I Am Enough

Two months until Brooklyn's birthday. Two whole months, and I have already started worrying obsessively about making her birthday cake. Why? Because baking is beyond overwhelming when I'm depressed. Because I'm not good at it, so I know it will frustrate me. Because anxiety is my depression's best friend, and it knows no limits sometimes.

Today, I came up with a brilliant idea. I could pay someone else to make her cake. It would relieve the stress on me, she could have a beautiful mermaid cake after all, and everyone would be happy. As soon as I asked my friend and she agreed though, the guilty thoughts started to eat away at me. I suddenly felt like I was failing my kids, like they need someone else, someone more talented and fun and creative and energetic, the person I want to be and maybe could be if the burdens of depression didn't weigh so heavily on my heart so often.

Struggling with depression at this wonderful time in my kids' life is heartbreaking. But recently I've adopted the phrase "you are enough." I repeat it to myself over and over again every day. I trust in it, even when I'm bombarded with thoughts and doubts that tell me otherwise. I tell myself that this is how God sees me and how He wants me to see myself.

Do I feel like enough? Hardly ever. But I keep trusting and believing and trying, and that is enough.

Being Real

I remember being a young, naive little 12 year old. One Sunday, my beehive teacher asked as part of a church lesson, "What do you want to be remembered by?" My answer came quickly, like I didn't even need to think about it. I replied, "I want to be remembered as always being happy." At the time, this seemed easy. Surely being happy was a choice, I thought, and I would simply always make that choice.

Fast forward 4 years... I was 16 years old, and I was engulfed in depression for the very first time. Suddenly, happiness wasn't a choice anymore. I tried to keep it up. "I am happy," I'd tell myself, "Always happy." But inside, I was hollow. It seemed like everyone should be able to see right through my fake smile, but they couldn't. They didn't know anything had changed, so I kept smiling, kept faking, kept hiding. I wanted to be happy, but the feeling wasn't there very often anymore.

Fast forward 5 more years... I was a newly married 21 year old engulfed in depression again. People would say, "How are you always so happy?" and then I'd go home and cry. I felt like a fraud. No one knew that behind that bleak smile was more pain than my heart had ever before endured, but I thought I still had to hide. I had to be happy. After all, how could I ever be remembered as being a happy person all the time unless I kept a constant smile plastered on my face, even if it wasn't real?

But eventually I couldn't keep it up anymore. It hurt too much. I needed help and love and support, so I did the scariest thing imaginable at the time, and I opened up about my struggle with depression. I knew that it would change how people viewed me and that I wouldn't be viewed as the "always happy" person anymore. But something else changed that I couldn't foresee. It took time, but after a while, I didn't want to be known as the person who was always happy anymore. Instead, I wanted to be known as the person who was real, the person who wasn't afraid to admit that life hurts so deeply sometimes, the person who was relatable and available when someone else's heart and world was crumbling.

Depression has changed my life forever, but more importantly, it has changed me, and I'm thankful that I can be real and loved for it.

Tender Mercy

Today, I had a beautiful, sweet experience.  It was quite simple, yet it had such a profound impact on my heart and has changed how I view this often difficult trial I have been called to face.

For the last 3 days, I have been stuck in the dark, terrible place I call "suicidal hell."  This is when my mind is tormented every second of every day with the thought that I should not go on.  It's when my brain is so broken that there is no possible way to distinguish what is true or real anymore.  It's when I lay in bed nearly all day fighting this terrifying internal battle that shatters the most tender pieces of my heart with no relief to be found.  For these 3 days, I was convinced that I had failed my family, that they needed and even deserved someone else who wasn't so broken and debilitated by this darkness, and that I had to give up.  I simply couldn't see a way to go on, and I was desperate for an escape.  I couldn't find the adequate words to describe the storm raging inside of me, so I held in the pain and prayed with all the faith I could muster that I would have enough strength to get through yet another battle in this great war for my life.

This morning, I was physically and emotionally exhausted, but the pain was still unrelenting.  I walked to a friend's house hoping the combination of exercise, fresh air, and company would help, but as soon as I got home, the thick darkness overcame me again, and I went straight to my bed to continue fighting.  Over the next few hours, my mind and heart were overwhelmed with the weight of deep depression, and I was sure there was no relief to be found ever again.  I kept trying to write texts to explain to someone the heavy burdens I was bearing alone and to maybe ask for help, but I could never find the strength to send any of them.  Instead, I laid there wondering how this could be part of God's plan for my life and why He would allow my heart to go through so much pain with no lasting relief, despite all the prayers and fasting of my family the last several years.

As my mind continued to grow more and more weary in this fight, I started to think that maybe I needed to make a plan of escape once and for all.  I simply couldn't keep doing this, so it seemed that there was no other option.  I began to think of possible means when the thought came to my mind, "This isn't your choice to make."  It took me back.  Surely this thought had not come from the brokenness of my own mind.  And then something clicked.  I can pray and plead and wish for God to take me away, but ultimately, I have to have the faith and strength to submit to His will for my life, regardless of what that will is.  It's not my choice to decide when I have had enough.  It's not my choice to decide when I will leave this world.  It's not my choice to decide when I will be healed at last, never to be broken in this way again.

The pain didn't leave immediately, but I suddenly felt peace and calm.  It's not often that I feel Heavenly Father near me when I am severely depressed.  This is usually devastating and heartbreaking to me, because it seems that the comfort of the Spirit is what I need most of all in those moments, and it's not there.  But this time, I felt like this was Heavenly Father's way of telling me that although it's not time for this pain to be gone yet, He has not left me alone.  For whatever reason that is still unknown to me, it is not His perfect plan for me to be miraculously healed at this time, even with the faith of me and my family and others who love and care about me.  But for the first time in a very long time, I was able to have a small moment of inspiration that allowed me to feel God's love and mindfulness of me and to know that I am not destined to fail in this fight.

This has been a looooong ride, and I fear the dark days that will inevitably come in the future, but I know that if I can just remember that it isn't my choice to escape, then I will always be okay.  I will fight and conquer every single episode of pain and darkness, and ultimately, I will win.