Klonopin and Melodrama

I’m sitting here at 8:40pm listening to First Aid Kit’s latest EP. I took my anxiety medicine. I just finished a book on Christianity and a Christian devotional. Today, I went to the gym and I’ve been having balanced meals for the first time in months. Yet here I am. With a tears staining my pillow and snot dripping down my nose. When the anxiety is lifted for a brief moment, only depression lies beneath. I’m doing it all right, yet I still feel like I’m being tortured from the inside out. I feel like im suffocating. “What would make it better?” my sweet boyfriend asks. I have no idea. I’ve tried it all. Save for ECT and TMS. Tomorrow I go to my psychiatrist. Please pray to the god above that he doesn’t hospitalize me. I just want to try this new-fangled Transcranial Magnetic Stimulaiton. With bipolar patients, the only fear is that I would enter into a manic episode. Who knows what will happen. Do I chose to trust Christ? I don’t know.

......

Next day: I had the long-awaited, fated appointment and you know what I got out of it? More Klonopin. Yup. That’s it. I’m not questioning my psychiatrist; I trust him, and deeply respect him, and, although he’s from UVA, he’s even grown on me a little ;) Today, I walked in, sat down, and promptly told him I’d like to try TMS. “Sure…but it doesn’t work.” He went on to explain his reasoning which I won’t delve into here, but I was a bit disheartened. One hopeful option shut down completely. I refuse to partake in ECT so the only option left is more intense psychotherapy. Which is fine, I just thought it’d be cool to have a “real” treatment for an illness that is so very real.

As you can tell, I was very melodramatic and emotional last night. That’s not from the bipolar, that’s just my natural temperament. Always the drama queen. I trust God with this but man it’s hard.

Fittingly, the lyrics to the first song on the newest First Aid Kit EP called “I’ve Wanted You” fit my emotions into lyric quite well:

Life doesn't give you hoops to jump through
It gives you tireless roads to cross
This sadness came over me
So in love, so at a loss
…

I've been feelin' so in-between things
Sad and stuck and alone
Even when I'm as high as I can get
I can't forget I'm on my own

Keep thinkin' I can escape it
But there are no red shoes to tap
Just endless haulin' through a desert
And babe, there never was a map

But today is just a normal day. I cried a little over an old friend’s death, I read a little. Listened to some music. And now I’m waiting patiently for my new book to arrive via the Great Empire of Amazon.

There really isn’t a great, big point or lesson to this post. Just a glimpse into the life of a normal girl who happens to have bipolar.

I think I’ll go check the mailbox now…

Side note: My psychiatrist made a poorly executed attempt at encouraging me via relating my life to John Nash’s in A Beautiful Mind, to which I say three things: 1) great movie, but a little cliché, bud. 2) young Russell Crowe was hawt. 3) one of the best movie lines of all times = “I cannot waste time memorizing the weak assumptions of lesser mortals!” shouted from the rooftop of a prestigious Princeton building.

Side note to the side note: yesterday I looked at my outgoing calls and there were SEVEN to my mom alone… in one day. So, middle school girls with attitudes, love your mommas cause you’re gonna realize how much you need them one day.

Death, Be Not Proud

“Cancer.” The word rung through me like a mighty church bell. I instantly went into a state of shock when the doctors told me, one silent tear rolling down my cheek. I think my mom was trying to contain her silent sobs in the corner of the room.

We went to ABP in Macarthur and got something to eat. My parents were put off by my cheery disposition. I was young and naïve but I loved God and believed he could truly get me through this.

We were leaving the mall and while passing Hot Topic (lol) I saw none other than Whitney Walsh. She was the very first person I told about the diagnosis and all she did was give me a great, big hug. For future reference, that’s a great way to respond to someone who’s just told you they have cancer; save your hallmark words for Valentine’s Day. It was funny because later that night we were supposed to go to the 1975 concert at the Norva. “I totally understand if you don’t want to go,” she said. “No, I think it would be good for me,” I said.

Fast-forward 3 hours, we meet at a local coffee shop to chat before the concert. “There’s a man from my church [Big House, for you locals]. I don’t know him very well but we’re going to get him to prophesy over you. Now, these were my pre-Pentecostal days so I was unsure what that meant, but I went along for the ride. I can’t ever recall what the man looked like or what his name was, only that he was probably in his mid-twenties. He prayed a generic prayer over me as we solemnly bowed our heads then he looked up and said, “Anna, I don’t think this is the end for you; I think it’s just the beginning.” ‘Whatever you say,’ I thought.  I thanked him and we left for the concert.

Days later I discovered a beautiful song by Gungor called “This Is Not The End” which I played as my personal prophetic anthem as I drove the back roads of Chesapeake sobbing and holding my abdomen with the little alien living inside. Here are the lyrics:

This is not the end
This is not the end of this
We will open our eyes wide, wider

This is not our last
This is not our last breath
We will open our mouths wide, wider

And you know you’ll be alright
Oh and you know you’ll be alright

This is not the end
This is not the end of us
We will shine like the stars bright, brighter

Today I was taking out cash at a local gas station to pay for an eyebrow wax. I scrolled far back into my iTunes and found this song. I was delighted for it always brings me back to a time of victory. However, this time I was pissed off.

Why did my cancer story end in such triumphant victory when so many end in deepest tragedy?

I thought of all the people who I specifically knew that have passed away since 2013. It’s not fair. Why do I get to celebrate while others lament?

I have no idea why, but I’ve been meditating on Death lately. Not in a morbid way, just in a sort of passive way. I found an Audrey Assad EP whose titular track is “Death, Be Not Proud.” And I’ve been listening to it on repeat. Here are the lyrics.

Death, be not proud, though the whole world fear you:
Mighty and dreadful you may seem,
But death, be not proud, for your pride has failed you
You will not kill me.
Though you may dwell in plague and poison,
You're a slave to fate and desperate men,
So death, if your sleep be the gates to Heaven,
Why your confidence?
When you will be no more,
You will be no more,
When you will be no more.
Even death will die.
Even death will die.

Death, be not proud.
Death, be not proud.
Death, be not proud,
Cause even death will die.

The final straw was hearing that a sweet woman I knew in passing (who probably doesn’t even know my name) was in hospice care for devastating cancer.

Why, O LORD, why? Why must she suffer? Why will she die yet I live?

Maybe it’s survivor’s guilt, but I think it’s more than that. We just weren’t built for death. Yes, I know the science that everything tends towards atrophy, but I think that’s a massive defect caused by the symbolic Fall of man and the introduction of original sin.

Satan’s pride brought about Adam and Eve’s sinning and subsequently our sinning and the atrophying of the entire known universe.

But I demand life. And life to the full. I demand the opposite of death. I demand resurrection. And what I demand today while sitting in my cozy little bed was wrought for me, for us, 2000 years ago on a hill called Calvary.

“The last enemy to be destroyed is Death” (1 Corinthians 15:26 NIV).

God says Death is the enemy and it shall be destroyed. And I believe we take part in that now. John said in his first epistle that, “The Son of God appeared for this purpose, to destroy the works of the Devil” (1 John 2:8 NASB). Well, I am a daughter of God just like Jesus; He’s my big brother and growing up I always copied my big brothers, so why stop now? And the biggest work of the devil is Death: physical death, death of dreams, death of faith, death of hope, death of a will to live, etc.. I’m not talking about raising the dead; I’m talking about combatting the effects of Death on our planet. Here are some preliminary suggestions off the top of my head that might help you do this:

1) Worship God

Like Jehoshaphat’s story exemplified, praise is literally a weapon. Facing a daunting battle, God told the Israelite soldiers to worship and let him do the fighting. And as they worshipped, he set ambushes that caused chaos for the enemy and victory for the Israelites. Here’s an excerpt from my blog from June 24^th, 2013, from when I had just graduated high school and just days before my risky and uncertain surgery/biopsy:

Last night, about 15 people gathered and worshipped in the presence of the Holy Spirit. I didn’t know what it would look like, but I felt the need to fill up my living room for Him. By six o’clock, everybody who was supposed to be there, was, praising the Lord in truth and joy. It could have been awkward because I’ve never held anything like that before but two of our awesome Young Life leaders, Jess and Scott, lead it as a time of song and prayer and just being with our sweet Savior. People read scripture and talked about what was on their hearts and as a community, we shared life. It was beautiful, it was revolutionary, it was like the days of old. And that’s why I’ve beaten it. Why we are conquering something bigger than a mass in my body. We are conquering death.

2) Labor to protect, rehabilitate, and conserve the environment

This is admittedly a week point in my faith, but I know it is a very important topic to the Lord. In Genesis, man was given the task of cultivating the earth. We’ve made a mess of things but we are called to hope for change and then work to fight for that change. Just type in ‘international wildlife preservation’ on google and a whole host of websites such as WWF will pop up. That should get you started.

3) Recognize the inherent dignity of every human being

“Let Us make man in Our image” (Genesis 1:26). That’s ALL of us; not just the saved. That’s the coworker who annoys you and the homeless person on the street. That’s the Afghan girl mutilated by the Taliban and the Taliban members who did it. Jesus said to let this world know Him by our (believers’) love. The first part of that is dignifying every human with respected personhood.

4) Pray

I don’t pray for healing that often but I do pray for the glory of God to overshadow Death. I pray for people to die well. I pray for salvation out of the ashes and sackcloth of dying.

5) Do not be afraid of Death

Oh, little Lamb, you are the beloved of God. When you pass, you will see him and become like him because you will see him face to face (cf. 1 John 3:2). If you are a believer, to die truly is gain.

6) Die well

Ever since our birth, the biological clock has been ticking for our inevitable deaths. We are all dying all the time. So choose your life carefully and choose to die well. If that means to pray, pray. If that means to give, give. And if that means to go, go. We in the West live a cushy lifestyle but we could be filling up what is lacking Christ’s afflictions. We can suffer for Christ in serving him and thus use our time wisely. I’m still praying about what this means for me, personally, and I pray that you would, too.

“’Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it’” (Matthew 16:24-25 NASB)

“When Christ calls a man, he bids him come and die.”

Deitrich Bonhoeffer

I know that this is a heavy blog post. But I truly feel like death is something the Church needs to talk about more openly instead of treating it like some great big monster we keep stuffed in the closet with the ancient relics. There is a real curse over our land, our world, but God has the ability to reverse it: “…but our God turned the curse into a blessing” (Nehemiah 13:2 HCSB). So won’t you come along, dearly beloved; take his hand and come along into the fullness of life.

The Loneliest Night, Or, Collateral Beauty

I walked into my main anesthetist’s office after signing my advance directive will. I was 18 and strong. Up until this point I had virtually excelled at all that I had put my hand to: sports, school, writing, instruments. I was untouchable. “We’re going to insert a catheter bolus into your spine to provide a nerve block for the section of your abdomen that will be affected…but I do have to tell you: it doesn’t always work…it’s a bit of a crapshoot whether we get it in the right way at the right angle.” He then made a joke and told me to enjoy my weekend before the operation. ‘No problem,’ I thought, ‘they’re professionals; they do this all the time; they’ll get it in right.’ Not even considering the trauma that a puncture to your spine with a very large needle is in itself (shout out to all the moms out there who do it while giving birth; y’all are the real MVPs).

Four days later, I slowly wake up with the intuitive knowledge that the surgery was a success and the massive tumor inside my pancreas was gone. I felt a sensation of fullness in my abdomen. I had a tube coming out of my nose that didn’t bother me. The two nurses or interns or whoever they were in scrubs that had been waiting for me to wake up made a joke that it’s contents looked like… excrement. And, up until a few months ago while watching E.R., I believed them and told many the avid listener that they siphoned poop through my nose! (For reference, it was a tube to drain the contents of my stomach). Then I noticed the pain. There was pain. I tugged on whoever was around to ask for something to alleviate the pain.

My next memory was getting wheeled past a waiting room in which my darling younger sister, 13 at the time, timid as a mouse, was red-faced, quietly sobbing. If I wasn’t in so much debilitating pain and attached to so many tubes, I would have run up to her to hold her and tell her it was all alright. We’re like Katniss and Prim, us. Then, darkness.

It was sometime early in the morning when I woke up, the twilight streaming through one window and the dim hall lights streaming through the other. This passionate, fiery Italian woman from New Jersey came in as if she was waiting for me to regain consciousness. I forgot her name due to all the drugs, but I’ve always thought of her as Theresa, promising to name of my five daughters after her. She checked my vitals and bumped the hospital bed. I groaned and began crying, I believe, and said to NEVER do that again. My whole abdomen tensed up and caused the most excruciating pain I’d ever experienced up until that point. She said it shouldn’t have hurt that badly so she called my pain team who happened to be in surgery. We waited. Theresa had the years of knowledge to know that I didn’t want her to talk to me but that I did want her in the room.

Finally the pain team came and ran a ridiculously simple test to see if the catheter bolus had worked. They put a piece of ice on my side and asked if I could feel anything. “Yes,” I managed to get out. With urgency, one looked at the other and said, “She shouldn’t be able to feel that.” The rolled me over to both sides (for whatever dumb reason) to check the injection site and I think decided to just take it out. I would get my pain meds solely from my IV’s, whatever that meant for me and my pain. They left.

One, two, three, four, five. Five breathes per minute. That’s all I could manage due to the pain. Theresa came in and calmly but urgently said, “Anna, you’re down to five breathes a minute; I need you to breathe.” I thought that meant I was dying (thanks E.R. and Grey’s for teaching me about the wonders of intubation since) and I was more than okay with that if it meant the pain would stop. Theresa didn’t leave my side for a while after that and asked if she could play some music for me on her phone. The Lord giveth songs (Pandora) in the night (Job 35:10). I remember thinking that this vivacious, Italian woman was my guardian angel, fittingly since I’m obsessed with The Godfather. Darkness.

That night was the loneliest and most challenging and painful night of my life.

Throughout the rest of my hospital stay, I would allow NO ONE near my bed for fear that they would bump into it causing my abdomen to tense up and produce ungodly pain. I felt like a glass figurine in Laura Wingfield’s menagerie¹. And since that night five years ago, I haven’t stopped.

About a year after that fateful night, I was diagnosed with Bipolar I disorder (and ADHD).  I have been in and out of Virginia Tech for five years (managing straight A’s for all the classes I could manage to finish with my mental health intact). I had two short stints at Regent and TCC to see if being closer to home would help. It didn’t. I’ve held part time jobs that I’ve had to fairly quickly quit due to mania, depression, psychosis or a combination of the three. I have tried living with friends and living on my own. I spent a glorious (read horrifying) week in a psych ward but it’s all come to nothing as I have ended up living with my dad for the better part of these past five years.

I feel like an invalid trapped in my own body and mind. Having never before struggled with chronic anxiety, I am now struggling to leave the house. I study formal Arabic 2-4 hours a day and usually do so at a desk in my room. Now, I’m too nervous to leave my bed for more than a trip to the bathroom or to get a water bottle, so I’ve moved all my books to my bed.

I fear that my soul is slowly dying… that I am turning into Laura Wingfield herself. I don’t know what I did to deserve this. I wanted to be a missionary in Palestine for crying out loud. ‘Hello, God, not many foreign Christians want to be sent there and I am BEGGING you to, what’s up with all this death and illness?’ I’m reading a book about a man who suffered a stroke that resulted in locked-in syndrome, a process in which you can make only the slightest of movements, if you are lucky. This man communicated (and wrote the entire book²) by blinking his left eyelid. In one chapter, his wife calls on the phone, “’Are you there, Jean-Do?’ she asks anxiously over the air. And I have to admit that at times I do not know anymore” (The Diving Bell and the Butterfly 1997).

As a recovering Pentecostal, I say this with severe restraint and hesitancy. But through it all, I’ve heard a still, small voice in my heart saying, “You will be okay. It’s gonna be okay.” That’s it. That’s my marvelous message from the Magnificent above.

But as I look around, I am reminded of a movie called Collateral Beauty. Here’s one of my favorite scenes as Love personified talks to roaming, embittered man who lost his young daughter to brain cancer. Here’s an excerpt from Her speech:

“No…I’m in all of it. I’m the darkness and the light. I’m the sunshine and the storm. Yes, you’re right, I was there is her laugh, but I’m also here now in your pain. I’m the reason for everything. I am the only Why? Don’t try and live without me, Howard” (Collateral Beauty 2016).

As I feel like my body hasn’t stopped breaking since the surgeon’s initial incision so many years ago, I muse at this idea of collateral beauty and love being the reason that makes all the pain, the suffering, the breaking, worth it.

I have been to the brink of death and back numerous times (via surgery and suicidal ideation) and I can confirm, or at least posit, that Love is the only reason it’s all worth it. “We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him” (1 John 4:16 NASB).

*One last thought, if you too feel like you are breaking, mentally, physically, emotionally, spiritually, remember the words of Paul in 2 Corinthians 4:7-18. My memory verse right now is 1 John 2:8b: “…because the darkness is passing away and the true Light is already shining” (NASB). After I recite, my spirit sometimes wells up within me and exclaims, “Oh, God, your Light is inside me; break me if you must that I may see your Light!”

**To those of you who feel as though you are breaking, read the passage I mentioned about and here me say, “It’s going to be okay.” To you who aren’t in a season of breaking, be the collateral beauty in the life of someone whose is. I mentioned a few ways to help people in pain in a recent post.

¹ The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams

² The Diving Bell and the Butterfly by Jean-Dominique Bauby (read this with a box of tissues on hand