Womanly Wednesday: A Guest Post On Wrestling With Mental Illness

Welcome to this week’s Womanly Wednesday! I “met” today’s guest poster through one of those crazy small-world connections.  I recognized her unique last name in a blogging group and asked her if she knew an old friend that Jordan and I had done Young Life summer staff several years back.  It turns out she had married that old friend! I’ve loved getting to know her via email and blogging these last few weeks and love her deep heart to find gratitude and joy in the midst of brokenness. I’m so grateful to have her sharing her heart on the blog today and hope you’ll head over to check out her awesome blog, The Demczack Days, for more of her thoughts on life, marriage, and faith! 

My eyes welled up with tears. I started to sweat. My head pounded. My vision became blurry. My body began to shake unforgivingly. My mind raced with nothing. I felt light-headed, dizzy. Could I breathe? I felt like I was choking. My stomach sank. Salty tears spilled over and down my cheeks aggressively. I took sharp, loud breaths. I sat on the floor, not caring that I was at work.

I knew something was wrong that night. I hadn’t felt right for a couple weeks now. That’s the first time it happened. But it didn’t stop. These bouts of craziness came in waves. They came in frightful, terrifying tsunami-like waves that crashed down on me and demolished any sort of normalcy I had. I quickly found out that THIS was the horror of panic attacks.

I decided to see a counselor. Others ridiculed my decision to not seek medication as my first option, but I ignored them and sat on a sofa as I told my story, tearfully. I was ashamed to tell a perfect stranger that I couldn’t hold it together, that I couldn’t make it through the day anymore.

The response? “You just need to pray and trust God more.”

Maybe my anxiety was because I wasn’t a good enough Christian. Perhaps I did need to try harder. Perhaps I did need to pray more.

So that’s what I did. I prayed more. I tried my best to trust God. But God seemed far and the anxiety seemed closer still.

I couldn’t go anywhere anymore without inducing a panic attack. After I had my first panic attack behind the wheel, I stopped driving. I stopped going to school. I stopped going to work. I stopped going out with friends. I stopped. I just stopped.

Paralyzed in my own life, I shocked myself when I failed two college classes that semester. I sought a different counselor. I again sat across from a lady with a clipboard as I told her my story. Her response? “Something traumatic must have happened in your childhood.” I assured her that my childhood could have made the Brady Bunch jealous. She didn’t seem to buy it. Again, I was alone.

I guess one person can only take so much of that before they give up. So I did.

The panic attacks snowballed quickly, aggressively, wildly into an uncontrollable depression. I don’t know how to describe depression but you know it when you feel it.

You know it when the aching, dull pain in your stomach never goes away. When you can’t fall asleep at night, so you stare at the ceiling until 5 AM. When you suddenly realized you haven’t laughed or sang or smiled or in weeks. You know it when you have no energy to get out of bed. When you decide getting dressed isn’t an option because you’d have to get out of bed and open the closet door… and even that seems too much.

You know it when you feel like you’re drowning deeper and you can’t stop. When you feel too much of a burden to ask for help, like others will think you’re attention seeking and too self-depreciating.

When you feel swallowed by the darkness and you can’t breathe even though you’re trying your best.

Life is dull. You are numb. Yet everything hurts.

I never got changed out of sweatpants. I became moody and irritable and angry. Life had hurt me and I deemed myself a lost cause. My mind tumbled around with dangerous words of self-hatred. Why was I still here? In my darkest nights, there were ugly thoughts that told me to leave this world and never look back.

God felt far. I cried out in the night, cursing and begging Him to stop whatever cruel joke He was playing. I asked Jesus to hold me, and when the pain never stopped, I felt forgotten and I knew all I believed about myself was true.

At the time, I was in a serious relationship. Anxiety made me jealous, paranoid and clingy. Depression made me quiet, irritable and isolated. Maintaining a relationship while being the worst version of myself, a version I had no clue existed, is one of the most difficult challenges I’ve ever faced.

I wish I could say that something clicked and changed and healed me over night.
But that isn’t the case.

The truth is that sometimes, the anxiety still heaves in and makes me vulnerable to those crying fits where I get the looks in public. The depression slithers in, late at night and makes me feel dark and alone and outrageously hopeless.

But God has seen me through it all. God has been gracious and given me hope and strength to trust Him. Even though it doesn’t feel like it sometimes, I know He loves me and He sees me. I know one day, I will be freed from this thorn in my side.

If you’re reading this right now and your heart has is treading the dark path of anxiety and depression, how I wish I could wrap you in a hug right now. I would grab your face, with tears in my eyes, and I would tell you- I would proclaim over you- that this is your struggle, but your struggle is NOT you.

You are not your depression.
You are not your anxiety.
No, you are far more than any mental illness.

If your heart is weary from the nights of darkness, I would hold your hand and whisper that the pain will end. The nights will become clearer; the morning will come earlier.

I would promise you that you aren’t alone, that you aren’t unloved. I would assure you that God hears you, that you aren’t depressed because you are forgotten, or you’re a bad Christian. He knows the number of hairs on your head, He holds every tear you’ve cried.

You are NOT crazy –you are being tried and tested, you are being put through the wringer. But dear soul, do not give up. Do not think you’re hopeless, too far gone, not worth the trouble.

Because you are a treasure and a joy! You are a beauty, you are a jewel. You are beloved and your life is priceless. You are not a burden. Oh, loved one, there will be hard days but I couldn’t be more sure that the darkness ends. Hold fast to hope. Hold fast.

“Those who sow with tears will reap with songs of joy.” Psalm 126:5

Thanks for stopping by this week’s Womanly Wednesday! Make sure to head over and check out Annie’s beautiful and honest blog at The Demczack Days for more great posts about life, marriage, life in Baltimore, and all sorts of other goodness! You can also check her out on Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and Twitter.