The Struggle is Real

               Starting at the beginning of this summer, I began to deal with anxiety, panic attacks, and mild depression. This post isn’t to get a sympathy card. It isn’t to prove anything about myself. It is to show that the struggle with anxiety, panic attacks, and depression is real. And that there are people actually going through it.

                I’ve been coming up with reasons for the past month and a half to not write this, but I think I really need to. Before I start, I’d just like to say that I’m not through with this. It’s something that I may have to work on for the rest of my life. This is, by no means, easy to talk about or easy to write. But I do believe it is necessary. Maybe there is someone who will read this that is going through a similar situation or knows someone who is. I know many of you who will read this have no idea that I’ve been going through this, but I think being transparent is what it necessary. Telling people that Christians go through this, no matter how invincible we think we are. This world is not perfect, and it will never be perfect. Y’all, the struggle is real.

                While I do not intend on sharing every single detail of the really, really long story here, I plan to give you an overview of what happened this summer. At the beginning of the summer, I prayed that God would make the hard prayers my prayers. I almost (notice I say almost) wish I could take that back. Because He answered that prayer, loud and clear. The way He answered that prayer was most certainly not what I wanted or expected. I intended this summer to be an awesome time growing closer to God, working at my church, and just hanging out. I remember telling someone the day before this started happening that I finally felt, for the first time since I went to college, that I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

                On the first of June, I couldn’t go to sleep. At all. I had this awful feeling that if I went to sleep, I was going to die. I would try to go to sleep, then jerk myself awake when I was almost asleep. When I get stressed, I get these muscle twitches. They kept happening that night. Well, the next night, it was hard for me to sleep, but I finally did, and these feelings passed. Another night, about a week and a half later, it happened again. Then a few days later, it happened again. This became full-blown panic attacks, that started happening during the day. I couldn’t eat, because I felt like I was going to throw up if I put anything in my mouth. I lived off of fruit and smoothies for a while. I began feeling depressed in the afternoons, every single day. I would cry. All the time. A wave of emotions would come over me and I would scream, cry, shake, almost hyperventilate, and just curl up into a ball. It was awful.

                I began going to see a counselor. It helped some, but pretty quickly, she told me I needed to be on medication. So I started taking Zoloft. While I do believe that the medicine has helped me, I’m not going to say that I want to be on it. I don’t. But, for right now, it is what helps me.

                When I had these “waves” of depression, all I wanted to do was lay down and not do anything. Sometimes I would cry. I would feel like there was absolutely no hope in my life. Everything that I enjoyed doing no longer appealed to me. I, however, would continue throughout my day as best as I could. It got worse when it started interfering in my relationship with Christ. When I began to think that there is no way a true Christian could go through something like this. That I must not be doing something right for this to happen to me. This is a lie. Something that is totally false. I, of course, thought that when we have trials, it all must come from the outside, people trying to kill us and stuff. But our trials can come from the inside too. And they are scary. I don’t know about y’all, but one of the people I trust the most is myself. Of course, this sounds totally self-centered, and maybe it is, but I’ve always felt that I am the person I can rely on the most. I will get it done. I will volunteer to bring this or that for a function, because I know I will make it happen. When I began to not be able to trust myself or my emotions anymore, that’s when things got really bad.

                But God is teaching me so much through this. This has radically transformed my prayer life. It has transformed the way I look at a lot of things. While this has not been my plan, nor would I ever want to include it in my plan, God has a perfect plan. And He will not give His children more than they can handle- with Him, of course. I’m not going to make a list of all the famous Christians that have battled depression and anxiety, because, in my opinion, it doesn’t really help. Yes, it is encouraging, but for someone in the middle of this battle, they don’t really care who has gone through this, just that they get out.

                For anyone that has gone through anything like this, I’d just like to say don’t be afraid to tell your story. People need to hear it. Did you know that 50% of Americans will deal with some sort of depression in their lifetime? And 1 in 4 Americans are on some sort of anti-depressant drug? Those numbers are astounding to me. This sucks, y’all. It really does. I’m not going to lie to you and tell you that it’s no fun, but it’s all good. It’s not. At all. Do I fully believe that God is going to use what I’m going through for His glory and His glory alone? Yes. Am I going to say that it’s easy to go through this? Absolutely not. If you are not a Christian and you are going through something like this, I cannot even fathom what it must be like. As dark as these past few months have been, I’ve at least had a “flashlight” to help me through. I pray that you would know that Christ died to make a way for us to have communion with God. I pray that you would see your sinfulness in comparison to God’s glory and desire a relationship with Him. God can help you through whatever you are going through. I know that’s hard to believe, but it’s true. He doesn’t make your pain go away, but He will make it more bearable.

                And for those of you who haven’t gone through something like this, especially Christians, chances are that you will encounter or have encountered someone who is or has gone through this. My best advice for you is to PLEASE, for the love of all that is holy, do not just throw a Bible verse at them, say “I’ll be praying for you,” and walk away. It’s a copout, y’all. It truly is. Guess what people who are going through this need? They need love. They need a constant friendship. One who will literally be there every single second of every single day, making themselves available to talk, text, or sit there in complete silence with while they cry. Because, once again, this sucks. They do not need another Bible verse. Many times, these are meaningless. The Bible verses I found on my own had so much more meaning than the ones people told me. Of course, when I texted my friends and asked for prayers, I knew they couldn’t magically come to Alabama and be there for me. This is not directed towards someone who cannot be there for someone. And sending Bible verses to someone is great. Praying for people is great. I am not belittling any of these actions. But just ignoring the problem and patting their shoulder saying “there, there,” is seriously the worst thing you can do for someone who struggles with anxiety and depression. Just because you don’t know how to react to someone when they tell you this doesn’t mean you get to ignore the problem. Ask how you can help. Pray for guidance. Don’t be afraid of someone who struggles with this. The fact that they told you about it means that they want help and they know that they need it. So be there for them. Pray for them constantly. Because God is truly the only person that can completely mend our brokenness.

                The main reason I am writing this now and not a year from now or when all this is over, is because I am still going through it. Granted, it is nowhere near as bad as it was this summer, but it is still not good. You always hear stories of depression and anxiety after someone has gone through it, not during.

                Once again, this post isn’t to get a sympathy comment. It isn’t to show you how I’ve managed all of this. It is to show you what God has done, is doing, and is going to do in my life. It is to raise awareness about how we, as Christians, handle when people struggle with this. It is to tell someone who is going through this that there is a light at the end of the tunnel, and a God who wants to lead you to that light. It is to tell you that there is a Savior who has died to show you that light. If you are going through this, or have gone through this, talk about it for Pete’s sake. Because keeping quiet doesn’t do any good. I can’t tell you how many people I talked to about this that say they have gone through the same thing or know so many people who have. Raising awareness about it only can help.

Thanks for reading!

Meghan

Procrastinating...Then Procrastinating Some More

                Yeah, I know…it’s been almost seven months since I last posted. I can’t say that I didn’t have time. I did. I had time upon time upon time. But the problem is, is that time that I had bookoodles of was filled with me trying to figure out ways not to be as stressed out. I’m not going to lie. This past year was HARD. Sophomore year beat me up, emotionally, physically, and spiritually. I tend to internalize my stress. My outsides never truly reflect how stressed I am. This may seem odd because when you see me stressed, I’m running around ready to scream. But that’s just it, I don’t scream. I don’t let my stress out. I keep it all bottled up inside till I have an emotional breakdown. Many occurred in private…a few in public. But the thing is, all this would be solved if I would just RELY on GOD.

                Rely on God, I say. Now I dare you to give me another phrase that we use in our daily walks as Christians that is thrown around so much, but so hard to act upon. No, really, I dare you. I can’t think of a single one. Not one. I stress, worry, cry, vent, and pull my hair out. But I don’t rely on God. My friends tell me “Meghan, you have to start relying on God! You are way too stressed!” I know this. So why don’t I? Why don’t I do the one thing that I know for a fact and without a doubt in my mind will relieve me of all my worries, fears, and anxieties? I guess that’s the human thing about it. No matter how secure we are in our faith, we all try to be “super-Christians.” You know those Christians who walk around like they don’t have a care in the world and that they have it all together. It’s like we believe that God has given them some sort of magical potion that makes them not stressed and anxious and worried.

                Worry is a sin. I think. Well…in my case it is. Sin is anything that gets in between you and God. It’s that thing (those things) that holds you back. So maybe other people just handle it better than I do. Maybe they don’t. But you know what doesn’t solve worry? Pretending it doesn’t exist. Several months back I was extremely upset about something. Of course, I wouldn’t let it show on the outside. Some of the wisest words that have ever been spoken to me came out of this situation. I was telling a friend about what had happened-someone had broken a promise. I said it was ok. She told me that no it isn’t. It hurts. I know it hurts. So stop pretending like it doesn’t. That burned deep. Stop pretending. Isn’t that what our society tells us to do? Look at social media. Look at facebook, twitter, pinterest, whatever. It is about more than connecting. It is about letting people know how awesome you are. Seriously. I do it, you do it, we all do it. We look at our facebook posts, our twitter tweets, our pins on pinterest. We automatically think-Who will like this? Can I get a retweet? What does this make other people think of me? To some extent, we are all products of a self-centered, vain, and conceited culture. We want others to see the good things. The cute clothes, cool friends, bible verses on how good the Lord is-which He is really good, not trying to say that’s wrong. But we hide the bad things. We hide the fears, the worries, the anxieties, the STRESS. We hide our brokenness.

                So my challenge for myself-and you if you’re willing to take it-is to STOP PRETENDING. When someone asks what they can pray about for you, tell them the truth. When a brother or sister in Christ asks what’s wrong-tell them. Don’t try to hide it. Because nothing is unappealing as a big group of fakers. Let’s be real. Let’s be really real. Let’s rely on God-as hard as it may be. But let’s ask God to help us rely on Him. That may sound crazy. It probably is. But nothing is as crazy as having the antidote for a deadly poison and not taking it, right? We have the cure easily accessible. We can reach out our arm, and pick it up. So let’s do it. And part of the healing process is being real. Let’s not pretend like we’ve got it all together. Because we don’t. But let’s exude the joy that is ours through Christ. And that, my friends, is what happens when I put things off.

                Now to close us out with the world’s best and most over-quoted (well not over-quoted, it is the Bible) verse about worry:

“This is why I tell you: Don’t worry about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink; or about your body, what you will wear. Isn’t life more than food and the body more than clothing? Look at the birds of the sky: They don’t sow or reap or gather into barns, yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Aren’t you worth more than they? Can any of you add a single cubit to his height by worrying? And why do you worry about clothes? Learn how the wildflowers of the field grow: they don’t labor or spin thread. Yet I tell you that not even Solomon in all his splendor was adorned like one of these!  If that’s how God clothes the grass of the field, which is here today and thrown into the furnace tomorrow, won’t He do much more for you—you of little faith?  So don’t worry, saying, ‘What will we eat?’ or ‘What will we drink?’ or ‘What will we wear?’ 32 For the idolaters eagerly seek all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them. But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things will be provided for you. Therefore don’t worry about tomorrow, because tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.

-Matthew 6:25-34