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)

Mandy Stories

My dog Mandy died in April, a couple weeks after her 13th birthday. In the last post I shared more general information about Mandy and her life. Here are some of my favorite stories about Mandy.

The Toads

Mandy at 7 weeks

When Mandy was a puppy and we lived in North Carolina, she found a toad outside. We didn't notice and let her inside. She carried the toad in her mouth and dropped him under the dining room table. He lay on his back, playing dead. Mandy got bored with the "dead" toad and walked off, and we put him back outside.

When Mandy was a puppy, she liked to chew on anything, including books, so we had pulled the books off of the bottom shelf in our finished basement room, and it became "Mandy's shelf" that she liked to play on. Mandy found a toad outside and carried it into the basement room and dropped it on her shelf to play with. We took the toad back outside before she could play with it too much.

Fig Newtons

One evening when Mandy was a puppy, we left a package of fig newtons on the edge of the dining room table. She jumped up and grabbed the package and swallowed the package of about 6 fig newtons--in the cellophane wrapper. We were worried about her and called the vet, but they said they thought she would be okay and just told us to keep an eye on her. A couple days later the fig newtons came out--still in the wrapper!

Lifeguard Doggie

When Mandy was a big puppy, we took her to a swimming hole called Coontree. There was a pretty high rock/cliff that people liked to jump off of into the water. Mandy was on her long leash on the shore, watching people jump into the water. Mandy saw people jumping and disappearing under the water, and she freaked out, thinking they were drowning. She started crying and pulled so hard that she broke her leash and swam out to "rescue" the people. She swam back when the people came up and she realized they were okay.

Mandy swimming

Homeschooling

I was homeschooled for most of middle school and all of high school. In high school Mandy definitely had her favorite and least-favorite subjects. We watched a Geometry DVD from the Bob Jones curriculum called "Geometry with Mr. Cohn," and Mandy hated it! She would always lie on the floor and groan during Geometry. But she loved Literature! My mom and Jordan and I took turns reading out loud, and Mandy would wiggle on her back and get belly rubs.

Baby Bunny

I didn't see this happen, but my Mom told me about it and I saw the baby bunny later. Mandy was playing in the backyard and found a nest of tiny baby bunnies. She picked up one of the bunnies and gently carried it in her mouth back to the house. The bunny died, but there were no teeth marks on it. We think it must have died of a heart attack!

Volleyball

Last spring I took Mandy to watch a beach volleyball game my friends from GAP (Northstar Church's graduates and professionals group) was playing. She loved watching volleyball and didn't want to leave! It was a hot day and I didn't want Mandy to overheat, so I tried to take her back to the car, but she didn't want to move. My friend Erinn had brought her little dog Polie to the game. Mandy didn't like Polie because when we first got there Polie barked and maybe growled at her. Erinn knew I was trying to leave, so she picked Polie up and set him down next to Mandy. Mandy gave Polie a disgusted look and got up and moved maybe a couple yards and then lay down again. Erinn picked Polie up and set him down next to Mandy again. Mandy finally got up let me take her back to the car.

The Rattlesnake

Last summer for Father's Day, my parents and Mandy and I went hiking at the War Spur Trail past Mountain Lake. We were letting Mandy hike off leash since there aren't normally many people on the trail, and Mandy is normally good about staying on the trail. Mandy was in front and I was a little behind her. Suddenly Mandy stopped, and we realized she had stopped to look at a huge rattlesnake in the middle of the trail. Mandy was only about a foot or two away from the snake, and it had its head up and was rattling. Mom and Dad kept calling Mandy and I was screaming at her, but she wouldn't come. I finally decided I would get behind Mandy, as far from the snake as I could, grab her collar and yank her away, and risk getting bitten. But before I could grab her, Mandy finally came to my parents very reluctantly and thankfully did not get a snake bite.

The rattlesnake

Cheerios

When Mandy was little we tried to teach her to fetch, and she was good at bringing the ball back, but it was hard to get her to give it up so we could throw it again. We started bribing her to drop the ball by throwing Cheerios, and we would grab the ball while she was getting the Cheerios. This was supposed to be temporary, but somehow "Cheerio fetch" lasted the rest of her life. At some point my mom started buying off-brand Cheerios for Mandy and name-brand Cheerios for herself because the off-brand ones were cheaper and Mandy didn't seem to care. The off-brand Cheerios were also a good snack to take on walks and a low-calorie snack for when she was begging. Mandy didn't seem to mind until the day before she died. She started to lose her appetite and wouldn't eat the off-brand Cheerios, even if I put them in my hand. I wondered if she would eat the name-brand ones, so I put some in her bowl and she gobbled them up!

Mandy with a Cheerio stuck on her jowls

In Memory of Mandy

April 9, 2005 - April 23, 2018

My family got my dog Mandy in 2005 from a lab breeder in North Carolina. She was one of five puppies in her litter: two yellow boys, two white girls, and one white boy. We never met her mom, Snowflake, and when we asked the breeder about her, he just said, "She's not doing too well," and wouldn't tell us anything more. We suspect that her mom died giving birth or shortly afterwards. Her dad, Song For Guy, was from England. We brought Mandy home when she was 7 weeks old (I was 14 and my brother Jordan was almost 12).

Mandy was the most crazy, hyper puppy ever! She ran around and chewed stuff until she was so tired she fell asleep. Before we moved to Virginia, we had to re-paint the wall in our finished basement room to cover up her teeth marks. We were amazed when she was about 1 year old and she would finally lie down for 30 seconds without trying to sleep! But she was the most adorable puppy ever! She eventually calmed down, but it took a while.

Nicknames:

Whitefang- She was a wild puppy, and she nipped us constantly and chewed and ate everything.
Goat- She ate everything.
The tube- Everything she ate would go in one end and out the other.
Sweet petunia- She was sweet but a little bit stinky.
Slurpy- When she got older she would drink lots of water and then dribble all over the floor.
More self-explanatory nicknames- Doggy, Woggy (evolved out of Doggy), Fluffy

Hobbies:

Chewing her Nylabone, chewing on sticks, playing fetch, hiking, swimming, playing with stuffed animals, sniffing around the backyard, getting backrubs, lying in the backyard and watching/listening to the birds (when she was older)

Favorite foods:

Peanut butter, scrambled eggs, chicken, cherry tomatoes, blackberries, blueberries, Milkbones, string beans, carrots, bunny poop, sticks, rotten wood, grass clumps from the lawnmower . . . okay, she was a lab; she would eat anything!

Hiker doggy

We took Mandy hiking regularly since she was a puppy. She loved to go exploring with us and stopped to sniff all the trees on the sides of the trail. For the first couple years we hiked with her on a long (about 20 ft) leash so she could have some freedom without running too far away. She was so good at staying near us that eventually we started letting her hike off-leash when we were in areas without a lot of people. She was good at staying on the trail, though she liked to run a bit ahead of us. We taught her the command, "This way" so that when a trail split, if she started to go down the wrong trail, we would say, "This way" and she would go back onto the right trail.

Therapy dog

Mandy was never trained as a therapy dog, but practically speaking, she was one. She loved going to the assisted living home to visit my grandma and the other residents . . . and eating any crumbs people had spilled! My grandma's roommate hardly ever talked, but sometimes she would talk when she saw Mandy.

Mandy also helped me a lot with my social anxiety and depression. It was easier for me to hang out with friends or have company over if Mandy was around because taking care of her kept me busy, and she gave me something to talk about.

Mandy was a little dense, so she normally didn't seem to know when I was upset, but that could be a good thing because I didn't have to worry about making her sad when I was sad. She was always happy to see me. Every day when I came home from work she would greet me at the door, I'd give her a Milkbone, and then she'd try to herd me into the living room so I could sit there and watch her chew her bone. She just wanted me to hang out with her. When my depression was really bad, I started to think that if I died, not many people would miss me, and even my parents would eventually get over it. (Now I know that that's a ridiculous lie, but depression can convince you of some crazy things.) But I knew that Mandy would miss me if I died, and I never really questioned that. Just having Mandy around and knowing how much she would miss me was motivation to keep living. When I stayed at a residential counseling place a few times in 2016, my parents brought her to visit, and seeing her was really helpful and fun for me and the other residents.

In March of 2018 Mandy started getting a lot of weird symptoms, particularly coughing and panting hard after very small amounts of exercise. We took her to the vet who did lots of tests, and she was diagnosed with lymphoma. The lymphoma was pretty advanced, so we knew she probably wouldn't have much time to live, and she was too old to consider chemo. We put her on Prednisone, and that helped for a few weeks and then she got worse again. Even when she was really sick, she was such a good sport and still wanted to be around us. When she wasn't feeling too bad, she would sit outside for hours and listen to the birds sing. Sometimes she napped all day to save up her energy to wade across our creek and spend 10 or 15 minutes wandering around, looking for bunny poop to eat. Eventually the lymphoma got worse and she had to be put down before it became an emergency. The vet and her assistant came to our house to put Mandy down. Considering her love of food, I thought it was fitting that Mandy died in the dining room.

Who would have thought that our crazy little devil puppy would turn into the best dog ever?!

When Dreams Die, Keep Living: The First Time I Considered Suicide

Indian flag

I haven't told many people this story, for one thing, simply because it's such a long story and I don't know how many people would care enough to listen. I've told some friends bits and pieces, normally just to joke about the time I got handcuffed by the police officer with the funny name. (Unfortunately I'm not going to share his name here because I don't want to start internet gossip.) This happened 5 years ago, but for a variety of reasons, I decided it's time to share the whole story.

I accepted Christ when I was young, and ever since I was about 12, I wanted to be a missionary overseas. I loved Jesus, and spending my life telling people about him just made sense. As I grew older, that desire to be a missionary never went away. I had thought about being a missionary in Africa or Latin America, but I wasn't really set on any particular location.

One day in high school, my Sunday school class watched a video. I believe it was Jesus Among other Gods, based on the book by Ravi Zacharias. I don't remember much of the video, but one scene has always stuck in my mind. There were people--I think Hindus in India--that had metal rods stuck through the skin in their backs. This was supposed to be a form of penance. I had compassion on them because they didn't know God's love and grace. But I also felt that I understood them in a small way because I had struggled (in different ways) with feeling like I had to earn God's love or approval.

My family sponsored a girl from India for several years. She was a Christian but her family was Hindu. When she was 16, we suddenly had to stop sponsoring her because her parents had arranged her marriage to a Hindu man.

When it was time for college, I decided to go to Liberty, and probably the biggest reason was because they had an Inter-cultural Studies major (the name was later changed to Global Studies). I thought that studying something where I'd learn about different cultures would help prepare me to be a missionary. I visited a Cultural Anthropology class at College for a Weekend and I was hooked on the school. I started attending Liberty in the fall of 2010.

My first semester at Liberty, we had Missions Emphasis Week. We had speakers from all over the world, a Children of the World concert, lots of workshops on various topics, and international food tasting. A couple of the speakers worked in India, which is somewhere I had never really considered being a missionary. That week I learned about Unreached People Groups (UPGs) and the 10/40 window. Joshua Project defines a UPG as "a people group among which there is no indigenous community of believing Christians with adequate numbers and resources to evangelize this people group without outside assistance. . . The original Joshua Project editorial committee selected the criteria less than or equal to 2% Evangelical Christian and less than or equal to 5% Professing Christians." Joshua Project defines the 10/40 window as "the rectangular area of North Africa, the Middle East and Asia between 10 degrees north and 40 degrees north latitude." It "is home to some of the largest unreached people groups in the world." One of the speakers said that the 10/40 window is where there's the most need for missionaries, but it's where the least number of missionaries go. I decided I wanted to be a missionary somewhere in the 10/40 window.

That week I was reading a brochure on Hinduism that I had picked up from one of the missions organization's booths. As I read it, I felt for these people and how lost they were, and I started crying there in the computer lab.

The dorm I lived on that year had a big world map on the wall. The map had a dot for every people group, and the dots were different colors depending on what percentage of the population was Christian. The people groups with the lowest percentage of Christians had red dots. As I looked at the map, I realized that so many of the red dots were concentrated in India. The country was covered in red dots, to the point that the dots were overlapping.

Because of all these experiences that week, in addition to sponsoring a child from India and watching that video in high school, I felt that God was calling me to be a missionary in India. The next logical step seemed to be going on a mission trip to India. Liberty had a mission trip to India over Christmas break, so I applied.

I interviewed with the trip leader, which included sharing my testimony. I shared that I used to struggle with feeling like I had to earn God's love, and I wanted to show the people in India that punishing themselves or working to earn God's love wasn't necessary because of Jesus' death in our place. Somehow it came out in the conversation that I struggled with cutting. I struggled with depression, so cutting was something I had also struggled with for the past couple years. The lady who interviewed me thought that I wasn't ready to go to India because of this struggle. Parts of the trip could be very upsetting or stressful, which could trigger me to cut. She wanted me to continue going to counseling, and maybe I would be ready to go on the trip to India they were doing in the spring. We kept in touch, and after a few months I was doing better, but she still didn't think I was ready to go to India.

The next year I applied again to go on a trip to India in the spring. I talked to the same lady and she could tell I had changed. I remember her saying, "It's like I'm talking to a completely different person! I could cry!" She still wanted me to talk to one of Liberty's counselors who used to be a missionary, to see if she thought I was ready to go to India. I met with the counselor, but she basically said she didn't know. I finally admitted to the trip leader that my one reservation about the trip is that I have OCD, particularly about cleanliness. She said that she thought I was ready to go on any of Liberty's mission trips but India, because the part of India they'd be in would be very dirty.

In May of 2012 I went on a 2-week-long mission trip to the Middle East. The irony is that the country we were in ended up being pretty dirty! But it was a good growing experience for me that taught me to rely on God and resist some of my compulsions. It was an amazing trip, and I was thankful to finally get to go somewhere overseas.

Since I was a Global Studies major, I was required to do an internship overseas that was a minimum of 8 weeks long. In the fall of 2012 I started looking into and applying for internships. Since I thought God was leading me to India, I applied to do an internship there. The representatives of different mission organizations seemed to think we were committing to doing an internship if we applied for it. Because of this, I only applied for the one internship that I was really interested in. (In hindsight, that was probably a bad idea, but it's what I did.) In February of 2013, I interviewed with a representative of the organization that I planned to intern with. I was depressed then--not for any particular reason, but simply because I had depression. I was having a weird day and was stressed and nervous about sharing my testimony in the interview, so I felt like I wasn't really myself. I did share about my struggle with cutting because I feel like that is part of my testimony and I thought I should be honest. But I tried to emphasize that God was working in my life and healing me, and it wasn't as much of a struggle as it used to be.

About a week later, I got a call from the lady who interviewed me. While she said she had been crying and praying about me, I didn't get the internship. Since cutting was still a current struggle for me, she didn't think I was ready to intern in India. I was really disappointed, but I was okay that day.

The next day, February 22, I was really depressed and felt like I would never get to go to India.  Since I believed I was supposed to be a missionary in India but kept getting rejected for trips and internships there, I felt like I had lost my purpose for living. I went to my 8:50 Genesis class as usual. (That semester I had most of my classes Tues/Thurs, and Genesis was my only class Mon/Wed/Fri.) After class I was walking to Convo (the required Convocation/Chapel) and it occurred to me that I could commit suicide. I kept thinking about it during Convo and was considering going back to my dorm to do it after Convo. I knew I wasn't really thinking straight so I kept dragging my feet. I went to the Rot (cafeteria) and had lunch. I texted my friend Sarah M. and asked her to pray for me because I was having suicidal thoughts. She texted me and said, "Where are you?" I said, "I'm at the Rot." She told me to meet her in the courtyard. She skipped her next class and we talked for a while. I was feeling a little better after talking to her and thought I would be okay by myself, but I guess she knew better than to leave me alone. She had another class coming up, but she told me to call my RA and tell her what was going on. Before I got a chance to call her, we ran into her in the hallway. I told her what was going on, and she took me off campus to get coffee. Afterwards she called the RD (resident director) and she wanted to talk to me. She asked if I would rather talk to her or go to Student Care (the on-campus counseling). I said I'd rather talk to her, so my RA and I met with the RD at her apartment on campus. The RD wasn't sure whether I could be safe, so she drove me to the other side of campus to go to Student Care.

When I got to Student Care, I met with two ladies who I assumed were counselors. One of them left for a minute, then came back in the room. Without any warning, two LUPD (Liberty University Police Department) officers came in the room and started asking me questions. They asked, on a scale of 1 to 10 how likely I was to attempt suicide. I said, "Maybe 2." (In reality the number was probably higher, but I was scared of what would happen if I said so.) They asked if I had a plan, and I told them my two possible plans. One officer said he needed to search my backpack. He pulled out a small, Indian-style bag and asked gruffly, "What is this?" "Make-up!" I said, exasperated. He unzipped the bag, and sure enough it was make-up! The officers showed no compassion and treated me like a burden and a criminal. They wouldn't listen to me and would misinterpret whatever I said. One officer told me, "Ok, you're going to the hospital. You have two options. You can either go voluntarily or involuntarily. Voluntarily, you go in the ambulance and it won't show up on your record. Involuntarily, we handcuff you and take you in the police car." I thought about it for a minute and said, "Ok, I guess I'll go voluntarily." The officer went out and talked to my RA and RD in the waiting room. They both had plans and wouldn't be able to go to the hospital with me. Evidently the policy is that they will only take someone in an ambulance if someone on leadership can ride with them, so I would have to go in the police car. One of the officers left, and before the other officer took my phone away, I texted my friend Sarah C. and begged her to meet me at the ER. The officer handcuffed me from behind and paraded me through the back of North campus (aka Green Hall) and across the parking lot to the police car. I just looked down and tried to avoid eye contact with anyone who happened to be walking by.

The officer buckled me into the backseat and sped to the hospital, blasting country music in my ears. (This was before I liked country music.) It was raining, and I couldn't stop crying. I think the officer was a little annoyed with me and said at some point, "You're not being arrested." I didn't say anything. I knew I wasn't being arrested, but did it really matter if I was still handcuffed?

During that drive to the hospital, God comforted me with two verses I had memorized.
"When I am afraid, I will trust in you." Psalm 56:3 The other verse was one my mom taught me when I was little. "The Lord is good, a refuge in times of trouble, he cares for those who trust in him." Nahum 1:7 I kept praying over and over that I wouldn't have a panic attack, that Sarah C. would be able to meet me at the hospital, and that I wouldn't have to spend the night at the hospital.

We got to the hospital around 4 p.m. The officer took me through a back door to the ER, so we didn't have to wait in the waiting room. We still had to wait in a room for a while. I finally asked the officer if Sarah C. could come in. He said, "If you really want." I begged, "Can she please?" A nurse came and got Sarah. Sarah tried to make small talk with the officer, but he just mumbled answers and obviously wasn't interested in talking.

The nurse made me go to the bathroom to do a urine sample. I have never in my life been so happy to do a urine sample because it meant being un-handcuffed and alone for a few minutes! I was scared that the officer would get mad and think I was trying to escape if I moved my hands the slightest bit in the handcuffs, so I had kept my hands very still. Since I was cold and not moving my hands, they turned purple. But my biggest complaint about handcuffs is that since I was handcuffed from behind, I couldn't wipe my eyes or nose. I had been crying a lot, so my face was a mess. I eventually got used to having tears dried on my face and glasses, but it was pretty humiliating having dried snot stuck to my face!

At some point a student nurse came in, who just happened to my friend Jess, who was my RA's younger sister. She gave me a glass of water and a blanket. I felt so much better just seeing someone I knew there!

The nurse took my vitals, and a doctor and psychiatrist came in and out, asking me a lot of questions. At some point the officer finally left, and two nurses admitted they were scared of him.

We did a lot of waiting, and Sarah kept me company and we talked about random things. Seeing her helped me calm down and kept me from completely freaking out or losing my mind. I am so thankful for her coming, and also for her husband Zack being a good sport and letting her spend a Friday night at the hospital with me at a moment's notice.

The doctor finally decided I didn't have to stay at the hospital, with the agreement that I'd follow our safety plan and have someone stay with me for the next 24 hours. God answered all of the prayers I prayed on the drive to the hospital. I didn't even have a panic attack, which was amazing because I had a lot of panic attacks back then.

I got out of the hospital around 7 or 7:30 pm. Sarah drove me to Jersey Mike's to get supper, then drove me back to the dorm. We talked to my RA and roommate to make sure someone could stay with me for the night. My roommate Jami said, "I'm not going anywhere!" So Sarah went home and I was able to sleep in my own bed in the dorm.

A couple days later I called a friend to talk about what had happened and she told me, "You can't just give up when things don't go your way." I almost can't blame her for saying that because that's a pretty common misconception about suicide--that it's selfish and that it's about giving up when you can't get your way. But it was still very hurtful. It wasn't just about not getting an internship I wanted; it was about feeling like I had lost my entire purpose for living.

About a week after all this happened, I had a follow-up meeting with the women from Student Care. It turned out that they were actually Conduct officers who normally handled disciplinary issues, but they were asked to talk to me because there were no counselors available at the time. They apologized for how things went and said they had discussed how things could have been handled differently next time. They said that my experience helped them learn what the problems were in how they handled students who were suicidal, which could help other students in the future.

I continued to be depressed, but I got through it eventually. I also had the stress of trying to figure out my internship and wondering if I would graduate on time since it was close to the deadline for summer internships. I ended up doing my internship in Romania in the summer of 2014. I worked with my good friend Estera and her family who have a conference center there. It was an awesome experience! Doing my internship late did contribute to graduating a year later than I had planned, but it worked out because my parents were thankfully willing to pay an extra year of tuition.

Even though this happened five years ago, it still affects me a lot. I thought that after that traumatic experience I would never consider suicide again, but suicidal thoughts don't stay away just because you want them to, and it was really only the beginning of a long struggle. I used to be obsessed with India, but now I try not to think about it much because it is just too painful. It has affected my relationship with God and made me question what I'm supposed to do with my life. I don't understand why God would seemingly make it very clear that he's leading me to India and then time after time, not let me go. The health problems I've had for the past few years are also an obstacle to going overseas, but that's a whole different story.

There are a lot of things I don't understand, but my motto after this became, "When dreams die, keep living." I try to find reasons to keep living, even when it seems that some of those reasons have been lost. This experience has also been a hard way of learning that my hope needs to be in God, not anything else--not even in a dream of serving God.
 
So that's the long story. (And thank you to anyone who read the whole thing!) I think it's easier to understand me and some of my life choices when you know the whole story.

What a Trip to Iceland Means to Me

Thingvellir National Park

A week ago I got back from a 5-day trip to Iceland with six of my friends from GAP (Northstar Church's Graduates and Professionals group). It was a really fun trip, but it meant more to me than just an adventure in another country.

It means I have friends.

Almost two years ago I had to go to residential treatment because I was depressed and considering suicide. Part of the reason I was so depressed was because I was lonely because I had lost most of my friends from Liberty and had almost no friends my age and stage of life who lived nearby. But now I have friends to go on adventures and just have fun with.

It means it's possible for my health to get better.

Another factor that led to my depression was being frustrated and discouraged about my health problems. I got Cdiff (a bacterial/intestinal infection) in 2015, and I'm still recovering, which means I have post-infectious IBS and Chronic Fatigue. (You can read more about my health problems in this post.) At times my lack of energy has kept me from doing normal activities with friends, and even now I have to plan ahead and "budget" my energy so I don't run out before an event or activity I want to attend. I also haven't been able to travel overseas because there are a lot of international foods I can't eat because I have stomach problems. This has been pretty frustrating for me because I feel like I was made to travel--whether that means living overseas someday or just taking occasional trips overseas.

I have had more energy since this fall, but it is still not a "normal" energy level. For example, I generally only work 18 hours a week. This fall my friend Ezra found a good deal on airfare and decided to lead a trip to Iceland. After doing a ridiculous amount of research and sending Ezra lots of e-mails, I took a big risk in November and I bought my ticket for Iceland.

When it got closer to the trip, I started worrying about how my health would be on the trip, particularly whether I'd have energy for all the hiking we planned to do. I asked my small group to pray for my health and energy on the trip and found out later that my mom's small group was also praying for me. God definitely answered those prayers! I had an unusual amount of energy and, for the most part, was able to keep up with the rest of the group. On our last full day I even did a 6 km (3.7 mile) hike to a waterfall through deep snow and ice! I was exhausted and dizzy at the end, but I did it. My friends were good about checking up on me during the hike to make sure I was okay and waiting for me to take breaks to rest. I also stayed healthy during the trip and didn't have any major stomach problems.

I am so thankful for even a short trip overseas because I felt like I was going to lose my mind if I was stuck in the States any longer! This was my first time overseas since my internship in Romania in 2014 and since I got sick. I don't know whether or not my health and energy level will continue to improve, but at least I know now that it's possible for it to get better.

For anyone who wants a more detailed account of what we did in Iceland, you can check out Ezra's blog. 

Photo credit: Adam Hines 

Letter to an Old Friend

I know you probably became a different person.

Sheralee, Summer and Elsa, 2008

I guess we all grow up eventually. But I still remember the teenage Sheralee.

How you'd always glomp me when you saw me, or sometimes just randomly.

How you'd ask me to dance with you. Even if I didn't always feel like it, it was easier to just dance than to argue with you. So I became "the crazy dancer."

How you'd try to poke my nose and I'd slap your hand.

That night in West Virginia when I walked off to look at the "moon," which ended up being a light post, and you called me Moth ever since.

The time at 217 when we were sitting in the grass, talking about our dream of becoming writers when we grew up. You said you wanted to be a freelance writer. I didn't want you to think I was stupid, so I just pretended to know what "freelance" meant.

The time at 217 when we were talking about our insecurities. I was being intentionally vague and said I was insecure about "being different." You were saying how it's a good thing to be different because the people who are different are the ones who make an impact and change the world. Even though I was referring more to being self-conscious about my physical appearance, I appreciated your insight.

That time you noticed I was sad and you were there for me when so many hard things happened at once.

Sometimes I knew something was bothering you, but I didn't know what to say or how to help. I wanted to be there for you, but it was hard when I was dealing with my own stuff. And I'm sorry if I wasn't always as good of a friend as I could have been.

One of the last times we talked on Facebook was right before you started college. I remember you saying, "I iz going 2 Hollins!!!"

It wasn't supposed to happen this way. We were supposed to grow up and grow old and become writers. I wanted to see your writing get published. Who knows--maybe someday that will still happen.

You left a hole, and I doubt you would have left if you knew how big it was and how many people loved you.

I don't know the details of what you were going through, and I can't pretend to understand how much pain you felt. I will agree with a friend who once told me, "Depression is a bitch." I have been in the place where it seemed like my only options were to die or to be miserable for the rest of my life.

As cliche as it may be to say, I know I'll see you again someday. I can see you crazy-dancing now, maybe in a colorful African dress like the one you borrowed from Allison at the 217 girls night.

As you said in a note you wrote me in 2008, "Love you very much! And God loves you 1,000,000,000 etc. times more!" <3

Me, Sheralee and Elsa, 2008, photo credit: Sarah Westman

Thankful for Life

If you were to ask me what I'm thankful for, I would probably tell you that I'm thankful for my family, my dog and my job. And all of that is true. But if I were to really be honest, what comes to mind is simply, "I'm thankful for life." There are so many times--even just over the past several years--that I could have died and didn't.

In the summer of 2011 I was trying to train for a sprint triathlon. (I eventually gave up on that idea because I'm so bad at swimming--and not great at running either!) I was trying to beat my previous times biking on the Huckleberry Trail, but I had left late and it didn't look like I'd be able to make it home before dark. My dad called and told me to call him when I made it to the mall and he would pick me up so that I wouldn't have to cross Pepper's Ferry Rd in the dark. (This was before they built the pedestrian bridge and also before I had bike lights.) When I got to the mall I didn't call my dad and decided to go ahead and bike all the way home because I wanted to know my time for biking that distance. When I got to Pepper's Ferry I looked both ways and was about to run across, and I heard this voice in my head saying, "Look again." I looked to my left and right there was a gray car driving with its lights off! That scared me a bit, but I'm embarrassed to say I still crossed the road a minute later and biked the rest of the way home. My parents were obviously mad that I biked home without calling them!  

There was the time in 2012 that I cut myself badly and my arm wouldn't stop bleeding for a couple hours. I was exhausted, so I went to bed and hoped I'd wake up in the morning.

There are all the times my depression tried to kill me--really, too many times to keep track of. I wrote this passage in my journal during a hard time last October that I think pretty accurately describes how I was feeling.

"I have been forgotten like one who is dead; I have become like a broken vessel. For I hear the whispering of many--terror on every side!--as they scheme together against me, as they plot to take my life. But I trust in you, O Lord; I say, 'You are my God.' My times are in your hand; rescue me from the hand of my enemies and from my persecutors!" Psalm 31:12-15

In 2015 I got Cdiff, a bacterial infection that a lot of people die from. I couldn't eat most foods because they caused internal bleeding. Then I had an allergic reaction to the antibiotic and was having trouble breathing. I remember my dad telling me, "You're stuck between a rock and a hard place because you could die from not being able to breathe, but [if you stop the antibiotic] the infection could also kill you." I ended up switching to an antibiotic that I've heard kills MRSA, and it took two rounds of that to get rid of the infection.

Some people think that 26 is really young, and in a sense I guess it is. But I feel fortunate to have lived this long when I might not have. In the past three years I've had four friends (technically two of them were more of acquaintances) pass away, and they were all in their early to mid-twenties. A lot of people live like they're immortal, and I guess there can be benefits to that. It can be fun having adventures and taking risks. And when you assume you'll live a long time, you're more likely to plan for the future. But I've seen how fragile my life and the lives of others can be, and I don't want to take life for granted.