My Story (Part Two).

Close to the end of my sophomore year of college, my school asked me to take a break from the world of academia and come back when I could manage my symptoms a little better. By this time, I was completely isolating, speaking only when spoken to and never going outside unless absolutely necessary. I also had developed anxiety by this time (anxiety and depression can often go hand in hand) and found myself having panic attacks a few times a week as well. I remember the feelings of sheer terror when a panic attack would come on. It left me unable to move or breathe for what seemed like hours, but in reality was only a few minutes. Then, as quickly as it had come on, it would leave me, shaking and crying on the floor. I was afraid to go out for fear that I might have a panic attack when I was in public. The anxiety and depression I felt completely controlled my life. I wish I could say it suddenly got better, but I can't. Over time and with the right medication, my anxiety attacks slowly became less frequent until they stopped completely, but my depression remained. I felt utterly hopeless and alone, so I turned to creating things in order to get by. 

It was so therapeutic for me to crochet a hat or sew a quilt and it became like an act of worship for me. Until this point, I had never really turned to God for help in dealing with the depression. Sure, I went to a Christian school, attended chapel three times a week and went to church on Sunday. I was a Biblical and Theological Studies major, so most of my classes felt like a church sermon every week, but I wasn't really doing anything to strengthen my relationship with God. I know that is why God put such a drive within me to create. I made a living off of the things I would make and then sell during those long months when I was not in school. Ceramics, crocheting, and sewing became my way of expressing who I was and what I was feeling and so I just kept creating. Soon, I felt the depression begin to lift ever so slightly. I went back to school that spring and began classes again. I did well that semester and felt that the depression no longer controlled me. It was still there, but it was in the background just enough so that I could see the other things in front of me instead of always looking through the filter of depression. 

However, it returned that summer. I'm still not entirely sure why, but it may have been because I didn't keep up with going to counseling throughout that summer because my counselor worked at my school and she was only available during the school year. I began to feel myself slipping away again. Like the real me was being sucked into some vortex of depression that was slowly eating away at my soul. The pain was worse than it had ever been and I felt no hope at all anymore. I got to a point where I couldn't even think about the future because the idea of living another minute in this cruel new existence terrified me. Pretty soon I felt that I could not take it anymore and I did the one thing I had been fantasizing about for years. I attempted to take my life.

However, after I had downed a bottle of pills an image came into my head. It is an image that I know could have only come from God and it is one that still haunts me to this day. The image was of my twin brother crying out in agony--an agony that was far worse than the one I was currently experiencing. He was in an unbearable amount of pain and it was because of me. I had decided to take my life and he had just found out that his twin sister had been erased from existence forever. This image was almost too much to handle and it instantly called me to action. I called a friend and told him what I had done--that I had taken a bottle of pills and I needed help. He called the police for me and an ambulance came, picked me up, and took me to the hospital, where I had to drink an entire cup of liquid charcoal in order to absorb the medication before it was absorbed into my system. After staying in the hospital for several days, I finally got to go home and I gave my brother the biggest hug he had ever gotten. More to come in my next post...