Imago

What an emotionally torrential week it's been.

The cause? Who can really say? There's been a lot going on internally. Battles fought within the solitary confines of my own head. It's no wonder so few people understand depression and anxiety; they're only seeing the effects. And only some of them, at that.

So what goes on in my head? Nothing fun, let me assure you. Not like how it used to be, when the world was fresh. I'd use my God-given, vast imagination as my own private playground. I was the hero then, smiting the bad guys, saving the world, getting the girl in the end. You know, classic fantasy tale, where everything ends up as the reader thinks it ought to. But that was a long time ago. Now my mind is cluttered with debris from shattered dreams and aspirations. A veritable minefield: tread on the wrong topic and we have an explosion of negative emotion, which often triggers half a dozen others. I couldn't even begin to describe what the topography must look like after all these years. It's not so pretty anymore, and I feel it.

That was a slight digression, but I liked the analogy, so I figured I'd run with it.

But it's true: it only takes a single misstep sometimes to launch me into full-scale psychological civil war. And the thing about such warfare is that the only casualty is myself, piece by piece.

I don't know that I can really describe the relationship between that and the emotional disorders, except to say that it is, at least in part, causal. My many mistakes and failures of the past have contributed to a corrupt self-image, in which I consistently tell myself that I am worthless, and then back that notion with conjectures about people's opinions of me.

There is everything wrong with this picture.

In fact, I'm looking at it all wrong. As a friend of mine recently told me, we're made in the image of God, and because of that, it's not even my right to hate myself the way that I so often do. To do that is akin to looking at Christ on the cross and saying that His perfect sacrifice wasn't enough to redeem me. Talk about a slap to the face of the Creator of all things.

The problem is, I've entrenched myself in this mentality. I know my validation has to come from Christ. But for some stupid reason, that's "just not good enough" for my subconscious mind. The unbelievable nerve of such pride, that the specific and unconditional love of the Almighty God of everything is just not good enough for me! So I still seek the empty approval of other human beings that are, each in their own way, just as screwed up as I am.

I want to end this on a happy note, but this is the present condition of things. So I'll finish with the reassurance to myself and to any readers that I'm seeking long-overdue wise counsel for this problem. Let's pray that I have the wisdom to comprehend the truth.