A Cancer Survivor With Bipolar At A Rock Show

I wasn’t suicidal, per se, but I had definitely and altogether lost my will to live. I sat down on a flimsy deck chair outside Toast in Norfolk around 10:30pm. My boyfriend, Mikey, and his roommate/bestie were still listening to the rock band play. I whispered (shouted in his ear) to Mikey that I wasn’t feeling well and was going to go sit down. This was true, but not in the physical sense. I was sobbing internally, attempting to hold it together (I was in public, you know). I couldn’t stand it anymore.

What I couldn’t stand was the overwhelming feeling of suffering and sorrow that I felt with each intoxicated face that passed before me. Don’t get me wrong; no one was walking around with a big sign on their head that said, ‘I’M IN PAIN,’ but I knew it to be true because to live is to suffer.

I don’t say that to be dark or cynical. It’s just the sum of the empirical data I have compiled over the course of my 24 years on this lonely planet.

I finally got home and made it to the refuge of my room with a candle still lit (oops…). I texted Mikey, ‘I haven’t stopped shaking all day.’ I should have known that going to a festival of concerts with all the noise and lights and people was not good for me; I could have told you that to be true beforehand. But I wasn’t thinking and I decided to go anyways.

You see, episodes of bipolar disorder have triggers. Unique to the individual, some of mine happen to be bright lights, loud noises, and, most especially, crowds.

My mind keeps torturing me with the replaying of a scene from tonight over and over. I was sitting by the door to the bar when a young man, who looked to be around my age (24), walked outside into the chilly March air dressed quite nicely. He was casually slipping on a beanie that covered up the fact that he was completely bald. I wondered if he was in the middle of chemo or had alopecia. Either way, it was the straw that broke this camel’s back. I couldn’t conceive of him suffering in any way and me not being there to help him.

Was I experiencing a weird form of survivor’s guilt? That my portion of pain was removed with clear margins with one horrific, 8-hour surgery rather than months of agonizing chemo? ‘Anna, stop. You’re thinking too much into this,’ I thought. Then I had the sobering realization that every single person at this festival had pain and a story and that I couldn’t take their pain for them no matter how badly I wanted to.

This was not a coherent post, and it doesn’t really have a point (I’ll tell you if I figure it out ;)). But I’ll just leave you with a quote and a thought, neither of which are mine originally, that offer some sort of response to this train wreck of a blog post.

First, a quote by Mr. Henri Nouwen: “Joy and sadness are born at the same time, both arising from such deep places in your heart that you can’t find words to capture your complex experience. But this intimate experience in which every bit of life is touched by a bit of death can point us beyond the limits of our existence (Out of Solitude 277).”

In her seminal work, The Crucifixion: Understanding the Death of Jesus Christ, Fleming Rutledge makes a recurring point that ends with the book in a crescendo: the work of Jesus Christ on the cross will not only right every wrong on the Last Day, but will erase any memory of it.

Oh, Lord, I pray that’s true.

Til We Have Faces

Recently, my friend posted a facebook status asking, “What makes a godly woman?” Normally, I stick to only commenting on how cute my friends’ babies are on the internet while avoiding anything that could be even slightly divisive. But, for some reason, I commented this amidst the myriad of other opinions: “Have you ever read Til We Have Faces by CS Lewis? I think it’s a lot like that. The premise of our sanctification being connected to gaining our “faces” or becoming more “real” as humans. A godly woman is a “real” human being in integrity and holiness and earthiness as much as heavenliness.” Thankfully this comment didn’t seem to offend anyone since I hate confrontation, even if it be virtual.

My (and, I believe, my dear friend Karilyn’s favorite parts of the book is a consummate quote by a young girl sacrificed to the gods but found months later alive and well). “The sweetest thing in all my life has been the longing—to reach the Mountain, to find the place where all the beauty came from—my country, the place where I ought to have been born. Do you think it all meant nothing, all the longing? The longing for home? For indeed it now feels not like going, but like going back” (C.S. Lewis Til We Have Faces).

In the Gospels, Jesus explains that his disciples don’t fast when he is with them, but will fast when he leaves in mourning and longing for him. To gain greater intimacy with their Messiah, millions of people willingly fast various things (particularly during Lent) to increase intimacy with their Savior. That “longing to reach the Mountain…[our] country, the place where [we] ought to have been born.”

Today in my bible study on Esther, we focused on Joel 2:12-17 and I went further to include Isaiah 58:6-12. All about true fasting (from and Old Testament perspective, granted). These Scriptures espouse the idea that in our abstinence should increase our almsgiving. So, if you’re fasting food, give food to those without, etc.. I’m fasting sacred and secular noise (for most parts of the day) so I have in turn been giving worship CDs and books to various people that I know. Verse 13 in the Joel passage particularly caught my eye, “‘And rend your heart and not your garments.’ Now return to the LORD your God, for he is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger, abounding in lovingkindness, and relenting of evil” (Joel 2:13 NASB)

Jesus continually promised that to lose your life is to truly find it. In our intentional fasting and almsgiving, we are giving away and finding ourselves, all at the same time. Just like Psyche’s “death” and longing for the “true country,” her “true face” we long for the Promised Land found within the heart of Christ. The way we get there is not by increase but by decrease. That is why Lent is so important, for “He must increase, but I must decrease” (John 3:30 NASB). In losing our lives with Christ, we truly gain our faces and become real human beings.

Lent: Screaming For Mercy

I was recently doing a bible study where the author said something along the lines of this: the Israelites waited in rebellion to cry out to God until the last second, until they were practically “screaming for mercy¹.” That phrase rolled around in my head for a while eventually linking itself to the only time in my life where I physically screamed out for God’s mercy.

I have been privileged to have not had to experience much physical pain in this life, but the physical pain I have experienced has been profound. I remember the exact moment I knew the Holy Spirit (along with Father God and Jesus) was real.

The normal protocol for a Whipple surgery is ten days in the ICU/hospital post-op. Being young and rambunctious, my surgical oncologist said it would be okay to double my tube-feeding intake in half the time so I could leave one day early.

The first night home was bliss after getting to shower (I had had one awkward sponge bath during my nine day hospital stay) and trying to eat some solid food (Qdoba). But the next day after the nurse had visited to show me how to use my feeding tube, I went for a walk with my dad. My two best friends had gotten to my house during the course of the walk and were waiting for me to get home. I was walking in between cars in the drive-way when I noticed a strange sensation of fullness in my upper abdomen. A pit. I immediately went inside and went to the bathroom. What followed was an hour of vomiting in which I literally screamed out in pain, even with my friends sitting in the other room. I didn’t care; I was in the worst pain of my life. The reason it hurt so bad was because I had a newly healing scar cut all the way across my abdomen and each contraction of my stomach brought a new wave of agony. I remember blood and other substances coming out of my drainage and feeding tube holes. It got so loud that my dad had to gently suggest that my friends leave while he called my surgeon. I had locked the door so I was completely alone. Finally, I said, “Jesus, if you’re real, take this pain away.” My sweet, little Pentacostal heart wishes that I could say the pain ceased immediately. No, that would take another 45 minutes. But instantly I felt something strengthen my spirit so I could endure the pain without screaming. “Take her off the feeding tube completely,” my surgeon said. I had screamed out for mercy and the Lord came with his mercies new every morning.

The truth is, all of us are in agony in some way and are screaming internally, maybe even physically, for the mercy of God: and we don’t deserve it. This Lenten season, we get to observe many scenes in the Stations of the Cross. In Gethsemane, Jesus pleaded for a merciful alternative to the cross. His loving Father denied him. The one God-Man who actually did deserve mercy received it not.

As you sojourn through this 40 day wilderness, remember who you are and who you are not, and remember who Jesus is and who Jesus is not. We’re the ones that deserved the degrading death on a cross, the one Jesus screamed (metaphorically) out to not have to endure. Yet we get the salvation. Meditate on the great exchange and the unrelenting kindness of God towards us who are sinners. Scream out for mercy and I believe you will be met by nail-pierced hands whose Owner says, “Shalom.”

“Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows…” (Isaiah 53:4a ESV).

¹Seamless by Angie Smith

Lent

If you have read any of my recent blog posts, it’s no secret that for the past few months I’ve struggled with an untraceable anxiety. As part of my own self-medication, I clung to devotionals, books about God, the Holy Scripture, and worship music as my means of getting by (since I gave up alcohol and Adderall). Wow, I must seem really holy. But the truth is I was using God for what he could give me, namely comfort and peace, and he graciously did so. But the Lord of the Universe is not to be used. I realized my devotion to him was more for my sake than for his.

I desperately made plans so that at no point would I be alone, but when the inevitable lonesomeness occurred, I always had a book in my hand or worship music or a Christian podcast playing. Hollow love. Self-seeking love. I’ve come so far giving up Adderall and alcohol and then the Lord revealed that I was still addicted to “devotional noise.” Simply put, I never wanted to feel alone. I especially didn’t want to quiet my soul enough so I could “hear” God’s Holy Spirit since the last time I tried that I ended up hospitalized and diagnosed with “psychosis.”

I had completely blocked up my spiritual eyes and ears to be immune to hearing God so I wouldn’t just be put on more medication.

But as this Lenten (lit. “springtime”) season approached, I felt challenged to place myself in silence intentionally throughout the day. Not give up my bible or my devotional books, not give up fellowship with my friends and mentors, but allow space for God to speak again. And allow him to change the motive of my heart in all the aforementioned practices.

So, I’m aiming to give him 30 minutes of solitude and silence a day. It can be broken up into various increments, but just honor him with my whole self and nothing but myself.

I also have two unrelated thoughts that have been rolling around in my head:

2)   In a devotional I’m doing, we talked about Simon of Cyrene being recruited to help carry Jesus’ cross and how we need friends and mentors in our lives to help carry our fatal crosses. One thing I just could not get out of my head was that there had to be Jesus’ blood on the cross already when Simon came into the picture. Did it get on his shirt? Maybe love is bloody and messy, just as I’m sure the Via Dolorosa was bloody and messy from Jesus’ severely beaten body. But what do we do? Do we roll up our sleeves and help carry the crosses of others, or do we get a pail of water to wash the blood out of our shirt and rinse the street of any trace of suffering?

Shattered & Hollow

One of the interesting things about mental illness is the questions it causes us to ask ourselves. I’ve been diagnosed Bipolar I for 5 years so I’ve experienced quite a lot in the realm of emotions, but there are two, or rather one and a nonentity, that have always confounded me. The lack of emotion, or emptiness, and anxiety.

The way I describe bipolar depression to people is the lack of any feeling at all, it’s not tearful sadness, it’s a vast wasteland of nothingness. When I experience it, I, much like Muslims with their art, experience a horror vacui, or, fear of emptiness (I’m currently reading a book on Muslim art and architecture so I thought I’d throw that in there ;)). I thought nothing could be more like hell than the day-pre-diagnosis-that I laid in the chapel of an empty church crying out to feel God, to feel anything, and felt nothing. I will never forget the stained glass of that tiny chapel.

The other emotion that stupefies me is anxiety. I’m not talking about the feelings of being worried over a test or whether the girl you like will say yes to going on a date with you. Circumstantial anxiety. I’m talking about the clenched stomach, fast heart rate, sweaty palms, absolutely-no-reason-for-it-at-all clinical anxiety. I went through months of gut-wrenching days and nights, drinking myself under a table, before I finally asked my psychiatrist for a pill. The Klonopin helps, it just makes me run into things (lack of orientation is a side effect). When I was deep in the throes of anxiety, I begged God to take it away, even to give me the abyssal emptiness instead. I didn’t care, I just didn’t want to feel like I was falling at every moment.

Tonight, I sit as the rain gently falls on my windows and my lavender candle crackles in the background. Oh, and the pink noise, my infamous comrade in combatting sleepless nights. There is a collection of Hemingway short stories that I’m working my way through (although I particularly savor his writing and never want it to end, the conclusion of A Farewell To Arms left me gasping for breath). And I feel it. Not the anxiety. The emptiness I so prayed for. I’ve been staring at the bookcase across from my bed for an hour and now I wonder: was this a good wish?

*The title of this blog post comes from a lyric from a First Aid Kit Song called Shattered & Hollow