m not doing this to receive likes, or for sympathy.  I’m doing this because someone out there is going through something similar, and they need to know that they’re not alone.

I’ve hinted that my life hasn’t been easy.  Since March I’ve been struggling with things.  I’m not going to give you a whole run down on everything because that would take too long, and you would be bored by the end of it.

But in March, I just kinda lost my drive.  Lost my want to do anything.  I lost me.

And that was the scariest thing that had ever happened to me.

There’s this part of me that’s outgoing, bubbly, fun-loving, and takes everything in a stride.  It felt as if she was frozen inside of me, and instead of pushing me onward, dreaming huge dreams, and having ambitions, she was a heavy weight that pulled me down in the sea of life.

And I was afraid she wouldn’t come back.

I didn’t want to get up in the morning, and I ate constantly, hoping that eating would help her come back.  She came back for short snippets, but I felt so alone, so lost, and so empty.

During this time, my dad was having tests because the doctors had noticed something wasn’t right.  At the end of March, he went in to have a scope of his pancreas, which led to pancreatitis, and a rushed visit to the ER, which ended with him staying in the hospital for a week.

A week in which my brother and I were responsible for watching my siblings.

The day that my dad left for the hospital, I cried like I haven’t cried in a long time.  I was scared and I was mad.  The part of me that was frozen, dead-weight was heavier than ever before.  I tried calling my best friend, but she didn’t answer, and I felt so alone in that moment.

But here’s the part you need to know before you feel sorry for me.  I chose to be alone.  My siblings were downstairs.  Most, if not all, of them came upstairs to check on me.  My three-year-old sister hugged me, but I sent her away.

I have this strange idea that I have to protect myself from other people loving me.  I have to keep myself to myself, and just be a happy friend, a listening friend, a loving sister to the people around me.  And when I’m hurting, or alone, I should keep to myself.  No one wants my emotional baggage, right?

WRONG.

We weren’t born into this world to live alone.  A quote that I love by George MacDonald says, “The desire to be loved–which is neither wrong nor noble, any more than hunger is either wrong or noble–and the delight in being loved, to be devoid of which a man must be lost in immeasurably deeper, in an evil, ruinous, yea, a fiendish selfishness. Not to care for love is the still worse reaction from the self-foiled and outworn greed of love.”

I’m selfish, because I believe it’ll be easier for everyone involved if they don’t have to take care of me.  My mom and I were talking about this the other day, and she made a good point.  If someone loves you, one of the ways they want to show that is taking care of you, even if that’s only listening to how you feel.

And that night, or a few nights after, I was able to have an amazing talk with my best friend.  She listened to me, I let my guard down, and she cried with me.  And honestly, that made the whole week so much easier than it would have been otherwise.

She confronted me, and told me that I was living in fear.  And she was right.  I was afraid of change.  I was afraid of what might happen with my dad.  I was afraid of people hurting me.  I was afraid of being me, and I was afraid of being honest about how I felt.

My best friend is a prayer warrior, and honestly, I can’t thank God enough for putting her in my life.  I honestly wouldn’t know what to do without her good morning text.  But even a good morning text didn’t keep me from disappearing within myself.

When my dad came home, he was so weak from not eating for a whole week.  My mom was stressed, which was expected, but my home felt charged with electricity.  I felt in the way and like I was just stressing everyone more, and so I left to stay in my room.

The next day was April Fool’s, so I was stupid and joined a prank online that failed.  The joke ended up annoying and hurting people.  It’s all forgiven now, but that night I stayed up until one, wishing I could cry, but not being able to.  I hurt so badly because I had hurt other people.  It was also too late for me to talk to anyone, and so I didn’t tell my parents for two or three days.  It just hurt.

That Tuesday I felt like the world was smushing me.  I wasn’t feeling well due to allergies (I had them so bad this year.  *groans*) and I just didn’t have the desire to live, or to do anything.  But you know what?  A friend sent me a playlist of songs, and as I laid on the floor of my room, I listened to truth.  Just plain, beautiful, truth.  I didn’t heal all the way, and the me I was missing didn’t come home, but the fact that they actually sent me those songs meant a lot to me.

(Music is such a personal thing to me, that when people actually send me songs, or care what I listen to, it means so much.)

I don’t talk much about my music on my blog.  It’s a part of me that’s like an emotional release.  Similar to writing, but to me music is more personal.  And I haven’t had any energy or desire to be serious about it.  The beginning of this year, I arranged three songs, and I played dozens of songs, but the past two months have been a dry spell.

I didn’t feel the need to play music.  I didn’t see how it would fit in my future, and I didn’t see how it was benefiting myself or others.  I was tired of trying to do everything, and tired of being me.

 Actually, I was tired of trying to be me when the person I always thought was me wasn’t there.

I felt like I couldn’t talk about it because there wasn’t anyone to talk to.  My mom saw something was wrong, and I can’t begin to say how thankful I am for her pulling it out of me and listening to me.

And then I had an asthma attack.  I’ve never had “asthma,” though for the last two years I’ve had trouble breathing, especially in the spring/summer months.  I spent a whole morning panting, because I needed to get through church.  When I almost passed out, I let my mom take me to the urgent care.  Thankfully, they cleared everything up and now I have the medicines I need.

But not feeling well depressed me even more.  I just want to disappear, but again, I couldn’t let people know how I felt, and so I just kinda pretended I was okay to all my friends.  I’ve never understood depression, I don’t know if I would say I was depressed, and so I didn’t want everyone to think I had something wrong with me.

I stopped eating because I just didn’t want food. Food didn’t taste good to me; I was unhappy, and I was mad at myself for being unhappy.  And so I was just in a deep hole, and I didn’t know how to get out.

During this time I got so many encouraging emails from my newsletter followers, and from friends.  But doubt crept in, telling me that they didn’t know the real Amie.  If they did, the wouldn’t love me any more.  They wouldn’t care for me.  They wouldn’t say those nice things or try to encourage me.

But I’ve fought the lies.  People in my life DO care.  And they want to show that they care by loving me, and by helping me out and praying for me.

My dad has been diagnosed with cancer, and my life has been rather on the strange side as my whole family tries to take care of him, and each other.  I’m trying to stay optimistic, to keep the me that has been frozen alive.  I’m forcing myself to keep on top of the things I’ve committed to, and forcing myself to answer people, to pretend everything is normal.

But not everything is normal.

My life isn’t normal, and I’ve got to accept that.  There is no such thing as “normal” in the way that we think.  It’s something that everyone strives after, and someday we all have to accept the fact that there is no normal, or else we’ll live very unhappy lives.

The past week I’ve opened up to more people about my life at the moment, and so many people have begun praying for me and my family.  I’m hungry again, I’m happy again, and I’ve learned something.

We don’t hold the key that lets us out of ourselves, out of our depression, but we hold something even better.  We have the Bible, and that gives us the key.  If you’ve never read the Bible, if you’ve never spent time in God’s word, I would encourage you to start.

You’ll never really be happy and at peace until you meet the Prince of Peace.  For He gives us the peace that surpasses all understanding. (Philippians 4:7)

~~Amie~~