- Faith
- Mental Health
When I was a teenager, I felt as if life had no purpose—I had no purpose. I did not feel worthy of living, nor did I feel that I wanted any part of it. I was diagnosed with depression, given medication to take, and was expected to see a therapist. However, I really did not get much benefit from all of these things I was supposed to do. If I felt as if I did not matter, then what was the point of it all? I started to self-injure as a way to cope with my feelings deep inside. The pain helped mask how I was feeling emotionally at the time, so it worked well to help me escape for a bit. The main thing that echoed in my life is that I did not matter. I had picked this up and carried it as truth. If someone did not listen to what I had to say in life, then I must really not matter and my voice did not count. So, if others did not care, then why should I care about how I was feeling and what I was experiencing?
I grew up in a very unpredictable home situation where there was a lot of fighting and other things going on. I did not understand as a child that it should have been any different—it was all I knew. I thought it was normal to have the police watching my house and coming in every so often to do searches for things that my father was not supposed to have. As I became a teen, my mother and father spilt up and went separate ways. My father went back with his ex-wife and my mother found a boyfriend almost immediately. I was with my mother, so I had to move with her a few months later into her boyfriend’s house. What echoed to me that what I had to say did not matter was when she asked me what I thought about the idea of moving in with her boyfriend. I stated that I did not like the idea and that I wanted to stay where we were. With this new move, I would have to take the bus to school, whereas before, I could walk there. I was bullied a lot on the bus and at school. So, I liked my current freedom of walking and not having to deal with the bullies on the bus. Even though she asked me how I was feeling about this, and I expressed my feelings, we still moved in with her boyfriend. I felt what I had to say did not matter to her.
As time went on, she wanted to spend more time with her boyfriend and less time with her children. I remember one time I asked her if she wanted to go for a walk with me and she said no because she wanted to spend time with her boyfriend. This seemed to be the new norm that I had to adjust to. I had to mourn the loss of the close relationship I had with my mother and become independent. By becoming independent, I built up a wall that no one could penetrate. I shut myself down. As the years went on, I moved out of my mother’s house to several different homes and changed schools a few times as well. I had few friends to confide in and no one who was really a constant in my life.
I was still self-injuring, and it was escalating as time went on. It seemed that no matter what I did, I felt as if I was not good enough. I moved in with my father at 16 because I had nowhere else to go. I did not like this situation because he did not put my needs first either and chose his priorities over raising his daughter. All throughout my teenage years, I was in and out of psychiatric units. There were times that I attempted to end my life. I really did not see that I had a purpose to my life. If no one else cared about me, then why should I? I felt totally hopeless and that there was no future for me. I felt much unloved by everything that went on in my life. I thought that if no one in my family really loved me, what was the purpose of staying alive? I felt truly hopeless.
The turning point was at the age of 14 with the first attempt to end my life. As the nurse was taking me from the emergency department to the pediatric unit, we passed the chapel. I had gone to VBS when I was younger and Sunday school, but I never really understood why other than to have fun and make crafts. Passing the chapel was a new thing for me, as I was drawn to want to go in. I had bugged the hospital’s assigned sitter to take me in a few times while I was there. I could not describe why I was drawn to go in there—but I believe it was from a power greater than me. This was the beginning point of God trying to use my overdose and change it into something for His glory.
So, although I may have struggled throughout my life, I knew that I had God as my constant. I gave my life over to God soon after finding Him, and my life has never been the same. Yes, I struggle, but I know that God is always there—sometimes I can see Him, and other times my vision is blurred due to how I feel. But I continually had the assurance that no matter if my friends walked away from my life, God was always there.
I have known God almost half my life now, and I can say that giving my life to Him was the best decision I have made. I do not know where my life would be without Him and without keeping true to what God wants for my life. I was in and out of therapy as a youth. I went because the adults told me that I had to—it was the thing I needed to do to get better. I did not get much benefit out of it because I did not care about my life. It was not until I was 19 that I knew I needed to have professional help. My self-injury and overdosing were becoming more and more prevalent, and I was scared that if I did not get help, I would die. When I was young, I had medical professionals tell me that they thought I would not live to see 25, as I was heading down the path of self-destruction. I could see that now, and I knew that I did not want to feel the way I was feeling anymore.
I was assigned to a therapist who was indeed helpful, and I still see her eight years later off and on if I am in need of someone to talk to. I never found going to the emergency department to be of help. There was a lot of stigma that I faced regarding being mentally ill. There were many who thought I could stop my behavior and it was a choice—that there was nothing wrong with me. The message many people gave was that I just wanted attention. I, however, knew that it was not something I could stop on my own. Why would someone who was healthy choose to engage in those behaviors that I was doing to myself? It did not make sense. So, I chose not to go to the emergency department because it was negative for me.
So, I worked hard with my assigned therapist to start to learn how to trust people and let them in. I started to open up to her in ways that I had never done before. I was able to TRUST for the first real time in my life. We did a lot of work together, and it was not easy by far… one of the hardest things I have ever done. It took a few years to build the trusting relationship, but now there is a firm foundation which will take a lot to be shaken. I trust her like I have never trusted anyone before. It feels good to have one person in my life whom I know is in my corner.
The most important truth that I have learned through this process is that I am WORTH it. I have many days in which I struggle with this truth. But, at the end of the day, I need to remember that I am of value and I am ENOUGH. I do not need to be anything else that I am not, nor do I need to perform in ways that others want me to. I am doing the best that I can in my life—trauma and all. I can be me and I am okay. In my recovery, I have faced many big struggles. One of them is the urge to self-harm. I have not self-harmed in almost five years. I had a pastor pray over me when I was experiencing voices telling me to harm myself. Since that day, I have not self-harmed. However, when things get rough, I find my thoughts going toward wanting to hurt myself. Self-injury helped in the past and worked for me for a period—so my brain goes back to the negative coping skill. It is so hard to not give in to the urge to self-harm. I must stand firm, though, because I do not want to go down that path again and be a slave to a behavior. It is not easy but it is something that I must do.
Another struggle that I have faced is opinions of others. Currently, I am on disability for my illness. I find it hard to hold down a job and live at the same time. So, I must be on disability to survive right now. There are people in my life who judge me and feel that I could work and that I am just a drain on the system. I volunteer my time as much as I can to give back to society and even at times volunteering becomes too much for me, and I start to feel like I am getting ill. I know how much I can handle—but at times I still let people’s opinions get to me. I need to remember that I know myself better than anyone else. I know what I can and cannot do.
Since 2008, I have been doing fairly well with only a few bumps in the road—this makes me proud. I have given a lot of my time and energy into helping others. I give back to the community by using my recovery story to help others. I speak and advocate whenever possible to help others who are struggling with their own mental health issues. I share and speak out whenever an opportunity arises. I was nominated for an award in 2009 for promoting mental health in the community and raising awareness. From this nomination, I was invited to speak in front of 300 teachers a few months later to share my experiences. I talked about being a teen and how teachers in my life had assisted in keeping me on the right path to finishing school despite the time that I had missed due to frequent hospitalizations. I have been volunteering for over a year and a half now with a local organization (Canadian Mental Health Association) in my community by helping bring awareness to the stigma that people with a mental illness face. I am also trained in peer support, so this is a nice fit for me to give back. I have also spoken at the high school where I used to attend to share my experience about what it was like for me to have a mental illness and go through high school. In addition, I had been in the local paper to showcase how well I have been doing and the choices that I choose to make to stay healthy. I am also apart of another organization (Partners for Mental Health) where I am a community correspondent for my area. My role is to speak out about mental illness and raise awareness in my community to reduce the stigma. I have a blog by which I accomplish this, and I am very proud of it. I am a co-owner of an online support group which helps people who suffer from self-injury to have a place to go and get some help from their peers. It helps people know that they are not alone in their struggles and that recovery is possible for them too if there are others who have struggled and beat it.
Someone once told me that no matter how alone you feel, you are never alone. There is always someone out there who has experienced the trials in life that you may be experiencing. So, although you may feel alone, there are people out there who are willing to help. The best thought I can give to someone who is struggling is to not lose hope. Although you may feel as if the world is closing in on you and that there is nothing left to give, keep fighting. I have been there too and I have come out the other side. I still have days that I struggle, but they are less and less compared to when I first started my journey. Reach out for help when you feel like you do not want to live anymore because more times than not, it is not that you do not want to live but it is that you want the pain and the suffering to go away. Remember, you too can overcome the trials of life. Recovery is possible.