I have seen several professional counselors for half of my life, and am currently under the guidance of one. Self-harm due to obsessive thoughts of low self-esteem, eating-exercising-body-image-
This is a metaphor of what days are like inside my head, describing why I decided to take medicine, and how it has helped:
The train leaves the station every morning, with an itinerary full of discovery and success in a wide-open world that has the adult woman hopping with anticipation before the sun comes up, with hopes like trembling bubbles in a heating teapot. The woman and her kids eat their breakfast quietly, before the excitement of the day begins. They each look forward to meeting Daddy at the end of the day’s work. She knows how blessed and happy her life is. God has given her people and opportunities beyond her best imagining. No place would be better and no better places could be awaiting them.
But in broken minds, whispered fears bombard symphonies of hope. Lightly etched dread covers the vision of elaborately sketched dreams.
The train increases its speed, swaying smoothly. When she looks out the window, expecting to see endless blue skies and wide-open fields of harvest, this woman is confused to see shadows. The sky can’t be seen through the heavy foliage of the humid forest’s chaotic overgrowth of trees and remaining decadent brush. She presses her face and hands against the glass, turning her head at impossible angles to find a spot of light from above. She can tell Light is there, but no rays shine through.
The woman is startled by the turbulence of the train’s sudden rush over the rails. A rush to make up for lost time. A frenzy to make the most of the fleeting time that remains. Scratchy limbs start to pull against the windows with scraping clatters. They screech against the speeding locomotive with past disappointments and old wounds that bleed with future fears, the present lost in a tangle of bitter guilt and paralyzing anxiety.
Her kids don’t seem to notice the scary scenery, until they ask another repetitive question or need help with a tiny task; and then they see their mother’s gaze come back to them, vigilant and distracted by specters outside that they can’t see. The children might see the reflection of these rotten fruits in Mommy’s eyes or behaviors, but they can’t understand why she isn’t enjoying another ride — again — on the train that is full of opportunities and grace, like all the sweet days before.
The woman is trapped in her isolated vision of the forest; and now the dark, twisted arms of the trees have broken through the windows, wrapping themselves around her, slowing the train with forceful stretching as the engine’s perseverance weakly strives with groans and screaming friction to barrel forward through this real, grasping illusion. She wants to believe the tunnel of dark overgrowth will end soon, that if the train keeps pushing, then the vines will release her into the peace and joy her children bright-eye-edly expect to see any moment. The ones they seem to see already. The outer world isn’t the problem; it’s all inside of her.
The woman feels horror as the vines around her wrists transform from wooded plant cartilage into human flesh, clawed fingers. Her gaze trails up the human arm, with familiar freckles, to be caught by the cruel stare of... the person she sees each day in the mirror. She gasps and looks around to see a forest full of figures that are angry, mean versions of herself. Some are pointing accusing fingers, others are giving critical looks of disapproving doubt, and some are charging, butting her head with theirs and tackling her with shouts of blame and hopelessness. Her mind is overrun by the movement and noise of so many pieces of her / self fighting to destroy her. Panic fills her chest and spreads to her extremities. A scream, will that scare the lying truth-speakers away? Will covering her head and weeping clear the space?
Her kids! Oh! Her darling babies! Are they witnessing this self destruction? They can’t see or touch it, thankfully, but can they feel it? What if they were in this situation, pummeling themselves unkindly? That seems to conjure an exponential amount more of doubt and blame and doom.
Panic isn’t working.
Panic is escalating the danger.
[After this happened most days of the week for weeks-days-years, no matter how much I meditated on my Bible or prayed or exercised or ate well or reached out to loved ones (good habits I keep up because they build me), I had to accept that I needed help. Some outward circumstances fed exhaustion and weakness, BUT I knew/know how blessed and wonderful my life is. Counting my blessings is easy. It wasn’t that. “Too blessed to be depressed” just fed the confounded guilt about why it kept happening. It was internal brain chemistry. So hard for me to accept. I wanted my faith and my thoughts to be in control. Bc that’s the way “it should be.” My counselor explained to me how a brain with out-of-whack chemistry holds on to anxious thoughts that every person normally has and won’t let them go. The medicine helps them move on through, so I can wave goodbye as they pass or ride them to a better place. The rest of the metaphor describes how taking Zoloft (safe for breastfeeding) has helped dilute the concentration of obsessive anxiety, which allows me to find strength to stand and push away the discouragement of the depression.]
What would I tell a friend going through this, the woman thinks? How would I edify my children if an uncontrollable bully was breaking them?
Breathe...
Take a deep breath. Steady my life energy.
Try to breathe. Steady... Don’t give up.
Just say, “Jesus.” There is Power in His name, we are promised. It sounds so cheesy. But it’s proven true many times.
Spell “calm.” Think of an acronym for C-A-L-M: Catastrophe. Absolution. Lift. Mastication. Ha! a chuckle at the randomness.
Air, anchors of reason, calm...
One tiny gulp of air.
Je-sus.
Two tiny gulps of air.
Keep breathing.
A finale of beating from the hateful selves pounds me into the ground; but instead of fighting, I breathe, saying His name, an internal power force that shields me from the inside-out. It isn’t instant or magical. It’s a process of focusing trust and pushing through repeated practice sessions.
A light at the end of the forest-tunnel. I will reach it. And I will not give up in the darkness.
I wait for my Good Shepherd to find me, to pick me up and chase away the wolves, trusting that He is my refuge through the storm of self. Even if He is searching for me apart from me, His presence is still assuring me. We are both in this place, even if it is scary.
Calm.
Sometimes it takes Him a long time to arrive. But arrive He always has. So He will. I know He is searching, always seeking to be reunited with one of his little lambs, and He has never failed to make His way through the twisted and closing forest to bring me back into Light.
I can’t give up.
Stay.
Breathe.
... Wait.
Breathe.
... Wait.
Breathe. One.
In through the nose.
Out the mouth.
Two.
Some sunlight.
Some openness.
And now exhaustion.
Will I accept rest and recovering grace, or will I fall into hopelessness by dwelling on all the failures before and predicting the next terrifying ride before I recover the mental strength to confront it?
That’s where the difference in not taking an anti-depressant and taking one has been for me.
Presence (accepting one moment at a time) and self-friendship (talking to yourself) are utterly vital to pushing through survival to thriving. How to move forward without getting caught up in the outcome? Practice makes progress.
Some days are weaker than others. Some times are more demanding and exhausting. Just like a runner or a gymnast or a weight-lifter has weaker performances for varying reasons, our minds and emotions do too. Sometimes our bodies get infections and we have to recover. Our minds go through seasons too. Sometimes cold winters last longer than we’d choose.
I still have a lot of questions about how my faith and forces of evil affect my mind. But I know that my family and I have more peace with the medicine opening the mean claws in my mind so I can pass through less scathed.
I hope this helps someone.
