Went to church to thank God for a visit with a friend.

I wound up staying there after the service, in massive physical pain and begging silently for the strength to go home. I was in massive pain and didn't want to come back to my apartment. I feel comforted at church.

I was in massive pain, physically, emotionally. I sat there in dead silence, unable to speak, unable to cry, wanting to shout my pain to the "Highest Throne in Heaven". Ozzie will understand.

I sat there in an empty church, begging God for the strength and the help to go home.

A parishioner saw me at around 11 p.m., bent down and started asking me questions.

"Was I waiting for someone to pick me up?" No I came alone under my own power.

"Was I all right?" No, I was having a bad night.

He offered to walk me home and he was firing questions at me all the way there: one after the other. The way the General should have done and didn't, but then again, I didn't feel "safe" at the General or with the "whitecoats."

His name was Patrick and he had worked at the church until this Easter and had seen me around the parish.

In the end, he offered to interact with me (talk with me) at church and even take me out for coffee.

Mental health resources in the community have been failing me miserably, but the Church has yet to let me down. I trust God more than I do some doctor I'm sorry to say. I have my shrink, but I see him for 45 minutes every two weeks.

Sorry, my illness is constant and requires constant work, so I'm building my own support network in a "safe" (ie non-triggering) environment.

Christ said something about having to take up your cross to follow him. He never said anything about doing it without help. (Even he had help with his, so I have help with mine, spreading out the weight among many people. I may have to bear the physical pain alone. No one can suffer that in my place. But I don't need to suffer emotiionally I see that now, especially after talking with Doug and Father Lindsay).

So I need help with my cross. Sue me. I don't think God would object.


There is a thing more crippling than cerebral palsy: the prison of your own mind.