Rural Living and Cultural Capital Friday, Feb 22 2008

    Last semester I took Social Inequalities for my sociology major, and it is probably a class that I would encourage anyone who doesn’t plan on being a hermit for the rest of their lives to take.  I learned so much about how different people view the world, and even in a class of 250 or so, we actually had some good discussion.

One thing we learned about in this class was the concept of cultural capital, which is basically that not only does having wealth and stuff help people to get ahead, but it asserts that having culture helps you too.  An example my teacher used was like knowing what fork to use at a fancy restaurant.  Those kind of basic cultural things which if you have grown up in that society, were instilled in you by your parents, but if you grew up in a different part of American culture, they can seem as foreign as another country.

I grew up on a farm about 12 miles outside of the closest town, in an extremely rural area, and as I think about cultural capital it just resonates with me how deprived rural children are of knowing how or just knowing about the things city kids know about.

Some examples I can think of from my growing up years are that when I was in middle school, my gifted class went on a field trip to the chinese restaurant in Macon (30 miles away).  This was a class made up of probably 10 of the smartest kids at South Shelby Middle School, and there were a few of them who had never eaten chinese before.  Had they not had that field trip, I honestly don’t know if they would have ever experienced that.  Another example that really stands out is that when I took college level biology, we took a field trip to the St. Louis Zoo (3 hours away) and there were classmates of mine who had never seen zoo animal’s before.  If I sat and really thought hard, I could come up with dozens of examples similar to this.  I know of classmates who in middle and high school had never been out of the state of Missouri except to go to the mall in Quincy, Illinois; which is an hour away.

I know that culturally I have been blessed by having parents who actively sought out things for me and my sisters to do and trips to take which could enrich us educationally and culturally.  Whether they knew what they were doing when they did so, I’m not sure.

It saddens me that in a lot of rural schools field trips are one of the first things to be cut from the budget, along with programs in the arts.  These classes and trips add another dimension which ultimately give rural children the best chance to succeed, no matter what they end up doing or where they end up going.

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This Love Monday, Feb 18 2008

    So, lately getting up in the morning has been incredibly hard for me, and it’s kind of baffling me because it’s not because I’m depressed and wanting to avoid the world.  It’s completely different.  I’ve tried to explain this to like one or two people before and it’s kind of hard to explain, but I’m going to try again.  Wish me luck.

God loves me.  That love hurts so horribly bad.  It makes me angry like nothing seems to be able to make me angry.  I know it seems kind of baffling for love to anger me, but it does.  See, I don’t deserve an ounce of this love.  Perfection died, and not only died, but took all the evil I have done upon His innocent shoulders because of this huge love.  I don’t deserve grace like that.  It rips at my very core.

I know you will probably never understand being angry at God for dying for me, for saving me from eternal damnation, but in all honesty, I am.  Seeing as I analyze everything to the highest degree possible, I have pretty much figured out why this love hurts so much.  Why it angers me to be loved in such a deep and passionate way.

I don’t love myself.

In all honesty, I see myself as scum, as nothing.  I have trouble finding any good in me, to the point it is horribly unhealthy.

God’s love is active.  It is not a passive love.  When you are faced with this love, you either try as hard as you can to run from it, or you head to it, and allow change to occur.  Up until this point, the change God has been pushing me towards has been difficult, but not to this point.

I must either run from God’s love through avoiding life, because you know what?  God doesn’t let go of you.  He really doesn’t let you run.  I have tried.  I have been attempting to run for a long time now, and no matter what, God is there, imposing this painful love upon me. Or, I must grasp onto God and allow him to break me into shards yet again, and build me into a stronger vessel.  Allow Him to painfully teach me to accept love from others, from Him, and teach me to somehow see myself as a worthwhile being.

I am honestly scared to death.  I know running is in vain, yet I know allowing God to mold me in this way will be painful beyond words.  I know the decision is already made, that I will follow God, that I will acquiesce to this painful shaping, but it is terrifying.

This is why I avoid life.  If I am sleeping, laying in bed avoiding the world, God cannot remind me that I hate myself and He loves me.  God cannot remind me that He wishes to use me in amazing ways.  He cannot remind me that I am capable of so much more, and I can continue to believe the lies I have believed for what seems to be my whole life.  I can continue to listen to the whispers saying I am worthless and will never amount to anything.  Those beliefs so solidly ingrained can continue to go unchallenged by His word and His love.  This conflict in the depth of my heart can be ignored.

This is also exactly why I must wake up, why I must cling to God and to His word which repeatedly says I am loved, and that my past has been washed away by the blood of Christ.

I didn’t know how much it hurt to allow yourself to be loved fully.

Peace,

Angela

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Jesus and Mental Illness Thursday, Feb 7 2008

I come yet again to something that always seems to confound me.

When I get depressed, or manic, I do stupid sinful stuff I wouldn’t do if my mood was level.

When I do this stuff, it’s like I’m doing it, but it’s not really me.  I know it’s not all like “the bipolar made me do it” or some stupid crap like that, but an illness that causes you to be more susceptible to sin is just like, I can’t get my head around it even a little bit.

I know God forgives me for the stupid stuff I do when I’m up or down, but when I’m there, it doesn’t seem like a bad decision.  It doesn’t seem sinful, I don’t think about or even really realize the negative consequences, or what God would think of it, or any of the things I do when I am in a more steady mood.

How could God allow such an illness to exist?  One which makes you so much more susceptible to sin and do horrible life altering things?

I really struggle with taking my medicine.  I hate it, and my former therapist Carrie always equated it to someone with diabetes, you don’t think of them as being weak because they take meds, etc.  This illness though, is so far different from any non-mental illness (I’m using “non-mental” completely on purpose.  Because in my case it definitely is a chemical, physical illness.) in how it affects your life.

Diabetics don’t come to truly believe they can fly.

Taking daily medication for non-mental illnesses is so far different from taking medication for mental illness because they way the illnesses work is so different.

I know however that the reasons I hate taking my meds a diabetic probably would wholeheartedly agree with, and vice versa, yet I think it would be so much easier to come to terms with daily medication for a non-mental illness.  Nobody doubts that diabetes is a real illness.  People don’t think diabetes is a lack of faith and if only you would draw nearer to Christ, you wouldn’t deal with it.  I hate when people see the amount of pills I take and the look of shock they get on their face.  I hate that friends say they would rather go crazy than take as many pills as I do.  Where I would be without this damn medicine I hate so incredibly much is scary enough for me to be pretty good about taking my medicine.

I wish my brain wasn’t broken.  I wish I wasn’t on 3 different medications for this illness.  I wish I didn’t know the inside of a psychiatric ward.  I wish I could take 11 hours, lead the prayer team, and do what Rob is helping me to without feeling incredibly overwhelmed.  I wish I knew where the illness ended and I begin.

What does wishing accomplish though?  I can wish all I want and it changes nothing.  The only thing that changes anything is gritting your teeth, humbling yourself to God and your friends for the billionth time and trying to move forward.

That is my heart.

Angela

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Ruling with an Iron Fist. Saturday, Feb 2 2008

Hello. My name is Angela, I’m 22 years old, and *insert sobby sniffly noise* I don’t like rules.

No friends, I do NOT like rules, and yet ironically, my life is miserable unless I keep myself following very closely to a pretty legalistic set of rules. Lately I’ve been having trouble getting up in the morning, because my bed is so effing comfortable, and it’s cold outside my covers, and I’m a lazy bum, whatever. So, a new rule has been made.

Angela’s rule on waking up: First alarm, you’re up. If you awaken before the alarm and it is daylight, out of bed.

See, all of my rules serve a very good purpose, they’re not silly crap put into effect just to make me miserable (because um, I’m the one putting them in effect!). They’re always for my betterment, but they’re rarely fun.

Some of my rules:
~No napping unless it is an extremely severe circumstance. I can’t think of a severe circumstance off hand, but I’m hesitant to say never.
~I must take my medicine every morning and every night. Once I get my sleep unscrewed up, I’m going to work on taking it at the same time in the morning and at night.
~No caffeine after 5 pm.
~No going to Memorial Union during the week with the purpose of studying. None will occur as friends are there and chatty chatty happens instead of read-y read-y
~Walk downtown unless the weather is beyond abominable. It’s only like 8 or so blocks. That’s not worth the gas.
~No missing therapy or psychiatrist visits.

There will be more as the semester and year go on, but seeing as I just moved to CoMo permanently, I’m still adjusting to what rules I need to implement.

I hate rules. Really, I do. Tell me not to do something and I will be sorely tempted to do just that solely because you said I couldn’t. Yet, when I don’t follow the rules I set, life ends up sucktastic.

(the writer of this blog entry apologizes for it being so boring.  It sounded really good when she was thinking about it.  Then the fingers started hitting keys and this was the end result.  I wrote it though, so i’m going to put it on the internets for the world to see anyway.  Deal with it.)

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