Analyse that.....

With Christmas still drifting in our ears, Iam reminded that 'Mary pondered these things in her heart'. Well I do more than ponder them, I analyse things, read into them, read out of them, all looking for the terrible worst case options.

With the therapy that came with my breakdown a number of years ago we discussed this level of paranoia, and the need to analyse for fear of something awful.  I thought I had it largely under control, but when I am low - up it pops with full force.

Today for example - it is the end of my official holiday leave, and I have had to face up to the fact that I am not ready to go back to work. If it were not for the holiday I would have faced this a couple of weeks ago. So I contacted some of the relevant people by email and since then it has all gone haywire.

Ok so the end result is that I will drag myself from my bed to go to the doctors for a note tomorrow and everyone is fine about me taking a couple of weeks off despite the hassle for others covering my sunday appointments at short notice.

But the way there was via some misunderstandings, and my huge emotional reaction to what I thought was being said. And it is scary to find how active some of those old buttons I thought we had disarmed can be. They have been triggered with such force that I couldn't see anything but those fears in what I read. I read not concern for me but a worry that I am not coping with the job as a whole. In college when the breakdown hit there was reason to think that 'they' would never let me be a minister, and suddenly I find that after a couple of years with no crises either in the job or in my depression, and objectively no reason to question my long term capability, the fear of being shut down is still so acute.

It is scary to find that in low times I am really as fragile as ever. Perhaps the point is that we are never made less fragile in our core - but when well we have more layers of bubble wrap to absorb the knocks of life. And the past few weeks burst my last few bubbles and I just have limp plastic around my weaknesses.

So right now I am dealing with the shock of how vulnerable I am at the moment, whilst tying myself in knots about how I reacted to emails and phone conversations today, where it all went wrong, and what people will think of me etc.

And I need to be more real about myself - I talk the talk of openness about my life with depression and fighting the stigma, but to need to actually take time off work, that feels like failure. But failure of what? Failure to be the superhero who can manage life and ministry with depression.  Hello reality!