My Story
In my opinion, one of the most precious gifts we have as Christians is the ability to share our stories with one another. Some of us may have similar experiences, but the way in which the Lord orchestrates our paths is different from person to person, and that is a beautiful thing! If you know me well, you know that I am a person who loves to share my story with others. In fact, I gain energy from the simple beauty of participating in spiritual conversation. Everyone’s stories have the potential to be impactful, no matter how deep or wide the story goes. I am a firm believer that it does not have to include some major, Paul-like revelation to benefit others’ spiritual walks!
One of my major goals in making this blog is to be a testament to God’s goodness. I do not mean that to sound cliche– if you have grown up in a close-knit Christian community, you know exactly what I mean. It’s typical for people to say “God is good”. What does that mean to me? Well, let me try to explain it in the most efficient way possible: I believe God is not only “good”, but I believe he saved my life, both in a salvation sense and a literal sense. Here’s why.
From an early age, I was always a shy kid who struggled to put herself out there for fear of being rejected and unseen. This is a natural human fear that just so happened to affect my life to an extreme. That being said, I was a victim of mental health struggles from the get go. I grew up with the comfort of a church community, and a home that cared and loved me so well. However, that is not a get-out-of-mental health-struggles free card. I am here to tell you my story regarding my coming to faith journey, and the ins and outs of the deep, indescribable pain I’ve been through to strengthen that faith.
I grew up in the church, accepting Jesus for the first time when I was just eight years old. My innocent self was excited beyond words, but had no idea the hardship she would face in life. In my middle school years, I began to have life hindering panic attacks. It really came out of nowhere, other than from the fact that I grew up with anxious tendencies. It became so crippling that I had to seek out help immediately. I could hardly leave the house without feeling like I was being strangled (yeah, pretty much). This made leaving the house, traveling, or seeing friends that much less enjoyable. While I cannot remember many of the details, I can remember how troubling life was because of my severe anxiety. To this day, I have no specific explanation other than a chemical imbalance. It was not only inconvenient, it was frightening. I felt like I had no control over my life, and I can tell you that is one of the scariest feelings to experience.
From this point on, I was obsessed with the idea of “looking good”. I think many middle schoolers can relate to this. I wanted to have the perfect body, to the perfect grades, to everything in between. The isolation I felt because of this took me to a deep, dark depression. At thirteen. I began to deal with issues such as over exercising, excessively restricting my diet, and trying everything in between to look, feel, and be a certain way. From my perspective at 20 years old looking back, it is sad to me that my 12-13 year old self knew what depression feels like. Depression. It was not some made up, fake disease that is defined by being sad. No, this included sitting in my darkened room with little to no motivation to get up, excessive crying, self loathing, anxiety… and that is just the beginning. I felt so isolated, different, and what I thought at the time was clinically insane. Starving my body to the point of almost passing out, thinking about what (at the time) I saw in myself as worthlessness, and loathing my own life. I had heard of people experiencing depression before, but I did not truly know what this meant until I began to feel the deep pain that comes with just a slight chemical imbalance. By the time I was fifteen, I had been diagnosed with Generalized Anxiety Disorder/Panic Disorder, Major Depressive Disorder, and Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. Overwhelmed by the impact these disorders were having on my life, I decided to seek professional help for the sake of my own self and those around me.
After seeking help with the motivation to get better, recover from deep spiritual questioning, and find myself again, my healing journey began. There was no way I was about to stay in the rabbit hole I had fallen into. It was too dangerous. I was on medication, seeing my counselor once a week, and fully diving into the adventure of mental health recovery. I can confidently say I did pretty well. I mean, my relationship with Christ grew beyond what I could imagine, I was confirmed in my church, and I began to understand who I was in Christ. I was on a positive path and it didn’t feel like it could get much worse. However, my youthful self was so wrong. The journey had just begun.
At the onset of COVID, I was still the typical high school girl, having a large friend group and nothing but time. Well, erase the first part. Not being allowed to see any of my friends was more difficult than I would ever know before. The safety net I had held onto so hard and for so long was gone (at least temporarily). Like everyone, I was in complete isolation, save my parents and my sister. At this point in time, my depression began to creep in until it was at its full blown peak. 2020-2021 were two of the hardest years I have had to experience to this day (2022 being at a close second). I felt completely and utterly worthless, destroyed, and anything but human. Daily I was fighting thoughts of “you aren’t good enough”, “no one needs you here”, “you do no good here anyway”, and the list goes on and on. Every piece of me felt like it was some robot fighting for her life. I cannot even begin to describe the crippling pain I felt, to live everyday in physical pain over a mental disorder. At any given time, my brain could flip a switch, take over, and make me lose complete control.
2020 was the year I gave into the devil himself and I am in no way proud of it. This is something only a select few people are aware of, and while I have been deeply hurt for sharing this a few times, I have no problem doing it here. If this can help just one person, I can say this post is successful. In the spring of 2020, the deep emotional scars I was feeling turned into physical scars I would see for the rest of my life. This was the year I gave into the utterly painful, traumatizing, and heartbreaking act of self-harm. The quick release of pain that I felt in those moments was enough to keep the act going. As I watched myself give into this monster, I was quickly deteriorating. I wanted nothing more than to disappear, and the daily battle in my mind was becoming something I couldn’t handle. The devil was creeping in, and he was taking over before my eyes.
In the spring of 2021 (my senior year), I experienced the most trauma I have ever experienced in my life. The culmination of everything up until that point led me to the darkest place I ever could have imagined. I was tired of planting a smile on my face when my heart was in the most pain it has ever been in. I clearly remember the moment, as it is filled with trauma that I will remember for the rest of my life. One afternoon in my room, I began to have a panic attack, began hurting myself, and began to scream, cry, and do everything in my power to express to God my desire to leave this earth. The scariest images of all my demons invited themselves into my head. I do not remember what it was in me, but I got to my feet, ran downstairs, and fell into my mom’s arms. “I am scaring myself”, I cried, my frail body having given everything it could. I shook, cried, and felt so weak in that moment, and like every ounce of my control was slipping away. I was rushed to the hospital’s stress center, taken care of, and was threatened with weeks of intense help. I will never forget the numbness that transpired in my body as they looked me in the eyes and asked what was going through my mind. The details, the pain, the intensity. My world had been turned upside down, and I knew in my heart that this could not be the end for me.
Leaving the hospital, I was in complete and utter shock. Numb is an understatement. I had just experienced the worst of my nightmares in real life. No words can explain the pain I felt in that moment. My life felt so fragile. I was angry with God, not understanding why life would not let up. But at the same time, I was rejoicing with the fact that God had saved my life. Whatever it was within me that carried me down those stairs to reach my mom is something I may never understand. The only answer I have is the power of the Holy Spirit. The rest of the answers I won’t know until the day when I enter heaven (John 13:7!).
While that was most definitely not the end of my mental health rollercoaster, it was a defining moment in my faith. The devil could not win. He did not have a hold over my life. The trauma I will forever feel from those moments doubles as a reminder of the goodness of God. I am fortunate enough to be where I am today, and I know for a fact that I am not the only one with an impactful mental health story. I have had friends that have shared their incredible stories with me, and I have been changed by those more than I can express! God is so good. No matter the battle, no matter the trauma, no matter the scars. God is good. As I continue to deal with the pain of mental health trauma, I live for the God moments I have experienced in the last couple of years. There are so many, and this blog will include those as well. I want to not only share my story of pain, but stand here as a witness to what God can do in the midst of that pain. My life is still not perfect, in fact it all still comes in waves. But I hold onto the hope I have through my mustard seed-size faith in Jesus.
