We Are Once In A Lifetime

I wish I had the answers now.  I wish I could know that it's going to be okay.  But I don't know.  I don't know what God has in store.  And I wish I could tell my fiance what it was.  He's looking to me for answers that I don't have.  All I can do is trust that God will make the answer clear to us soon, either way it has to be.

This has been a rough week.  A lot of distance, a lot of deep conversation.  A lot of talking about God.  Because I came clean to my fiance the other night that I see the major difference, our motivation in life, our faith, is going to be an issue.  It already is.  I've been torn between him and God and I can't continue to do it because it is tearing me apart.

He knows.  He knows the truth of God.  But he needs to take that step to salvation.  Today we had another long back and forth.  I asked him if he could just pray tonight and if nothing was holding him back, that he just ask for God's grace.  Surprisingly he said he would be up for going to church tomorrow.  So I think we are going to do that.  But really, we have to pull the band-aid off soon.  We have to make a decision if we are going to go on or not.  All I know is that this situation has really scarred us, has defeated us, has exhausted us.  We love each other and don't want to say goodbye to what we've built together.  But I can no longer be miserable.  And really, it means either he gets saved and decides he wants to live for God or we break up.

I keep thinking of all the people I'm going to disappoint if we break up.  In no way obviously would that be a reason for us to stay together.  I need to do what I need to do for myself and most importantly God.  But if God could just touch him and reach him in a way only He can, I could jump full on into this relationship and plan the wedding I want.  And be with the man I love who loves God.  But this only if it's God's will.  If not, I know He something better ahead.  I just wish I didn't have to rip apart so many people's hearts in the process, including ours.

Halfway There

So without getting too specific, last night I told my fiance that I was scared and having second thoughts about what we are doing.  That I was desperately afraid that we are making a mistake.

He wasn't quite on the same page.  While he recognized that there were some things that could be better, he told me he believed the positives outweighed the negatives.  I think I made it pretty clear I just wasn't feeling that lately.  I mean, I've been a royal mess.  So he's out of town this week and we decided that we would just not talk for the next few days to clear our heads.  I cried.  I cried a lot.  He left around 7:30 and I went straight to bed and begged that something better would come from this.  Because I love him, I do.  And I would miss him so much.  And when he left he told me that although he would disappointed, he wouldn't want me to not be happy.  And that's exactly what I am.

Tomorrow I'm going to my parents and considering telling them that we are going through a rough patch and that there is a chance that it might not work.  Just so they have a little warning.  And so my mom just stops bugging me about this dreadful wedding.  Just lay it all out there.  I'm just so tired of having a crumbling wall up around them.

So this is my chance.  This is my chance to hear God's whisper of what to do next.  I think there's only option - it's my way out.  It's what I've wanted, right?  God, WHY IS THIS SO HARD? Please give me a break, please.  I know I don't deserve it because I straight up defied you that night 5.5 years ago.  And never fixed it.  But PLEASE, I beg you, HELP ME.  Give me strength to stand up for you because I have become so weak and defeated these last few years.  I know You don't want me to be this miserable and I know I have to stop hiding.  But why do I feel like I'm so alone?  I need You, I need You.  Please take this from me, TAKE IT!

"I can feel you breathing
I can feel you leading
More than just a feeling

I can you reaching
Pushing through the ceiling
Till the final healing
Everything completing

With every heartbeat
All of my blood bleeds
Running inside me
I'm looking for you"

I Am Restless

I want to jump out of my skin tonight.  I want to scream.  I want to run away forever and just start over without the staring eyes, the questions, the guilt that I'm battling with and horribly losing to.

I'm never going to be happy until I am free to live for God, for what He wants in my life.  But I'm so damn weak that I can't say a sentence that could fix it all for me.  That could get my life right.  What am I afraid of?

Hurting him and messing up his life.
Starting over without him.
Breaking the news to everyone, especially my mom.

But what's worse?  All of that or feeling this overwhelming sadness.  I'm crippling myself.  I can't breathe.  I feel like I'm lying to the world.  No, I'm not excited or happy about this wedding.  The thought of continuing on with it gives me massive anxiety.

And the thing is, I know  I KNOW, God will provide for me and bless me when I re-commit my life to Him.  So why can't I do it?  Why can't I just take that step?

If It Doesn't Break Your Heart It Isn't Love

So I failed.  Failed miserably.  My counselor gave me some advice that I think I'm going to take tonight.  Meanwhile, I had a good conversation with my fiance, one that makes me hopeful that somehow, someway he will be saved by the grace of God and we can be happy and dance like freaks at our wedding.  For now, I listen with hopeful and regretful tears to the amazing Switchfoot.  They really never cease to amaze me.

"I'll run until my heart caves in but You haven't lost me yet."

September 17, 2011

I've decided, and I pray so hard that I stick to it, that this Saturday is my day.  The day I get my life straight.  The day I do something about the thing that's been plaguing me for the last 5.5 years.

Because, you see, I started this blog and I started my counseling out as a way to discuss my 'family pressures' or my 'wedding stress', when both are just symptoms of my main problem: I can't go through marrying my fiance.

In my first blog post, I made it sound like I wasn't so sure about the whole unequally yoked rule, sin, whatever you want to call it.  I was hoping I could convince myself and everyone else that I wasn't making a bad decision.  But I'm pretty sure the Holy Spirit was begging me, pleading me to really think about what I was doing.  So much so that I've been just a disaster the last couple weeks, living in a fog and crying constantly.  I've lost myself along the way, I've lost the peace inside of me that I once had down so well.  I went to church a couple weeks ago and the sermon was about ridding yourself of things in life that prohibit you from being closer to God.  And with my fiance sitting right next to me, I knew it was him.  It was him and my guilt over being with him that was just tearing me apart.

Now, some reading this might think I'm a heartless wench for doing this to him.  For stringing him along, for hiding it.  Trust me, I've been on the outside looking in at some of these situations wondering 'how the heck can that person call off a wedding a week before?', 'Why did it take them so long to end their relationship?', 'How did they let it get that far?'  I can't explain it.  The constant pushing it away, the constant hoping and praying it would get better, hoping that my misery wasn't all in vain.  Until one day you just wake up and realize that you are so far deep, and so far lost, and can't go on living like there is nothing wrong.  I'm tired of putting on the happy face when I'm anything but.  I love my fiance so much.  And most of my sadness and distress is what I will be doing to him.  Because, honestly, I know I'll be okay.  I know God will provide for me.  But I don't know about him.

But ultimately, I have to do what's right by me and, most importantly, God.  I know He has greater plans for me that I just can't see right now.  And if He wants my fiance as one of His chosen, He'll break his heart down.  But if nothing significantly changes by Saturday, I'm moving forward with my decision to end this engagement.  Please pray for me because this will probably be one of the hardest things I've had to do.

Triggers at Their Best

Well, the day before my next counselor appointment was the perfect example of triggers to my anxiety/depression.

I went my parents house to eat today with my fiance.  And it's just coming at me from all sides.  My fiance just does things that doesn't bother me perse but they bother me because of how it looks to my family.  He actually took his phone out at the fricking dinner table to check his fantasy baseball scores while my mom is on another soapbox about the government.  Now, I admit I pretty much tune out what she says, but don't take your phone out.  I actually pushed his hand which everyone saw and laughed about but still, I was so pissed.

Then my mom starts on me "So are you going to decided when your shower is going to be or are you going to wait long enough so you can't find a place to have it anymore?"  Mind you, my wedding is 14 months away which would make my shower a year off.  She acting like its the end of the world.  I'm sorry, I work, I have other things going on right now - why don't you call some places and find out for me?  Then she's pestering me about who's standing up in my wedding and how I have to tell my cousin in Italy right away so that she knows...AGAIN, it's 14 months away!  Gosh, if I'm going to have to deal with this for the next year, I'm going to go loco.

So what do I do?  Come home and start crying.  I'm so tired of feeling like this.  But I'll have plenty to cover in my session tomorrow.

Why Am I 5?

Does anxiety cause my irrational fear of thunderstorms?  Because I'm 28 years old and freaked out by the sound of thunder and sight of lightening.  It's slightly ridiculous.  Is that a trigger?  I don't know, it doesn't trigger my normal anxiety thoughts.  But it triggers me freaking out in my dark, dank basement or hiding under the covers so I won't see the flashes of lightening or calling my fiance in the middle of the night because I'm freaked the hell out.

Screw you, thunderstorms.

The Song That Almost Made Me Cry Today

My eyes are open wide

And by the way, I made it

Through the day

I watched the world outside

By the way, I'm leaving out

Today

I just saw Hayley's comet shooting

Said why you always running in place?

Even the man in the mood disappeared

Somewhere in the stratosphere

Tell my mother,

Tell my father

I've done the best I can

To make them realize

This is my life

I hope they understand

I'm not angry, I'm just saying...

Sometimes goodbye

Is a second chance.

Please don't cry one tear for me

I'm not afraid of what I have to say

This is my one and only voice

So listen close, it's only for today

Here's my chance.

This is my chance.

~Shinedown's "Second Chance"

Triggers

So as my 'About Me' says, I just started counseling and I got the idea to post about somewhat annonymously (except for what I'm sure is the privacy intrusion that is search by email but whatever).  This is my life, I've kept it inside for this long.  If someone I know finds it, so be it.

So here's a brief introduction to me, straight to the point:  I'm a Christian.  I'm engaged to a non-Christian.  I have an enormous overbearing family.  And my counselor has diagnosed me tonight as having mild depression and anxiety.

Let me clarify about my fiance - he's not non-Christian in the sense where he's a practicing Buddhist or something like that.  He may identify in "religion" as Christian but he is not saved, born again, or whatever you want to call it.  I could get into this in detail but I'll pass.  I rehashed the Christian/non-Christian unequally yoked debate in my mind over and over.  Go ahead and call  me out on it.  I won't deny that it's considered "wrong" to some Christians and I'm outwardly defying God.  I may agree with those Christians.  I'm not doing it as a revolt - there's way more to the story...as there always is.

My counselor specifically pointed out tonight that a lot of my anxiety seems comes from wanting to please my family while, at the same time, wanting to not to want to please my family.  If that makes sense.  She said that next week she wants to talk about what triggers the anxiety that I have.  So I'll start this post out with the ones I already know and then I may pop in from time to time this week adding more as they comes up.

So triggers of my anxiety:

• Having family parties
• Having my fiance outwardly indicate that he doesn't enjoy/want to go to my family parties
• Having my fiance act in a way toward my family that I feel may put him in a bad light
• Having my mother call me out on something I'm doing because she views it as "bad" because she doesn't like to do it and, therefore, neither should I (i.e. text on my phone)
• Having family constantly ask about my wedding
• Having my mother make back handed comments to me without even realizing...particularly since she gets that same treatment all the time from her mother
• Hearing my mom lose her shit when something doesn't go her way.
• Hearing the women in my family talk about how disgusting certain people are, how bad the world is, gossiping, etc.

So that's all I can think of now.  I'll keep you posted as more come to mind this week.  It's funny because I made a connection tonight in my brain that I hadn't made before.  I'll keep it to myself for now, maybe share with my counselor next week to see what she thinks.  But I felt a lot better about this session tonight than I did about my first time last week because I held my cool, didn't have a cry fest like last week.  And I felt more comfortable because I had been there before.  So, yeah, I have a little hope that talking about this finally to someone and to anyone else who happens across this blog helps.

-S