The Road To Kingdom Come

I’ve had a bit of a bad turn lately and I always find it therapeutic to write about it here. (Note: Members of my family and a very few friends have “discovered” my blog. Frankly, it makes me self-conscious as I write things like this but, true to my original intent, it is part of the journey.)

Last week I was somewhat encouraged as my stomach issues had dissipated and my appetite had returned pretty strongly. I had been eating a bit more and actually managed to add about 5 pounds.

I was feeling good enough that I invited my business partner to lunch last Friday. We had a friendly wager at work and he won so I was paying up by buying lunch. It was his choice of venues and he chose an Indian restaurant. Being a former Brit, Indian is one of his favorite ethnic foods. I guess when you colonize so much of the world you develop a fondness for the conquered cuisine.

We had a nice meal and I really enjoyed it though I am pretty cautious about what I eat because of the ongoing digestive issues I’ve been battling. I avoided any bread because of the supposed gluten intolerance my chiropractor identified.

Suffice it to say that whatever I ate did not agree with me. And that is putting it mildly. Beginning Friday afternoon and all through the weekend my system was in an uproar. But, hey, we all eat stuff that doesn’t agree with us and it runs its course and goes away, right? Wrong.

Monday morning I woke up in a physical and mental funk. I had no energy to face the day and did not drag myself out of bed until after 11. I went to work but it was an effort to get anything at all done.

Tuesday, I did manage to get myself up and into work but felt so bad that I had to lay down for an hour or so. Finally, I just called it a lost day and drove home and crawled into bed. As bad as I felt mentally, it really was the physical part that was draining me. I felt horrible. Was in bed until 6 PM, got up and had something to eat with my family. Got back in bed at 10 and went right to sleep while praying the rosary.

Coincidentally, I had appointments with my therapist and MD this morning. I got to talk about my mental state (which is pretty bleak) and my physical state (which is pretty frustrating). My therapist encouraged me to remember that these dark periods pass, which is difficult to do when you are in the midst of one. My MD is just terribly frustrated that we can’t seem to get a handle on the stomach/GI problems. As I write this, my stomach is audibly churning and I just took some new medication that she prescribed.

All this being said, I try and offer the stomach problems up. But the mental/emotional part is really hard for me to deal with. Unless you have been in the grips of anxiety and/or depression, it is difficult to make someone else appreciate what it is like. All I can say is that it’s ugly.

I have found it exceedingly difficult to pray. I am having to force myself to go to the chapel and spend some time there. I try and pray the rosary or just sit for a few minutes in praise, thanksgiving and petition. Mostly petition.

Life seems ugly these days. I feel ugly inside and the world appears ugly. Dark and ugly. I dread these episodes. It feels like they will never end and there is no way out. I don’t know whether my physical issues are driving the mental or vice versa. Whichever, it is a bad place to be.

A few weeks ago, I attended the funeral of the teenage son of my cousin. The young man had taken his own life at the age of 19. It was a dreadfully sad event and there are just no words that can be said to adequately console a family under those circumstances. I remembered the Christmas cards we would receive from my cousin and I would note how attractive his children were and how seemingly content they were…especially his son. He had an almost smug, got-the-world-by-the-tail look that I sort of envied. How wrong I was.

I remember when I was 19. I wonder if people ever looked at me and thought, “He’s got the world by the tail.” It was at that age that I first experienced what I have since learned were anxiety attacks. At the time, I felt like I was going insane. And I am not exaggerating. That’s exactly what I thought. It became so bad that I was actually hospitalized for three weeks. In one of  “those” hospitals. And though I never acted on it, I am certain that I shared with my cousin’s son  the desperate longing to end the pain that seemed to define life each and every day back then. But I believe that my fear of hell was greater than my pain.

So I sit here 36 years later with my stomach rumbling and in my gray mood. I am afraid. But of what I’m not actually sure. These times are when I feel the greatest longing for the healing touch of Christ. I long to be one of the lepers, the blind men, the possessed from the Gospels that find themselves before the Lord, about to be liberated from their ailment.

I remember feeling so desperate so many years ago and waking each day and thinking, “Maybe today will be the day I get better.”  And some time later I ended up getting married, buying a house, having children. The prayer was answered somewhere along the line. Quietly, without drama. But answered it was.

I’m up for a repeat.