Let's Talk Feelings (and God)

One of the greatest challenges I faced during and after my first episode was a lack of feeling.

I could KNOW something in my head, but not feel it.

After my first episode and the "good meds" started working there was still some "numbness" going on.  I still wasn't quite right, even though I was so much better. ( I still remember a friend that I met after the episode telling me that she knew something was off when we first met.  Ugh!  How embarrassing!  She waited three years before mentioning this because it took me that long to confide in her about my breakdown.)

So I KNEW Hubby loved me but I still felt completely isolated in my own shell of skin sometimes;  I went through the motions of loving him, too, but sometimes the feelings just weren't there.

To further illustrate my point, let me tell you about something Hubby did for me.  He took me on a beautiful cruise.  This was my first time in the Caribbean, my first time on a boat on the ocean.   I remember standing on the deck of the ship just outside of Jamaica in a flowing blue sundress . . .seeing the blue of the ocean, the green of the island beyond and feeling NOTHING.  It was horrible.  I knew that I should be like those women on TV on the beaches in THEIR flowing sundresses . . .full of the desire to dance and to stroll happily through the surf, grinning from ear to ear and just amazed at the new adventure that we were about to embark on . . .and I could feel nothing.

This made me ANGRY  (numbly angry, but still).  Oddly, anger was something I could do.  Resentment.  Bitterness.  I could have those things.

Just because you can doesn't mean you should.

I'm not sure when the breakthrough occurred.  There was never a magic moment when suddenly the scales tipped and all of the sudden I was feeling again.  It was so slow it was imperceptible.

But I've got feelings again!  Yay!

Part of the reason that losing my feelings was so devastating to me is because as a Christian, when I read my Bible, when I pray, all of the sudden concepts, ideas will jump out at me.  Helpful things.  Encouraging things.  I get excited.

All day long I'll have this thought that will sustain me.  I'll go back to God in little phrases "Thank you, God, for the sunrise!  Thank you, God, for letting us find the things that were stolen from us!  That was amazing.  Wow.  I still can't believe how that worked out . . .give me wisdom, God, for this thing with my daughter.  I'm sorry for my bad attitude.  Please help me figure out how to fix it."  And you know, He does.

But all of what I've just described to you in the two paragraphs above went missing when my brain chemistry went wonky.

I could forgive just about everything else, but losing THAT made me so mad.  If I wasn't a CHRISTIAN wife and mother, who was I?  Were all the people who lived without acknowledging God daily really on to something?  Some of them were very kind, good people.   I began to doubt that God even really existed.  I chose not to remember all the good things He'd done for Hubby and I over the years.  I chose not to try to read my Bible and pray.  It was too painful, because what if God didn't show Himself again?

I did continue to go to church.  I am a social person.  I like to talk and I like to get out of my house (hard to do when you don't work and you don't have excess funds for things like going to the gym or out to eat/out for coffee with friends).  This is part of what drew me back towards God, like a fisherman reeling a reluctant fish into his boat . . .I flopped wildly and protested with all my might.  But He caught me anyway, and now its like He's keeping me in an awesome saltwater tank with other really cool fish.  I know God again.  And I can read my Bible, pray . . .the whole nine yards.

I think the lesson I learned from all of this was DON"T stop reaching for what you know you want to feel.  Keep going outside.  Keep acting like you can feel love for the people who love you.  Go to church ( and find a GOOD one where the people are friendly and reach towards you, not a cold place where you are ignored).

Realize that just because you can't feel the feelings, it doesn't meant they aren't there.  Some things lie dormant until the sunshine touches them.  You'll get sunshine on your soul again, I promise.