grief – the chronic chase

This year has been a year of wild, untethered growth. I feel light years away from who I was last year, even who I was a couple months ago. It’s strange how pain changes a person, I’ve been thinking a lot about it lately. I am a different person when I am in pain. I have a hard time communicating, I immediately go into fight or flight, my emotions become much more intense, and a lot of the times my depression seeps back in. I am just coming out of a big wave of pain and I was surprised by how hard this one hit me. For some reason I expected that I should have this down by now, but now I’m not really sure you ever can. I’m finding that pain brings me to uncharted territory each time I’m engulfed in it. I am not myself when I am hurting, but all of the hurting as led me here, to this. All of the pain has shaped me, from the girl who was obliviously soft to a person who is content with remaining rough.

This summer surprised me. I have spent the better part of the last four and a half years wrestling with hope. I’ve had too much hope and have been left completely discouraged and I have lost all hope and found myself in absolute darkness. I have tried to accept that my future will most likely be tainted by being in chronic pain, even though people tell me things like you’ll grow out of it and you never know, maybe one day you’ll wake up and it’ll just be gone. I’ve tried not to listen much to people who say things like that because my pain free days have been scattered and scarce, until this summer.

The beginning of the summer came like so many others, high hopes I forced down low and a bout of emotions I couldn’t seem to sort out. And no matter how much I prefer to not talk about it, I was struggling with my faith. I went to church camp for a couple weeks, just like I have almost every summer since I was a little kid. It was there, sitting in a crappy camp chair, swatting bugs away from my pale legs in the middle of worship that I heard God speak to me. I finally heard Him. After years of being told that I am being prayed for, after all the tears of desperation I’ve cried over not being able to feel those prayers, I finally heard Him.

God’s timing is bizarre. I wish I could eloquently word how monumental that moment was for me. I was fanning myself with a worship booklet, fighting the July heat, as if it would’ve made a difference, when I gained more clarity than I could have ever hoped. I gained more peace than I thought I could ever feel, more contentment than I thought I needed, and more confidence in God’s plan than I could have ever anticipated. I am still trying to fathom it, the words I heard God whisper into my ear and the people he perfectly placed in my life.

After that I went nearly six weeks without having a migraine. I didn’t have to take my rescue medicine, I didn’t have any anxiety, I felt free. It was almost as if my anxiety evaporated right off of my shoulders and with it went the weight that had been wearing me down. That was the longest I have gone without having a bad migraine in almost five years. I never thought I would be able to look into the eyes of someone who has been praying for me all of this time and say that I have had some kind of relief.

I am just coming out of the whirlwind of pain that followed and it has been a hard handful of pills to swallow. I am starting to think that it never really gets easier, the transition from highs to lows. I think that is something I am going to be constantly learning how to deal with. Maybe I will never get better at maneuvering such drastic transitions, but I know I will have grander highs than this one.

I am nowhere near done growing. As I am writing this I feel an urge to keep moving forward, to find more growth. I can clearly see all of the things that have been holding me back, all of the things I need to work on. I still find myself getting angry with me for being in pain, for not functioning like the people around me. I still breakdown and get upset over a pain I cannot control, a pain that is out of my hands. I get trapped by my irrational thoughts, a voice in my head that tells me I am a burden to everyone in my life when I am struggling. And even though I recognize the difference between my irrational thoughts and the rational ones I still find myself giving in and believing them anyway.

I know that grief is still holding a piece of my heart hostage. I know that irrational thoughts are going to continue to ring through my ears. And I know that I am going to have more whirlwinds of pain that knock me down.

But I have found bliss. And I know that my contentment is here to stay regardless of whatever pain comes crashing into me. I may not be myself when I am in the midst of pain, but without the pain, without my past, I would have never arrived—so wondrously and viciously by design—here.

You can hear the songs I was listening to when I wrote this here.

I’m just going to dive right in, this year has been bad. My anxiety has been at an all time high, I’ve had writer’s block for months, and I’ve spent most of this year floating in my grief.

I rang in the new year on a mission trip with some of my church family. It was an incredible trip, eye opening for me in so many ways, but when I was on my way home I got news that forced my eyes closed. I remember feeling clear contentment at New Years. I don’t remember how I got there and I don’t know why I’ve spent the last seven and a half months trying to find it again.

I lost two people within a few days when I got back into the U.S. from our mission trip and to say the loss threw me off my feet would be an understatement. These two, were two that fought for their health, through their pain, and with all that they had. They were constant reminders to me that I had it in me to fight too. I held them close to my heart, I still do.Grief has this not so funny way of swallowing me whole. The loss this year came three years after the last, and the last was the one that left me at my darkest. This time instead of crumbling down and drowning, I froze with fear that I would end up back at my darkest, or somehow somewhere even worse.

I was living in this state of fear and panic that I would get too depressed, maybe even suicidal. But instead of falling into the void of my depression, I was just anxious about the possibility that I could. I couldn’t even admit it out loud. I couldn’t even say it to myself.

I am anxious that I am going to get so depressed again because the last time someone I loved died I crumbled into so many pieces I still feel like I am gluing myself back together. I am exhausted, I don’t think I can keep gluing myself together piece by piece only to become someone I don’t recognize.

How is it possible that I, the person who has repeatedly opened up about my struggles with mental health to those around me and those not around me at all, can’t admit that I’m struggling?Hey mom, hey dad, I’m struggling.

It took me months, but I managed to get the words out. It’s hard for me to wrap my head around, the fact that I can talk about my mental health with a complete stranger and tell people that I see a counselor regularly, but when I am struggling I can’t say anything at all.

It took nearly 6 months but I finally felt an overwhelming sense of peace. I was in Zion National Park hiking and I had fallen behind the people I was with because I was having a bad pain day. I stopped and sat beside the trail on a big rock near the river and waited for them to find me. I sat there for about an hour and it was almost as if peace poured down over me. I was staring at the cliffs all around me and started singing in my head the lyrics from a song we’ve sung in worship from time to time. The words played on a loop in my head “and I will climb this mountain with my hands wide open” and I realized how absurd it is for me to be mad at myself for struggling. It was in that sacred moment of peace that I forgave myself for having a hard time.The immense feeling of grief has slowly faded. I no longer feel like I am slowly gluing myself back together. I’m not worried about falling back to my darkest. And I have never felt so strong in my faith.

Throughout the past four and a half years I’ve done everything in my power to protect myself. I’ve closed my heart off. I’ve pushed people that I love away. I have been in and out of fight or flight mode for far too long. This year has broken me down and forced me to realize so much through Zion and spending time at church camp. I’m done having the mindset that I have to get better before I can let anyone in. I’m done shaming myself for struggling. I’m breaking down the walls that I’ve been building up around myself ever since I got sick. I’m done hiding just because I’m not where I want to be. I have overcome, and because of that I am more myself than I have ever been.You can hear the songs I was listening to when I wrote this here.