I've been reading Good to Great again and there's this chapter about facing the brutal facts, making tough choices and maintaining the belief that despite the facts you will be successful. There's this reality that no company can be great without having access to the brutal facts, accepting the facts, making decisions based upon them, the really tough choices, the ones that hurt hearts and make people cry, but it takes the facts. In a company there's dollars and cents, and labor hours and all these numbers to work with. Even in my organization when it's sometimes hard to measure what we do, or arrive at facts because how do you really measure relationships and connection, there are still plenty of facts to work with.
But what about in my individual life? It seems so messy and unclear and shades of grey. I'm coming to terms with some facts right now and it's brutal and I can't say I'm doing a really good job of the later part of believing, being resolved that I will overcome. All I seem to notice are the facts that suck, that mean deprivation, that mean more unknowns. And I do NOT like unknowns.
The seemingly easy to come to terms with fact is that I'm gluten sensitive. All these years I thought dairy was causing my problems but nope it's wheat. That diet I wrote about earlier was the first step in even identifying this fact. After 17 days of the diet a stomach bug and the stress of eating so restrictively lead me to give it up. I started adding foods back into my daily routine and in the weeks since it has become painfully obvious that wheat and I are not friends. It makes my insomnia worse, makes my stomach ache and cramp for hours and though I continued to avoid and then run back to it I have now for a week avoided it completely. The result: my digestive system feels so good and my skin is glowing and those are the brutal facts. At the same time I feel like a part of me is dying. I feel deprived, anxious, angry and miserable. Every time I go to the grocery store it is like touring all the things I will never eat again. Well rephrase, I can eat them if I want to be miserable. Sure have the Girl Scout cookies but you will suffer- suffer for two days no less. Meals regularly remind of what I want to eat but can't. I am grieving and it seems so stupid to be so bent out of shape over food but I am. That's a fact too. I cannot minimize, ignore or belittle my own feelings. Isn't it truly kinder to myself to admit how hard this is? But I also have to get beyond these emotions. I can't stay in this angry place forever. But I also want to have the temper tantrum. I want others to feel sorry for me. I want some damn compassion.
Trouble is....I'm ashamed. I am ashamed of my own emotions and the intensity around some freaking food. I mean life could be worse. I feel like I have no right or space to complain because really in the broad view of bad things to happen in life this is not that big of a deal. But for me right now this is a big deal. Too bad I've isolated myself so much in the last year that I don't even really have people to talk this over with, and as lovely as my husband is he falls more in the accept it and move on category.
Then there's the really big brutal fact that I cannot seem to maintain any normal range of emotions without anti-depressants. This is a fact that scares me. It's hard to even write it. And it doesn't scare me because of what you might assume. I've been on and off anti-depressants since the middle of my adolescence. I have tried on several occasions to get through life without them. I always go back. I like myself better on them. I take small doses and they bring out the best in me. I am happy, joyful, resilient, calm, motivated, able to concentrate. Seriously I could be a poster child, they are so effective in a way that makes me the best person I can be. At several points in the last nearly 15 years of taking them I've asked myself why do I ever go off? I'm better with them.
But I went off again in a calculated decision. I want to have a family. And what "good mother" or half way educated one doesn't know that you are to avoid ALL medications in any form during pregnancy and for the most part while breastfeeding. So I weaned off, my doctors cheered me on, my husband supported me, rah, rah...fail. Epic Fail. It's been ten months off of them, six months of trying to get pregnant (that's a whole different story) and I am a freaking train wreck. Oh I hide it well. In fact lately I've been getting compliments on how engaged I am at work, how present and focused I am, little do they know. They don't know that I am somehow managing in that environment well but not the rest of the hours in a day. I am not functioning I am forcing, slaving, dragging. It's really come to a head in the last few weeks. I mean I have no joy, no true interest in anything, I am making myself do just about everything. And I CANNOT live this way because this is not meaningful living.
My real fear is that my inability to conquer something, to manage my own emotions, resulting in going back on medications could mean that my future child has some horrible congenital defect. See in my view God's protection is not a guarantee, this world is messed up, my body is not how in his perfect design he wants it to operate. Life is full of choices which allow for brokenness and sin to impact us and others. God is more than capable of protecting an unborn child but he doesn't have to. Do I trust him to sustain us through whatever comes? Do I make a different move? Why do I set myself up as an opponent to him? I mean aren't we supposedly on the same team? But for some reason I doubt...just like Adam did...just like Eve and Jacob and Moses and Peter...just like hundreds before me...I wonder if his heart is good. I wonder if he really has my best in mind.
I read a blog entry recently, written by Morgan, part of the Ransomed Heart team, and he reminded us to practice slowing down and asking God before making a move. I feel like I asked God a week or so ago about if I need to be back on medication. I'm not so sure now that I really waited to hear clearly. But now I'm pausing and yes I am sure. He invites me to trust him. And truthfully... reluctantly... I will try.
