Isolation

Experts say that isolating yourself isn’t healthy for your mind. In isolation, it is easy for your mind to deceive and betray you. Look at the prison system. It’s used as a form of punishment for a reason.

For me, isolation is my “go to” when my mind is completely exhausted from the hustle and bustle of mental wellness. I hear so many people tell me that I shouldn’t be ashamed of not being ok all of the time, but there is something in my brain that tells me that I should be embarrassed about not being ok.

Today, I logged back into social media to check a page that someone recommended to me. I ran across a picture that had a very inspirational post that said something like, “I am grateful for all of the blessing that God has given me.” 

My immediate feeling was guilt. Here I am, mind filled with “why can’t I move past this feeling of disparity”…I should be grateful for all of my wonderful blessings, right? So I must be a terrible person for not feeling grateful? Honestly, I didn’t want to blog this experience because I began to think that you guys would start to feel like, “Oh no…here’s another ‘whoa is me, I’m so sad’ post from Ashley again.” Truthfully, at some point, I want to look back at this journey and say, “Whoa, I really went through it. It was very real and very raw.” So that’s why I decided to blog how I am feeling today. Anyway, I digress.

Before I was approved for insurance, which was a very long battle, I had to find ways to get through my mental breakdowns. One way I dealt with it was I fixed my focus on God and began to attend church five to six days a week. It was a way I’ve coped to stay out of my own head. Now that I am insured, I kind of let it slip my mind that can afford to attend counseling. Like real, professional counseling. Big shocker right. Today’s emotions reminded me of that. Having everyday feelings of embarrassment, guilt, fear, despair, anger, and frustration is not and should not be apart of everyday life. It should not be a struggle to get through moment by moment every day. And currently, that is where my life is.

God is a huge part of my recovery, meds are another part, and now counseling has to be the final piece, right? At least I’m hoping.

So, while I am feeling embarrassed about not being ok, I seclude myself; put on a brave smile and say, “yea, I’m fine” when clearly I am not. Not responding to phone calls or text messages. And when I do respond it’s with short, quick answers.

I mean, if I’m tired of not being ok, then my loved ones must be tired of it too? This goes for mental and physical illness. Seeing that I have been struggling mentally, I do believe it is the cause of my current lupus flare; you know body aches and pain, migraine, muscle fatigue, etc.

Tomorrow’s goal is to find a counselor that takes my insurance so I can begin to heal and talk out some of the issues that I am having. For some reason, I thought by throwing myself into the church, I would find healing, but that was just another distraction.

Ah, yes, distractions. Those can be deceiving as well. We think we are ignoring the problem, solving the problem…when in fact we are just distracting ourselves from the problem. Although I love my church home, their not God. Make sense?

Ugh, I don’t know what I mean or what I want this post to be about. This post was more of a rant and not very well thought out. Just a bunch of thoughts put together like ingredients in a meat pie. You don’t know what a meat pie is? My point exactly!

Please pray for me as an I try to find someone to help me because I can’t live like this anymore. My family deserves better.

Peace. Love. Happiness in Jesus. Please remember to pray for one another.

**Image borrowed from google pics**