Real Talk

I want to write about my journey and struggle with a little thing called my own stubborness and also S.A.D. Someone recently said "write about what you want others to write about." So I am.  I am always interested in the knitty gritty of people lives--not just the triumphs and good itmes, but the dark valleys and the struggles because those times and moments are so relatable. When we share those, we can look at each other and know we're not alone. And spur eachother on to keep going in whatever it is we're going through. 

We all have junk in the trunk that we've dealt with. So why not talk about it? I mean, some stuff is meant to keep private, but with the Lords prompting--most of my life is an open book. And I want to tell it. Because I wish more people would.


So, on that note, I was reading a post from Maryam @ Milk Friendly that inspired me to write this.  She lives in Hawaii.....warm, sunny, beautiful Hawaii.  As I finished reading the post about their adventures around the island with their kids, I thought to myself "woah that didn't sting as much as it used to."

Being confronted with the truth that people actually live in warm, sunny, not-overcast-80%-of-the-time places and then looking out at the grey/overcast/freezing/rainy skies of where I live doesn't hurt a much anymore.

But it used to. Real bad.

If only you could have been inside my heart and mind during the times when my struggle with WA was the hardest and deepest and darkest.  Times when simply seeing pictures of friends in sunny California or reading a blog post about Hawaii would sent me into a jealous, bitter orbit.  I literally could not handle it. I had to stop looking at those people's facebooks and instagrams and blogs. I had to delete Redding and Sacramento from my weather app.  I had to ask family to not talk about the weather with me. Because those things would instantly upset me. I'd be mad and overwhelmed and in tears almost everytime. Not kidding.

I mean, thats not normal people. And I knew it wasn't. I knew those emotions pointed to a bigger storm going on inside of me.

And it wasn't pretty. It was yuck.  It was long and it was dreary. Living in mild-weathered, sunny, warm Sacramento, CA for 19 years left me jaded when it came time for God to move me here.  Coming to WA was extremely different and shocking.

Through these trials and struggles, I realized that I had all the symptoms of someone with S.A.D, Seasonal Affective Disorder: a mood disorder where people who have normal mental health throughout most of the year experience depressive symptoms in just one specific season. For me::winter.

I'm usually a happy person! Love life, always optimistic, pretty rational and logical, not too emotionally dramatic.  But every fall/winter I felt the affects of the dreary Washington weather...super bad. 

It was like I became a different person and didn't even know how to not breakdown every single week.  Or how to not let the grey skies and constant rain and cold temps affect me.  I didn't want it to and I hated that it did. But I just couldn't get past it on my own.  No matter how much I prayed or worked out or ate right or cried about it, I just lingered.


Then last fall two things changed:

1. The Verilux Happy Light. I bought it a while back and I use it every day for at least 30 minutes. It has done wonders for me and has offset the S.A.D. thing tremendously.  I can look at Sacramento weather without crying. I can re-follow and re-friend people in sunny places on instagram and facebook and the blog world.  I can look at their pics and stories without becoming extremely jealous and disgruntled. Of course I still miss the sun and warmth, but that irrational dark dramatic cloud is gone.

2. I let go and allowed God to change my heart. I am letting go and allowing God change my heart about living here (like I talked about here). Yes, the struggle with S.A.D was very real.  But in addition to that, I was causing some of my own misery.  I had made up my mind that I was going to always be miserable here and I'd always hate it. No changing that. Like a snotty stubborn toddler.  I was mad at God for "tricking me" because I didn't plan on living here for this long.  I refused to look beyond that narrow, negative, selfish perspective. I was fighting surrendering to the Lord like I was getting paid for it.  After years of this, I decided to unclench my fists and come to the Lord with open hands.  In that place, he's given me a supernatural contentment. A contentment that I know is from him because it doesn't depened on the weather. It doesn't depend on me. It depends on Him and he is always stable and consistent.


Something that helped me a ton during these hard times was the song I have to Believe by Rita Springer. Whether you're going through it or you're on the mountain top, it's a good one!

This struggle has gone from an open festering wound....to a scab...and is now on its way to a scar.  I'm glad I can talk about it. And I'm glad I can share it.