A Tangled Path

I’ve seen miracles. Better yet, God let me experience one.

Every path leads somewhere. Every choice helps shape each path. My path, choices, and thoughts caught up to me. I didn’t expect them to. Thoughts are just thoughts, right?

I thought I had moved past all of the really hard things in my life. I had dealt with them. Everything was as normal as can be expected with two toddlers and an infant. No life-threatening situations to control. No tense atmosphere to diffuse. No delusions to persuade. Yet there I sat in the dark hallway, hoping someone would come find me, be friendly, and keep me company while I waited out this storm cloud.

Praying they wouldn’t. I didn’t want to share my storm.

The darkness was both comforting and suffocating. It didn’t offer hope it just kept the light from exposing the sadness. Sleep sounded like the best option at every moment. I could hide behind sleep; all mothers need sleep. I knew this wasn’t what okay looked like, but I was not ready to admit it. While I was hiding in the dark, struggling to breathe; everyone else was eating dinner in the other room. While I was considering living in the dark forever, they were enjoying each other’s company and silly faces.

Surely my husband and kids in the other room were better off without someone dragging them through life. This was a lie, but I let it slide past. I should have called it out. I did feel they were better off without me, so wasn’t that truth? I thought so. Logically I ran every argument. The feeling was so encompassing. The lies were so strong I couldn’t find anything wrong with them. I was a failure, too immature, not together enough, not dedicated enough, not healthy enough, and not good enough to be above these emotions.

(Dear loved one. Just look at me. This is not what I have for you)

I felt this glimmer of light, His voice more than I heard it. I couldn’t hear His voice because I wasn’t listening. I had allowed the lies to be louder than the One who loves me best.

My husband and I had made it through the chaos of my childhood home splitting in every direction. There was enough shrapnel to go around but we had made it through and established our own family at the same time. Wasn’t that enough drama for a lifetime? It was time to be okay and learn what marriage and family should feel like and look like.

Yet here I was making a mess of it. There was the lie again- but it felt like reality?

In hindsight, I should have reached out to someone, but the feeling of being a burden was already so strong I didn’t want to share it with anyone. So instead I sat in the dark, feeling each individual fiber of the blue carpet hoping to stay hidden but knowing I couldn’t keep going on my own. How did I get here?

So many ways.

The door opened and my husband walked in, “Are you okay?”

“Sure. If making a mess of everything is okay.”

Pause. “What can I do?”

“Nothing. Just, whatever. I don’t know…I think this is worse than I thought. I need to actually go to the doctor. This can’t be okay.”

“Okay. Make an appointment, whatever you need.”

I am so blessed by my husband. He knows what I need. Not to say he doesn’t need to be told sometimes; he just has good instincts and deeply loves and wants to help.

I called to make an appointment. I almost canceled a few times. I think that’s normal. Thank goodness I didn’t. I went in and blurted out at the end “I think I am having some trouble with being a little bit depressed but maybe it’s just mood swings.”

After a brief interview about emotions, feelings, and how to stop having them, I went home with a prescription for “PMS and mood swings” because PMS was acceptable to me. Depression was not. Depression was for people who were really in trouble. If you don’t call something by its name it isn’t as scary. Or shameful. Right?

Somehow seeking help for this was embarrassing. Somehow I had done it anyway. I had medication now… do people just take it?  It was hard to get past the stigma that I had with mental illness, mental struggle, depression, whatever you want to call it, I didn’t want to claim it. I didn’t want to have an issue, and I didn’t want people to know.

But. I didn’t want to end up in a worse mental state, and I didn’t want to be this person for my kids. So I took the first medication and experienced a lot of side effects. It was scary taking a medication that could change so much and have such an affect. We tried another, a third, fourth, and fifth. All extra symptoms, no real help. Finally the sixth one we tried started helping. The brain fog cleared a little even though an invisible pressure fell over me. I wasn’t depressed but I wasn’t happy, I was too sluggish and foggy to feel anything up or down, but mostly I wasn’t depressed. That was enough, I needed to get back to my life.

I lived with the depression and medication for almost 10 years. It took me that many years to call it what it was: Depression. I still couldn’t say it full volume, it was an under the breath type response.

Can you be a responsible person and have depression? A Christian? Full of Worth?  I didn’t know and I wasn’t about to gamble my reputation as a serve-everywhere-do-everything-at-church Christian. I stopped living and started spiritually holding my breath and acting fine. No one asked me to. No one pressured me to. I wanted to be better– fake it till you make it? I could push through with the medication and make it happen.

That’s a depressing way to start a post.

Yes it is. It was a depressing way to live.

I share because I got to see God work a real miracle. Not someone else’s miracle, or someone else’s person. An amazing gift of healing and restoration for– me.

I know this is long– but if I don’t share the history, the testimony loses something–

For years I added issues, lies, thoughts and other mental “rocks” to my figurative backpack. The medication took the edge off and made it easier for me to function without feeling. It didn’t solve the wrong thinking, instead, it numbed it. I scarcely heard the lies building. It stopped motion on the unbearable.

The medication was fine until it wasn’t. It created a side effect I wasn’t aware of at the time; numbness.

Nothing really broke through; not births, deaths, or emergencies. Disturbingly the emergencies and crisis situations started to make me feel alive.

As time went on thoughts I didn’t recognize began to break through. I started thinking about driving off of cliffs or just walking away. I didn’t really want to do those things but the thoughts persisted and worsened.

My thinking was so slow it took a long time before I finally realized it was the medication. I asked my doctor about it and he confirmed suicidal thoughts as a possible long-term side effect. This medication needed to go but I there were two problems: I had been on it too long, and I had had a symptomatic reaction to all other medications we had tried before this one. What now? I couldn’t stay on the medication. Could I leave it behind and function? So much fear and panic.

I persisted and started weaning off the prescription. Immediately I started experiencing everything on high alert. Like jumping into a frozen lake. Every layer of emotion that had stayed locked in numbness suddenly had a voice and say in my mind and heart. The rocks were tumbling out of my backpack. Everything was loud and painful. I was emotional all the time and short-tempered.  felt awful. I knew better but couldn’t be better. I wanted to change but couldn’t. I was trapped. I was overreacting, feeling too much, being too defensive and angry.

I couldn’t use medication. I didn’t want to bother friends. God was who I had left. So I had a very candid conversation with Him.

“Hey, I know you’re there. You haven’t done anything about this yet. It hurts. It’s hard and it’s not fair. Where are you? I’m trapped and I know better. I came out of the conflict and struggle with my mom’s situation with faith. Don’t I get some credit for that? Why are you leaving me here?”

(I never left you. You are hurting, you never asked for my help, but I’ve been here the whole time.)

In my pain, I barely understood His voice.

“Okay. I know you can help me here, but you haven’t. Medication isn’t an option at this point unless I want to be totally numb. I need to be there for my husband and kids. I can’t walk away and I cant think my way out. I am choosing to trust you with this. I can’t live the way I am now. So you can leave me as I am or you can heal me. I can’t do anything on my own. So whatever this is, it’s yours. I’m yours Lord; live or die, depressed or not. I’m just…I just…I can’t.”

It is hard to describe how the Lord can speak words that would seem harsh, but they aren’t. With the greatest compassion He spoke,

(Finally. I’ve been here waiting for you to let me carry this burden. Rest.)

I decided it was time to seek God. To fully fall, regardless of consequence, into Him. I really didn’t feel like I had options. So I would say “yes” to everything He asked. I would seek and pray and lay everything down. No matter the cost. What did I have to lose anyway? I meant it more seriously than anything. He asked me to take out everything that wasn’t Him.

I didn’t care. I would do whatever He asked.

I began my journey. I found my miracle.

Its been years in the making and it isn’t over. I am excited to share with you the story; my miracle.

~

If you are struggling with anything that feels like depression, it is okay to seek help. Pray and seek prayer, seek God, seek medical advice, talk to a friend, counselor, pastor. If you aren’t sure if you need help or not ask anyway.

If you need medication use it- if you want a more natural option, find a naturopath or nutritionist but get outside your head and to someone who can help you. This battle won’t be won in silence. It’s won in brave steps.

Don’t hide in isolation. There are so many ways to help improve depression and its symptoms. Dwelling in solitude doesn’t help that is the dark place depression and rejection grow.

No one has the same journey. Each person struggles in a different way. My story is not your story; but my story might be what starts your journey. Be brave my friend. It’s time to come out of hiding.

My eyes are ever toward the Lord, for he will pluck my feet out of the net                 Psalms 25:15