Mental Health

When you don’t feel worth it…

- Melody


When you feel so broken wondering why you’re like this. When you wonder if you’ll literally ever be able to love someone in a healthy way. When you’re wondering where your self worth went. When it’s breaking your heart that you can’t see yourself the way your parents do. When it’s crushing you to see their eyes well up when you tell them you don’t love yourself. When you hear them tell you you’re worth it. When you’re wondering why someone that’s harbored feelings for you for years won’t even make it work with you. When you miss your ex. When you doubt if it’s love or you’re just holding onto something that makes you feel good. When you wonder why you need to hold onto someone to make you feel good in the first place and can’t be satisfied with your own self. When you know that fall is coming and probably along with it your depression. When your favorite shirt is dirty. When you text that guy because you’re bored or lonely or some other lame excuse. When no one shows up for your birthday. When you realize how far you still have to go. When you’re wondering why you’re not fixed yet. When you’re wondering how you’re so messed up. When you’re lonely. When you’re sad. When you wish that guy you have a crush on would just pay attention to you. When you know he isn’t the one for you. When you say something mean. When you say something passive aggressive. When you speak out of turn because your feelings are hurt. When you don’t get a reply. When an “I’m sorry” won’t work. When you’re broke. When you just want to delete everyone out of your life. When you believe you’ll never be married because you can’t be 1000% single for one single second. When you wonder what that is inside of you holding you back. When you’re sorry. When you’re broken. When you’re depressed and being so makes you even more depressed because you think of all the people pulling for you that really love you. When you think about how much your family loves you. When your heart is absolutely smashed like a month old Halloween pumpkin. When you think about how many people haven’t shown up for you in your life. When you remember the ones that do. When you don’t want to read that message that’s gonna hurt. When you feel weak. When you feel strong. When everything is sh*t. When everything is incredible. When you’re sick. When you can’t find your people. When you’re waiting. When you can’t understand why you’re not as far as you thought you’d be. When you don’t get that job. When you don’t have a loft in Deep Ellum. When you get married. When you date again. When you’re sunburned. When you’re healthy. When you find your people. When no one shows up. When you’re homesick. When you’re anxious. When someone dies. When you feel isolated. When you realize, again, that you moved away from everything familiar. When someone takes something from you. When you wreck your car. When you feel like no one loves you. When you feel more hopeless than you’ve ever felt. When you want something but can’t get it. When you feel worthless. When you think you’re nothing. When you wonder who spoke that to you and why you let it in. When you can’t shake the incessant down talk you hear your soul speaking to you. When you want to adopt every homeless animal. When you think you’re too far gone. When you want to jump off your balcony. When you feel higher than that one time you got your wisdom teeth out and were under anesthesia. When it’s raining and you’re happy. When you’re elated. When you kiss someone you love again. When you’re a girlfriend. When you’re a wife. When your dream doesn’t come true. When you finally let it all go.

 

Love yourself. Somehow find the strength deep down inside to keep going. And remember, it’s all going to be okay.

One Thing To Do When You’re Depressed

- Melody 2 Comments

Weeds

Last month I opened up about my life with depression and anxiety. Thank you guys again for your sweet responses! In continuing with that conversation, I want to share with you one sure thing I know that clears my depression.

Going to counseling weekly for about a month and now bi-weekly, I’ve learned one thing about my depression: it will never go away completely. Honestly, that’s depressing in itself. (See what I did there?) It’s hard to imagine a life where depression will always be present and knowing that I will most likely always deal with this is hard to swallow. A few weeks ago I was doing really well but that damn depression just sneaks in on you and tries to take you down. But this time I was prepared.

My counselor preached to me in the first month that to combat depression I have to force myself, literally, to get up and do something. I did a terrible job at that for a long time. It. Was. Hard.

It’s easier to feel bad than to try and be happy.

But that’s exactly what I had to do. Fortunately, I had a clarifying moment last Sunday. The last week or so I had been feeling down despite going out and spending time with people and experiencing new things. I went to church and lunch on Sunday with a friend and then came home. I had plans that afternoon to visit my friend and her new baby in Plano and I was having a tough time motivating myself to get back up. I took a deep breath, sat up off the couch, put on pants and left the house. No, the grey-ness didn’t lift even in the car. But you know when it did? When I knocked on her door. When I walked in the house. When I held that baby.

Forcing myself to get up and live dissipates my depression. And I bet it’ll dissipate yours too.

How do you deal with depression? Is there a different way you work through it?

xx

What Depression is to Me

- Melody 12 Comments

How about a super light and airy topic for a Tuesday morning, huh?! Hold on to your $!*$#* hats.

Rainbow

For as long as I can remember I’ve dealt with anxiety. I remember sitting in class in the fourth grade and feeling knots in my stomach and my hair standing on end when I would get called on or when I knew class was almost over or when I knew our whole class was about to leave the room. Once, my friend Hunter that sat across from me, told me that my voice changed when I would get called on in class. Fourth grade me was like wat. I’d find out later that it was because of anxiety.

In middle school, I would obsessively watch the clock and become a nervous wreck waiting for the bell to ring. As soon as it rang, the knots and the chills and the insane thoughts faded out. But 55 minutes later when the next bell was about to ring, they’d be back. (I was never saved by the bell, if you’re wondering.)

In high school, things were milder. The stomach knots and the insane thoughts were there, but by this time I’d acclimated. This was normal for me. Wasn’t it normal for everyone?

I remember being 16. (Doesn’t everyone?) Looking back, there were two major traumas. (Thanks, counseling, for pointing that out!) One, my best friend and I split up. Two, my grandmother being diagnosed with brain cancer. I lost the person that had been my sister for years and was losing someone I loved forever. When my grandmother passed away in October of 2006, I felt a shift. I never really felt myself after that. It was a tragic and horrific loss for my entire family that still hurts. I think that’s when my depression began.

—

Processed with VSCOcam with 4 preset

I didn’t figure out what anxiety was until I was probably 21 or 22. (That small town education, tho.) That I had it? Well, that was an even slower realization. The divorce forced me to find a counselor, and I’m glad it did. I literally could not function day to day because of the rampant anxious thoughts. I had to find someone to talk to or I would explode.

In counseling, it wasn’t like she was helping me through something, per se. She was letting me talk it out. Letting me open up and say things to her that I couldn’t, or didn’t know how to, say to my friends or family. She let me spill myself on the floor in front of her without judgment. It was messy and ugly and I threw up a lot of word vomit. But, like so many things in life, it turned into something beautiful: me. Myself. Finally, I felt like myself again. I could process thoughts and think clearly about things. Life. Love. Whatever. That was spring of 2013.

—

Processed with VSCOcam with 5 preset

It’s March of 2015. I’m dating a guy I fall madly for instantly, as I often do. (Classic amirite?) In July I moved to Dallas. I remember crying almost every day for a week or two because I was alone for the first time in my life. There was no one home when I got there.  Life wasn’t happening in my home without me like I was so accustomed to. Sure, Pepper was there. But she wasn’t watching TV or making dinner or doing dishes when I walked in the door. I’d honestly be creeped out if I walked in and she was doing any of those things. (#nothumbs) I was greeted with silence every day, accompanied by darkness with the time change which made things exponentially worse. Jon, my boyfriend at the time, lived 8 minutes away but was going through his own thing and wasn’t there all the time when I needed him.

I didn’t visit a church until December. Which was a big part of the problem, but I shut myself out. Things got better for a few weeks in July after I acclimated to Dallas, but that thin, grey veil never really went away. In fact, it got darker. Jon eventually moved to Austin for a new job and we split not long after that. This time, I was really alone. He was one of two people I knew when I moved here and now he was gone.

I’m over the breakup now, but the loneliness remains. It’s not that I don’t have friends or someone great I’m dating, it’s depression. And depression makes absolutely no sense. To the person it’s happening to or the people outside of it watching. Depression hits me at the oddest times: in the middle of a happy conversation, during a drink with someone, on a date, lying in bed drifting to sleep, watching a SnapChat story. Suddenly this curtain falls and that’s the end of the act for me. I could easily throw in the towel and call it a day no matter what time it is, but I have to, sometimes literally, force myself to stand up and move. To do something. And slowly, so slowly, that curtain peeks open and I’ll see a bit of light. And that bit of light sustains me and I make it grow. I have to.

A few nights ago a particularly hard curtain fell (no doubt attributed to my NYE shenanigans (HOLLA) and lack of sleep) and I remember talking to Jesus telling him how tired I was. How tired I am of saying how tired I am. How this has been the biggest looming shadow over my entire life. How it’s dictated my moods and decisions and actions forever. And I told Him how afraid I was that I’d feel like this forever. That there would never be a day I didn’t feel that thin, grey veil over me.

And to be honest, I still feel that way. I still get sad randomly. I still feel anxious. But I’m in counseling and I’m learning ways to fight it. I’m spilling myself out on the floor in front of a complete stranger so she can help me figure out how to pour myself back together in a better and healthier way.

Hey yo, it’s okay if you have depression. It took me 25 years to muster the courage to find a counselor. I don’t want to hide it anymore. Talking about it and laughing about it helps me. lol I get sad all the time and cry in random places IT’S SO HILARIOUS. Let’s start a real conversation about it. We shouldn’t have to be afraid to tell people we have depression or anxiety. Or hey, a mixed bag of both. JACKPOT.

 

Here’s to better days for all.

Love you.

How Do You Morning?

- Melody

Good morning! (Btw, if it’s before 8 AM don’t come to me with that noise. It is not a good morning, yet.) On my drive to work this morning, the sun was pouring in through my car window just right and everything just seemed…fresh. New, even being surrounded by all those cars and people trying to get to work too. It made me sad for all the early mornings I’ve missed out on. Maybe it’s the new bite in the air and the way the leaves are slowly (very slowly) turning brown around here (from the heat?), but this morning got me good.

It got me thinking about how I spend that precious morning time. My friend Cait (incredible human being) wrote a little something on her blog about mornings. And I caught myself this very morning checking Instagram first thing. Heaven forbid I miss a ‘like’ or a comment on one of my photos. Or miss a sale happening in one of my daily emails. *eye roll*

Friday night I had the most restful sleep. At 7:15 Saturday morning I rolled over and woke up to the pinkest light I have ever seen just soaking my windows. It was the weirdest thing! I actually got out of bed to see what was going on and snapped this picture:

Sunrise
Obviously the picture doesn’t do it justice, but it was gorgeous. To think, this happens every morning! And I’m missing it! I quietly promised myself to be more intentional with my mornings. I have the power to set the tone for my entire day. Incredible power. I don’t want to squander that.

 

So here’s to black coffee, sunrises, and getting out of bed. ;*

 

 

xx

Spring

- Melody 3 Comments

Processed with VSCOcam with g3 preset

In Texas, we don’t really have spring. It goes basically fall to summer with four random snow and ice days in March and April, if we’re lucky. Despite all that, “spring” just breathes new life into everything and everyone. For me, I feel like a completely brand new person. I know I haven’t shared much of what God’s been doing with me in great length, so I feel it’s time to share with you. My hope and prayer is that someone will be encouraged, and I feel that with the urgency I feel to share it that someone will be. So. Here goes.

2013 was rough. Scratch that. It was my hell on earth. There were days I didn’t want to wake up or move or breathe or think. Depression hit me deep. I was lost and in the darkest place physically, spiritually and mentally I’ve ever been in. I couldn’t sleep. I didn’t eat. I felt like a shell. An empty one at that. I moved in with my parents in January of last year. (I’ll save that story for another time. :P) Suffice it to say there were many changes within that tiny month of January. “A new start” doesn’t even begin to describe the beginning of my year.

For the first months of that year I spent my days in constant prayer and most of my commutes home were spent in tears crying out to God asking Him what to do. Desperate and utterly and completely helpless I fell flat on my face repeatedly screaming for Him to show me something. To show me who I am in Him and how He saw me. At the beginning of March last year something shifted. I remember being in bed one night and hearing God tell me to ask Him out loud to take over and take the burden away. I’ve always had such trouble verbalizing my feelings so God asking me to do this made it that much more significant. When I asked Him out loud to take the weight I felt so light I immediately fell asleep. Jesus took that weight of shame and depression completely off of me and gave me peace. For the first time in my life I felt the peace of Jesus and knew who the Prince of Peace is. The months that followed were still hard and sad and emotionally scarring. But I had peace. Peace that God knew what He was doing and peace that I finally knew my worth in Him. I am beautiful. I am His.

When 2014 rolled in I was blissfully happy. I was still settling in to my new self, but by the end of February I was as content as I ever remember being. Peaceful. As we head into summer I just feel grateful and worshipful all day every day for what God did in my life. I’ve been through the season of rebirth and now I’m in the season of gratitude and witnessing. I am ready.

If you are lost and in darkness and don’t know your worth in Jesus, I beg you to fall on your face and ask Him to show you. He will not hesitate. Be encouraged that Jesus sees you right where you are. Ask Him. You are loved. You are seen. You are not alone.

 

 

xx

Some Encouragement…

- Melody

image(18)

This was recently said to me in reference to my divorce, but it applies in so many other areas of life that I thought I’d share it with all of you. I hope you find some encouragement in it. 🙂

 

x