Fishing for answers

I find myself staring off into space when I should be doing something else.
I blame this on the Klonopin. It's got a side effect of tiredness and confusion.
I don't like taking that pill. Wish I didn't need to take it to fall asleep.
Some nights it works others not so much.
Twice now I have found myself wide ass awake at 1:00am and have tossed and turned until 3:00am.
Other times I am awakened at 4:00am  and never do fall back to sleep.
Sometimes at 1:00am when I'm awake, I will lay there real quiet and take slow deep breaths.
Four seconds on the inhale and eight seconds on the exhale. It sorta helps.
My husband says maybe I need to up the dose.
What??   Is he crazy?  Up the dose?  No way.

What I want are answers. Still.
I want to know why I feel so much anxiety.
I want to know why I can't fall into a deep and restful sleep and remain that way until morning.
I want to know why I wake up at 1:00am feeling scared out of my mind.

The pat answer that others keep giving me-"Some people just have anxiety"
rings untrue in my head.
I know that others suffer from anxiety. I know that I now have anxiety.
But I didn't used to.
And I want to know why.
Why is it so hard to find an answer to my question of WHY?

I find myself staring off into space, not really thinking about anything.
It's like all of a sudden I come to and realize I've been sitting here doing nothing.
I feel tired all of the time. My head aches all the time. I feel grouchy.
I also feel some form of shame for complaining about my insomnia, for taking the Klonopin  and for the symptoms of the side effects.
There is a stigma attached to taking benzodiazepines.
"You're more prone to addiction if you take Klonopin."
"Pretty soon you're going to be dependent on them."
"Can't you just NOT take them?"
"Sit in a Lavender Epsom Salt bath for 20 minutes instead."
"Why don't you drink a glass or two of wine instead?"

Let me tell you this...
I would LOVE to have a glass or two of wine. I miss being able to have a glass of wine while cooking dinner or at the end of the day while watching the sunset, or when we're out to dinner for date night.
I actually miss it very much.
But I am not about to mix alcohol with Klonopin.


At church this past Sunday, our pastors sermon was on mental health.
(Did it feel like he was looking directly at me while he spoke?...yes)
One of the questions he asked the congregation was this-
"What is your bait?"
Meaning what is it that takes you away from Jesus and prayer and serenity and peace.
What is it that grabs you and pulls you under and doesn't let go?
What is it that the devil is using to personally bait you into excessive worrying or paralyzing anxiety or over-eating or over-spending?

I know the answer is fear because that is what it feels like but fear of what?

The pastor tells us to feed our minds constantly with the truth, to think about Jesus.
He says to free our minds from destructive thoughts and not to believe everything you think, because the mind is the battleground for sin.
Well now.
Listen, I don't believe that my anxiety is sin induced.
I don't know where it's coming from but I'm pretty sure it's not onaccounta
any sin.

A few days ago I read this in my Jesus Calling Devotional-

Jesus Calling – September 12th

Receive My Peace. It is My continual gift to you. The best way to receive this gift is to sit quietly in My Presence, trusting Me in every area of your life. Quietness and trust accomplish far more than you can imagine: not only in you, but also on earth and in heaven. When you trust Me in a given area, you release that problem or person into My care.

Spending time alone with Me can be a difficult discipline, because it goes against the activity addiction of this age. You may appear to be doing nothing, but actually you are participating in battles going on within spiritual realms. You are waging war—not with the weapons of the world, but with heavenly weapons, which have divine power to demolish strongholds. Living close to Me is a sure defense against evil.

“Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives. Do not let your hearts be troubled and do not be afraid.”
—John 14:27

This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.”
—Isaiah 30:15

The weapons we fight with are not the weapons of the world. On the contrary, they have divine power to demolish strongholds.
—2 Corinthians 10:4 

Today I read an entry from my Mark Nepo Devotional entitled  The Book of Awakening-

Simple as a Fish

"I've been a fish in search of bottom when I've
surfaced, in search of surface when I've bottomed, and the ribbon of God's sea passing through my gills is what I've felt and thought and spoken."

1. A simple fish nosing its way along the bottom is in itself a profound teacher, and like the deepest teachers, it doesn't even know it is teaching. Yet in its tiny, efficient gill lives the mystery of how to live as a spirit on Earth.
2. As we all know, by swimming, the smallest fish takes in water, and its gill turns that water into the air by which it lives. Though there are biological details that explain the mechanics of this, it is, in essence, a mystery.
3. The question is, What in us is our gill? Our heart, our mind, our spirit, a mix of all three? Whatever it is, like the smallest fish, we must turn water into air in order to live, which for us means turning our experience into something that can sustain us. It means turning pain into wonder, heartache into joy.
4. Nothing else matters, and just like fish we must keep swimming to stay alive. We must keep swimming through the days. We cannot stop the flow of experience or the need to take it in. Rather, all our efforts must go into learning the secret of the gill, the secret of transforming what we go through into air.
5. So, what is your gill? For me, it is my heart, and love becomes the unseeable trail I leave behind. But whatever it might be for you, it is more important to swim through the days and honor the gill inside you than to figure out how it all works.

• Sit quietly and breathe slowly.

• As you breathe, notice how turning air into breath is what keeps you alive.

• Keep breathing slowly, and as you breathe, open your heart to the mystery of turning experience into feeling and pain into wonder.

• Inhale deeply, and let the gill inside you work.

So.
What is your bait? What is your gill? What is mine?
I like Mark's words-
"Keep breathing slowly, and as you breathe, open your heart to the mystery of turning experience into feeling and pain into wonder."

Like those fish I am going to use my gills and breathe and just keep swimming to stay alive.
Does it matter if I am being baited or if I am at the surface or at the bottom?
No. I don't need to figure out how it all works. I just need to keep swimming.

Thanks for reading,
Love, Lolly