Depression & Addiction
I
wrote My Worth while not only struggling with addiction, but also with severe anxiety and depression. Addiction was used as a coping mechanism
but it also lead to more shame which fueled the depression and anxiety like gasoline on a fire.
It was a vicious cycle that brought me lower and lower. I couldn’t get
out of it. I couldn’t imagine any way that things could change because I
was in so much pain. I was praying for help but I felt like God wasn’t
listening to me.
One night, as I lay awake on the floor between my bed and the wall — I had made a sort of nest there and it helped to calm me — I decided to write down what I was feeling. I had the thought to do it as a poem. It turned out to be a great distraction from the anxiety I was feeling. It also helped put things into perspective. I knew that God loved me and wanted the best for me and as I wrote I tried to remember that. I tried to think about the purpose of this life and how we’re here to l learn to follow the path Jesus made for us in spite of Satan and his minions. I really did feel like they were all around me. Just as God exists, I know that the devil and his demons exist. Those demons laugh to see one of God’s children fall. I also knew that the power of God could lift me and protect me as long as I listened and followed. That poem was my first and favorite.
Some people judge addicts harshly. We are all God’s children. One of my favorite sayings is, “don’t judge me because I sin differently than you.” While we are all beggars before God, maybe it would help us to remember the experience of the woman taken in adultery. Jesus told the mob that was ready to stone her that whoever was free of sin should be the first to cast their stone. After they all sheepishly went their way, Christ didn’t condemn her but admonished her to go and sin no more. He didn’t forgive the sin. He basically said, "repent and don’t do it again. " She still had to make the choice to change. Our condemnation of others is of no help to them or to ourselves. Jesus showed love and mercy. He didn’t condone the sin, he loved the sinner.
One night, as I lay awake on the floor between my bed and the wall — I had made a sort of nest there and it helped to calm me — I decided to write down what I was feeling. I had the thought to do it as a poem. It turned out to be a great distraction from the anxiety I was feeling. It also helped put things into perspective. I knew that God loved me and wanted the best for me and as I wrote I tried to remember that. I tried to think about the purpose of this life and how we’re here to l learn to follow the path Jesus made for us in spite of Satan and his minions. I really did feel like they were all around me. Just as God exists, I know that the devil and his demons exist. Those demons laugh to see one of God’s children fall. I also knew that the power of God could lift me and protect me as long as I listened and followed. That poem was my first and favorite.
Some people judge addicts harshly. We are all God’s children. One of my favorite sayings is, “don’t judge me because I sin differently than you.” While we are all beggars before God, maybe it would help us to remember the experience of the woman taken in adultery. Jesus told the mob that was ready to stone her that whoever was free of sin should be the first to cast their stone. After they all sheepishly went their way, Christ didn’t condemn her but admonished her to go and sin no more. He didn’t forgive the sin. He basically said, "repent and don’t do it again. " She still had to make the choice to change. Our condemnation of others is of no help to them or to ourselves. Jesus showed love and mercy. He didn’t condone the sin, he loved the sinner.
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