It's the Little Things: Why I'm Still Here

I struggled with depression for a lot of my life and struggled with suicidal thoughts starting in college. Fortunately I never actually attempted suicide. It has been almost three years since I have been depressed for any length of time, and when I think back to what helped me to stay, I think of so many little ways that different people helped me. All these little things added up together and gave me a reason to stay. These are just some of the many people who have helped me. Unfortunately I had to leave some people out in order to keep this post to a reasonable length. 

Liberty

Since my first semester at Liberty, I thought God was leading me to be a missionary in India, and I

felt like that was my purpose. I had gotten rejected when I applied for mission trips to India, so I felt worthless and like I would never live out my purpose. Estera told me, "Your existence brings joy." It was a new concept for me that I have value apart from anything I do, and whether I was able to go to India or not, I was still valuable.

Estera and I at her graduation, 2012

I used to believe that I was a bother to people and that people didn't want me around. One afternoon I was hanging out in the RA's room with a bunch of girls from our hall, and I finally just left without saying anything because I didn't think anyone cared that I was there. But Kendall noticed and yelled, "Bye, Laurel!" I was surprised that someone actually noticed and cared whether or not I was in the room, and I ended up coming back a few minutes later.

When I was considering suicide but knew I wasn't thinking clearly, I texted Sarah M. and asked her to pray for me. She skipped her next class and we hung out it the courtyard and talked, and she stayed with me to make sure I was safe until someone else could be with me. There were many other times we hung out when I was struggling with depression, and just being around someone who cared was so helpful.

Sarah C. was a good friend to me throughout college and even met me at the ER at a moment's notice on a Friday night when I was handcuffed and taken there due to suicidal thoughts.

Christin was there for me and listened to me as I struggled with self-injury and sorted through the aftermath and trauma of having suicidal thoughts and being handcuffed.

Sarah C. and I at the Mill Mountain Star, 2014

GAP Bonfire

In April of 2016, I got out of New Horizons (a residential counseling center) for the first time, and I knew something had to change or else I would probably attempt suicide. I new I needed to make friends. My mom's friend Debbie had recently told my mom about GAP, her church's graduates and professionals group. I had been putting off going, but I finally decided to take a big step and go to a GAP bonfire. I have social anxiety, and I hadn't really thought this out, so when I got there I was like, "What am I doing? I'm out in the middle of this field with all these strangers." Thankfully, Rebecca introduced herself, and after that I met several other people. And Heather and Melissa hung out with me for the rest of the night. And I have been going to GAP for over 3 years now.

GAP Retreat at Smith Mountain Lake, 2016

GAP Fall Retreat

In October I went to the GAP fall retreat at Smith Mountain Lake. I was depressed and struggling a lot with suicidal thoughts, but nobody at the retreat knew this. There wasn't anyone there that I knew really well, and most of the people that I did know were from my small group, which I had just started going to the month before. I rode up in a car with Macon, and he asked me a lot of questions about me and my job. It meant a lot that he seemed to genuinely want to get to know me.

That evening we played an odd game where we were paired up and were told to get to know our partner. Then we sat on the floor back to back and the leader asked which of us was most likely to do something, and we either raised our hand or pointed at the other person. I was partnered with Patrick. Although it was a little awkward sitting back to back with somebody I had just met, it was actually helpful to me because I really needed a hug, and with this game I at least got some type of physical touch and also got to meet someone new.

On Saturday afternoon I had been by myself journaling and finally decided I needed to go see what everyone was doing. Ezra invited me to play cornhole with him, Daniel and Timmy. I was partnered with Daniel, who is good at cornhole, and I am not very good. But Daniel was very patient and didn't get mad that we lost, and we still had fun. And something about that game flipped a switch in my head and I decided, "At least for this weekend, I'm not going to attempt suicide."

I was staying in a room with Haley, and I remember her being very friendly and welcoming.

Sam asked me if I was enjoying the retreat. Unfortunately I lied to her and said "Yes," but I appreciated that she cared enough to ask.

Erin sat with me when I was sitting by myself.

Jamie asked me to join her and Cathy for lunch.

Neal said "hi" and asked about my brother. He was also welcoming when I was new to Northstar Church.

Emily went to the trouble of making sure there was food I could eat with my weird stomach problems.

GAP Small Group

Soon after the retreat I had to go back to New Horizons. At small group the night before I left, Todd prayed for me and gave a card with a verse (Isaiah 41:10) on it that still encourages me today. Even though Jess was busy with grad school, she made time to take me to a meeting with Access, the people who determined whether New Horizons was a good fit or if I'd need to go to the hospital. She drove me to New Horizons and visited me while I was there. Melissa also visited me. When I got out of New Horizons, Jess gave me flowers and a card signed by our whole small group.

A couple weeks later, our small group was studying healing prayer, and we prayed for the people in our group who needed healing. The group prayed for me, and God healed me from depression. (You can read more about that in this blog post.)

Small group 2016-2017 (Missing Jess, Josh and John)

Everyone else I didn't get to mention

Jill met with me for the first couple years out of college and was one of my few friends before I started going to GAP. She was supportive when I was struggling with depression and also convinced me to tell my mom one time when I was struggling so she could help me stay safe.

Heidi and I at GAPsgiving, 2016

At GAPsgiving (GAP's Thanksgiving dinner) we had a photo booth, and Heidi asked me to have my picture taken with her. I remember being surprised and appreciative that she considered me a friend enough to take a picture.

Anthony has consistently been a good friend and been there for me for the whole time I've known him.

I've always appreciated that when I was depressed or anxious, I felt like I could be myself around Ezra. I didn't feel pressured to talk about what was wrong, and I didn't feel like I had to pretend I was happy. I could just hang out, and I didn't have to exhaust myself by pretending I was okay when I wasn't.

My counselor took my suicidal thoughts seriously even when I didn't understand how serious they were and encouraged me to go to New Horizons.

My parents tried to be supportive through my struggle with depression, and they visited me at New Horizons and also brought my dog Mandy to visit.

I don't want to give the false impression that everyone I came into contact with helped me. There were some people who said and did things that were very hurtful and made my struggle with depression harder. There were also people who helped in some ways and hurt me in other ways. But I write this as a reminder that you never know what someone else is going through or how big of an impact reaching out to someone in little ways could have. It is very for easy for me to get wrapped up in my own life and struggles, so this is a reminder to me as much as to anyone else to reach out to others.

Small Group 2017-2018

Healing from Depression

I've known for quite a while that I eventually needed to write this blog post and let everyone know what God's done in my life, but for a variety of reasons, I've been putting it off. For one, I didn't know if the healing would "stick." I've struggled with depression for so much of my life, I thought surely it would return sooner or later. But now it has been nearly two years since God healed me, and that is hard to even believe. Another reason is that I know that many (probably most) people who struggle with depression are never healed, and I feel like that is unfair. One of my good friends from high school died from suicide a little over a year ago. Why did she die from depression and I was healed from it? There were so many times I could have died and didn't. I did nothing to deserve God's healing. I am thankful, but it still seems incredibly unfair. But at church today during the worship time, I decided it was time to share this.

The first time I remember being depressed, I was about 10 or 11, but I didn't know I was depression at the time. I just remember a few months of feeling sad for no particular reason and feeling far away from God. I dealt with depression off and on during high school and pretty consistently during college and after I graduated. I started struggling with suicidal thoughts during college. I graduated in 2015, and in 2016 my depression was triggered by a variety of things, including health problems, losing most of my friends from Liberty, and having hardly any friends my age where I lived. That year I had to go to New Horizons, a residential counseling place, three different times. (You can read about my experience the first time I went to New Horizons in this post.)

That year I started going to GAP, Northstar Church's Graduates and Professionals group. It was a huge blessing and so good to finally have friends, but even that didn't completely take away my depression. That fall I was going to a small group that my friend Michael V. was leading. We were going through a video series on prayer called Moving Mountains, based on a John Eldridge book. That week we were studying healing prayer. After the video and discussion, my friend Jess suggested that we try what we were learning and pray for those of us who needed healing. A couple of the people in our small group took turns sitting on the floor in the middle of the room and we all gathered around and laid hands on them and prayed for them to be healed. It was around November or December, and I had just gotten out of New Horizons for the third time and had gone to lots of counseling sessions, tried lots of coping skills, and tried a variety of medications, and was frustrated that nothing seemed to be helping my depression. Growing up in Baptist and Non-denominational (but basically Baptist) churches, I was pretty skeptical of miraculous healings, but at this point I was desperate enough I was willing to try pretty much anything. I asked my small group, and they laid hands on me and took turns praying for me to be healed from the depression. Within a couple weeks after that, I realized I wasn't depressed anymore. Other than a bad few days or a week here and there, I haven't been depressed since then.

Today at church, these songs reminded me of God's power, even over depression.

Shout it
Go on and scream it from the mountains
Go on and tell it to the masses
That he is God
("All the Poor and Powerless," by Leslie Jordan and David Leonard)  

Then on the third at break of dawn,
The Son of heaven rose again.
O trampled death where is your sting?
The angels roar for Christ the King
("O Praise the Name" by Marty Sampson, Dean Ussher and Ben Hastings)


I was reminded of one night in the fall of 2016 when I was really struggling. I was depressed, and there was a voice in my head (meaning thoughts that didn't seem to come from me, not an audible voice) that would not stop screaming at me to kill myself in a specific way and place. The voice would not shut up, and I felt like the only way to get the voice to stop was to act on those thoughts. Thankfully, God kept me from acting on them, and the voice eventually quieted down. Satan is powerful and depression is powerful, but God is still more powerful.

I don't know that I'm healed for the rest of my life--depression tends to be chronic--but I know I am healed for now. It's also been about a year and a half since the last time I cut, and quite a bit longer since I cut on a more regular basis. When I'm not depressed, I don't feel as much need to cut.
This doesn't mean that my life is perfect now. I still have to deal with chronic health problems and OCD, among other things. But I am in a much better place than I was a couple years ago, a place that I didn't even know was possible.

So why do I share all of this? Because God deserves praise for healing me. And because I want people to know that, while God doesn't always choose to heal people from depression, sometimes he does. It is possible for things to get dramatically better and to actually enjoy life again. Sometimes that healing comes through prayer, and sometimes it comes gradually through counseling, medication, friends, or a variety of things. Even if things are really bad now, it doesn't necessarily mean they'll always be that way. There is hope.

2016-2017 small group (missing Jess, Josh and John)