Apathy, depression, and faith.

These last few weeks have been very difficult for me. As I may have mentioned in an earlier post, I have bipolar disorder. When depressive episodes hit, I have a very hard time writing and doing much else. Honestly, I find myself wanting to sleep all the time and half on the verge of crying at random moments. In that state, I have a very difficult time to keep faith.

It is not that I lose faith in the gods. It is in myself that the faith falls away. It is in the validity of my experiences and the merit of my efforts. When I'm not finding myself savagely questioning if all of this is just in my head and that I am certifiably insane, I am wrapped in this queer sense of apathy where I just don't have the energy  to care about much of anything. What moves me forward on those days is my sense of duty, though some days it is even a struggle to push forward with that momentum as well.

I have been having trouble sleeping. This is not good for my mental health (problems sleeping are not good for ANYONE'S mental health, honestly). As I have been laying awake and trying to quiet my worrying over the last few weeks as I tried to sleep, Freyr has sat with me. He has consoled me in my grief over what troubles have come as a result of my disability. He has comforted me in my anxiety for the future. And he simply lets me just be in his company and holds me, giving me a safe place where I can just let all my fears and troubles lie at the side. It is like when Beloved holds me and has the same conversations with me, except it lasts into the beginnings of sleep where I would otherwise lose awareness of Beloved's presence.

Freyr and Beloved both tell me that I am too hard on myself. I confess, they are right. When I find my confidence and mood dipping, I feel this insane urge to push myself as hard as I can to prove that I can do things just as well as I do when I am not depressed or anxious. I would have been forcing myself to post more over the last few weeks except for the fact that I have been terrified that my work is not good enough to be legitimately worthy of writing. When I am unwell, I have a very hard time seeing past those kinds of fears.

Freyr has been quietly at my side, helping me too my feet when Beloved wasn't here to do it. When I get angry with myself, he calmly and firmly guides me back to a more neutral position. He sternly jerks my proverbial chain when I start getting into bad territory with my various illnesses and has had no qualms about calling me on my attempts to avoid what is good for me on the basis of it being inconvenient. (As he has said recently, "Temporary inconvenience is better then temporary confinement." Having been in a psych ward due to my bipolar several times, I took the hint and adjusted myself accordingly. Freyr does not pull his punches.)

I've been afraid to write about my involvement with Freyr. I got too caught up in the worries that people would assume that I was trying to do the 'invisible boyfriend' thing. I got caught up in the fear that I would be pronounced mad as a hatter and suffer horrible psychological torment for it. (Bullying is a mild way to describe what I experienced growing up. There is a reason why I have social phobia.) As I sat here this evening, flailing over what to write, Freyr and Loki both told me to break my silence on this.

Freyr asked me if I was embarrassed by his affections and was that the source of my discomfort and why I didn't mention him but a few times in passing. Loki just bluntly said that my keeping silence about this was disingenuous of me and really not my style. Of the two comments, Freyr's was the one that hurt. I am afraid that I am doing this romantic relationship with a deity all wrong. I am afraid that I am going to have a howling horde descend upon me for this declaring that I am a bored housewife looking for an invisible boyfriend to spice up my life. Letting these fears stop me, however, has lead to my hurting someone who loves me deeply.

While I haven't much faith in myself right now, I have full faith in Freyr and what he feels for me. I am confused on my end of things, but I am not thinking clearly right now either. All of the anxieties that have come up with respect to Beloved have come on the scene with respect to Freyr with a list of new ones. It makes me sad that my mental illnesses are such an ever present part of the picture. I look at how other people who are romantically involved with the gods and, honestly, I have times where I envy their confidence. Loki, however, pointedly reminds me that I shouldn't be comparing myself to someone else who has an entirely different relationship and entirely different life experiences.

Freyr assures me that when this depressive episode lifts, things will look better and I will feel better about everything. It's hard to see that right now. But, I trust him and I have faith in him. I may not have much faith in myself but if Freyr says everything will be alright, then it is going to be. And, as Loki has said to me, it may be weird between here and alright but that is ok too.