Christmas, a season of giving
In the bustle of the holiday
A gift is precious
Not one that costs money
One given from the heart
A kind word to a stranger
A dinner invite to one who is alone
A hug of warmth to a sad person
Listening ears to a burden soul
A smile lifts spirits
Christmas is not about what money could buy
It’s about gifts from the heart
Like God’s gift of his Son
A gift from his heart
Merry Christmas.
When you are struggling with depression, everything looks awful and hopeless. You can’t see past the dark clouds of your illness. It seems like everything is going wrong and life is an endless hole of negativity. Seeing something good seems impossible. The truth is your illness blinds you to the good happening around you. When the world seems like a dark hole, unexpected kindness can come out of nowhere. Open your heart and look towards the light.
A lot has been happening in my life. As you know, my dad is undergoing chemo for bone cancer and it has sent me into a depression. On top of that, I have been struggling with my asthma and my husband put his back and hip out of place. Last summer I struggled with my asthma too. I go to the lung specialist on Wednesday. My husband started back to work full-time last week after being partially laid off all winter, and he had to miss two days because of his back. He’s improving and working, but still hurting. I hate seeing him in pain. Last week after paying our mortgage, we barely had enough money to make it through the week. We really need him to have a good paycheck. We just can’t seem to catch up. It feels like the world is against us.
I’m slowly working on coming to terms with my dad having cancer, but now I’m worrying about everything else. I’m also worried about my older sister who is struggling with health issues too. When I start worrying, I worry obsessively, and it gets me down and stirs up my anxiety. Everything seems hopeless right now.
Saturday, I walked down to the corner of my street and waited for the bus. When the bus arrived, one of my regular grocery store customers crossed the road.
He walked over to me. “Hold on a minute. I have something for you that I have been meaning to give you for a while.”
I motioned to the bus driver to wait.
My regular customer handed me something. “This is for your book.”
I put it in my pocket without looking at it and said, “Thank you,” and got on the bus. After I sat, I reached in my pocket for the thing my customer had handed me. I pulled it out and stared at it for several minutes. He had given me a hundred dollars! Suddenly the sun seemed to shine brighter and my soul lifted. I just couldn’t believe a customer would just give me a hundred dollars.
This unexpected kindness made everything wrong in my life seem less overwhelming and horrible. My customer made my whole day better. When I got to work, I told several of my co-workers about it. They were very happy for me. For the rest of my day, all my worries disappeared, and I felt like I was dancing with the sun. The customer said the hundred dollars was for my book, but I used some of it for food for dinner. It was money we needed badly.
I can’t wait until my customer comes into the store. If he and his wife don’t already have my book, I plan on giving them one with a bookmark I woodburned and a pen that has “Stop Bullying” and my book title on it. If he has my book, I’m going to give him a thank you note, a pen, and a bookmark. He made my day shine and helped me look at life in a positive way. Everything that was going wrong didn’t seem as awful. God sent that customer to show me there is hope and goodness in the world.
When you’re struggling with depression, it’s so hard to see past the sadness and hopelessness, but try to look for the good in your life. God gives us people and things in our life to show us there is positivity in the world. When you least expect it, someone may show you unexpected kindness, small or big. The person you least expect may ask you how you are or tell you how good you look. A stranger may walk up to you and tell you how much he or she loves your smile or give you a hug. Unexpected kindness comes in many forms. God is looking out for you, and you just need to look for the ways he’s working in your life. Also reach out and do unexpected acts of kindness for others. It will lift your spirits to make others feel good. You don’t have to spend money to do something kind for others. Say something nice, give a hug, or offer to help someone out.
Because God sent my regular customer to bless me with unexpected kindness, I am standing closer to the light of recovery.
Getting into toxic relationships can happen to anyone. Sometimes we must go through bad relationships before we find good ones. Some people are more prone to unhealthy relationships than others. Many who have mental illness fall prey to toxic people. These people see the weakness in those struggling and take advantage of that. Those who are struggling find themselves unable to fight back and only sink deeper down the hole.
When I was in high school, I had a friend with an overprotective and in some ways an abusive mother. It took a while before her mother would even let her come over to my house. The friend and I became very close. I was sinking into depression, and she seemed to understand what I was going through. Then my senior year my cousin was killed in a car accident, and I fell into the deepest part of my hole. After I graduated, I moved forty-five minutes away to my grandparents to go to college. I continued to write to my friend and visit her on weekends. The deeper I fell down the hole, the more abusive she became. She played games with my sick mind and abused me in other ways.
I didn’t have many friends growing up and those I did have either moved away or turned on me. I was confused on what a healthy friendship was, and I was too sick to decipher what was wrong or right. I held on to her tightly even though she kept hurting me and it only made me sicker. I became suicidal, I had anxiety attacks that made me sick every day, I couldn’t sleep, and I began to cut and burn myself. I had hit rock bottom. The abuse continued until she moved away to college.
Years after I graduated from college, I was set up on a date. I thought I was in love. I moved in with him and planned to marry him. At first it was great, but slowly his kindness turned to abuse. I couldn’t use certain pans because I might ruin them, my cooking was no good, I was a failure because I was unable to go on to a four-year college, and so on. The verbal abuse worsened and then came physical and sexual abuse. He told everyone how well he took care of me and how awful I was to him. He went to therapy with me and told my therapist how I abused him, and I got lectured. I couldn’t see what he was doing to me. I was falling apart. My illness continued to worsen.
After he kicked me out, I ended up in a mental health hospital. It wasn’t until I started to work towards recovery that I realized what he had done to me and that he preyed on people who were weaker. He used my mental illness to get pats on the back for taking care of me.
Later, the abuse I went through with my friend and ex-boyfriend led to PTSD. I had nightmares of what happened to me. For a long time I was uncomfortable with hugs from other women because it sent me back to the abuse I received from my friend. I struggled for years trying to understand what happened to me. I’m not sure if my friend did it because of her mother or because she saw her chance to take advantage of someone weaker. For a long time I thought it was my fault, because I let it happen. I was too sick to fight back, and I allowed myself to be abused. I had to work through that in therapy.
After my ex-boyfriend, I swore off men. I moved back home with my parents and planned to live with them for the rest of my life. How could I ever trust another man again? I lost a lot of friends because of my ex and I lost myself. I had to work on it in therapy. Even when I met my husband, I was afraid to trust him, but it became impossible to deny that I was falling in love with him.
No one deserves to be in a toxic relationship. No one deserves to be abused. If you’re in a bad relationship, walk away. Look for the signs of a bad relationship such as physical harm, verbal insults, controlling behaviors, being forced into uncomfortable situations, refusing to let you be around friends and family, and forced sex. You are important and you deserve to be treated with love, respect, and kindness.
I am now in a very healthy relationship with my husband. I have some very good friends who treat me with kindness and respect. Because I am in healthy relationships, I stand in the light of recovery with happiness in my heart.
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