It's like a film strip scrolling through, scene by scene, of moments of your past day or days. Glimpses of events where you were just in the moment, living, breathing, managing and it's not until you look back on the moment where the guilt creeps in:
Questions and judgement... Did I screw up? Was I being judged? Should I have done this differently? Is this just mom guilt, or is it something more? Irrational fears creep in as your mind starts to take control of itself. “Handle it” you say. “Just calm down.” You chant. You lay there. Awake. Needing to be asleep but you can't turn it off. It is there, when everything is quiet and all the other folks in your home are sound asleep where the dark enemy of anxiety crawls in to the cracks of your memory. Suddenly your memories are second guessed and remembered in a different light. A critical light. You know you're your own worst enemy... You know you're thinking too hard about things, overthinking... Others who don't understand tell you. But that doesn't mean the thoughts and feelings go away. It doesn't mean they disappear. ——————————————————————————------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This was one of my pieces of writing at the peak of my anxiety tornados last Spring. My head was full, my body was weak, my soul was starving and my heart was hurting. Anxiety is such an interesting topic and from my experiences there are three camps surrounding it:
Everyone deals with anxiety differently and this is my story, from my perspective, from the honest depths of my struggle. At the peak (or should I say valley) of my battle with anxiety I was “functioning” fine on the outside. But on the inside I was a stinkin’ mess. I prayed about it, talked to my husband and friends about it, bought the books from amazon to help me with it, Read Phllipians 4:6 until I could recite it backwards, all of these are good and healthy things…. except, for me, I wasn’t able to get out of my hole. But I was a “do-er”. I got stuff done. I handled “it”. I CARRIED a lot. I helped others…. How on earth was I even going to be able to ask for help? It was in the science lab at my school where God came to me, to smack me (spiritually) in the face and force me to be honest with myself. (My high school science teachers would laugh out loud here knowing I was in a science lab!) I was cleaning ok, thats what I do when I’m anxious. A substitute teacher (whom I hardly knew but was such a nice dude) approached me with a serious as ever look on his face and said “Mellissa, I need to talk to you.” I stopped dead in my tracks. He was serious. “Ok…” I said, nervously, because in my experience conversations starting like this at 8 am on a Monday don’t always end well. He sat down. “I don’t know if this will be weird to you or not, but God speaks to me sometimes.” I breathe, blink, my face…. a mix of inquisitive and confused. “Last night, he spoke to me about you.” My mouth drops. Then so do I, right into a chair next to him. When someone tells you that you have a message from God being delivered, you sit your buns down. “Mellissa, God wants you to know he loves you so much. You are doing great in this life. You are a great mom and a great wife.” Pause- Honest moment: There were times in my anxiety tornados that I would pray these words thinking I wasn’t doing well enough. Wishing that I would have some confirmation that I was on the right path. Seriously, word. for. word. Did I think it would ever come from a sweet sub I barely knew, nope. But God is in control (and has a weird sense of humor). Tears filled my eyes and I was trying to comprehend was he was saying. “Mellissa, God also knows you are struggling right now. He knows that irrational fears are keeping you up at night and you aren’t getting the rest you need.” Pause- Say what? Who told you this sweet substitute teacher? Because I seriously have only talked about this with my closest friends. Shocked face continued… “Mellissa, God knows you are struggling with one particular irrational fear that plays over and over again in your dreams and when you lie awake at night, and he wants me to tell you ‘Let it go! I’ve got this.’ He loves you so much and you need to give yourself a break.” Insert water fall from my eyes and a tightness in my chest, yet a lift off my shoulders at the same time. How did he know this? How did he know that I had been having a re-occuring dream of my kids being kidnapped for months? How did he know that after EVERY, I am serious, outing we did with our family (whether it be grocery store or restaurant or more) I would lay awake that night replaying every step of the event questioning whether or not I put my kids in danger or not? How did he know? He didn’t. It was God. “Mellissa, give yourself a break today and rest in the fact that God loves you so much.” And he left. I sobbed. I was confused. I always wondered if I was ever going to have a “God Moment” where I was directly spoken to…. but at this moment, I had no question. God was telling me (through this sweet substitute) that I needed to let it go. I knew I needed to seek help in a way that I hadn’t yet. And that meant wearing a humility covering and calling my doctor. The week of God’s message to me, I made an appointment with my doctor to talk about things, and I tried to blame it on EVERYTHING under the sun, hormones? My my thyroid? Maybe it was because I Was approaching the big 3-0 and after I went over that hurdle I would be “cured”. Then he asked, “Mellissa, what is this really about?” And I fell apart. I told him everything. My struggles. My anxiety tornados. My irrational fears. The worry I had about the family and friends around me that would judge me for getting help or getting on medicine because anxiety “isn’t real” and it is actually a “spiritual issue”. The fear of judgement is equivalent to less than and not good enough. Both of these phrases are crippling to people with anxiety. We talked through options (my doctor is amazing and through and one of the best physicians I’ve ever know) and decided that what was the worst that could happen? Things couldn’t get worse. So he gave me the prescription. I brought it home and talked to my husband about it. Right there he grabbed the prescription paper from my hand, grabbed my other hand and prayed about it. “God, if this is going to be what help Mel reach the potential you have for her, gives us peace and confidence about this.” We did this for 5 straight days. After the 5th day it was clear to both of us that this was the next step in this journey. I filled my prescription and prayed over the first pill I took. After 4 days, I finally slept through the night since before becoming a mom. Rest, my friends. Mental, physical and spiritual. 3 weeks into the journey (which obviously we hid from everyone around us because me being on medicine was still a weakness to me then), we were at a restaurant on the patio. Our kids were playing and I was watching them with a smile on my face and the sun on my back. “What is wrong?” Chris asked. “Nothing.” I said (and I meant it. It wasn’t the woman way of nothing when your really actually mad, I was being genuine”. A few minutes pass… “Mellissa, what is wrong?” “Nothing Chris, I’m fine.” I really was. He asked again. “DUDE. I promise! I am ok! I am just enjoying this moment!” And then he said something that confirmed more things than I can even put into words… “Oh. I am just not used to you being HERE. I am not used to you being present. I am used to you being worried about this, thinking about that… always somewhere else. I think I am getting my wife back.” Anxiety was impeding me from living out the potential that God had for me. Was I surviving? Yes. Was I doing it well or at the capacity God intended? Absolutely Not. Jen Hatmaker (my literary BFF) says about bring struggles into light in order to inspire healing; "Healing requires partnering with Jesus in the work He is accomplishing in us. We move. WE engage. We do things. Sometimes that involves therapy or medication, and by the way, there is not shame in either. It is not "lack of faith." Rather it is a sign of incredible strength." (Hatmaker, Of Mess and Moxie, p.40). This is my struggle. This is my hurdle. This is what I pray for most and cry about often. This is also when I write and when I am the most honest with myself. Since my journey of healing starting this spring… I began to analyze the me that I am becoming after all of this and because of all of this. Could it be that anxiety is a vessel that God is using for inner acceptance and honesty and humility and release of power to God himself? I wonder if this struggle is God’s way of inspiring growth. Is this like one of those confusing parables where I am supposed to learning something deep about my inmost self through unexpected conversations and interventions? This is my story. My struggle. My journey. It is real. PLEASE, if you ever have though that anxiety is a made, be considerate of those who are dealing with something that is not only real, but hard and tricky. And please be understanding that saying things like “anxiety is a spiritual issue” or “Why can’t he/she just chill out?” only makes suffers feel more alone and ultimately more anxious. My challenge is for folks to ask how people they think are struggling with anxiety how they truly are and mean it. Give space and time to allow conversations to happen. For folks who are struggling, pray. Ask for words, for clarity, for bravery and for humility. Imagine the work God could do through the lives of so many if we all had a REAL conversation about REAL anxiety? CARE. Not Carry. |
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