The "Who" and The "What"

i have been inpatient thirty-seven times from age 19 until this past may (age 30) for the eating disorder, self-mutilation, depression and numerous suicide attempts. i have heard, during every, single hospitalization, that who and what i am is who and what i will be for the rest of my life. that i just need to learn how to "live with it" and face the fact that i will be on psychiatric medication for the rest of my life because i won't be able to function properly without it. i've been told that i'm a "victim" of what has happened to me in my past, and that i have a right to play the victim role. i've also been told that i'll be too sick, mentally, to ever return to work to be a functioning, contributing member of society.

but i know, as well as all of you do, that God's will is NOT for us to live in bondage and remain "victims" of our past... He wants us FREE, and freedom and bondage cannot go hand-in-hand. they cannot co-exist. it's impossible.

i am slowly learning to take off the "victim" mentality and put on the SURVIVOR identity. i survived what happened to me in my past. i didn't die, but lived through it. victims die. survivors live. and i lived. yes, i tried to kill myself, but God spared me. i was furious about this all the times i found myself alive in the emergency room following a suicide attempt, but i'm slowly coming around to the idea that God has something bigger planned for me than the death i so desperately wanted before age twenty-one. i may not see what those plans are yet, but i have to trust that God knows what He's doing. i still have chains that need to be broken, and the week i'm going to spend in nashville in less than a month will help more of them break. i've broken some of them in counseling with barb and naomi, and i broke some of them in richmond with my amazing friend gwen. i have a lot of chains; i kept wrapping myself in them, hurt after hurt, year after year. so there are a lot of them. but at least they're starting to break. i never imagined that even being a possibility. but it's happening. am i scared about that? of course! because it's scary to lose something that has protected you for so many years.

but it's time to move on. and i have to stop walking forward and looking behind myself for what i think i'll be missing in my past. there's nothing in my past that i want. NOTHING. all that is in my past is a lot of hurt, and painful memories, and sin that i don't want to go back to. i need to turn myself completely around and walk forward, with my eyes on God, and keep them there. i know there are going to be temptations, and pulls to go back. but if i remind myself of where i came from, and how horribly miserable i was, i am sure to stay on the right path.