HAWMC Day #5 - Proud Pain

You have turned my mourning into dancing; You have put off my sackcloth and clothed me with gladness.  Psalm 30:11

Day #5 asks us to share our achievements in the last five years, so if you don't mind some bragging, here they are:

Became IOOV Presenter
Diagnosed with BPD &; Now In Recovery
Started Feminist Book Club & Feminist Bible Group
Won Two Art Awards
Granted Disability
Moved out of parent's house
Started Website
Three Years Hospital Free
Still Have Faith
Still Alive - Older Than Sylvia Plath

What I noticed in writing these achievements is that I am wonderfully resilient.  In order to celebrate still having faith, still being alive, having a business based in recovery is that I, of course, had to go through awful events to make those achievements note-worthy and I did.  The year I celebrated living past Sylvia Plath, I was barely hanging on, myself.  I experienced trauma, which started a cycle of hospitalizations that left me miserable.  I was in hell.  I shudder when I remember those times.

But somehow, I hung on.  I finally took my therapist's advice and took her DBT course twice.  I got very frustrated many times and eventually had to let go of some people and institutions that no longer served me, which was immensely hard, but still I pressed on.

The DBT helped and so did the new connections that I forced myself to make.  Slowly, I found my footing and became a person willing to share my recovery story to all who will listen, for my story is great and inspirational, even to myself.

My faith is bigger and deeper now.  I know that Godde is always with me and shares in my joy and especially my pain.  I take comfort from the fact that Jesus sometimes felt abandoned too.  (Some of his last words on the cross were, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?")  We both are people that feel emotions intensely and experience such empathy for others that sometimes it feels devastating and unbearable.  Jesus was not perfect - at least, not in society's eyes.  A man who feels deeply and speaks up for women breaks gender roles and rules.  A person who speaks truth to power is surely not the "perfect" citizen, according to the government.  We forget that and think that he is only about being "nice" to everybody, but there is so much more richness, and deepness, and emotion in Jesus' story and I appreciate that so much, being a person who is also rich and deep in emotion and passion, myself.

To write this post right after Easter seems fitting, for I certainly have experienced a great measure of redemption and even a rising up from the depression-dead.

 Hope is Real!

 It is real in the Easter story and it is real in my own story.  Blessed be!

Link Love:

Crunk Feminist Collective - Teachers Are Not Magical Negroes