December | 2012 | All Things to All People: Confessions of a Baby Mama

It’s been well over 70 days since I’ve written. I know this because I’ve been counting the days…one day at a time. I’ve wanted…no, I’ve needed to write but my fingers have just been paralyzed. I guess things really got hard back on October 21st. I tried to write about that day but to date, what I did write is unfinished and is just looming in my drafts folder.

I have loved writing on this darn blog. I have come to believe that no one truly cares about anyone nowadays, but somehow you all….strangers to my world…have managed to make me feel so significant, so valued, and so loved. I will never be able to thank you enough for that.

I don’t even know what to say…and I don’t even know if anything that I say really matters. But I hope that somehow I can touch your heart and let you know that you are loved… I love you. Even though most of us have never met, we are all brothers in sisters in the Body of Christ… We are family and we will someday get to spend eternity together. So you matter to me… You matter so much.

I am NOT looking for pity or attention and I want you to know that I am NOT a victim. I just want to put that disclaimer out there before I write anymore. However, I want you to know that, for me, the sky IS falling. My life has been a house of cards and somehow I have always managed to hold everything together and give the illusion that I was happy and complete. I wore that mask so well for so long. The house of cards is falling down. I’m afraid I’ve run out of tricks. My charade is up and at this point, it seems everyone knows that I am a joke.

I was a Psychology major and I minored in Counseling. I know the DSM-IV-TR quite well. I was on a research team with graduate students and have devoted my life, and my studies to studying human behavior, especially since my Mother’s suicide. In my studies I gravitated more toward abnormal psychology, and have always had a deep interest and passion for the ugly part of psyc….the pathology, I guess you could say. Also, I’ve spent years studying the human brain and have become very knowledgeable in the neuro-psyc part of things… I wholeheartedly believe that the human brain is the last, great, uncharted frontier in the realm of Science. There is SO much that we don’t yet know… And I pray that Science will progress in a direction that takes a more physical approach to human behavior and issues of mental health.

I have pondered the Nature vs. Nurture debate deeply. I have researched it well… and have personally arrived at the conclusion that it’s both. However, I would tend to say that the “nurture” part of things has the greatest impact. In essence, I subscribe quite a bit to John Locke’s theory of Tabula Rasa, which as you probably know means that we are born a blank slate. I know that this isn’t entirely true, but I think it’s mostly true.

I think babies are the closest thing to Heaven… Really, I think this about ALL children in general. There is nothing more pure and precious than a child. Nothing. And I know that Jesus Himself feels the exact same way.

I can‘t make sense of the world we’re living in these days. What happened at Sandy Hook Elementary has greatly affected me. But the reality is that children are abused in a myriad of fashions all over the globe… constantly. What’s more, most of the time they are abused, neglected, and/or abandoned by the people who were supposed to love them the most… and to protect them with every fiber of their being.

The world is a nasty, depraved place and honestly, I don‘t know why we continue to have children knowing full well that we are living in End Times. I compare my generation to my kid’s…and to my Mother’s…and for GOD sakes, my precious Grandparent’s. It unraveling and changing so fast that I can hardly process it. Our country, which WAS founded on GOD has, I’m afraid, become an abomination to Him as I KNOW it has become an abomination to the rest of the world. I fear that God’s blessing is vanishing from our land… He flooded the world once and I have to wonder, “Was it even half as depraved now as it was then?” I ponder Bible stories that my grandmother used to tell me about Sodom and Gomorrah… but see, I know NOW that those weren’t just “stories“. Do we as a nation think that we are invincible from God Himself? Jonah tried to outrun God and he wound up in the belly of a whale. How much longer is God going to tolerate the depravity of our culture? I just really wonder.

I am not well right now. I fear that I may be losing my mind somehow. I am absolutely terrified beyond words, but I am finding that I have not been able to escape this perpetual downward spiral that I am wildly riding. My depression is beyond anything I could explain…and probably beyond anything anyone would be able to understand. I feel powerless and I feel utterly paralyzed. I have no idea what tomorrow will bring, but for me, hope is just not on the horizon. I’m trying to fight but I’m very weak and I’m very tired. My whole life has been a fight. I will be 40 in January and NEVER in my wildest dreams could I have EVER imagine that I would be here. I’m embarrassed, I’m morbidly humiliated, and shame and guilt are just killing me.

I have somehow managed to isolate myself from the world and the outcome has not been good. The ONLY hope that I have is in Jesus, but for the LIFE of me I cannot feel Him right now. I am reduced to an absolute shell of the vibrant, charismatic woman I once was… I don’t have much left. So with every ounce of my soul I humbly beg that you pray for me and my boys. Please intercede in my weakness. Please beg God to help me survive and see my way out of all this. I want you to know that I love my children more than anything on this Earth. They are the reason I draw breath… They are my whole entire world and I am so afraid that I am somehow failing them. GOD HELP ME!

I have honestly never felt this way in my entire life and again, I’m just overtaken with complete terror. There is a neuro doc whose primary practice is in San Francisco. His name is Dr. Daniel Amen. I have followed his work for years and know some incredibly reputable people who deeply believe in his work. His clinic does brain scans that give CONCRETE answers to what is going on with a patient’s mental health. That‘s what I want…of course I could never afford it. But still, I want CONCRETE answers. Something is totally NOT right with my freaking brain. I adore my counselor and my doctors too but diagnosing neurological problems are really just a hit or miss….or a trial and error kind of thing. I’m SICK of that.

What happened to my mother HAUNTS me each and every day. Her depression was real, but no one, INCLUDING AND ESPECIALLY ME ever took her seriously until she was dead. She lay in her bed for THREE whole days before anyone even found her. I will NEVER forget what she looked like. She has the SADDEST look on her face. My mother was an incredible, beautiful woman but something happened and when she began to deteriorate it seemed, to me, to happened really fast. I take this shit seriously and I wish to GOD that the rest of society would too!! This isn’t something we can just sweep under the damn rug people. Look, the Sandy Hook incident would more than likely have never happened if someone would have reached out to that young man and taken his issues seriously.

I thank you for giving me a venue to express my heart… And I thank you in advance for your prayers. Jesus is not just MY only answer… He is YOUR only answer as well. Keep your eyes FIXED on Him. Recognize that He does NOT make rules so that He can be a buzz-kill or because He is just very bossy. God gives us rules to protect us from our stupid selves!!! When we disobey Him and veer out in our own direction we are blindly veering out from underneath His Almighty protection. We just cannot afford to do that anymore, can we?

All my love,

Ava

Lord, do not rebuke me in your anger
or discipline me in your wrath.
Have mercy on me, Lord, for I am faint;
heal me, Lord, for my bones are in agony.
My soul is in deep anguish.
How long, Lord, how long?

Turn, Lord, and deliver me;
save me because of your unfailing love.
Among the dead no one proclaims your name.
Who praises you from the grave?

I am worn out from my groaning.

All night long I flood my bed with weeping
and drench my couch with tears.
My eyes grow weak with sorrow;
they fail because of all my foes.