A Few Afterthoughts of My Son’s Birth.

There is something uniquely terrifying about going to the hospital to give birth and hearing last minute that you will be having a c-section to bring your child into the world.

I have panicked many times in my life, friends, but I have never panicked harder than the moment I received this news.

Oh, I wished I hadn’t heard the doctor say it. I wished I could just stuff the words back into his *obviously lying* mouth like they’d never come out in the first place. I wished I wasn’t pregnant anymore, and at the peak of this terrifying roller coaster called “childbirth” with no way of turning back. But I was on the ride, and I was there to stay until it was over.

Ugh…why couldn’t it just be over already?

I was flooded with images of being cut open while completely conscious. I was terrified about every possible negative outcome. What if the anesthesia didn’t work properly and I felt the pain like some freak horror movie? What if I lost too much blood, and, ya know…died?

There’s a lot you don’t know about giving birth until it happens. And what you may never know until you go to give birth, is that it may very well not happen the way you’ve planned it to.

Mine just so happened to take place in the operating room.

There is a lot I don’t remember about my time in there. My husband tells me now about moments that I have no recollection of. But I do remember asking the doctor ten million times if my blood pressure was doing okay. I remember looking at my husband and repeatedly asking if I was okay, because I was certain I would die. I remember the fear that swept through me after every beep of the machines because I wondered what each sound meant. Instead of taking the doctors’ laughter and casual discussion as a comfort that things were going normally, I wondered how the heck they could all be so calm at a time like this.

I could hardly breathe through my chattering teeth and panic filled chest.

But I also remember how my husband was by my side, reminding me every minute of just how okay I was. I remember the moments before entering the OR, while my sister-in-law comforted me and told me it was okay. I remember the nurse who kissed my face and stayed with me through it all, helping me to feel safe and loved.

But more than anything, I remember how it felt to hear my son cry for the first time. I remember how it felt – like a breath of life in my own lungs. Like how he was now outside of me but still somehow deeply connected to me. I remember how I instantly loved him. How the words escaped my suddenly calm lips, “my baby. I hear my baby.”

I cry writing about it.

My son was now here.

I made it through the delivery without a scratch (well, besides the six inch incision through seven layers of tissue).

I was a new mother to a precious miracle of a child.

I spent a lot of time thinking about this over the next several days. I remembered how afraid I was, and I marveled at how well things turned out.

I realized something: all my fears revolved around feeling a lack of control over my situation. Ultimately, I feared death, and I feared it because I didn’t have control over whether or not things went well with my son’s birth. And yet, I made it.

God had it under control the entire time. No amount of worrying could have possibly changed the outcome of that day.

In fact, no amount of worrying changes the outcome of any day. We have good days, and we have bad days. We have days that are completely unexpected. And God is the only One who chooses what number to put on these days.

I talked to my dad about this after all was said and done. He told me to remember that I made it through this, and I should know now that I can make it through anything.

The fear wasn’t real. And even if it had been, it only had power over me because I gave it the power by believing it, and by obsessing over it.

Not only was the fear not real, but I also saw God’s hand in every part of this birth.

I wouldn’t have chosen a c-section for myself. But because this is what happened, I learned more about total dependence on God, and more trust grew between me and my husband as a result of needing to rely on him to provide for me during my long healing period.

And if I hadn’t had this c-section, I wouldn’t have had the sweet help of the nurses in the hospital for five days. I desperately needed that help , both physically and emotionally.

Because I was there for five days, I met nurses from multiple shifts and made relationships with a few of them that I’d been praying I’d find. I had even met the charge nurse in a totally unrelated place, months before giving birth, and she happened to be there on one of my last nights in the hospital. She talked with me for what felt like hours, helping me to come up with a plan for when I came home and offering some company when my husband had to leave to take care of our dog. She listened while I spoke about my experience and we discussed our mutual faith in God. She provided me with so much encouragement.

And none of this would have happened had my birth gone the way I wanted it to, because I wouldn’t have been in the hospital long enough to form these relationships or have these experiences.

I wouldn’t want it any other way. I needed these things.

So that’s it. I made it out alive. I am a mother. And though my abs may be weaker, my trust in the One who brought me through it all is immeasurably stronger.

You Can Be Free From Fear.

Some of you are going to be mad at me when you read this. I know it. I know this because I would have been mad at someone who told me this a few months ago, and because that’s just the nature of truth. It stings a little, even when it’s completely good for us. You might think that in writing this, I am belittling your struggles and making them out to be no more than just a simple little molehill. I promise you, I am not. I understand how deep this runs for you. I’ve been there.

---

I was getting ready to go somewhere the other day when a sudden thought popped into my mind. “Don’t go,” said the thought. It wasn’t audible, to be sure. I wasn’t hearing voices. It was just a thought. “Don’t go.” This thought came again and again, until it really started to worry me. Was there a reason I was thinking this? Would something bad happen if I went? Was God telling me not to go to protect me from something harmful?

Side note: This is not the first time I have had a thought like this, nor is this the worst I’ve ever experienced. I have had these thoughts and obsessions for years now, and I used to be so crippled by them.

I was almost crippled by this particular thought as well, until I realized what was happening. I reasoned with myself that, for one thing, God would not speak to me and leave me to wonder if it was really His voice. He is not a God of confusion. So I could rule that conclusion out immediately. I recognized that this thought was causing me anxiety and fear, and I was obsessing over it. Another characteristic of God is that He is a God of peace. He gives us the Spirit of power, of love, and of a sound mind. He is not going to cause me to obsess over all the possible things that could go wrong so that I live my life caving to fear of the unknown.

So to make a long story short, I went to do the thing I was going to do. And spoiler alert: nothing bad happened. Imagine that.

I got home and I thought on this some more. I began to wonder, what if I had caved to that nonsensical thought and not gone? What if I had given those thoughts the power over me for years, until I was just a shell full of constant anxiety? What if I really began to believe that it was God’s voice speaking to me, telling me I should always live in fear? You can see how this can become dangerous.

Some of the worst acts in history were committed because people chose to believe the ideas driven by fear. If you need just one example, remember how Hitler convinced an entire country that it was okay to hate Jews because they were to be feared.

Take your thoughts captive.

You tell your thoughts what to do, not the other way around.

If a thought is causing you to fear, become anxious, or avoid normal daily activities, then you can tell that thought to take a hike.

If you believe in God, learn to recognize His voice. Know that he does not cause confusion, chaos, or anxiety. He gives us the Spirit of power, of love, and of a sound mind. If your thought doesn’t fit that mold, then it can go. It’s not from Him.

Guard your mind. Don’t fill it with gruesome images from horror films or spend all your time reading about the bad things that happen in the world. You can be aware without filling your mind with the negativity. You can’t change a single thing by worrying anyway.

Above all, decide you’re going to believe the truth over the lies and negative emotions. You may not think it’s possible, but I promise you that it is. As soon as an untrue or irrational thought enters your mind, you have the ability to either believe it or ignore it. Choose to ignore it.

And if you make a habit of immediately taking your thoughts captive and guarding your mind, I can guarantee that you’ll begin to find more peace in your life. You won’t panic nearly as often, and you’ll begin to experience what it’s like to have a mind truly freed from the grips of your anxieties.

You Don’t Own Me.

To the depression that tells me there’s no reason to get up this morning; to the unwanted thought that lies to me and tries to convince me I am ruined; to the panic attack that attempts to ruin my day and put a halt to my plans; to the anxiety that does everything in its power to rule my life and render me powerless:

You don’t own me.

I used to wear you like a badge of honor, you know. You were my identity. Everything in my life revolved around you and making sure people knew the depth of the struggles I was going through. I didn’t see it back then as a plea for attention. In fact, I still wouldn’t call it that. But you were a crutch for me.

You gave me reasons to stop trying on the days that I just really didn’t feel up to the challenge. If I woke up feeling nothing but the hollow grayness that threatened to swallow me whole, I spent the rest of my day avoiding the world and all my responsibilities. If I found myself in the middle of a panic attack, I latched onto any person who would listen and did my best to keep them at my side.  If my thoughts spiraled out of control and made my mind all twisted up, I told myself that the fight was hopeless and so I might as well just quit trying.

I think at the end of the day, I loved you because indulging in you meant that I was allowed to feel anything I wanted to and I didn’t need to put in the effort to fight it. Really, a lot of it came down to this desire I had for control, and believing my feelings above the Truth.

You see, if I decided I was going to fight you, it would mean that I’d have to get up each morning and do the thing that I didn’t want to do. I would have to do the hard work of turning my focus outward rather than inward. I would have to trust in the guidance of others, and, ultimately, rely on the words of a God who I wasn’t even sure would heal me. I would have to surrender to something greater than myself for healing, and that was a scary concept.

So I kept you around for a good, long while, until the day came when I couldn’t take the pain you were causing anymore. I sunk to such a low; I was terrified of myself and who I might become if this thing didn’t stop.

So, I surrendered.

I did not surrender to you, though, as much as you would have liked to see that happen. I surrendered to the Truth and the Freedom found in knowing that if Christ conquered sin and death, He also conquered you. I surrendered to the knowledge that He desired for me to have life, and live it abundantly. I surrendered to the promise that because I believed, I was able to walk in the Spirit He had given me: the Spirit of power, of love, and of a sound mind.

And I began to heal.

Today, I woke up feeling like I could not do anything. My body hurt and my emotions didn’t feel much better. But I chose to remember who I am, and Whose I am. I got up, I did the thing I didn’t want to do. I lived my day in thankfulness to a God who saved me. I gave words of life to a few people, and I even cleaned my apartment.

Because hey, you don’t own me.

A Choice.

“You can control your thoughts. You have a choice, and you will be okay.”

I looked at my husband’s brother-in-law like he was crazy. I thought, “Me?! Control MY thoughts? Surely he must be talking to someone else, or maybe high on something.”

He was serious. And I sat there, dumbfounded, completely baffled at the fact that anyone would ever suggest something so ridiculous to me.

Didn’t he know that I had wrestled with this ugly monster since I was 15? Nine years of suffering under the grips of an ugly concoction of anxiety, depression, and who-knows-what-else I was never diagnosed for, but it surely had a name, too. Did he really think I wanted this for myself?  I sure as hell didn’t. I was miserable every day of my life, terrified of myself and the mind I was stuck living in.

His words felt like a kick to the gut. I was in shock, at first. And then I was hurt. How could someone be so passive about this? It was real for me. And I was angry. How dare anyone tell me that I’m not allowed to feel these things, or suggest that I just “choose” to make it different?

“Choose” to make it different. That was the option he was laying out for me. I could either live every day of my life under the grips of my feelings and bombarding thoughts, or I could choose to do something about it and maybe make my life a little more bearable. And let’s be honest, it is not an easy thing to choose.

The next couple days after that conversation were rough. Every time I saw my husband’s brother-in-law, I had more word-vomit than I knew what to do with. I spilled my guts (and my tears) to him about my fears and my obvious inability to change. I went back and forth in my mind between trying desperately to follow his advice, and feeling a sickening amount of guilt for not being able to master the skill of taming my wild mind.

Every day, though, I tried. The instant I had an unpleasant thought, I told it, “no”. I literally responded, “no” to my thoughts. Sometimes out loud. (People looking at me might say that was counterproductive because I am sure I sounded even crazier on the outside, talking to no one but the air.) But that was my first tactic. Each time a thought came, I responded with a simple “no”, and did something else. I kept busy. I listened to music that would shift my mind to a better place. I wrote lyrics that both encompassed how I was feeling and also gave me a way to process and escape. I did the dishes. A lot. And I kept both a journal and downloaded an app that gave me coping skills, and allowed me to save the most relevant quotes for reference when I was feeling particularly overwhelmed. Bottom line, I chose not to let the struggle stop my day. I made a conscious effort to stay busy, train my mind, and take care of my responsibilities regardless of whether I felt like doing them or not.

And I guess the key is that I did all of these things even when I didn’t feel like doing them. When there was zero motivation, when I had no shred of belief that my efforts would work, I chose to pick myself up and do the thing anyway. I knew that not doing the thing would only leave me at the same place or even worse off in the long-run.

So this was the beginning of my healing process. I am still healing. I still have panic attacks and wild thoughts and doubts. But each day, I’m getting a little stronger and a little better at choosing to live my life freely, regardless of what I’m feeling. You may not yet be at the place where you can accept this choice, but I’m praying for you that you will soon get there. Come talk to me about it. It takes time, but this life doesn’t have to be so miserable.

Just Being Honest.

Confession: I kind of feel like a hypocrite some days.

You see, my whole experience with anxiety and depression has been one filled with ups, downs, and everything in between. I have experienced moments of rest, months of torment, and weeks of unquestionable steadiness in the face of my trials.

These past few days have been hell all over again for me. In the past couple months I have learned to trust in the freedom that does not change, regardless of my feelings. But these past few days have threatened to undo so much of the progress I have made. And it sometimes makes me feel hypocritical to share with you the way out, when I myself struggle.

Nonetheless, I believe wholeheartedly that I have been given the responsibility to share my freedom with others. This blog is an act of obedience in loving you. So for the sake of loving you, here is what I have learned, and what I know in a nutshell:

Anxiety and depression are LIARS. As real as they may feel and as much as they may threaten our emotional, physical and mental health, they are flat-out liars. And I gotta hand it to ’em, the lies they come up with are rather crafty. But at the end of the day, I have to remember that no matter what they put in my mind, they are not to be trusted. And because they cannot be trusted, I will not grant them the power of being feared, either.

Not everyone believes in God. But I do, and Jesus is at the very center of the healing that I have experienced. I will speak more on this in future posts to come, but here is the core of what I hold onto: Jesus is the Son of the Living God, who came to this earth and died to save us from our sin. He made a way to the Father for us. He is the only man who has ever defeated his own physical death, rising again to full life. I think that makes Him pretty trustworthy. If He has this kind power over death, surely He also has power over my thoughts. When we place our faith in Him, we are given the Holy Spirit to lead us. 2 Timothy 1:7 says, “For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” (Or, other versions say of self-control.) The Holy Spirit IS that spirit of power, of love, and of a sound mind. And when we are governed by Him, we have all the power in the world to overcome the lies of the enemy that show their ugly faces in the form of anxiety and depression. His power is the truth that I refuse to relinquish hold of, regardless of how hard the enemy may try to trample me.

So, I’ve been feeling down these past few days. I believe that because I have been obedient in sharing these truths with you, the enemy is working hard to throw me back into doubt and confusion. But thanks be to God, my Savior won’t allow that to happen. Just because my perspective is flawed on some days does not mean that my freedom has changed. It has not.

I will not be silenced. I will keep blogging. I will continue to walk with you, through this darkness and toward the unchanging Truth that is our Freedom.

I’ve Been There.

I still remember my first panic attack.

I was 15 and caught completely off guard. Perhaps it was my teenage heartbreak that triggered what I can only describe as a nightmare, or maybe it was bound to happen regardless. Whatever the cause, I remember it clearly:

My heart rate suddenly quickened and I was finding it impossible to breathe. Immediately, my mind darted between all the possibilities of what might be happening to me, but only one thing seemed certain: I was going to die. I jolted up and ran down the hall, keenly aware of the sound of my frantic feet running across the hardwood floor as I tried to reach my mom downstairs. I just knew that if I didn’t get to her on time, it was going to be the end for me. I reached the end of the hall and was completely overcome by panic and an overwhelming sense of absolute darkness. I was still awake and conscious but my body didn’t seem to recognize that truth. It was too busy convincing me of my impending doom to care about the facts. I fell to my knees and wept, praying and calling for my mom, doing whatever I could to make it stop. Sometime later, I finally caught my breath and came to the realization that I was still alive, and it seemed to me that I might just stay that way for a while longer. I didn’t realize how many more times this would happen to me before I finally figured out what was going on.

The next few years of my life became increasingly darker and more difficult to bear. New physical symptoms seemed to plague me daily, and I was always convinced I was dying of something unstoppable (side note, if you have anxiety, do not research your symptoms online, for the love. You’ll drive yourself mad). Soon after finding some control over the anxiety due to the physical symptoms, I found myself progressing to other mental and emotional issues. To say it simply, my thoughts terrified me. I do not need to rehash every detail, but if you have been here yourself, no further words are needed. You understand. Some of these struggles were exaggerated and worsened by poor life choices I made. But even on my best days, I could find myself in the middle of a panic attack, terrified for my life all over again. The thoughts and the attacks had no rhyme or reason. There often was no evident trigger other than my body’s decision to turn against me for the hell of it.

So, I’ve been there. Some days, I’m still there. The only difference between my past self and my current self is that I now refuse to allow this ugly liar of anxiety to dictate my days. And however many posts it takes me to teach you to do the same, I will keep writing to remind you that you and I are still here. We made it through that panic attack, through that bout of darkness, and we’re still here. There’s a reason we’ve made it this far and that’s what you need to keep reminding yourself for now.

This is for You.

Quite simply, I’m here writing this blog for you. You are the one who feels stuck in your own mind, trapped by your thoughts and feeling void of the hope of a life that looks any different. Believe me in this: you are not alone, and your hope is not gone. This blog is for the person who is at the end of their rope, grasping for freedom from the life filled with anxiety, depression, and fear. If you can resonate with these things on any level, allow me to offer a fresh breath of life with the words I share here. The words you find here are words which have been well lived out in my own life. I will not pretend that things are sweeter than they are or attempt to give you a quick fix with a few cliche lines. Some of these posts will end on a cliff’s edge, not having the satisfaction of a fine and tidied up conclusion. Why? Because not every day ends with us knowing all the answers, but we must trust in a bigger picture nonetheless. When you read these posts, keep this in mind. The biggest message of this blog is belief. Our healing fully depends on what we believe about our situations, and that belief is completely up to us to choose. Even in the messiness of unanswered questions and the occasional inconclusive blog post, I am challenging you to decide what you will believe. And it is my deepest hope that your belief will be in the freedom that is surely already there, waiting for you to accept.