Low Point in Recovery

[Scooter]

Hey there, everyone. I need to tell people who really understand...and I don't know what to do.

First off, I've started on the Zoloft now after tapering off of the Effexor. The Effexor was not helping with the ah - romantic - aspect of my life, which really bothered me as a (relatively) newlywed. It was also giving me weird, graphic nightmares. I'm feeling a little more like myself once again. Starting to have motivation and being able to think.

So that's going well, I guess. On the other hand, I've been having a terrible time with God. I have that empty, hollow pain inside. Didn't go to church three Sundays ago. The next Sunday I barely held myself together and started to cry and shake. I had to spend a couple of hours napping in bed to recover. Last Sunday I wanted to reject everything the pastor said about God's love and grace. Didn't want to sing. Didn't want to try. I just wanted to be angry. In the car on the way home, my husband asked what I think about when I stare into space during the service. I told him I think about how to make it until the end of the service. Then we talked about God, and I really snapped. I'm so MAD that every time I feel some ray of hope that I might be climbing out of this pit, I find myself right back in the same spot. Why should I keep risking it on God? For a short time I feel good, loved, only to have everything crumble away again.

It crushes me every time.

I'm bitter toward God right now, which scares me. I can't bring myself to pray, which I can usually do if it's for someone else. But not even that right now. I don't want to try, yet I feel guilty for not trying. I don't want God to touch me! I tell Him to stop it...leave me alone! When I imagine God loving me I get so angry, and the pain is like a hot knife tearing through me. It rips open this torrent of sorrow and tears and anguish...and I'm afraid of it drowning me. Why do I feel these feelings of fear and despair when thinking about God and grace and love? Why do I want to reject it? Why do I feel safer without it?

Then there's the guilt and the thoughts of "you're not living for God like you should. Look how you're rejecting God. It's your fault that you keep feeling bad. You're so rebellious and sinful."

*Crying in my soul*:( :(

[overcomer]

i feel for you, wish i could help you.
i am thinking on this, and i think sometimes we put man's ways and attributes upon God.
we get to thinking God is so much like man that when man has hurt us so much, we tend to think God is just like them.
i know i've done that so much, and i have to stop and remember that His ways are not our ways, not man's ways.
He's so high above us, yet He sent His son, that's how much He loves us.
He wants our relationship and fellowship more than we do.
try reading the beattitudes.
you are poor in spirit, and somehow you are blessed, that's what it says.
is it because maybe that when we are that low, there is such an audience with God unlike other times, like when our strength is something we can depend upon???
- i don't know, just thinking i guess.
but another thing that we can do, that i know beyond a shadow of a doubt...
when we are down and rejected and feeling forsaken, please use it to pray for Israel.
all of your feelings, all of your heart, all of your anguish, please use those very terms to pray for Israel - in exactly what you feel, what you are going through.
all the anger, despair - cry it out and call upon Jesus - call for Messiah to come to Israel. let the mourning in your soul cry out for God to come. somehow, someway, it waters the earth and in turn it waters your soul.
oh come oh come Emmanuel - and ransome captive Israel.
who mourns in lonely exile here - until the Son of God appears.
Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel shall come to thee oh Israel.

[Jerry]

Scooter,,,,,,,right now your being much harder on yourself than God is ever gonna be ;)

Love Jerry

[Carmen]

((((Scooter)))),

I wouldn't worry about serving God right now. You are the one that has needs, that needs healing. He knows that and won't expect anything of you, he won't pressure you. If you feel pressure or guilt, it isn't coming from him. You can't learn to love and serve others until you can love yourself. You are lovable and you are worth it.

Jonathan made a covenant with David because he loved him as himself. 1 Sam. 18. Jesus told us to love our neighbors as ourselves (not better than ourselves). But we have to love ourselves first to do this. Just get what you need for yourself now, concentrate on yourself. This isn't selfishness, it is necessary.

Carmen

[Janice]

I can't bring myself to pray, which I can usually do if it's for someone else. But not even that right now. I don't want to try, yet I feel guilty for not trying. I don't want God to touch me! I tell Him to stop it...leave me alone!

Boy, can I relate! I'm sure if you look back through my early posts, I remember a time when I said on here that i couldn't bring myself to pray either!!

Not sure why we get to that "point" but....we DO come out of it!

Since you can't bring yourself to pray right now, I will pray for you.

Hang in there!

[mary]

((((((Scooter!))))))

I've been exactly where you are... Anti-depressants, anxiolytics, the whole bit. I've also been so mad at God I can hardly see straight. Several months ago, I was so angry that I threw my Bible into the waste basket at my Christian counselor's office to make a "statement" in front of him (he fished it out and gave it back to me).

Why are we like this? Because - as much as we in our human flesh don't like this - we're being conformed to His image (Romans 8:29). What did He say on the cross? "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" (Psalm 22:1; Matthew 27:46.) He's refining us as silver so that He can see His perfect image in us. (Malachi 3:3; Ephesians 5:25-27.) We drink from His cup, not from the world's... In His providence, He gives worldlings freedom from this sort of angst: they're not His. I'd rather be His, no matter what I have to go through in this life.

Scooter, I pray for you at this time; I ask the Lord to give you shalom shalom (perfect peace; His peace - John 14:27)...

He understands your anger, Scooter, and He's loving you through it...

mary

[Anna Marta]

Dear Scooter,

I don't know your story but I can feel your heart is breaking. That is exactly when it is okay to go and sit in the church, or where ever, soak in God's presence and just BE. He does promise not to snuff out a smoldering wick or crush a bruised reed and that seems to apply to you at the moment. Paul says that the Spirit intercedes with us with groans that words cannot express - that seems to apply to you also.

I have had times when I felt closer to God as I walked along the forest paths or sat by the fjord below our house and listened to the wind in the trees. There was peace there that I didn't seem to be able to experience when surrounded by people while I should be singing songs, standing, sitting, praying and listening to someone I wasn't sure I even respected or liked.

For me Scooter, the hardest times are those when in my pain and anger I cannot seem to sense God's presence and feel so lonely and isolated from all his promises of love and comfort. It is a dark and scarey place to be. I KNOW in my mind-of-faith that God is there with me, but as my little boy used to say, he wished God had some skin on so he could see he was there.:rolleyes: :( :eek:

I have often sought an up-close-and-personal encounter with God esp. at those times when I was in such pain and doubted my faith because he seemed to do that for others and not for me. Those around were trying to reach out with their love, but I wanted God himself and He refused to do it for me!:mad:

What he did provide was my husband who without a word knelt behind me and held his wrecked wife as she cried and cried. I realised then it was the Father who had come himself in the arms of the person on earth who loves me the most.

This forum has been for me the fulfillment of the following scripture,
2 Cor 1:3-4
3 Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, 4 who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. NIV

Love from,
Anna Marta

[Voyager]

On the other hand, I've been having a terrible time with God. I have that empty, hollow pain inside. Didn't go to church three Sundays ago. The next Sunday I barely held myself together and started to cry and shake. I had to spend a couple of hours napping in bed to recover. Last Sunday I wanted to reject everything the pastor said about God's love and grace. Didn't want to sing. Didn't want to try. I just wanted to be angry.
I can relate with this Scooter.

I believe that many of us had a deep void and emptiness in our souls before we "found God". (I put the "found God" in quotes because for many of us, we actually just found a church - and the people in the church who seemed to care for us and support us filled the void.) Then one day we realized that our "unconditional acceptance" was in fact very conditional, and we found out the hard way that we were not as "accepted in the Beloved" as we had thought.

So, when we were betrayed by the very church family that filled the void in our lives, we were no longer able to trust church people. When we hear sermons about "God's love, grace, and acceptance", inside our hearts we are saying "Bullshit! I was betrayed! There was no grace and acceptance for me! It was conditional! You people conned me! Don't give me this crap about God's love and acceptance! I bought all of your lies about acceptance, and then you rejected me!"

Because of this betrayal, the void in our soul is now hollow and empty again, and when we try to fill it with the church people like we did before it gets rejected by our subconscious that will not allow us to trust them again. This puts us in a double-bind. For me, leaving church permanently was the only way I found to deal with it.

This is simply my opinion on this matter after almost eight years of trying to figure it all out. Take what you need and leave the rest.

:cool:

[Lzsing99]

Hey there, everyone. I need to tell people who really understand...and I don't know what to do.

First off, I've started on the Zoloft now after tapering off of the Effexor. The Effexor was not helping with the ah - romantic - aspect of my life, which really bothered me as a (relatively) newlywed. It was also giving me weird, graphic nightmares. I'm feeling a little more like myself once again. Starting to have motivation and being able to think.

So that's going well, I guess. On the other hand, I've been having a terrible time with God. I have that empty, hollow pain inside. Didn't go to church three Sundays ago. The next Sunday I barely held myself together and started to cry and shake. I had to spend a couple of hours napping in bed to recover. Last Sunday I wanted to reject everything the pastor said about God's love and grace. Didn't want to sing. Didn't want to try. I just wanted to be angry. In the car on the way home, my husband asked what I think about when I stare into space during the service. I told him I think about how to make it until the end of the service. Then we talked about God, and I really snapped. I'm so MAD that every time I feel some ray of hope that I might be climbing out of this pit, I find myself right back in the same spot. Why should I keep risking it on God? For a short time I feel good, loved, only to have everything crumble away again.

It crushes me every time.

I'm bitter toward God right now, which scares me. I can't bring myself to pray, which I can usually do if it's for someone else. But not even that right now. I don't want to try, yet I feel guilty for not trying. I don't want God to touch me! I tell Him to stop it...leave me alone! When I imagine God loving me I get so angry, and the pain is like a hot knife tearing through me. It rips open this torrent of sorrow and tears and anguish...and I'm afraid of it drowning me. Why do I feel these feelings of fear and despair when thinking about God and grace and love? Why do I want to reject it? Why do I feel safer without it?

Then there's the guilt and the thoughts of "you're not living for God like you should. Look how you're rejecting God. It's your fault that you keep feeling bad. You're so rebellious and sinful."

*Crying in my soul*:( :(

[Lzsing99]

I remember 3 or 4 years ago, I was just done with my marriage and I was so angry @ God. I rebelled and did things I never ever thought I was capable of doing. My husband lied to be about business deals that cost our family alot of money and hardship. I blamed God. For some stupid reason I thought if I married a Christian man, everything would be perfect. Where did that come from? I was naive. I realize now, that satan isn't interested in the unbelievers, but the believing married couples especially. I spent so much time being angry @ my husband, and it could of destroyed our marriage.

I finally got to the point where I just gave in to the Lord, I said Lord if you want this marriage to work, you are going to have to change my heart! You know what he did, and I'm so thankful, because a year later my husband was diagnosed with rectal cancer @ 46 years of age. I can't tell you the stress I went through and the worries of living a life without him.

He's doing ok, we don't know what the future has to hold for us, but I'm so thankful to the Lord that I stuck it out and didn't give up.

I guess what I'm trying to tell you is this too will pass, and the Lord will have something better for you. It's when we go through these trying times that we grow, and become better people, and become closer to him.

Don't give up, the Lord has something really special for you.

Remember we are to not look @ people, because they "will" disappoint us, but we are to look to Jesus, who is always the same today and forever.

Amen?

[Lzsing99]

Hey there, everyone. I need to tell people who really understand...and I don't know what to do.

First off, I've started on the Zoloft now after tapering off of the Effexor. The Effexor was not helping with the ah - romantic - aspect of my life, which really bothered me as a (relatively) newlywed. It was also giving me weird, graphic nightmares. I'm feeling a little more like myself once again. Starting to have motivation and being able to think.

So that's going well, I guess. On the other hand, I've been having a terrible time with God. I have that empty, hollow pain inside. Didn't go to church three Sundays ago. The next Sunday I barely held myself together and started to cry and shake. I had to spend a couple of hours napping in bed to recover. Last Sunday I wanted to reject everything the pastor said about God's love and grace. Didn't want to sing. Didn't want to try. I just wanted to be angry. In the car on the way home, my husband asked what I think about when I stare into space during the service. I told him I think about how to make it until the end of the service. Then we talked about God, and I really snapped. I'm so MAD that every time I feel some ray of hope that I might be climbing out of this pit, I find myself right back in the same spot. Why should I keep risking it on God? For a short time I feel good, loved, only to have everything crumble away again.

It crushes me every time.

I'm bitter toward God right now, which scares me. I can't bring myself to pray, which I can usually do if it's for someone else. But not even that right now. I don't want to try, yet I feel guilty for not trying. I don't want God to touch me! I tell Him to stop it...leave me alone! When I imagine God loving me I get so angry, and the pain is like a hot knife tearing through me. It rips open this torrent of sorrow and tears and anguish...and I'm afraid of it drowning me. Why do I feel these feelings of fear and despair when thinking about God and grace and love? Why do I want to reject it? Why do I feel safer without it?

Then there's the guilt and the thoughts of "you're not living for God like you should. Look how you're rejecting God. It's your fault that you keep feeling bad. You're so rebellious and sinful."

*Crying in my soul*:( :(

[Lzsing99]

Maybe Zoloft isn't the right drug for you, if isn't working, try something else.
Just a thought.

[Janice]

Maybe Zoloft isn't the right drug for you, if isn't working, try something else.
Just a thought.

I'm on Welbutrin 300mgs. This is an antidepressent with the lowest risk of sexual side effects. I had no side effects in that area. (that was WHEN I WAS ABLE TO HAVE SEX!) Gee..can hardly remember what it's like!