I've been feeling out of sorts lately; a little overwhelmed and anxious.  Here are some symptoms that I've had this week:

I've had way more energy.  I've gotten "snappy" when I've been distracted or interrupted from my work.  Little things have bothered me.  I've felt like I could cry for no reason.  I've been critical of others.  I've felt sorry for myself and I've been fearful of the future.

I'm not always the first to realize what's going on but Thank God it doesn't take me months to realize it like before.  So on Tuesday, I came home from work, went on a run with Anna and told her that I was NOT allowed to look at or do any work for the rest of the day.  I took the rest of the evening to be present and evaluate the past few weeks.

The biggest thing that I realized I had stopped doing was getting up at having my quiet time with the Lord.  It has been sporadic over the summer but for the past few weeks has been non...

"You cannot Spiritually outgrow your Emotional Maturity"

 - Kim Honeycutt

I was chatting with my friend and Psychotherapist, Kim Honeycutt, the other day.  She is going to be speaking again at this year's Empowerment Tour and she dropped this little nugget of truth on me and blew my mind wide open.

I ruminated on it all day and here are my thoughts: 

Constantly being offended and taking things personally is a sign of emotional immaturity. Blaming others and making assumptions about what someone said/did and allowing that assumption to bring on anxiety is a sign of emotional immaturity. The emotionally immature Christian can read the Bible front to back and church it up every Sunday but will never be able to spiritually outgrow where they are emotionally.  Saying “emotionally immature” sounds harsh but you don’t know what you don’t know. So no judgements. I’ve been there. (Still am on a lot of things, I’m sure!)

Before...

I remember the day I got the diagnoses. “You have bipolar disorder, depression and anxiety.”  I actually felt better hearing it.  She explained what those were and i thought “Phew! I’m actually NOT crazy!”  This thing has a name. Now we can do something about it.

The medication stabled me out for the most part. But there were times, that the antipsychotics made me feel like a stranger looking from the outside. There were times i couldn’t speak either bc the words came out like i was drunk or i was too scared they would. I was in at least 5 fender benders/wrecks during that time.  And unfortunately, it didn’t ward off all manic phases.

But let me tell you about an even better day: the day the bipolar, the depression and the anxiety left me. It was the morning after days of feeling manic. The depression hit hard. I had overslept, missed a meeting and my daughter had gotten herself up and fixed herself...