Moving Forward?

 Hi, it's been awhile.

Obviously, with such a long break, there's a lot I could tell you about. I don't really know where or how to start, so I'll try to do a quick recap and then tell you how I'm currently doing.

Some of you may have gotten my 2020 Christmas letter. If you did, you know that 2020 was the best year I'd had in a long time. I finally ended up with some medication that helped me, and I felt, for the first time in many years, that I could get up every day and actually do the things I wanted to do. And I did a lot, for me.

I survived a falling out with a very close and dear friend, and drew healthy boundaries for myself moving forward in that relationship.

I stocked my fridge with drinks and spent the summer shuttling them to harvest workers on our farm.

I painted signs for a very local campground. 

I organized socially-distant Christmas caroling to relatives and neighbors.

I had a relatively clean house, and worked on organizing my pantry and kitchen, as well as having 2 friends/relatives help me paint the living area of the apartment.

I found a new therapist and started therapy again.

I worked through a lot of beliefs about injustice and false information and understanding different groups of people. 

I actually did things, and I wrote a Christmas letter about how happy I was to be able to actually do things, and then... I dunno. End of December, I just hit a wall.

Heads-up, the rest of this post is not really positive in tone, and if you need to avoid that, I totally understand. Honestly, same. If you want, you can skip to the bolded part at the end. You don't have to, but I'd consider it a personal favor. 😁

Anyway, around the end of December I started talking about how tired I was. I figured it was just the aftershock of a very complicated and emotionally intense year. 

And then I was feeling really off in January. I thought it was a reaction to something, and tried to figure out what was happening. I tried taking my medication at different times, and drinking coffee, eating more food, drinking more water, etc., but things didn't improve. I started being consistently dizzy, having a foggy mind, being clumsy and forgetful, getting consistent stomachaches and head pounding. I found out some of these things could be side effects of my medication.

I went to my doctor, and she agreed that I seemed to be reacting to my medication. We tried swapping out part of the doses for something else, and things went drastically downhill. In addition to the other symptoms, I started feeling weak in my hands and legs, only able to move for a few minutes at a time in between hours of napping. I lost all appetite, and wasn't eating enough to take almost any medication at all. And the symptoms persisted, so it probably wasn't a reaction?

Back to the doctor's with more questions. Back to my old meds, being extra careful to only take them after eating at least one full meal. Things started to lighten. It's been a slow process to eating more consistently, and being able to actually take medication, etc.

And here we are now. I don't think I'm reacting to any medications right now. I'm not feeling super weak or dizzy anymore. Just consistently heavy and tired, and small things exhaust me. I occasionally get a few days where I'll have some little bits of almost-manic energy in between slightly shorter naps, and then it's back to just sleeping and trying to take care of my animals and make sure I get enough to eat. Tonight I realized I should probably try to stay hydrated, too.

For the most part, I'm making things work. Imperfect Foods fits my grocery budget, so I'm getting that right now. Cooking is hard, though. 

I ask other people to help me, a lot. I try to pick the things that I genuinely need, and that won't be a big drain on others. Everyone knows that any plans with me are subject to change. My best friend can tell how I'm doing based on how much I can actually text her. (Sometimes I just don't have the physical energy to lift my hand/phone to text, or the emotional energy to carry on a conversation.)

Some things are extra hard, like Bailey's rabies shot that's coming up. I had to find someone to drive with me, to make sure I'll be safe, and to maybe take over the driving if my brain or body gives out. It's a lot to ask, especially when my family is busy because my great-uncle just died. I'm not going to the funeral, because I have no energy. So I asked my best friend to give up part of her spring break in a few weeks to help me take Bailey to the vet. 

I dunno, I'm just discouraged right now. I was just starting to think that maybe someday I can be more self-sufficient. And then it all disappeared, again.

I don't know what's wrong, although I have some theories to try. At least I can feel like I'm doing something about this, for now. I don't know if anything will help. I don't know if this is just the next thorn in my side and there's something else in me that needs to change or be broken away. It's hard to think like that, because I try so hard to believe that God cares about me intrinsically, not just about what I can produce. I want to question if God is intentionally putting me through multiple years of internal hell, multiple times, just to get a better product to use. I don't think He wants me to suffer, it's just part of life. But it's hard to believe that it doesn't have to be this way, I don't have to be sick, God could heal me... and then to still be unwell and non-functional.

I do still believe God is good, and He's doing something that's good for me. Maybe He is working on healing me, and it's just not what I expect. I choose not to believe that I'm going through this for the sole purpose of blessing someone else. Maybe that's selfish, but I refuse to believe that God would prioritize all His children except me, if that makes sense. I believe He cares about my intrinsic well-being, not just how much use He can get out of me. 

Maybe I need to not fight it. I mean, I would be willing to go through anything if it means others can know God and let Him heal them. At least, I want to be able to do that. That's what Jesus did for me. I just don't see it yet, and it's hard to believe God is using me, or is gonna use me, when I don't even have to energy to text the people closest to me. How in the world could I ever do anything that could help anyone, without things changing? And I don't know that they will. I don't know what God's gonna do, and I don't want to presume that I know His plan, or how it should go.

Anyway, that got pretty rambling. 

To sum up: I don't know what God's will for me is. I'm scared to miss it because I'm incapable of doing.... literally anything. But I only got a year's reprieve from one problem before having another one that incapacitates me, so I don't know if God ever wants me to be a functional human being. And if that's the case, what in the world does He want???

I have no clue.

If you did read all this, thank you. I mostly wrote it to try to stop internalizing some of these thoughts, so I know it probably wasn't a really fun read.

Resume reading here, if you skipped the negative stuff! 

I'm thinking of trying to get back into writing blog posts again, just to have an outlet and something to do. I'm really discouraged of feeling like I have absolutely no purpose. If you have any topics that generally interest you, I would love to research and write about them. If there's something you're curious about, and you don't have the time to look into it, let me know. I have nothing but time, and I love to discover things, whether it be people from history, theological topics, theories about random things, old literature... I just love finding out about stuff, so suggestions are very welcome! If you have more personal questions, about myself or more advice-style, those are welcome, too. I just don't wanna be narcissistic, or pretend to be an expert at life, lol.

I think that's all for now. Thanks, again, for reading.

~Dolly