Stuttering Hope
Friday, November 11, 2011
Growing and learning..
Sunday, June 12, 2011
Getting to the bottom of things...
Thursday, June 2, 2011
Dreams for life..
Monday, May 30, 2011
Depression
The above defination described me all to well almost two years ago. I lost interest in life and didnt want to do anything, even shop! Now me not wanting to shop is for sure a PROBLEM :) This was a very sad time in my life. As I remember it kind of started out slow and then lead to futher depression, then I think I became depressed because I was depressed. My group of friends started to change, close friends were getting married and so on. I really felt I was trying to hide behind my things and tried to get my value in life from what I had instead of who I was on the inside.
I remember feeling like I was in a fog all the time and really felt no kind of emotion for anything, numb. My energy was 0, I didnt go out or do anything fun at all for a LONG time! Remembering how I felt then scares me a little because I'm affraid of those feelings. I'm learning that I can feel the worst feeling in the world and yet.. still survive. I believe the core of my depression started when the seasons of life started to change in my own life. We all go through seasons in life some better than others. We can either let ourselves flow with those seasons or we can resist those seasons and sometimes get bitter on the inside. I think I was somewhat bitter and didnt want to change. I felt lost and had really stopped hearing and listening to my inner voice.
One Sunday morning I remember it so clearly the Voice of God broke into my utter darkness. I was listening to a message of a pastor that I love and all of the sudden I felt like a stream of sunshine just shined on my heart in a whole new way! God is so faithful. It took one word from the Lord to shake depression off my life. No medicine ( yes sometimes we do need to use medications to help with depression) however, what I needed was to hear the voice of the Lord calling out to me and healing my emotions. I believe during the 3-4 years I was fighting depression God was changing me on the inside. See, before going through this experience I never really got to experience the verse in the Bible that states " “Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." I think this is in Hebrews. I held on to this verse every second of everyday. When I felt no friends or family were around and I would start to get sad, I would say to myself- NOPE! I may feel alone, BUT I'M NOT! Because Jesus said he would never leave me. Every time one of those bad thoughts would come up, I would say I'm not alone... and over time things started to change one the inside. See have a whole world on the other side of our face.
Jesus is truly my best friend. I can tell him anything and everything and He does not judge me ever. He is a wonderful couselor and my healer. Depression is real, no joke and people who struggle with stuttering and other speech issues can feel so isolated and alone. I know what its like wanting sooooo badly to reach out and go and do things but being affraid of stuttering so it held me back, then I would feel sad. YOU ARE NOT ALONE! When you feel like you have no one on earth who understands, talk to your maker because HE DOES! God is our hope, he wants you to express how you feel with words or not. Journaling can be a wonderful tool.
God bless you, and remember never give up. Ever. The following site has some good advice on helping deal with depression.
http://www.focusonthefamily.com/lifechallenges/emotional_health/depression.aspx
The courage to live life..
I've been wanting for awhile now to share all kinds of thoughts I've been having on life and the courage to live it fully. I have all these random thoughts all day long and sometimes its hard to actually sit down and write about them. I'm trying my best to become more of an organized person. Do I really have the courage to live the life I want to live, tis the question. For such a long time I have always seen the life I have dreamed of as being way off in the future, but now I'm feeling is very close and that excites me and scares me at the same time. Love scares me to be honest. I tend to live in the "safe zone" because I guesss I'm a little affraid of hurt, as we all are to a certain extent.
I need more courage and I'm learning how spending time (key word here is TIME) is the word of God and hearing His voice gives me courage to face my fears because NO MATTER WHAT He loves and excepts me just the way I am. I'm learning to take the boundries off my life and to not let fear control me. Dreaming new dreams, new ideas, filling my brain with hope and joy and LIFE! Learning to tresure my time and spend it with those I love and doing the things that are important in life.
Today is memorial day and I say a BIG THANK YOU to all those who serve!
Friday, February 11, 2011
My job in life was to hide my stuttering
brings light and understanding. In this journey of finding myself again through
my research of stuttering. One aspect I've become very aware of is how my main
goal in life or job was to hide my stutter. I would place hiding my stuttering
above everything else in life, now how sad is that!! At this point I'm actually
trying to think back to my dreams as a child, because for such a long period of
time all that filled my mind was how could I avoid stuttering at all costs.
Stuttering dictated my career choices and almost everything else.
When I was in school I became very you could say lazy. I would for the most
part not do alot of homework assignments that had to be read out loud in class.
I thought to myself why even do the assignments because when the teacher "calls"
on me or asks me to read my answers our loud I would always use the excuse "I
didnt do my homework" even though I really may have to try and hide my
stuttering. This started at a young age and was my way of coping. Its so
amazing to me how much guilt and shame someone can feel for something that is so
not their fault. I'm wanting to learn how to not be lazy anyone and learn
organizing skills. I feel for the very first time in my life I'm starting to
really become the person I've always wanted to be!!
For me hitting my own rock bottom was hard. It all really started when I
went on a mission trip to another country to help with some projects. It was
such a huge culture shock, and was such a "wake up call" for me. For so long I
had put my value on what items I owned, what kind of clothes I had, what car I
drove and the list goes on. This country I went to was very, very poor, many
people had no food and no clean water. However, I met the most happy, loving,
sweet people ever! They had nothing but still were so very happy! This made me
take a deep look inside myself and made to realize how I was really a very poor
person. Nothing I had ( material items) made me who I was. You could say I
tried to hide behind "things".
Doing this inner search was the hardest thing I
have ever done in my life. I think many people in the USA have this issue
bigger and better.. nice cars and so on. I love my country and we are blessed
here in so many ways. After returning home from the mission trip many of my
friends were getting married and life was just changing. I went in to a
depression state that lasted about 3 to 4 years. I believe for me everything in
my life shifted after seeing how much I placed my value on the material items I
had, and finding out life is so much more than money and what you have.
My self esteem hit rock bottom and I had no drive, I had lost hope.
Stuttering I believe made me feel like less of a person as well. I believe
stuttering made me really want to hide behind material items and think I was
great because of what I had. In reality your great because of what you can give
and what kind of heart you have toward others. By the grace of God one morning I
heard a pastor preaching and all of the sudden something hit my spirit,
something good and the light came on and my hunger for God began to grow again.
During this time of depression I found out who my true friends were, and in this
case who my true friends were NOT! It still amazed me that really no one ever
really spoke to me about what was going on in my life ( as far as depression was
concerned) I was not myself and yet didnt know what to do. God became my
everything during this time and He alone is the reason I'm here able to talk
about what a hard time it was.
Today I feel I'm a different person due to all I
have gone through a better person, someone who can relate with pain. I'm
learning the kinds of people I want in my life and that time really is so very
precious! I'm discovering my dreams again and new dreams I didnt even know I
had. I want to catch up on all the time lost to worring and being affraid. I
love people, I love being around people and I'm coming out of my shell each day
more and more. I believe the most important message and the main thing that was
truly helped me deal with depression and feeling all alone is that I'm not
alone. I'm not alone because I have a God who is always there for me no. matter.
what. I held on to that each day when bad thoughts would come.
I know many people run from the truth and run from pain. Lets face it, pain
is not fun!! Its not a good feeling at all! Its much easier to just run from the
pain and not deal with the hard issues in life. Thats what I did for a long
time! Its been a hard journey and its a journey I'm still on but healing comes
when we feel those really bad feelings and then give them to God. Having bad
feelings is normal its what we do with those feelings afterward that makes the
difference. I've felt for so long that stuttering controled my life made me
feel like I have been in a prision. But not anymore. I'm coming out and I'm so
happy!!! :) Finding the real me again and being the real me is a feeling that
is very good.