What was the cost?

Throughout my life I've had experience with forgiveness.  I can tell you what the word means, how to go about it, that it's healthy for you emotionally, physically, and spiritually.  I can say I've gone through phases of forgiveness... I guess I would liken it as to an onion.  A metaphor most americans have used to describe a multitude of things.

However, I had an experience this weekend, but especially yesterday, that has left me in deep thought.

I will say that I've always known I had keene abandonment issues when it comes to the choices my father made.  The moment, at age 8, that I had to be strapped down to a hospital bed so that the nurses could take my own precious blood to prove Edward Kamerer was my father damaged me to the very core of who I was.  I'm 33  and I can still remember that moment in vivid detail.  It's a memory that damaged my psyche and planted the seed of self hatred, anxiety, and abandonment. I believed that if my own father didn't want me then no one would.  I've had people come into my life that only validated my belief because they always professed to adopt me as family (whether naturally or spiritually) , but then ended up rejecting or abandoning me. I knew that day haunted me, but I didn't know how to really deal with the damage.  Not to mention the damage it caused where I was unable to accept that God loved me.  Actually, I not only haven't been able to accept it, but I secretly hated him.  I felt he failed me.  Not only failed me, but failed in creating me.  I would sing the songs at church, or read scriptures about God's love, and subconsciously I'd always change the word, "God" to "Jesus" because I could accept that Jesus loved me, but not God the father.

To say that I've always struggled with depression is an understatement, but this last 1.5 year has been particularly difficult.  I've been screaming for help so long, with no help in sight, that I started to believe that no one could help me.  Actually, that's the message I was receiving from the doctors I visited.  I was clinically depressed, but this area didn't have any good resources to help.  I was floundering horribly because I couldn't see a door out of the hopelessness I felt almost every day.  It frustrated me to no end because I know triggers.  I know psycology.  I know how to help someone else 'snap' out of the funk, but I couldn't pull up anything to help myself.  I'm embarrassed to admit I woke up last week ready to check myself into the hospital because I saw no hope in front of me.  No door.  I couldn't think or analyze myself out of it!  I didn't want to check myself into the hospital because I was going to hurt myself.  I thought that if I did something that drastic that maybe I could finally find someone to help me.  I called Jason's pastor who was trying very hard to be helpful and ended up calling a therapist that I've heard about.  The experience was interesting and helpful.  I told him my life story in record time and at the end he asked me if I had any questions.  I did.  I asked him, flat out, if this was a waste of my time... could he help me.  He proceeded to tell me what he saw and it was quite shocking.  He believes I have a form of PTSD from the trauma I experienced as a child always looking over my back, trying to make sure I wouldn't experience abuse, ducking and dodging to make sure everything was okay.  He also thinks that my biggest problem isn't depression, but anxiety.  That if you look at a house no one ever thinks about the basement, but that my basement, and foundation, is full of anxiety.  That my anxieties actually trigger my depression.  He helped me remember/understand that I had simply forgotten how to recognize my 'triggers' to anxiety and told me he'd help me figure them out so that I could cope.  I left feeling very encouraged, but two days later I woke up in a funk, once again.

This weekend Jason forced me to go to something like a revival with people who are like minded believers.  I'm not too sure if I agree with everything Jason believes, but I will say that I met a remarkable wise man by the name of Mark.  His wife was great too, Lori.  We ended up talking for quite some time and the revelations he had about fear/anxiety/depression left me in tears.  Fear is actually the counterfiet of the prophetic... where you foresee the worst case scenerio and project it onto everything and everyone in your life and that depression comes in when you can't see an escape or door to escape.  That's when hopelessness creeps in and tries to suffocate the life out of you.  He also identified, clearly, that I have an orphan mentality.  An orphan believes that they have no one to count on.  That they are the only means of survival.  They figure out how to survive by will power, strong intellect, through their emotions, etc.  I've always survived off of my intellect and having the ability to read people or situations.  Not being able to do that, with this bout of depression I've had for the last year, has been suffocating any hope I had.

But that's not what left me pondering.  I met with them yesterday after having a horrible night thanks to anxiety.  They sat with me and then Mark looked right at me and told me it was time to forgive my father for his choices and failures that led to that painful experience when I was 8.  I kind of nodded, smiled, and thought, "Well, that's no surprise."  But, what he said after that has changed my viewpoint of forgiveness.  He said, to forgive, that we must take account of the COST that the incident or person caused you.  What did that cause me?  Well, I took on the belief that I had no worth.  That I wasn't wanted.  That father's were untrustworthy.  That I was unlovable.  That I deserved an apology... amongst a few other things.

He then told me that I needed to acknowledge the cost verbally and then RELEASE my father from his debt.  Acknowledging that he couldn't pay that back even if he was alive to apologize.  Then, ask the Lord to heal those areas and show me the true love of a Father.  Because, the one thing I've always wanted, and felt I deserved, was an apology.  The hardest thing I had to struggle with, after his murder, was that I could never hunt him down to ask "why" or to hear, "I'm sorry."  It's never going to happen so I believed I could never really gain healing.

It sounds so crazy as I type it out, but it was real... and very interesting.  It was freeing to finally identify just what that incident cost me, saying it out loud, choosing to release a debt that couldn't be repaid, and then asking the Lord to help me see the truth of a father's love.

But normally, to forgive, people think they'll jsut give it enough time until the pain goes away.  But, that's not true.  It's not validating the pain you've experienced, or the lies you've adopted, and then really realizing that xyz couldn't repay that debt even if they were able to.

I don't know.  It was interesting.

Also, as I reviewed that situation in prayer, it became clear that day also marked the beginning of my anxieties.  As they strapped me down, held me down, my mom left the room, and they proceeded to draw my blood I went from fear to straight up PANIC.  That moment, as I panicked in raw fear, the seed of anxiety was planted deep in my heart.  I believe that's when all of my high anxieties were born.  Interesting, huh.

I don't know what tomorrow holds, but I'm hoping life gets brighter.  I'm hoping this process of forgiveness  will help me finally be the woman, and mother, I'm supposed to be.  That, as I heal, I can finally accept God as my father.  I hope that I'll no longer hate him, fear him, and cringe when I read, "God is love."  I hope that I can finally accept it, trust it, and see it for Him for Who/Want He really is... and that's Love.

I will also be seeing a specialized doctor in Lubbock in three weeks.  I'm hoping he can help me figure out what's going on with my body/hormones/chemistry that's aiding in the depression/physical struggles I've had since a child.

I realize I'm putting myself out into the world, but I have to believe that there are other women, and mother's who are struggling with such a personal struggle with depression.  It may not be depression you struggle with, but everyone needs to forgive someone who wounded them.  Maybe my journey, and struggles, can some how encourage others to know that they aren't alone.  That God cares for them even if they don't feel it... and that somewhere, some how, there is hope.

God Bless.