Struggling against this perpetual sadness has been exhausting. It is not a new struggle and in fact has been something I have had to cope with since I was a young girl. I can actually pinpoint the time frame I crumpled underneath a heap of depression, anxiety and a whole onslaught of paranoid, crippling thought patterns. I was twelve. In my subsequent search for some magical cure, I have gone over that year in my mind numerous times, trying to parse it for a key event that caused me to give way to the basket case I am today, but I cannot find one.
I recently celebrated my twenty-eighth birthday and I realize I am still trying to sort out of my jumble of emotions, hoping to unearth a cause. The emotional reaction I have to certain stimuli is completely disproportionate to what it ought to be. I see a baby on a commercial and the next thing I know I am crying. I accidentally dump the majority of the kids’ pasta into the sink while I am straining it and it is the end of the world. It is frustrating but should not leave me blubbering like a fool. And yet, I continue trying to find logic behind my illogical behavior.
It must be because I am fed up with moving, I tell myself. In the past four years alone, I have moved four times and lived in a hotel between houses. Our daughter is four. This is not the life I wanted for her. My life has been routinely packed and sorted into cardboard boxes and the more I have to do it, the harder it becomes. So, it does not seem entirely unreasonable to place some of the blame on the stress this lifestyle has inflicted. But if that were the only reason for my inability to function normally, making strides to cope better with all the moving we have done would be enough. It is not.
I am one of those people that likes to talk through her emotions. I have always felt like there must be some sort of underlying reason I am feeling the way I am and if I can get to that root things will get better, that perhaps I am not the total mess I perceive myself to be. I have hit a low this month that I have not dealt with in a long while. I in a very dark place. Let me back up for just a moment.
As I have said, this whole depression, anxiety, spiritual battle, whatever you want to call it, has been a thorn in my side for several years. Over the course of time, I started to internalize my pain. I used to be more forthcoming but once you are pigeon-holed, people look at you differently. They treat you like a child or worse, like you are a villain. You are self-destructive, therefore we will treat you out of a textbook, as if you are not a human being with a soul. I stopped eating half my meals because when I began tenth grade because I fell so deeply under the spell of anxiety and depression that I lost my appetite. I was afraid to eat. Paranoid thoughts about whether it would make me sick crept in. I was so anxious all the time that I felt nauseated. My body began to waste away and even for my small stature my weight dropped to an unhealthy level. I agreed I needed help and walked into the hospital optimistic there would be healing; that if I could get my body functioning properly, I could then tackle the rest. Well, as soon as you label someone “anorexic” no one cares why you are losing weight. It must be because you have a poor body image and think you are fat, despite the skin and bones you actually display. Throw in my psychiatrist lying that I was suicidal and, well, you can imagine how well I was treated.
I spent three weeks in a ward with girls who actually did think they were ugly because they were “fat” but were most assuredly not. I watched them treated with disdain and kids’ gloves. I was even told by one of the professionals that it was not uncommon for girls to return. One girl proved that theory by arriving, being released and returning during my stay. To this day, my heart has a particular ache for girls who find themselves in that situation. No one should be treated like they are just going to be self-destructive for the rest of their lives. It may be realistic to be prepared for a potential relapse, but I know that people believing in me speaks volumes to my well-being. If I am being told I am not going to succeed, eventually I am going to stop trying to.
Now, I do not hazard to say I am the authority on how these facilities are typically run but that was my experience. And it was in one example of why I began to shut off from everyone else. I went back to school and was told by well meaning people that I was beautiful and reassured I was nowhere near overweight. I went to a walk-in clinic complaining about abdominal and pelvic pain. As soon as the nurse saw on my questionnaire that I had been hospitalized for “anorexia” she pitched a fit. Seriously. She stormed around as if I was the biggest inconvenience and she was incredulous that my doctor had not been able to fit me in. I was confused. This was months after my hospital stay and I genuinely felt sick. My mother went to bat for me when another nurse came in ready to set up an IV pack for me. She said there had been a misunderstanding and it was not necessary, so the woman left and returned to say they would skip the IV but I needed blood work done. So, they drew blood and my mother and I returned to the small waiting room while I sobbed into her shoulder. Yeah, I cry a lot, but the way I was treated was deplorable. My blood work came back “normal” for whatever it was they had tested it for and I was unceremoniously sent on my way with instructions to go see my doctor. I did. I had an infection and she gave me the appropriate antibiotics. When I was married, I got a copy of medical records so I could transfer them to my new doctor. I skimmed through them, curious what was on record and was shocked and horrified to discover that that nurse had actually had the gall to record the reason for my clinic visit as “anorexia-nervosa”. She could have found my infection if she had not been so blinded by the stigma that “anorexia” carries with it. The assumptions, the shame…I am so sorry to anyone else who has any sort of label slapped on them that as true as it is carries such a burden with it!
There are far too many examples after that point that demonstrate why I began to internalize, rather than seek help. I have lived in fear of judgement. I have lived in fear of losing respect in the eyes of those I look up to and seek approval from. I did not recognize how much this was hurting me until now. I held it in and buried it so deep in my mind but it keeps resurfacing. I hold onto the anger and hurt of the past, I dread all the potential strife of the future and I ache at the struggles of the world both near my front door and afar. I stopped really talking about it, even to God. So, I have stopped processing.
I get frustrated when I try to point the finger at all the moving, the size of our current house, the messy and disorganized state said house is in, etc. because the ears listening to my reasoning try to solve the problem. I know they are not the real problems, so I get indignant. I know that! I think. I am blessed beyond measure right now, with a completely devoted husband who has loved me through every hill and valley. God has given me two beautiful children whom I genuinely adore. I can rattle off all the reasons to be happy but I feel empty. My emotional apathy is irrational and illogical. It is not solved with logic because I can tell you all the right answers too.
I cannot cope with life right now. Every minuscule drop of negativity pools in my heart and turns into a flood of tears. My heart cannot bear to read my Facebook newsfeed full of prayer requests for babies lying in hospital beds, families grieving the loss of loved ones and people like me who have been also wrestling with physical ailments that have continually eluded a diagnosis. (I have been told my bladder/pelvic pain and crippling back pain is caused by five different things now.) Then there are the headlines. I mean, every day someone has died in a horrifically tragic way and many simply for believing in Jesus Christ as their Savior, as I do.
I wake up every morning full of pain in my body and in my heart. I start to wonder if it is all in my head, that maybe all of this is just because I am unable to properly process stress of any kind. And I am not so naiive to believe that none of my symptoms are attributed to this factor. However, I am so so frightened to admit that it is an issue lest the doctor throw his hands up and say, “Ah, well, there’s your problem!” Yes, stress, depression, anxiety, all of those things can manifest themselves in very real physical symptoms. But I like to think I know my own body and something is not right. The longer it goes on, though, the more I begin to doubt my own instincts. The more I doubt my own instincts, the more I sink into hopelessness.
And then, it hits me like a wall of bricks. Sorry, if that is cliche but it is the most apt description. Regardless of how difficult all of the above experiences have been in the past, I always clung to someone who I knew was not going anywhere. He was always there, always listening and loving me no matter how unlovable I felt. I felt God pull me out of my adolescent funk by placing me back into a Christian school my freshman year. I felt His love as I was surrounded my girls who cared for me and demonstrated this love in very tangible ways, like a stack of kind hand-written notes when I got back from my Grandma’s funeral, expressing their condolences. He was with me in the hospital, giving me the strength to keep fighting. He has always been there and despite my very finite and sometimes skewed view of who He truly is to me, I always knew that.
Maybe it was internalizing it that made me lose sight of His presence. I think in not acknowledging the depth of my emotional trials, I let my guard down and that let in enough space for all the darkness to creep in. It left room for the lies to take root. Now, I have a tangled mess of lies choking what I know is the truth. I have lost sight of who God is and my faith is completely turned upside down. I believe in Him. I know He is there. I am just trying to remember in my heart what that means. I still know all the right answers to that question but my heart is so heavy and burdened that I am having difficulty accepting them.
I am sure I lost some of you when I began talking about God but He is very real in my life. I have seen enough of the light and the dark to know that right now I am walking in darkness. I see the light through the cracks and I know He will break through but right now the lies have accomplished exactly what the Enemy wants to see of God’s children. He has rendered me fearful and ineffectual, or at least not as effective for the Kingdom of God as I could be. This makes me angry but I do not know where to go from here. I want to be a light. I want to reach the world. I want to make a positive change. How can I do that when I am shrouded in such sadness all the time?
As a Christian, I am particularly burdened by this question. I feel guilty, like I should be able to dive into the Bible, praise God and it will all come together. If it does not, then I am not holy enough. I know there is definitely merit in immersing myself in God’s Word and being surrounded by His people because I have seen the positive difference it makes. Why is it not enough? Am I doing something wrong? Then there is the camp that says medical intervention is the answer. I did try that too, in college, but I do not remember how long I gave it before I determined it was not helping. I did not see the point in taking a pill that knowingly caused plenty of side effects but was a hit or miss as to whether it would actually help ease the problem it claimed to. I sit here now, weak, tired, weary from whatever has been ravaging my body for several months now and wondering when and if I will ever emerge from this pit.
I am not a lost cause yet. Something (or rather Someone) inside me keeps telling me this. I just pray that for my sake and my childrens’ that the doctors are able to track down the physical component so that I can begin to heal not only physically but wholly.
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