“He is no longer with us” – Sara
“He is no longer with us.” The words no mother wants to hear of her son’s Father, once the love of my life, my ex-husband but still a close friend and confidante – has tragically passed away from this life due to mental illness. Shock forms into dread. Dread quickly converts to sorrow. Sorrow becomes disenfranchised grief. Grief makes way for depression to seep in. Depression grows into fear. Fear develops into panic. Panic is the manifestation that anxiety has officially settled in.
John 14:1 reads, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God, and trust in me”. This feels like such a high bar, one that is unreachable and unattainable. I recall this verse in my sorrow, but am unable to ‘untrouble’ my heart during the crashing moments of blinding despair. I know not to challenge God, but I question Him. I confront Him with my big questions. How God, do I allow my heart to be at such ease, to live within the calm of Your Holy Spirit, to envelop myself within Your peace and trust You when I feel overwhelmed by emotional pain, neglected by Your care, experience profound confusion, am dazed by insurmountable regret – questioning myself if I could have done more to prevent such a tragedy or why You God didn’t stop this from happening? I continue to question my heavenly Father, the one who I accuse of hurting my son and I, How God do I trust you when I am brokenhearted and hurting horribly for the precious son You gifted his Father and I with, as I hear our son’s cries for his Father and see his agony as his shoulders shake uncontrollably with sobs, and tears like a river flood his face, squealing blindly through his weeping like a child younger than his age, desperately crying, “My Dad! My Dad!”? Faith, hope and trust in the Almighty while living such a harsh reality clashes within me, in what I perceive and feel to be the greatest defeat and abandonment, both by God and my son’s Father.
The lingering punitive thought, ‘I am a Therapist. I should know how to navigate these waters’ plagues me. But should I know, really? A lot of should’ve thinking torments me from sunrise to sunrise. I’ve never been here before. Logically I know this, yet my thoughts accuse me too. This is an anxiety like no other, created by a traumatic situation beyond my control; causing collateral damage of the largest proportion and triggering past issues that I did not know were still there, living underneath the surface of my conscious awareness.
I do not have the strength to deal with this iceberg in front of me. Not only do I need to figure out how to trust in God, but I now recognize I need to figure out how to grieve well, guide my son in his grief and his new normal without his Dad, continue to work professionally as if life is good and model that I am okay when I feel unwell to the professionals that surround me Monday through Friday, grind every day to stay afloat financially, do my best to provide my children’s lives with an aspect of normalcy and happiness, figure out how to attend church faithfully when I have no desire to attend and I naturally shrink back from worship because every time I close my eyes I am not only angry with God, I am also imagining my ex-husband’s dead body… and now I also need to work on healing from my past traumas too? I recognize this as a symptom of anxiety: racing thoughts; catastrophic thinking; chest pains; sleepless nights; fears; nervousness; stomachaches; migraines; episodic tearfulness; loss of appetite; isolation; loss of interest and desire to do anything; feeling overwhelmed to the point of numbness, and so on. I feel like I do not have the capacity to keep going. It is all too much for my mind as I feel ill-equipped to handle the thoughts I am battling. I am living, but I do not feel a live. The dark thoughts enter in and I too now what to be asleep, forever. But… that one word, “but”…. The power within the “but”!
But you can’t give up! But you know better. But you know the Lord. But you know the comfort of His love. But, you know the relief you can find through the Word. But, you know your children need you. But, you can’t put others through the same pain you are experiencing by ending it all. But, anxiety can’t win. But, depression can’t win. But, confusion can’t win. But, God is ultimately in control. Slowly, awareness begins to bring perspective. I am anxious about things I do not understand. I am fearful of the unknown future. I am weary about tomorrow. How do I learn to be okay with the pressures existing internally and external to me while dying an inner death? The gentle words, “Be still, and know that I am God”. This whisper is my beginning in walking forward in refuge and strength.
If only there was a concrete formula, a daily 10-step guide to circumnavigating my inner emotions and thoughts and managing the everyday anxieties. There are a lot of interventions at the tip of my fingertips that I know work, but I have disbelief despite being a therapist for 16 years. I figure that I am not a textbook and I have no desire to utilize coping skills. Therapy and therapeutic techniques suddenly feel superficial, stiff, and difficult to commit to; and likewise, my emotional state feels too heavy to work on, like mustering the strength to clean the whole house after working a 2-day shift without a break nor sleep. The head is foggy, the shoulders are in knots, arms, wrists, hands, fingers, and legs feel sore and weak. Everything feels impossible. I don’t want to practice my own therapeutic advice nor go to therapy. But, I need to figure something out because I cannot go on like this. I need to explore what my fundamental need is at this time and so I have an honest talk with myself:
“Sarah, grief is a beast. Anxiety is a monster. Both will sneak up on you when you least expect it. When they come, they pound you hard. Even on your good days, they’ll blindside you. Your healing is pivotal, or the beast and the monster will take you out. So, be gracious with yourself. Show yourself mercy. Treat yourself the way the Holy Spirit does – with compassion. Do you not remember how much compassion Jesus had for the people in Matthew 9:36-38? “When He saw the crowds, He was moved with compassion and pity for them, because they were dispirited and distressed, like sheep without a shepherd”. Jesus does not frown on your dispiritedness. Jesus does not hide His face from your distress. He is moved with compassion Sarah, and He has limitless compassion for you. Do what you know that works. Yes, this hurts! Your aching is validated. Pain is okay. Pain is normal. Pain is unavoidable. But (there’s that word again, but)… but honor the pain. Learn from this unquenchable pain. You know what you teach your clients – avoiding the pain is to resist the pain; resisting the pain propels the pain; fighting against the pain is to allow a psych wound to become a psych infection, and an infection can kill. Accepting the pain is where the healing begins”.
The conversation with myself continues. “Acceptance is not permission to live with the pain. Acceptance is to give permission for the pain to be seen, heard, felt and then finally dismissed – like an unwanted visitor you allow into your home and then dismiss at the door to leave, unwelcomed to return. Allow this season in your life to teach you things about yourself. Be okay with not taking steps of progress, but with taking pebble movements towards healing”. And so I lean into the pain. I respect that it is there. I honor its presence. I invite it to have a seat with me, and we carry a conversation. And then, I dismiss it. Repeatedly. And it lessens, unhurriedly, even sluggishly. But, it’s not as vast, consuming every part of me.
I am still in my grief. I am still in my sorrow. I am still living with anxiety – and that’s okay because of the ‘but’. But, there are brighter days. But, there are more hopeful moments. But, I am learning more about compassion. But, I am understanding myself and others better. But, I am seeing Christ in a different light. But, the pain is not as ravenous. But, I can have a good laugh without guilt. But, I can allow God to be God and to move how He chooses to move inside and outside of me. I am certainly not healed. I am healing.
Healing is a journey without a destination. Healing involves the understanding that all humanity resides in a broken world amongst broken people who all contain eternity inside of them (the soul-man), longing and desiring to live within the walls of the Garden of Eden, fully whole. We are always in need of healing in one way or another. We all desire to walk nakedly and ashamedly amongst a safe eternal love, and because there is this constant tug-of-war and battle between the impermanent man and the eternal man, healing somehow gets lost along the way as depression and anxiety wreak havoc. And so, I seek out healing, knowing it could take a life time because the alternative is too high of a price to pay.
We only grow as our consciousness evolves and that’s where the hard work begins. Ironically, the words of atheist Albert Camus never rang so true to me when he wrote, “What is called a reason for living is also an excellent reason for dying”. Only, I spin that towards my healing with a faith-based perspective, in that there is nothing I can do about death itself and the reality that my son’s Father died by suicide; except for the but… but that is what I live for, and Who I live for is worth living and dying for. If I can learn to live well, even within the throes of anxiety and depression, and accept the things I cannot change and accept the one person I can change – myself, I can then allow the experience of my son’s Father’s death to be an honorable one through my own personal growth, self-development, and soul evolution. Through anxiety due to situations beyond my control, I can learn to die every day to self, because, after all, we are all dying every day. The eternal and inner man lives with a transcendent peace the closer he or she becomes to Christ. Perspective loosens anxiety’s control and decreases its impact on the body, mind, soul, and overall well-being. I have accepted that I may not experience the reconciliation of things in the physical world, but I can and will in the heavens. Depression in this lifetime is unavoidable. Anxiety is inescapable. It will hit all of us at one point or another the longer we live. Life is impermanent. Change is inevitable. Death is permanent. Eternity is everlasting. But, how I choose to “untrouble” my heart, over time, determines the wellness of how my mind, heart, and body will heal on this side of life.
In His Care,
Sarah
