Looking for My Joy

As I mentioned in my previous posts, my body is in excellent health. My sleep is much better overall, and that means the episodes of mania are fewer and farther between. The mania only occurs when I lose a whole night or nearly a whole night of sleep. Physiologically, chemically, severe insomnia is almost identical to being intoxicated: mania.

The cause of my sleepless nights at this stage is not reactions to food. It is anxiety over being alone for another day, another day, another day. As I mentioned in a previous entry, God is sending me friends, but typically they can only come on the weekend. The neighbors are busy, my family is far, and Allyson is withdrawing from me because she is 13, which is perfectly normal at this stage of adolescence, but she thinks it is because of my illness. That is partly true, but I know from all the mothers in my life that girls usually have conflict with their mothers when they hit puberty. Allyson runs away at the faintest hint of conflict because she is afraid.... afraid of losing me to my illness.

More anxiety arises in me because I also am afraid of losing my daughter. I was so sick for so long, and there were vacations, and I had to stay with my mom and dad for a month, etc. In all of that, Allyson and I were separated. We are struggling to rebuild our relationship, and she keeps leaving every time we have any sort of disagreement. She thinks she is the only teenager whose mom embarrasses her!

This is making me really sad, and my joy has departed. You can't manufacture joy when you are legitimately lonely and heartbroken. You can listen to music. You can exercise. You can walk in the park. You can dance to a catchy tune on the radio. You could ride your bike if you could find a way to get the tires fixed. You can go to Pilates and start your own Zumba class in your house.

You can pray even when you can't feel a hint of God's love even though your head knows He is with you and He is good and He loves you. You can choose to praise Him even though your heart feels like a stone.

Hugs help, but when you are alone you can't get those, except on Wednesday at Bible study and also at church if you go to a church where they know you. Sometimes I lose sleep on the weekends when I am around Allyson and feel rejected, and then I can't drive to my own church 30 minutes away. So I get hugs once a week or so.

I am trying so hard to find joy, but it does not work that way. Joy is like a butterfly. You can watch for it, you can wonder at it when it alights on a bush next to you or even lands on your shoulder. But you can't grab for it. It will fly away. You can't force joy. You have to let it in.

In the past, for many years, I struggled with anxiety. If you've been reading long, you know how I battled that: with scripture. I found scriptures about peace and security, and I read them out loud over and over and over whether I felt safe and peaceful or not. Over the course of three weeks or so, that stubborn anxiety fled. I've had to do the same thing whenever I had a relapse, and I still do it. The sticky notes are still on my kitchen cabinets.

Now I realize I need to do the same thing with joy. This week, the enemy is trying to put depression on me because of my prolonged loneliness and longing for my daughter's love, but I am not going to receive that "gift" from him nor that label. I am going to meditate on scriptures about love and joy and delight; I am going to speak my joy into existence.

I need your help. Will you please comment with your favorite scriptures on joy? I will make more stickies and memory cards, and I will start meditating on joy and thanking God for joy until it is so. However long that takes. God's word is truth; it is Jesus. Jesus is THE way, THE truth, THE life. His Word never returns void. My joy will return, and I will not be grabbing for it. I will be allowing it to alight on me once again, just as it did in Costa Rica this past June.

Please pray also for reconciliation between me and my daughter Allyson. Pray that my grievously wounded heart will heal, and that hers will as well. I would also appreciate any advice from parents who have experienced conflict with their adolescent children, and what they did to get through this painful phase.

Thank you always for reading, for loving me, and for supporting me. I love you.

Recent Picture When Ethan Brought Allyson
to Visit Me at My Mom's House (July 2019)