I'm frustrated. My last post was entitled "Bliss" - and I still can't fully explain how happy I've been here at OSH. Bliss is only a small part of how I've felt. And yet Bipolar Disorder seems to have no regard for the happy circumstances of my life.
I'm slipping slowly... I can feel my mood shifting like sand beneath my feet. My sleep patterns are changing, one of my first hints that things are changing for me. I have no reason to be sad, and yet here I am. I zone out at random points in the day, numb to my surroundings. I find it increasingly harder to be present to the immediate moment.
This depression phase is different from any other I've experienced. I've always had a circumstantial reason that I could point to as the source of my sadness. Not this time. This time, literally every aspect of life is so, so good. And so frustration mounts as I realize rather clearly that my emotions don't make sense based on my reality.
Into your hands, O God, I commend my spirit.
Every night at Compline (night prayer) I sing the words above. And somehow, though I've prayed them for years, they've taken new meaning in this season. Because this season feels so like falling. My very soul seems to wither into a void I can't name. It feels like giving up, and giving in.
Into your hands, O God, I commend my spirit.
They are the last words of Jesus on the cross. The last words he spoke as he gave up his spirit to the God who saw him crucified. I imagine the pain, the abandonment, the kind of hurt that bypasses physicality and goes to the level of the soul. I imagine that it felt like falling. Like withering away. Like giving up, giving in.
Into your hands, O God, I commend my spirit.
I've been reflecting on these words of Christ from the cross. And the fact that Christ says to take up our own crosses. The way of the cross is a way of pain. Heartbreak. Suffering. It's so different from the prosperity gospel for which we so often confuse Christianity. I have so desired to be "cured" and see my Bipolar Disorder evaporate like the morning dew now that dawn has broken on my circumstances. And yet here I am. Falling. Withering. Giving up, giving in.
Into your hands, O God, I commend my spirit.
I've prayed this every night with the sisters in the week I've been out of quarantine. And now, as I pray it through the frame of a mood swing, I can't help but pray it with the yearning that I believe Christ prayed it with on the cross. For it is a cry for wholeness. For restoration. For peace. But those things only came to Christ through the pain of the cross. And so I take up my own cross, and shoulder the weight of depression knowing that I don't bear it alone.
Into your hands, O God, I commend my spirit.
Is it possible, God, to fall upward to heaven? As I feel my soul wither, will I see the flowering of new life? If I give up, give in, will I find wholeness? Find peace?
Into your hands, O God, I commend my spirit.
Yes, this phase is a falling. A drastic shift in momentum. A cascade, a freefall into freedom. Yes, my soul is withering. So that it is no longer me who lives, but Christ who lives in me. Yes, it is a giving up, a giving in, a failing that isn’t. And in the aridity of my soul, I will eventually give way to bursts of living flames of love.
Into your hands, O God, I commend my spirit.