TransparentME - Depression

The first time I remember wanting to kill myself was in fifth grade.  Looking back, this was when I remember my depression beginning.  It was not instigated by any life event.  It was something I was simply born with.  In fact, hearing accounts of how I was as a child, I believe that I always displayed certain characteristics of this.  What my parents saw as a strong personality, I believe, was actually mental illness that had not yet manifested into anything identifiable.

I remember writing, "I wish I was dead."  I remember nothing else written on that paper, but I remember writing those words and putting it in my desk.  I had been placed in a class with none of my "friends" that year.  I had the teacher I wanted, but none of my friends were in my class.  On top of that my friends were making fun of the kids I was in class with (who are all remarkable people, might I add).  It was devastating for me at the time.  I felt alone.  The jokes, while meant to be harmful, made me feel embarrassed.  I hate being embarrassed.

That year was rough for me.  I decided to quit gymnastics after my Level 8 season.  I knew it was what I wanted to do, but I struggled with the fact that it was really all I knew, it was what people identified me with, and I didn't want to disappoint my dad (a feeling I placed on myself).  

I began middle school.  For most of us this is a time of ups and downs.  It's an awkward stage.  I had friends, I had boyfriends, I was liked.  Many people who knew me then would probably say that I had no grounds for being "depressed".  I wholeheartedly agree.  This is how I know that my depression is something deeply engrained in me.  

As time went on and the roller coaster of my emotions went with it, my family suffered greatly at my expense.  I was angry.  Mean angry.  I said mean things to my parents and my sister.  They were my safe place.  The safe place I tried to destroy.  

In high school, I once again had the life that most girls would dream of.  I had friends.  I made varsity cheerleader as a freshman.  I got the car I wanted.  I had the boyfriend I wanted.  My emotions would rise and fall despite these things.  My boyfriend would just become another landing place for my ups and downs.  He was the rock in my storm.  

The summer before my junior year, I found out I would be moving.  A an unstable girl who doesn't like change.  This was a recipe for disaster.

Like most high school relationships, mine ended.  Not because I was moving, but because I was a walking emotional disaster.  At 17 and 18 you can only take so much of that before you reach your breaking point.  He reached his, rightfully so.  

The day the relationship ended I cut my wrists.  I was not trying to kill myself.  Simply numbing the emotional pain.  I had one friend reach out to me at this time because by this point the rest were no longer interested in the mess I was.  Again, rightfully so.  The next day, I moved to Texas.

If it's possibly to not feel anything yet feel everything in a terrifying intensely way, this was how you would describe how I spent the next several months.  I did not want to go to a new school.  My parents agreed to homeschool me.  I wanted to go back to Oklahoma so I spent a lot of time back and forth between the two places.  I replaced the old boyfriend with our mutual best friend.  Not to hurt him, but to feel a sense of normalcy and connection.  It backfired.  It was undoubtedly the most toxic relationship I have been in.  I lost one of my dearest friends because of it, and many others along the way.

As I continued to search for a new safe place... a new sense of security... I took down everyone in my path.  I cheated on my boyfriend with my friend's boyfriend.  I said mean things to people.  I acted out.  I deliberately hurt others.  I was out of control.  Not because I wanted to be.  I hated who I was.  It was like this life was happening around me.  My body was participating, but my mind was crying for help... begging for someone to notice what a mess I was.  Hoping for one of those friends who used to care to stop and say, "Let me help you.  Let me love you."  It never happened.  And for many years I was angry with the people who used to be my friends.  It took me a long time to realize that those expectations were too high to place on teenagers.  

I went off to college hoping for a fresh start.  I was excited to go through Rush and felt like it was finally my chance to start over and make new friends.  I was sure I would do it right this time since I had learned so much from my mistakes.  Well, word gets around that you are a hot mess, and no one wanted me in their sorority.  In the thirty years I have been alive, I have never felt pain or rejection like that.  It was heartbreaking.

So here I was, at this new place, four hours away from home.  ALONE.  I ate every meal from a deli right by my dorm because I could bring it back up to my room.  If I was eating alone, at least I wouldn't have to look pathetic doing so.  I kept to myself until low and behold, I got a phone call from a kid who had heard my name be called during the roll in Freshman Comp.  We began to hang out, and it wasn't long before we were in a relationship.  I was no longer alone, and that felt good.  In time, I also made friends with other girls in my dorm.  Insanely wonderful and beautiful people.  Things were looking up for awhile.

However, when you suffer from depression you have your highs and lows.  I still had a past that was haunting me around every corner.  And I wasn't really happy with the boy from Freshman Comp.  But I liked feeling wanted so I stayed.   I stayed just long enough to get pregnant my Sophomore year of college.  Devastated, I moved home that summer.

After having Lexie, I did well for a long time.  I poured myself into being a mother.  I was good at it.  I was needed.  It allowed me to not have to deal with the emotions and heartaches I'd left behind the years before.  But life has a funny way of throwing curve balls at you, and once again I found myself in another toxic relationship. 

When that relationship ended, I swallowed 21 Tylenol.  There is nothing quite as humbling as having your stomach pumped.  I was 23 years old, and I had been a complete disaster since I was 10.  I'd like to say that this was rock bottom.  And in some ways it was.  I have never tried anything so drastic again, but depression continues to haunt me.

I have been on medications.  They made me less angry and generally more tolerable to the people around me.  But they have never been a permanent fix.  The fix that lets me feel like every other person.  The type of person who has bad days for a reason, not just because they woke up feeling wrong.

I am proud to say that I have been medication free for a few years now.  I know that this is entirely due to my children, my husband, and my gracious and loving God.  

My children need me to be whole.  And for the most part, this is enough of a reminder to get me back on track on the days that I cannot physically make myself get out of bed.  Their unconditional love sparks something in me that literally makes my lows last for shorter periods of time than they ever did before.

My husband has been my saving grace.  I've loved two men in my life, and I think I fell in love with them both for the same reason.... they "get" me.  Where my husband wins the prize in "getting me" is that he knows how to manage my highs and lows instead of just trying to manage me.  Sometimes that is a beautiful picture of him picking up my slack or him drying my tears.  Other times, it is a more chaotic scene which would scare small children.  Regardless, he knows where I am (usually before I do), and he meets me there.  He carries me when I need it, and he loves me through it.  His presence is cathartic for me, even when he is the object of my unwarranted rage.  It baffles me each and every day that he chooses day after day (and he has for over 6 years) to love me anyway.  He says he fell in love with me because he knew it would never get boring... I think he's just slightly crazy!

Forgiveness... something that took me so long to actually understand.  Something God had given me before I allowed myself to receive it.  Can you believe that over 20 years of hurting myself and others, and it has only been in this last year that I've allowed myself to come to the foot of the cross with my sins?!?  All this while, God has been graciously loving me and waiting for me.  And when I arrived I was greeted with the most indescribable sense of peace.  He believed that I deserved His forgiveness long before I ever could convince myself of that.  My relationship with my Heavenly Father provides me constant healing.  I see Him work through my children and husband, and I see Him work directly through me.  He is my eternal safe place.

I write this all with little emotion.  It's choppy and written as it comes to me.  That very much resembles my journey with this disease.  I think 20 years of pain is enough.  I am forever sorry to those whose path crossed mine in a negative way the past 20 years.  I have been a complete mess for a lot of it, and no one has deserved the negative effects they received from me.  This will forever break my heart.  And I repeatedly have to remind myself that I deserve forgiveness for these things.  

There is an upside to every story.  With my depression, comes deep emotion.  While I get my feelings hurt easily, I also love deeply and passionately.  I may be quick to anger, but I'm also loyal to a fault and quick to defend those who need defending.  While I may not let you know you hurt me, I will no longer hurt you back.  I will cover us both in prayer.  

I am in a constant battle with myself.  I will live the rest of my life this way.  It is the way God made me.  I am doing it the best I can.  I am proud to say that for the past four years, I've been kicking depression's butt.  I know many others have their own story with this disease.  This is mine.  This is my truth.  This is ME.

*I apologize for any typos.  This is one of those things that I have written and will never read.

TransparentME - Sex & Healing

"If you don't check your baggage at the foot of the cross, the enemy will deliver it to your doorstep one day."  When Vicki Courtney spoke those words at the dotMOM Conference this past February, I knew what my baggage was.  I knew it was baggage that had already been delivered and unpacked as if it were here to stay.  But hearing her say it out loud was just what I needed to realize it was time to pack my baggage up and send it straight to the foot of the cross.

Throughout the conference a common theme kept rearing it's ugly head.  "Share your struggles."  "Open up about who YOU are."  "Be transparent."  I talked to my husband about this when I got back, and we decided that maybe it would help in my process of healing as well as maybe helping someone else out there.  (So this will be the first of probably many very personal blog posts.)  I knew that at some point the time would come to share my story, and this past week right in my face Single Dad Laughing posted a blog that one again said, "Okay Jessica, it's time to share."

So here I am.  Wide open.  Transparent.  In a place that I really don't feel comfortable being.  All in the name of healing and hoping that my words may lead others to accept their imperfections and embrace Jesus.  

I have given birth to two children, ages 9 and 3.  I have been a wife for 6 months.  "What's that you say?!?"  "You had children out of wedlock."  Not a second thought for many, but a "mistake" in my family which equaled gut wrenching guilt for me.  My parents were virgins when they got married.  This was common knowledge.  So at 16 when I began having sex, I can say without a doubt that my actions were a disappointment.  

From these little tid bits of information you can gather on your own that I had sex more times than I "should" have before I was married.  For me it started with a first love, carried on through surviving depression (an entire blog will have to be dedicated to that battle), and ended with marrying my husband.

For almost 14 years, I had sex.  For almost 14 years, I felt guilt after each and every time.  I had not been raised this way.  This was not what I believed was okay in my heart.  Sure, it made me temporarily feel better... wanted... beautiful... important... successful... you get the idea.  (No, I don't have Daddy Issues.  I have Mental Illness Issues.)  But it always ended in guilt. 

Naturally I assumed that when I married my husband these feelings of guilt would go away.  Then I would be able to have great sex and not feel guilty about it!  I was so excited for this because I couldn't stand the guilt.  And I'm sure my husband (then boyfriend/fiance) couldn't stand the conversations of how "we shouldn't be doing this" the morning after what he perceived to be (and what really was) a great night.

When I got married these feelings did not go away.  It was awful.  Here I was married to the most wonderful man.  A man who adores me.  And I feel guilty about making love to my husband.  I knew then that my issues were bigger than just "needing to be married".  I had 14 years of guilt that I had not gotten on my knees and begged for forgiveness for.  

As this awakening happened, I began realizing that it was going to take me sucking it up and going to God.  It was also going to take me saying a big ol', "I was wrong, God."  And well, that was hard for me.  The thought of my past and all I had to be forgiven for seemed overwhelming.  A lot of sexual immorality can happen in 14 years, and just thinking of it would make my eyes fill with tears and regret.  But I knew that a time was coming when I would have to face it.  My husband deserved all of me, and my Jesus certainly deserved all of me.  Neither one of them was getting 100% from me, and that was all because of a barrier I was creating in those relationships.  

I really never expected the dotMOM Conference would be life changing for me.  I expected to learn new things, and I did.  I expected to be inspired, and I was.  But I didn't expect to be a blubbering, crying mess, with my arms in the air, begging Jesus to forgive me.  And that's what I was.  (And I'm not a pretty crier.)  I had heard Vicki Courtney speak, and it was like it all just opened up for me.  It all made sense.  It was my time for forgiveness.  Then I was blessed to hear Blake and Ronique Wilson speak on Sex and Marriage (at the same conference), and I learned so much about who I was created to be as my husband's sexual partner and how that is all blessed by God.  Yes, God placed me right where He knew I needed to be that weekend.

I can honestly say, I have never felt so free in my entire life.  And that feeling has continued from that day forward.  I no longer feel as if I don't belong in a church.  I no longer feel that I have nothing to offer my husband, and that I have given the best parts of me away.  I no longer feel worthless and shamed.  (All feelings I placed on myself.)  I now look at myself and feel worthy and proud of who I am.  I know that my faith has never been so strong and unwavering.  And with my husband... well, I will always wish he was my first and only lover.  But our relationship is so much deeper and more intimate now.  I no longer keep him at arms length, and this crazy thing has happened... EVERY TIME after we make love, I pray and thank God for allowing us to have that time and that intimacy together.  It may sound strange, but words of thankfulness just flow from my heart because I know what a blessing it is.

I still look at people who have casual sex (not in relationships at all) and wonder how it never bothers them.  Why was this something that weighed so heavy on my heart and made me feel unworthy of sitting in the church pews when others could do it without a second l thought?  That part, I still don't know.  Maybe I never will.  Lucky them?!?  Maybe... But I'm thankful for the heaviness it weighed on my heart because that redemption brought me closer to my Heavenly Father.

Jesus carried my baggage to the cross.  I'm not sure why I went and picked it back up.  Nor am I sure of why it took me so long to return it.  But He's got it from here.