change of plans

dear family;

i know i have been fairly silent these past months. i haven't been seeing or talking to much of anybody. i am sorry if anyone has felt hurt or ignored by my actions; i know that some of you have e-mailed or tried to contact me and i have either taken eons to respond or haven't responded at all. it has just been a very difficult summer and it's hard to know what to say.

i guess first things first: i am no longer going to briercrest. i was denied my loan about a month ago and it was truly like being punched in the face. i had this stupid, cocky assurance that i would be there, no matter what, because "it was what god wanted." what do i know? my parents' income is far too much for the government to even consider loaning me ten thousand dollars. i had my period of mourning. i cried for a week, i didn't talk to anybody. my dad went behind my back and signed me up for classes at uvic, although i had expressed less than no interest in going there. i was offered a scholarship to pay for my first year though, and it killed my dad to see me pass that up. when i told him i hadn't gotten my loan, he told me it was good he has signed me up for classes at uvic then. "what???" i said. i had no idea he had secretly done this. is it just me or were his actions a bit strange and manipulative? anyway i changed my courses because he had signed me up for stuff he wanted me to take (history of WWII, intro to economics, etc). i'll be taking four classes, and chose some pretty cool ones. i'll also be working four shifts a week at the coffee shop in order to go away come next fall. unfortunately my scholarship from briercrest cannot be deferred and i had to forfeit it. we'll see if i can get it come next year.

i'm going to be jumping around a bit, so bear with me. here comes my rant on my current existential crisis.

it is very easy to live as if god does not exist. in little to no time (one week?), you actually start to believe that he doesn't. it seems plausible that god is a whimsical notion sad people invented to feel better. when you don't hear god's "voice," when you forget how to pray, when your christian friends are the ones who have hurt you most, this life seems a lot less appealing. i have tried for so long to do this life right, to read the word, to talk to the lord, to do his work. i am tired. i still don't know who he is. what's worse, sometimes i don't care. but, interestingly, i am the most unhappy i have ever been in my entire life. this is partly existential crisis, partly legitimate health reasons, on which i will soon elaborate. but the point is: why do we even try to do "good," when all the "good" we do is arguably always inherently selfish? why do we bother to do the things we don't want to do but do anyway because we know they are "right"? because if we don't, we'll probably feel worse about ourselves. right? because we'll know we failed, or "disobeyed," or whatever you want to call it. so what's the point? here we all are waltzing around life like we aren't really selfish, like this good-doing is so easy for us. but do we only do good because we are selfish? i'm starting to think so. i don't understand it. it makes me angry to see people doing good because i automatically assume it's for their own selfish gain. pretty sick of me, i know. everything around me i see is negative. i have these terrible lenses by which i view the world. i feel like a nihilist, like i've finally given up, because nothing has a point anyway.

so that's that.

i think a lot of this terrible frame of mind has been a result of the chronic pain i have been in for the past four months. starting the week before we left for india, i started having constant nausea. i didn't understand it; i assumed i was just nervous about the trip or something. i found it very hard to eat. when we landed in india was when relief finally came. it was very strange. however, upon return to camp, it happened again. i was feeling constantly so so so physically ill. again, i assumed i was anxious about leaving kaleo, or nervous about leading worship at grad, or just sad. i don't know. the point is, it never went away.

in addition to the chronic nausea, i have been having mild, though steady, internal bleeding, along with insomnia. i am constantly anxious and paranoid about all sorts of things. peace only comes when i take enough sleeping pills to knock me out, but because of this i wake up most mornings feeling hung over. i have been in and out of doctors, and tested for all sorts of diseases and allergies. we have discovered that i have some new allergies (sugar, wheat, dairy, yeast, grapes, cantaloupe), which has been somewhat helpful, but regardless of what i eat i am still in a lot of abdominal pain. one thing the doctors discovered is that i have really intense acid reflux which has eroded the lining on my stomach, so no matter what i put in it, it becomes irritated. i am on prescription medication for that, and a lot of vitamins and a strict diet for everything else. but still there is no relief. my body is always so tense, i am afraid to eat, i am afraid to fall asleep. i wake up with my jaw clenched so tight and my body in knots. i've been grinding my teeth and they're starting to change shape. i wake up nauseous and cannot eat before i go to work. i'm exhausted all day and then starving by four in the afternoon, but i'm too scared to eat much because i'd rather be hungry than nauseous again.

and so is the cycle of my days.

in addition to this, i have been diagnosed with moderate depression, and have been put on medication for that as well. my doctor thinks that my constant anxiety, paranoia, loneliness and self-disgust is clinical. i think it is too. my doctor asked me if i remembered the last time i felt joy. i thought hard and i couldn't remember. it was before kaleo ended. i think it may have been grad day. i walk around with this weight in my chest, this sadness i can't shake, this constant feeling that my presence is a burden to anyone and everyone, so i shut myself out. most mornings i wake up and cry. i don't know why anymore, i can't explain it. the things i used to love are a nuisance to me now; music, reading, seeing friends. it's so hard to wake up in the morning. my good days are when i feel apathy as opposed to despair, and hunger instead of pain. the medication will take at least another month to kick in, so i have a while to go yet.

to manage the pain i had been smoking marijuana nearly daily. it numbed the nausea and made the day pass by quicker. however, as it is a depressant, my doctor told me i had to stop because in the long run it will make me feel worse. this is hard for me - i have to choose between feeling physically ill (when not smoking) and mentally ill (when smoking - whenever i come down from a high, it is true that i am sadder than i was before). still i think i would rather be sadder and in no physical pain than sad and in physical pain. the marijuana got rid of at least some of what i was feeling. in recent weeks i have quit though.

i need intercession right now. i don't want to give up on the truth. i am just at a loss as to how to beg god for relief anymore. i have spent months begging.

i want to be the woman people have told me they know i can be. a strong leader, a spiritual leader. someone who knows how to love, someone who knows how to lay down her life and offer it for the joy of others. someone who loves god so, so much. but the reality is that i am blinded by my own selfishness and pain and i am too weak to even be able to imagine i have any potential at all. i so badly want to know how to love people well. but i just don't. and i don't know who god is, i am so confused regarding his existence, his reality seems too good to be true. it does seem made up. it's so hard to see him when you are just in pain, in every sense of the word, all the time.

both my doctor and i think that most of my chronic pain is emotional and caused by anxiety, stress, and depression. i need to learn how to heal the anxieties in my brain, alleviate the weight of the sadness in my body. i don't remember what makes me happy anymore, though. so i don't know how to go about this.

i don't even know if anyone reads this blog anymore, but i don't know who to talk to, and it gives me some comfort to think that maybe someone is reading this and knows.

all i can really ask for is prayer.

to the briercrest crew - take full advantage of what is going to be available to you this year. the people, the opportunities, the resources. you are so, so lucky. and you all deserve this chance.

to everyone else - i think of you all the time. although i do not miss kaleo (it was such a hard year, i doubt anyone really misses it), i miss your presence. i miss working alongside one another for something far beyond us.

please pray.

love,

b