Context

The reason I wanted to start blogging again is because I’m ready to share the journey that has led me where I am today in hopes that my story can help even just one other person. I was ashamed and resisted it for a really long time but have finally made peace with that shame and believe that “we’ve been assigned our mountains to show others they can be moved.”

My story is about a battle with mental illness.  It first showed up in my youth. Early signs began at 14 yrs old and by Highschool I had begged God to take my life.  My parents chalked up my inability to get out of bed and dropping grades to being a mixture of teen angst and the Epstein Barr virus.  Mental illness was believed to be a character flaw rather than a disease of the brain.

It hasn’t been until these last few years that I’ve even seen my church acknowledge mental illness.  I always knew depression was a real thing, but what was depression, really?  Was it a psychological pattern that put people in a rut they couldn’t pull out of? Or was it perhaps a chemical imbalance inside of a persons brain that cannot regulate on it’s own? If the latter was true, what exactly IS within our control? How can we determine if behavior patterns associated with mental illness are “character flaws” or “acting out” uncontrollably?

These questions plagued my mind.  I had always been taught that we come to this earth with complete agency- and that’s what exposes our character.  However, when you look at other types of illness like cancer, or diabetes, it’s easy to see that without proper treatment these diseases can take the lives of those they inhabit.  Mental illness can also take lives of those it inhabits. The pain becomes so intense the ill-affected person would rather die than live through it. They feel the world would be better off without them. It’s irrational, but they aren’t thinking rationally. I was not thinking rationally.

I struggled for the next 17 years, believing that I could control my depression with a proper diet, exercise, and positive attitude.  I had periods of normalcy or "sanity", periods of extreme irritability, periods of paralyzing depression, and periods of extreme productivity.  I believed these to be the normal highs and lows, up’s and down’s, twists and turns that we all experience in life. I believed that chalking it up to anything more than that was just dramatic, and that I couldn’t possibly be affected with a medical condition that most people are afraid to utter.

It was about 4 months after giving birth to my son- our 3rd child, that my intense mood swings became so debilitating we knew I needed professional help.  I began regular therapy sessions and was put on an anti-depressant in which I could feel a difference literally 3 hours after taking it.  That’s not common. Anti-depressants usually take anywhere from 2-3 weeks to feel any kind of change. At first I thought the change was good because it was different than what I had been feeling. The depression seemed less, but the anxiety soared! I had a constant tickling sensation in my stomach, it was like constant butterflies.  I lost my appetite and rapidly lost weight, dropping lower than I had been in over 10 years.  At first I liked that side-effect, but the anxiety became too much and I requested trying new meds.

This began a whirlwind of frustrating experimentation with unfavorable side-effects. The peak of my disease hit in 2016 when my moods would switch so drastically it would scare even myself. I became DESPERATE for help. I despised who I was becoming and felt that my husband and children deserved better than me.  The depression became so intense that I would lay in my bed paralyzed with indecision of what my next move should be. I was put on a new medication and diagnosed with A-typical depression.

After a few months of hell my life started turning back around through a series of pretty miraculous events.  My hope is to find the silver lining within mental illness and do my part to help end the stigma surrounding it. Vigorous treatment helped me pick up the pieces of 2016 for a much better 2017.  Now here we are, 2018.  Let's make this year a great one!