What kind of health challenges have you experienced?
I could have sworn I answered this question earlier, but I actually have something different I wanted to add today. As I believe I said earlier, growing up I never really had any health challenges. I never had the chicken pox, broke a bone, I didn't even really get sick all that often. There were a lot of years in school I got the "perfect attendance" award. My senior year I had a weird stomach thing, but I'm 99% sure that was simply stress playing it's part.
However, the health challenge I want to write about today is one that most people wouldn't categorize as health, but it really truly is. From the beginning of 2015 until even now, September 2016, I have struggled with anxiety and depression. There's a lot that's happened in my life the last few years I haven't blogged about, but that will have to wait for a different blog post. For now, I will sum up. Ethan, the man I married in August of 2014, was a verbal, physical, and emotional abuser. I didn't realize it until after Jasmine was born and he physically abused her, but from the beginning of our relationship until the very, very end, he controlled and manipulated me, maybe intentional maybe not, but the effect was the same.
While we lived in Hawaii, I always felt scattered, but I felt like that was my fault. I convinced myself I just needed to clean more or pray more or go to the temple or get more organized with my schoolwork, but I was still struggling and didn't understand why. I had always excelled in everything before, so failing classes and skipping work and rehearsals wasn't like me. Once Jasmine was born, I luckily had enough sense to know I needed to stay home with her full time and focus on being a mom.
There were days at home with Jasmine that I literally would not leave the apartment all day long. As much as I hated it, I couldn't bring myself to go out among happy people when my life felt so chaotic and wrong. How do you explain to someone how disheveled you feel when you don't know the reason why?
Eventually things got so bad financially and otherwise that Ethan and I decided we needed to leave Hawaii. If I had been in a normal frame of mind, I would have been devastated; but things being as they were, I couldn't wait to leave and go home to my mom. I could not wait to see my family again and be in a home I felt absolutely safe. Ethan wasn't as thrilled to live with my parents, but luckily there was no where for us to be at his parents house, especially not with a baby, so we moved to Kennewick. A lot of what happened between then and around February I honestly don't remember, but my mom told me a few weeks ago that I slept for about 3 days while she took care of Jasmine the first week we were back. I was exhausted from just trying to stay alive and take care of a baby by myself, and I just collapsed.
After a few weeks of my parents observing interactions between Ethan and I, his lack of interest or interaction with Jasmine, and my general despair and helplessness, my Dad (the bishop of our ward) brought me in for a one-on-one chat with him. I told him a little bit of what had been going on, and he asked if I wanted to see a counselor. I was so relieved that I would be able to finally talk to someone about how I really felt; I never could tell Ethan because I was afraid it would be too much for him. He hated when I would cry, didn't like being accused of doing anything wrong, and just treated me like a child in general. Talking to him was not helpful. I finally had some hope that a counselor would be.
I started seeing Scott Wangsgaard in I believe December of 2015. My first 3 or 4 sessions I cried the entire time. Cried talking about Ethan, about Jasmine, about my loss of college experiences, my up and down relationship with my parents, finances... everything was a mess and I didn't even know where to start. But, much like the tidying up book that Mom loves, the best way to clear out the clutter starts by throwing everything you have on the floor. It was here that I started recognizing that it wasn't just Ethan that had mental health problems. My counselor, and eventually my mom too when I started talking to her more, both recognized that I was struggling with anxiety and depression. My counselor said it was likely a combination of post-partum depression and also trauma-induced anxiety and depression. And as funny as it sounds to say it, I was relieved to finally understand a tiny piece of what was going on in my life. No wonder I felt so crappy!
After one of our sessions, I believe a week or so before Christmas, Ethan and I went to his parents for a few weeks. Things there were always crazy. I would never say it out loud, but I hated visiting Bothell. It was seriously the worst. But again, that's a story for a different day. About halfway through the week of visiting his family, I was having an awful day. Everything seemed like it was going completely wrong. At the beginning of the day, Ethan took me to a gun shop by his parent's house. I thought we were going just to browse so that Ethan could get in his gun fix for the month, maybe get an idea of prices and whatnot; then, he said something like, "I think I'll buy this one." At the time we were over $8,000 in debt and not working a lot, and spending $150 on a gun we didn't need stressed me out so bad. Luckily Ethan noticed I was unsure, and listened to me when I told him I didn't think it was the right time to buy a gun - but he was mad.
He was silent the whole drive home, the kind of quiet that always scared me because I knew it came before either an angry outburst or something drastic that would be a way to "punish" me. I was right; when we got back to his parents house, he was still silent, even when I tried to ask questions, and I went to get Jasmine from his mom then followed him into the bedroom. I took care of Jasmine while I sat on the bed, waiting for him to talk to me. He ignored me and played on his phone. All of the sudden, he took out his credit card and started cutting it into tiny pieces. On the inside I was rejoicing, I had wanted to do the same thing for months, but I also felt a pit in my stomach because I knew it meant he was angry. I don't remember what he said to me, but he pretty much just played the victim and said things like, "I got this money for my birthday, I should be able to do whatever I want with it" or "Every once and a while it would be nice to spend money on something that isn't diapers". Like I didn't want to buy nice things for myself either? I just wanted to shake him and say, "Do you think I like spending $65 a month on diapers? Don't you think I'd like something nice for myself too? This is what you do when you have kids, you sacrifice things you want for things they need." But of course I couldn't say any of this.
After the initial episode of the silent treatment and playing the victim, Ethan asked to be alone, so I went downstairs and took Jasmine with me. I got out some of her books and let her wiggle around on the floor of the conference room in their basement. At first I was fine, but gradually this sense of dread grew out of my stomach and consumed my whole being. I starting bawling uncontrollably and holding myself, trying not to completely lose it in front of my 7 month old baby, who I could tell was very concerned about me crying. It felt like my brain was closing in on me and I was going to implode right there. I wanted to run and collapse all at the same time. This lasted for a few minutes, and then I finally felt like I could breathe again. After it was all over, I realized that wasn't the first time I'd felt that way. There were a few days I could recall feeling that exact same, and knowing that for some reason I couldn't talk to Ethan about it.
Once I talked to Dr. Wangsgaard, he told me that these were anxiety attacks, and that he was glad I told him about them. He gave me some advice about what to do if I felt them coming on, and that the best thing to do would be having someone with me.
There is a lot of other stuff that happened and that I've had to handle as a result of the abuse and our inevitable divorce and custody battle. I am sure I will have little pieces of anxiety and/or depression for some time. I have grown a new sense of respect and love for those who develop these mental illnesses for seemingly no reason; I'm able to say "I feel this way because of this", and it makes it a little bit easier to battle. But I will say this: no matter the reason, the intensity, who you are, where you live, how young or old you are- the Savior is there always. Even when he doesn't make it go away, he is there holding you up and leading you on. I have felt him so close, especially recently as I have made a larger effort to grow closer to him. My trials haven't left me. I still struggle through a lot of days and cry a lot of tears. The difference is I have hope, because I feel him there fighting my battles with me. And when the one fighting your battle is the one who overcame all, it is so much easier to trust that good will triumph over all.
