"Ok" I say, it's just not true

Has your heart ever pounded so hard that your chest hurts? There’s a lump in your throat yet the tears just won’t come? Shaking so bad but you just don’t know why? The anxiety so overwhelming, yet there’s nothing to be anxious about? Just when I’ve taken a couple of steps forward, it feels like I slide back to the beginning. I’m so frustrated with all of this! I want to feel normal again, but do I really know what normal is? I have medicine I can take, but it leaves me in a fog so while my heart isn’t pounding, I’m stuck in an anxious state with a low hanging fog. Life isn’t supposed to be this way. I am thankful for what I have, yet not enough. I think people that can go through life, even with problems, but not need medicine, take much for granted. I miss feeling close to the Lord and so many times I wonder why He has brought me to this place. This lonely place where it feels like no one can understand me and I just want someone to reach out and make it all go away. Where do I go and how do I get there? They say when I look back, when this is all over, I will realize just how close the Lord was too me, but I just miss Him so much. I miss that fire that burned inside with His amazing love. I wonder what this does to my family and I would give anything to shield them from this. My friends don’t understand why I’m so distant and I can’t give them a reason why. I can pray everyone understands, but in reality I think they just look at me and wonder why I would choose to be this way when I have so much. The truth is I would never chose this for myself or for anyone else. Clinical depression is the hardest thing, I think, I’ve ever had to deal with. Everyone asks how I’m doing and all I can say is “Ok”, but I know that’s not true. I’m not ok, but no one wants to hear someone always say that everything is not ok. The doctors say I have gotten well enough to fake it, but what a horrible way to live life with a mask on every waking moment of the day. If anyone could see my pain it would break their heart like it breaks mine. I’ve asked Danny time and again, when this will all go away and why I must hurt so, but he has no answers for me. He longs for the real me to come back to him, but she is stuck somewhere and I don’t know how to find her. I want to breathe without an ache in my chest and swallow with no hurting lump in my throat. I don’t think I have asked for much, but much is required to be where I want to be. I do the very thing I don’t want to do, but I don’t know how to stop, so I just beat myself up with every step I take. I think what a miserable existence this sounds like, yet I have so much more to live for, if I can just figure out how to live that way again. I want to smile and feel it in my soul, deep down. I want to feel that residing joy that I use to have, desperately. One day, I keep praying that I’m going to wake up and I will feel the sun shining in my heart and know my day has come to live life anew. One day I will wake up with a new song on my lips and find that peace that I’ve been praying for, now for so long. My day will come when I will once again bring joy to those around me and not bring them down into this pit of mine. God will draw me out, in His time, in His own way. I must find a way to be ok until He does. He never promised life would be easy, but sometimes I wish it just wasn’t quite this hard. I know the world travels the easy path and the one I travel is narrow; I just didn’t realize I would travel a valley so low. Even though I don’t feel it right now, I know He is with me because He has promised He is always with me. Many of His promises I know and I cling to them because sometimes, it’s all I have to hold on to.

Melissa Fitzwilliam