This is basically an emo rant. Reader beware. . . Friday, Nov 28 2008

I hate the way I feel right now.  It is as if someone is taking a searing piece of metal to my heart.  Emotional pain and unrest to the point of physical discomfort.  Yeah, fun times. . . NOT.  My shoulders/neck are killing me and have been for days, and now this pain in the chest.  No, it’s not a heart attack or anything crazy serious like that.  It is just me bottling up emotion until it causes me to hurt physically.  See, I HATE the so called “negative” emotions.  Anxiety, anger, anything our society deems “bad.”  So I push them down until my shoulder and chest hurt.  I hate how I by nature feel everything so intensely.  Seemingly to a greater degree than others.  Feelings so intense i get caught up and carried away by them before my head can even counteract my heart.

I wish i could shoot novacaine into my head right now, just to have a reprieve from thinking about difficult and painful aspects of life.  Yet, I know I HAVE to think about them to be able to work through them and move on.

I have accepted that I have bipolar disorder, but it doesnt’ make me hate it any less.  It doesn’t cause me to like the medicine, the therapy, the constantly second guessing when I feel happy.  I don’t like any of that.  No, I hate it.  I hate the pills I take, I hate how I am almost always on guard and monitoring how I feel.  I hate that it seems as thought I am so alone in this, when I know i’m not.  I hate feeling as though I am a plague upon humanity, even though those I love prove to me consantly that that feeling is far from the truth.  I hate how I know that this is my battle to fight, and yet I also know i’m not quite strong enough to fight it alone.  I hate how little and broken I seemingly constantly feel.  I hate how narcissistic I get when I feel good.  I hate being so full of emotion I feel as though I could rip a grown tree out of the ground, roots and all.

Yet, I will press on.  I will persevere.  God is bigger than this shit.  Somehow, i’ll put one foot in front of the other.

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Emptied. Sunday, Oct 5 2008

Have you ever sat down and looked at the person you have become and been completely disgusted?  I feel as though a balloon of who I am, or how I percieved myself has been popped and I can see my broken state so clearly and it causes me to thirst painfully and lustfully for Christ.  The image I held of me being a sinner yeah, but at least i’m not that bad of a sinner has been crushed by the full weight of my deeds.  Painfully I cry out to the living God knowing that I was the one who hammered those nails, I was the one who pierced His side.  and He looked down with love and compassion and said “Father forgive her, she doesn’t know what she is doing.  Let me take her sin”  and I railed at that.  I gritted my teeth in disgust and anger.  How could perfection dare to dirty himself with the smut that I had been living in never realising how prideful a thought that was.  Never realising that my false humility was horrific pride, me believing that there was still some way I could be good enough to gain entrance into heaven.  Never truly falling completly in the arms of my Savior.  “Abba, Daddy, I’ll give you this part of my life.  It’s clean, it’s pretty, it’s good enough for you.  Let me work on this part a little while.  When it’s good enough i’ll give it to you too.”  IT WILL NEVER BE GOOD ENOUGH.  I cannot perfect myself.  Only the precious blood of salvation can purify my wretched life.  Only Christ can knock through the walls of the psych ward and wake me up to His grace and mercy.  I lay my filthy rags as an offering to my Savior, and he is well pleased.  All of my polished coins and good deeds were disgusting to Him.  He comes to me and whispers “everything.  I want everything.  every white lie, every impure thought, every struggle, every hard morning, every scary thought, every selfish desire, every selfless ambition.  I want everything angela.  only by being poured out can you ever been filled.”  All to Jesus I surrender.  All to thee I freely give.  I will ever love and trust thee In His prescence freely live.

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Dreams. . . Wednesday, Sep 24 2008

Dear Friends,

I am a dreamer.  I always have been.  I’m much like my father in that regard.  My mother is more of the hard realist.  For some reason I attribute that to her more Germanic heritage, when more than likely, it’s just her.  meh.  lol.  However, I am still a dreamer.  I’m going to dream a little bit this morning.  Just dream.

This morning I’ve been doing a bit of research to get an idea of what i’m going to write my paper for my urban sociology class on.  I am obsessed with urban agriculture.  I dream of living in a city and teaching those who have had a shit life handed to them how to grow vegetables.  There is something amazing and redeeming about growing your own food.  Something cleansing and purifying about getting into the dirt and smelling it’s deep richness.  I don’t know of any time I have felt closer to my creator than when I have planted a seed and cared for it hidden beneath the soil and weeks later it pops out of the ground, and months later, I reap the harvest.  To provide others with the ability to do that would be amazing.  I do not desire to be rich.  I know I won’t ever be wealthy by this worlds standards.  I don’t know if I could be happy if I had money.  I want to be “poor.”  To see those in need around me and give them what they need to make it day by day.  To go without so those around me may continue on.  I desire to live a simple life.  Sometimes I get frustrated being in college because I am surrounded by such a complex world.  A world of technology and just suc ha fast pace.  So often I just want to go back to the farm and slowwww baaackkkkk dowwwwnnnn.  I like to keep things at a slow pace.  I like to be able to think.

Well, dear ones, I need to leave the coffee shop and head home so I can walk to chemistry.  blah.

May you have a blessed day.

Angela Pickle.

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I’m not crazy. . . Tuesday, Sep 23 2008

i’m just a little unwell?

I feel like I’m going crazy.  if I’m not there already.  it’s almost 4 am and I have been fighting all night.  Fighting the desire to take too many pills, fighting the feeling that someone else is controlling my thoughts.  I am at such a weak and broken point right now.  I haven’t had a delusion in 2 years.  I KNOW this isn’t true, but every time i’ve had a skewed thought like this, i’ve known it wasn’t true.  I’m fighting it, but dammit, it’s hard.  I don’t know what has caused these darkest parts of this illness to rear it’s ugly head.  I don’t know why the control and stability I have had for the past year or so is being lost.  I fear this will only get worse.  I just took one of my klonapin, which is something I haven’t had to do in about a year also.  I know i’m probably making a mountain out of a molehill, but it is scary to be laying in bed thinking that someone else is controlling your thoughts and to be trying to fight that.  HOW do you fight that especially when for some reason it seems so real and so true at the moment.  I’m scared of myself right now.  Scared of the path my mind is going down.  Right now I can keep myself safe and can fight these whack thoughts, but for how much longer?  I know i’m not a slave to this illness.  I have freedom in Christ, and I take such joy in that.  He has brought me so far in these six years, but even this little step backward takes me back to such dark places.

I am scared, but I know I serve a God who is so much bigger than this illness.  A God who is in control of the universe and who holds my life in His hands.  My Abba Daddy holds my sanity in his precious, loving hands.

Whoever you are, out there reading this, please pray for me.  I am just a fellow traveller on this road of life and it’s a bumpy road right now.  Prayer would definitely be appreciated.

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Untitled Poem. Tuesday, Sep 16 2008

I peer into the broken mirror of my past

Silver backed glass shards reflecting

Logically or illogically

The hard times fragmented

Into essence of diamond

Glittering, sparkling

Running my fragmented mind

Across invisible glass tipped memories

Anger filled my soul then

I couldn’t believe You loved me.

Those who see You in me

Pour living water down

The cuts and sores

Rinsing away the fragments

Of the past embedded in my skin

Cleansing, soothing the hate

 

Peering into the broken mirror of my past

Slowly I see less of me

Less of my tears

            Or lack of tears

Less of my blood

And more of Your life.

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September 11th, 2001 Thursday, Sep 11 2008

September 11th, 2001 began like any other day in that, my junior year of high school.  I was to take the ACT in Moberly that day to see if I could get a high enough score in the math section so I could take trigonomotry for college credit; ever the nerd.  There was a softball game scheduled for that night Monroe City I believe.  I drove to school nonchalantly and went to prayer group in the Library with my friends to hang out, and to ask Gods blessing over the four hour test I was about to partake in.  I had no idea the events unfolding on the east coast of our country at that moment.

My first hour class was Chemistry, and my teacher, Mrs. Farmer always watched the morning news.  I knew this because I was incredibly good friends with her daughter.  When I walked into the room, my jovial mood turned sour almost immediately.  There was shock on everyones face, and the television was on.  The mere fact of the tv being turned on was enough to concern me.  We watched the first building burn through the first few minutes of first hour, our young midwestern minds not completly grasping what was unfolding before our eyes.  The most shocking thing happened then.  Another plane came flying in low, a plane, filled with PEOPLE, people who were innocent, people who had families came crashing into the second tower of the World Trade Center.  I saw it happen.

My rural mind still does not grasp the enormity of this event.  More people were killed in this attack than live in the largest town in my county.  To me it would be the obliteration of everything I know.  The destruction of half of my county of 5,000.

To those mourning in New York and Washington DC, those who saw so much more than mere images flashing across a tv screen, know the prayers of a midwestern farm girl are with you.  Know that today I will be thinking and praying for you.

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Insects ROCK! Monday, Sep 8 2008

This semester I am taking a class on Entomology, that’s right, bugs. . .  I know, I know, the initial reaction is probably “EWWWW!”  I get that a lot.  In all honesty, I LOVE this class.  I have learned so much and every Tuesday and Thursday, I leave this class more and more in awe of our creator.  Insects are VITAL to our worlds survival.  Without insects, the food chain would collapse, decomposition would slow to a crawl, and many other vital earth processes would fail to go on.  In contrast, if we, Humans, the “master species” failed to exist, not a whole lot would change.  A few species of insects, which feed exclusively on humans, would fail to survive, but eventually, Earth would go on.

            This past week, we have been learning the external parts of insects in great detail and instead of becoming frustrated with all of the crazy latin I’m having to learn, I find myself in great awe.  God put SO much detail in how these insects run and how they moved from a more primitive animal to what they are now.  It is so incredibly awe inspiring.  I know the stereotype is that the more science you learn the harder it is to believe in God.  I just don’t see how that is possible.  The more science I learn, the more real and amazing God becomes to me.  I look at the morphology of insects and just am blown away at how much care God put into these animals we crush without concern.  It really shows how in Gods eyes, the least is the greatest.

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heh Friday, Sep 5 2008

So, school is keeping me busy. Sorry to all none of you who read this .

 

Every once in awhile i look back on my life and am just blown away by how far Christ has brought me.  I look at the trials, at the pain and am just set in awe that I am still alive, still (mostly) unscarred, not permanently in the psych ward, I am in freaking COLLEGE taking a full course load, I have friends who blow me away with how amazing they are, I have a boyfriend. . .

1 year ago: I had just started Mizzou and was scared of another hospitalization occuring.  It had happened the last 4 falls, why not this one?

2 years ago: I was working at C&R and about to start at NECAC I would end up being hospitalised in october, lose the NECAC job, get a new job at a coffee shop in Hannibal, quit C&R, then lose the coffee shop job, and then I quit for 4 months.  I did nothing.  There was talk of me living in a group home.

3 years ago: I was at Culver-Stockton and could not manage to go to class.  I would step into class and have panic attacks because I thought everyone could see that who we were talking about in those psych classes wasn’t just a general example, it was ME.  I was hospitalised that fall and had to drop out because i could not pass my classes.

4 years ago:  I was at MACC and took 15 credit hours and worked 10 hours a week, I ended up with a 3.5 gpa that semester.  I was hospitalized around labor day after having been hospitalised the previous march.

5 years ago: I was a freshman at Hannibal La-Grange College and was full of anger.  I was still cutting myself and had no idea how to stop.  I didn’t know if God could love someone as fucked up as me.

6 years ago: I was having the quarter of my life.  playing softball, ended up with a 4.0 first quarter of my senior year of high school.  things went downhill rapidly.  a group of teachers called me out on it, but things still ended up not good.  I cut myself in late november and ended up in the psych ward for the first time.

 

I know I highlight the negative.  The negative stands out.  There has been soooo much good over the years.  The main good i see that has come from all of this, is that I am still here.  I take my medicine.  I have been at one school for over a year!  I haven’t had to be hospitalized for almost 2 years now.  Lives have been touched by me being honest and open with my struggles.

Abba, Daddy,

I am still so young, I know there are many more trials, and many more amazing things you wish for me to see.  Lord, give me the strength to fight those battles as they come, and Abba, when I feel weak, and those doubts creep in, Lord help me to call back on where I have been, and how far you have brought me.  Lord help me to look back on the past in a healthy manner, mourning what I have been through, but not getting caught up in it, always praising you for what you have done in my life.  Jesus change my heart to be more like yours.  Your work is far from finished in my life.  You are the potter and I am the clay Lord.  Change me, Mold me.  I want to be like you.

Angela

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By Grace Alone. . . Sunday, Aug 17 2008

This morning at Karis, the Worlinator preached on mercy and wow.  God is so good guys.  I seem to find myself looking at things in black and white, especially my faith.  I struggle with seeing myself as either this wretched being who is worthless, or as this fantastical amazing person because of what Christ has done in me.  There is no middle ground.  I am working, and have been for about a year now, on seeing that middle ground.  On somehow being able to see myself for the wretch that I am, but at the same time being able to realise the fullness of salvation I have through Christ.  It’s HARD.  Accepting freedom from things which you have allowed to weigh you down for a decade is quite difficult.

The sermon this morning, on Mercy got me to thinking about where I have been, where I am going, and where I might be if it weren’t for God.  It is astonishing to think of where I was a mere five years ago and compare it to where I am now friends.  Some of you (ok, probably just you mama) were there and can attest to the radical changes in my life.  Maybe you don’t see them as clearly as I do, but trust me, I am not the same pickle I once was.

I am so far from “having it all together,”  I am definitely a messed up human being, yet I know through Christs transforming power I will become more like Him as years pass.  Yeah, I’ll most definitely fall on my face, and my life will probably never be storybook pretty; but i’m fine with that.

 

Peace out Hombres!

Angela

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Dearest Oblivion, Tuesday, Jul 22 2008

Well my dear friend, here we are once again.  I always seem to come to you during these times.  Times when life is hard and my heart is hurting.  It seems that no one understands as well as a glaring computer monitor.  There is comfort in pushing send and knowing that somewhere, maybe someone is nodding their head in understanding.  So, dearest oblivion, here I am again.

Today, I broke up with my boyfriend of three weeks and I feel as though I’m going to either cry or puke, or both at the same time.  I have never known such intense care for another being.  I don’t know if it is that mushy or if I am just that heartless.  My self depreciating side says that I am just that heartless,  my slightly more honest side says that I have never met anyone whom I get along with as well as this guy.  Why I’m sure you’re asking then, did I break up with him?  Why Angela, would you let this one get away??  If you are so enamored with this guy, why did YOU do the breaking up?  Well, I need to fall in love with someone else before anything big or anything REAL can happen with West (the man whom I am enamored with).  I need to fall in love with God again.

I have been both running away from and towards God since about March now and I have been miserable since June.  The past few weeks in which I have been dating West, my desire for God has been whetted.  My appetite to know Him and to yearn for Him as I once did is back.  Sadly, my fleshly desire for comfort keeps getting in the way.  The desire to sleep, the desire to just spend time with West, or to be held by him.  Instead of seeking God I started seeking physical comforts.  I almost desire to sleep outside on a rock hard bench just to shake me out of this desire for comfort.  I yearn to only find comfort in my God and in His word.

I want whatever future West and I have to be a healthy relationship founded on God and right now neither of us know what that really looks like.  My heart aches in a way it never has.  I love West, but I love God more.

All to Jesus, I surrender.  All to thee I freely give.

Much Love,

Angela

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