I recently started seeing my counselor again. I just felt like I needed to talk about some of the thoughts running around in my head and my husband can only take so much. During one of our recent sessions she asked me if I have ever tried writing. I told her I've only ever journaled and writing doesn't really interest me. That question is why I'm here writing again. I figured I would start up again and write down some thoughts that my sessions with her have brought up.
Lately my counselor and I have been talking about the idea that I am depressed. I know my depression, I've been here and further, before. When she mentioned it to me it was no surprise I dealt with it in high school took medication and I was eventually able to stop the medication and move on. I had a lot of things going on in my life at that time. I was in an unhealthy on again off again relationship, my mother had recently re-married, and along with a step father I also gained a step-sister and a step-brother all who moved into my home.
I attributed all of those things to my depression. For my last year of high school I was able to escape my jumbled home life and go to boarding school where I eventually stopped taking my medication and enjoyed the time away from home. After a year and a half away at college I returned home. Things were different but still jumbled and I was still on again off again with the same boyfriend. For a short time I tried taking medication again but I was having strange side affects. I prayed about it and stopped taking the medication because I could not deal with the side affects, constant yawning followed my a spell of nausea, weird. Thankfully I was able to go on without help and I have continued to manage without help since then and seek counseling when I felt like I needed to.
Right now I feel like I'm in a funk and I want to take something to "take the edge off". The difference now is that my life isn't jumbled or crazy. It's actually kind of boring. During my latest counseling session the topic of me mattering came up. We discovered that I don't feel like I matter. I told her that I have felt this way for a while. In middle school, when I had friends, I felt like if I died they would not care. Apparently my feeling of not mattering has been an underlying feeling for a while, I just never realized it. I decided to fill her in on what I think is my real problem is. I don't matter to my father. I have always felt like an after thought to him.(great, now I'm crying) Stopping by to see me on the way to see someone else, telling me not to call and to email him instead. I'm sure he feels like he has done a good job. He did make a couple trips to visit me when I was younger and do things here and there like give me a computer or laptop when I needed one. That is not enough. The reality is that a couple trips to visit and a few summers when I went to visit don't makes up for the life that I lived without him. Without a call on Christmas or a call or card on my birthday. I don't think my father is a bad person. I certainly have a better relationship with him that a lot of other people have with their fathers. Unfortunately none of that matters when I feel like I'm no where near the top of my fathers priority list.
While driving in my car today I was thinking about these things and remember an earlier session where we discovered that I often feel abandoned by God which we attributed to issues with my mother. Then a thought came to me, Do I matter to my Father? Not my earthly father my my heavenly Father, God. This made my eyes water and made my thoughts stop in their tracks. I've been going through some growing pains spiritually and I'm beginning to identify the feelings I've been having but have been unable to express or understand. I feel abandoned, I feel like I don't matter to God. No wonder He always feels so far away. This explains all the times I've wanted to pray but decided not to because God wasn't going to do anything about it anyway. I don't know how to begin to feel like I matter to God and I don't really know what to do about it. All I know is that over the last two years my spiritual life has been breaking down and maybe now I'm getting closer to the foundation. Maybe, just maybe the Holy Spirit is getting rid of all the broken and rotted out pieces of what I thought I knew and eventually a renewed faith will be built upon the foundation of my belief that even when I feel abandoned or like I don't matter God is still there.
Just in case anyone actually reads this I apologize for any typos and bad grammar.
