Down on Disability, unless it's you

I once was a person that had the strongest work ethic a person can have. In fact, I was close to a workaholic. I gave it my all, and took great pride in it. Every manager I had bragged on me, and said we wish we had more workers like Mary. I was in the prime of my life getting ready to take on the world. And then...

It hit me. Suddenly my past hit me in the face and caused me severe emotional trauma and turmoil. I became Depressed, suicidal, and delusional. It took every ounce of strength I had to just function on the most basic level. It became impossible for me to do my job. I struggled trying to work for over a year. I tried different jobs, at each one, I became stressed very easily and collapsed under the pressure of depression and paranoia. I gave it every effort. It was the most difficult decision I had ever had to make, but I didn't have a choice, I applied for the Big D. Not divorce, Disability.

After six months I was approved on my first try. I believe that was the hand of God.

I felt like a total loser. I felt like a failure. I felt like I had become the bottom of the dredges.

I didn't work for six years, struggling desperately just to take a shower and do laundry, I felt like I was the lowest of the lows. It was a terrible desperate struggle just to survive. I went to a safe house, a crisis stabilization unit, the partial hospital program, and eventual ended up in the psychiatric hospital.

I started new medications time and time again, and finally, through a new medicine, and Most of all from really starting to seek after God, my life began to slowly change. I became able to shower without dreading it. I did laundry without feeling totally drained. I cleaned my room, on a once a week basis, and actually found I enjoyed it a little bit. I was able to talk to people again. Really talk. I felt like I had my cognitive function back. I lost some of the apathy that plagued me for so long. In the greatest sense of the word, it was a miracle.

I still struggled with depression, anxiety, delusions, hearing voices, but as time went on, I got better and better. I started working part time in 2011. Mostly since then I have always had a job. It is a struggle at times, I miss a lot of days sometimes when I feel overwhelmed. But I am working, and that, again, is a miracle.

Over the past year and a half my life has drastically taken a turn for the better. I fully place all the glory for that on Jesus Christ. He is the reason. He has done many miracles. He has taken my depression, and I'm less anxious than I have been in 20 years. Seriously. Miracles!

I received the Holy ghost, and I can't explain the difference in my life. Everything is sooo much better.

However, there are still those days. Days where I didn't get any sleep the night before, or the night before or the night before, because of nightmares. Days where My ulcer acts up because of my nerves. Days where I hear voices, and while they are no longer hurtful or mean voices, they are still there, and just knowing that's not normal, is troubling. There are those days when I wake up and feel like I just can't do it, like there is a weight where there should be an excitement. However The difference between then and now is..

I smile anyway, I laugh anyway, I talk anyway, I love anyway. I don't hang my head and I don't hide in a cave, I go to see people I love, I text people, I call people. I ask people to pray for me. I am no longer a negative person. I see the good in life. I see how good God is and How very blessed I am. I struggle at work sometimes, and I struggle financially because of it. But I am so blessed.

There was a time I could not sleep in a house alone. There was a time I couldn't turn out the lights. There was a time when fear controlled me. There was a time when I had no hope. And another miracle, those times are gone.

I pray someday I'll be able to work a full time job, like everyone else. I pray someday I'll be able to live completely free of symptoms. I even pray someday I won't have to take medication. But for now I do my best. Recovery is a daily walk. I get better all the time.

So don't judge people who are on disability and think they just don't want to work. there are those people out there. But it's not everyone.

God is good, And we are all a lot more blessed than we know. Me included.