Part 5 of 5 : Living with a Serious Mental Illness

I’m Still Here

How I wish I could tie up this story with a cute little bow and tell you that everything turned out fine. For the past two and a half months, I have continued to struggle with depression, trying to dig myself out. I’m not suicidal anymore, and I’ve come a long way, but I can’t tell you that I’m 100% better, or even close. I still attend therapy and medication management, but progress is slow. Not a day goes by that I don’t think about December and the psychotic break, or the aftermath of it. One simply does not go through something like that and come out unscathed. I live daily with the embarrassment of not only being unable to work, but the fact that I was even a mental health counselor with a Masters degree in the field, and even I couldn’t predict the onset of my illness or do anything to stop or change it. I literally am having to teach myself how to live again. How to walk, how to breathe, how to sleep without giving into the wiles of the darkness. How to be a present wife and mother. How not to damage my kids too much. How to try to be normal with healthy routines and habits. Quite literally how to smile again, how to feel joy, how to push through when giving up could be the easiest way out.

 Jason and I were planning to begin the process of fostering-to-adopt this year; in fact, we were even set up for the classes in January. We had talked also about having more biological children next year. All those dreams are gone, at least for the foreseeable future. With my diagnoses, I probably wouldn’t even be allowed to adopt, and I also have to seriously question if having another biological is safe (due to the effect of my medications on pregnancy) or the best choice (due to the unpredictability of my physical and mental health).

I have to be honest. Through all of this my faith has been greatly shaken. Not only because I just turned out to be psychotic instead of fulfilling the will of God, but because I didn’t even feel comfortable discussing this with other Christians. All I’d ever heard from the church in general about mental illness was either negative or it wasn’t discussed at all, swept under the rug because we just don’t talk about stuff like this. How could I tell them that I’d been in an institution not once, but twice within a three month period because of a severe mental illness? Would they think I was possessed, evil, not of God? Would they tell me to just pray harder? Because I’d heard enough of that already. I enthusiastically welcome prayers, and I do still believe, but telling me to pray more or to pray harder is like a slap in my face. I’ve been a Christian since I was five years old and I know how to pray. I know how to read the Bible. I know how to study the Bible exegetically. But none of it has spared me from my problems. It didn’t stop the abuse as a child, that I also have PTSD from. It didn’t stop the depression and anxiety as a teenager. It didn’t stop my multiple physical ailments. It didn’t stop my suicidality in 2012. It didn’t stop my mania or psychosis in 2016. It didn’t stop my depression and suicidality this year. Pray for me if you’d like (I really do welcome prayers), and I’ll hold onto believing that God can heal me, but don’t tell me to pray harder. What if God chooses not to heal me? What if I cycle back and forth between mania and depression for the rest of my life? What if I can’t ever look you in the eye and tell you that I’m okay? Because for the last several months, I haven’t been able to.

I have been terribly lonely the last seven months, living in the shadows of this illness. Very few people knew until this week, and I honestly feel like a couple of my friends distanced themselves from me, even if it was on a subconscious level. I went months without hanging out with friends, very little talking or texting, living like a recluse. No one seems to know how to respond to something like this. That’s why I decided to write these blog posts – one, as a way of releasing everything that’s been pent up, and two, as a way to shed light on the subject and hope that people can begin to understand the living hell that mental illness is. And in doing so, it might give someone who is suffering the ability and the courage to speak out as well.

Now that I’m working on getting better, and I have goals in mind, by nature I won’t give up. I do think that some of the passion I have is God-given. I can’t sit back and do nothing. I have to find ways to force myself out of my comfort zone in order to get better, and I’ve been working on that. I know that I am an “Overcomer”, and I know that there’s a reason “I’m still here”. While my walk with God has been on shaky ground, I have found solace in Mandisa’s music and her lyrics push me to keep going.

I was just approved for long-term disability benefits through the plan my employer had for me, and I’m in the process of applying for Social Security disability. It was extremely hard for me to come to terms with the fact that I am truly disabled at this time, and it will likely be years before I can work again, if ever. But this is where I am and I cannot change that. It’s been hard finding my purpose without having a career, but maybe for right now my purpose is just to work on me, and be there for my family.

Yesterday
Had me knocked to the ground
Had me down for the count
My faith a million miles away
And I dropped outta sight
This overcomer, lost her
Will to fight

I know it's been a while since
Anybody see me smile and
Shame had me thinking it was
Game over
Thought my best days were gone, yeah
Turns out, that I was wrong 'cause
This is my comeback song, yeah
And by the grace of God

I'm still here
Hope is rising, waking up my soul
I'm still here
All my broken, turning beautiful
'Cause I feel my heartbeat beating
And my lungs breathe- breathing
Guess my God's not done with me yet
I'm still here

--“I’m Still Here” by Mandisa

THE END