Thursday, January 15, 2009

The Black Cloud or Freedom

4:49 PM by Christi Bowman

Similar to the arduous process of coming to terms with my alcoholism was coming to terms with the fact that I suffer from depression. Unfortunately I come from a "pull yourself up by your bootstraps" heritage and so I struggle with even allowing myself to hit rock bottom. I am a scrapper and will do just about anything to prove that I can make it, and all by myself if need be. I have never had the outward appearance of depression because I have never afforded myself the luxury. There was no way I was going to allow myself to lie in bed all day, let the house get messy, or the laundry get away from me; and I would be damned before I let anyone out of the house unkempt even at the very cost of my most precious relationships.

As I was coming out from under the bondage of my addictions I would often talk to my husband about the dark cloud. It was only at the point I began experiencing freedom from it that I became acquainted with it at all. In the beginning, as I struggled between freedom and bondage, I was always painfully aware of my close proximity to the cloud. I was cognizant of how it would lie in wait for me, and I knew the cloud scoffed at my efforts to overcome it as it patiently waited for me to invite it to smother me once more. It took every ounce of strength I had, most days, to not succumb to the darkness of my own personal hell.

And then there was sweet freedom, but an end is always a beginning; and so it was for me the beginning of another awakening.

I have written recently about my struggles to just be a mother. Those struggles are painful, especially without the ability to numb the pain with the "proper" mixture of self medication (alcohol, shopping, running, sex, caffeine, and sugar.) In all honesty, I struggle with all people especially those who I begin to develop a real relationship with. I have allowed myself the guilty pleasure of ignoring this growing problem under the guise of being an introvert. There were days, hours, or minutes when I would experience freedom from it and it was in the midst of that freedom that I discovered another dark cloud. The dark cloud of anger and anxiety.

I have watched my husband react a few times to the irrational fear of claustrophobia. One day I realized that I was having that same reaction, internally, to people in general and those closest to me specifically. Internally I was pushing, shoving, kicking and screaming, as I was driven to remove myself from every and any situation. Because of the need I have to "hold it together" I do not allow myself to act out on my internal impulses in an irrational way; instead I would find myself being outwardly cold and sarcastic as I pushed the people closest to me away with my body language.

One night just a few days ago I did not have the power to hold in the internal war of anxiety that rages inside of me and I snapped publicly. A friend was sharing a personal struggle at our house church and the kids had reached an excruciating level of noisiness. I looked at my friend and he was moving his mouth but no noise was coming out. I was so hyper focused on the children that my skin was crawling. Everything in me wanted to stand up in the middle of the room and scream while smashing things to make people feel as anxious as I did but I knew I could not do that and so I abruptly ended my families time there by jumping up, quickly gathering together my children, and with few words leaving the house.

One of the families who witnessed my behavior came to our house the following evening to share a meal with us. The wife and mother of that family is a social worker and we happen to share similar childhood struggles. As we talked she helped me come to terms with the fact that I experienced a panic attack that evening. I would never have allowed myself to call it that, but I found that the medical terminology brought some comfort along with an explanation.

I had been giving that conversation a lot of thought when I received an email from a dear friend asking for prayer for her husband who suffers from depression. As she described, in his words, the awful blackness he once again felt coming for him, the Lord opened up my eyes to my own struggles and I began to describe them to my friend as I empathized with her and her husband.

I ended my email to my friend and went to help my son in the bathroom, and God immediately opened my eyes to the dark cloud and how I act when I am under it and it is upon me. For no reason other than the existence of bondage and oppression as I walked into the bathroom I was immediately irritated. That irritation stirred up an unspeakable amount of anxiety and I was momentarily angry in my flesh because I needed to help my son. I wanted to decimate his spirit with callous words of irritation to gain some relief for my flesh; but because of God's grace in that very moment my eyes were opened to the fact that my fight is not against even my own flesh and blood but powers and principalities that hate me and want to destroy me. I purposed in that very moment to fight the urge to be cruel and I acted in a very different way than I was being driven to act. I denied my flesh the relief it so anxiously sought and I immediately felt the freedom and power of God, and His revelation was poured into me because with testing, power truly does come.

With every choice I make I choose freedom or the black cloud, whether I realize it in the moment or not. Every flesh gratifying decision I make adds depth and depravity to the darkness. Denying my flesh the rights it so desperately craves and believes it is entitled to is the only way I can defeat this darkness that is after the abundant life that has been given to me. The power to defeat this darkness lies solely within me because of the power given to me by the Holy Spirit, but to defeat it I must make the choice to die and that choice is painful to my flesh because death is excruciating.

I once heard a speaker talk about the sons of God, who become the sons of God, who again become the sons of God and I liken that to going from one degree of glory to the next. Freedom from this struggle has begun and I am once again walking in the wide open spaces that were so familiar to me months ago. I am prepared this time, though, for the reality that as this struggle comes to an end so does the awakening of an even deeper one. Constantly dying and being reborn, that is what this life is all about!

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