World Mental Health Day (one day late...)

I remember being 11 or 12 and thinking I was a robot, because my feelings just didn’t work right. Wondering if I was a clone, or if God had made some catastrophic mistake with me.

I remember staying up night after night obsessing about questions that had no answers. Falling asleep to the TV that wasn't supposed to be on, only when my eyelids couldn't stay open any longer.

I remember checking every single night if my family were all breathing. Standing at the door of their room, waiting for someone to take a breath. Over and over, night after night.

I never said anything about it though, I hid it well. I was happy and bubbly and there was no way anyone would believe that I had any major issues. Truthfully, I didn’t even realise yet.

Until it hit me like a train.

The world got so dark, darker than I had ever known it to be. I couldn’t see light. I couldn’t see God. And it broke me.

Reading and reading, looking for Him anywhere - but nothing. On my knees, asking forgiveness for every unconfessed, unnoticed sin I had committed.

Weeks went by, I walked the walk - uni, church, work. But I was only going through the motions.

Obsessive thoughts overtook my mind, far beyond my control. Driving down roads, sitting in uni, walking the dog, lying in bed - nowhere was safe.

I couldn’t bear to get out of bed some days. It felt like too much to handle somehow. The simplest tasks became debilitating.

I don’t know when I realised, or how I did. I remember asking a few people if they thought I might have depression, but the answer was always no - I had covered it up too well, and so nobody believed it.

But the GP knew. I swear she knew from the moment I sat down that day. And in that moment, there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

I started some meds, but they didn't work. Neither did the next ones. I went to see psychologists, psychiatrists - I began to give up. I said I was done with medication, because all it did was numb me out.

Then a psychiatric nurse said "facets of OCD" and fleshed out that depression label a little more. Suggested a more specific medication, aimed at the OCD rather than the depression. I agreed to give it one last go.

I remember the light turning back on. I remember the weight being lifted off my shoulders - I remember feeling like I could breathe again. It wasn't immediate, and it's not a perfect cure - but it changed everything. Those little tablets, in varying quantities, they've seen me through the last 6 years.

They've seen me through moving country (times 3), through an adoption, through losing things I thought I never would, and gaining things more than I ever hoped or imagined. Through missionary life, and teaching, and mothering, and every other part of life.

They aren't the only thing. Community has been vital. People I can be real with, who understand where I'm coming from, even if they don't always agree. The family I was born with, and the family I chose. People who are real about their own struggles, and allow me to be real about mine.

Logistical things too, keeping a routine, doing what works for me, and not expecting myself to be anything other than myself. Stopping comparing myself to others, and learning to love what these "issues" have taught me.

But let me be clear here, I wouldn't have made it through without Jesus. The pills help, but Jesus heals. He didn't take it away, but He is the reason I can manage it. He is the one who has made me see that it is only a part of who He made me to be - that I am not less worthy, or less important just because of my weakness. I've seen in the realest of ways that my weakness is His strength. He has used it for His glory, and I know He's going to keep doing that in the years to come.

And now, well now I tend to drop my depression into conversation like it’s nothing now, because honestly that’s how it feels to me. Sometimes it freaks people out. But the thing is, it’s just an illness I have - there are some days I barely even think about it. 

It’s not a weakness, and I want the world to learn that.

I want that for the church even more.

I want my kids to grow up knowing that there is absolutely nothing wrong with your brain being sick, and nothing wrong with taking the medicine, or getting the help that makes it better.

I want them to know that Jesus might heal you from it, or He might use it to draw you closer to Him like He did with me - maybe even use it for His glory.