About a year ago, I was stressed to the point of breaking. And I broke. We caught every possible sickness that was traveling around that Winter (multiple times), and it ended with me getting mono. I felt so helpless, hopeless, and vulnerable. I cried a lot and just wanted my mom. She came to our rescue, and many family members and friends helped us through those hard times. I thought I was better and that life was moving on.
Back in October, I realized I wasn't imagining it: my face was swelling up. Looking at photos, I've been able to track it back to July. I noticed it every day, but nobody else seemed to, so I just kept ignoring it. When my parents visited, my dad lovingly pointed it out and asked if I was ok. That's when I realized I wasn't ok. I was really sick. I was always tired. I was totally fatigued. My head and eyes hurt very often. My mind often felt fuzzy and confused. I was embarrassed by how I looked- and by the fact that hardly anyone noticed how odd and different I looked. The bridge of my nose was super swollen, especially right between my eyes. Once I started talking about it more openly, some people admitted to noticing the difference. Other people still didn't seem to be able to see it.
The symptoms I've had seem to indicate some kind of immune system problem, which also seems connected to having mono, or even connected to dealing with intense chronic stress before that.
The next several months, up until now, have been filled with all kinds of things.
- Being in school, having my perspectives turned upside down, questioning who I am and what I believe.
- Being unable to wake up because my eyes and face feel so puffy.
- Wondering why, after investing my whole self into being a stay-home mother, I could crash and burn so badly.
- Studying the history of marriage and family, and suddenly feeling like what I have expected of myself as a stay-home mom is literally impossible!
- Being so sick that I had to drop out of school for 6 weeks, doing almost no school work. Hoping I would pass at least one class after all the hard work I put into the first half of the semester.
- Feeling embarrassed about going back to class after being gone so much, and with my face looking so different.
- Thinking I'm getting better, finding out I'm pregnant, then having the health problems come flooding back.
- Wanting to be excited about our future, but instead feeling scared and hopeless.
- Multiple infections. Feeling like I catch every sickness I'm exposed to.
- Struggling with mental illness and feeling so, so confused. Wondering if other people trust me anymore, and whether or not I can trust myself anymore.
- Crying, struggling, and having the mental darkness take over right when I'm supposed to be getting ready for class. Deciding there's no way I can make it to class, when my husband swoops in and drives our whole family down to campus, so that we can talk in the car for an hour and I can make it to class.
- Wondering if I'll ever be able to finish something -like graduating.
- Looking totally fine in public, and being totally not fine when alone.
- Having to learn with being ok with my kids seeing me cry and struggle with mental health.
- Laying on my bed or couch for days or weeks without being able to walk around.
- FATIGUE.
- My body being extremely sensitive to everything- from body sprays, to animals, to plants and environmental factors, to medications, to face wash, etc.
- Mental fuzziness and confusion.
- Nausea. All kinds of nausea.
- Body aches. Achey muscles.
- Feeling like the project friend/family member.
- Being way too embarrassed to talk to friends or ask for help. Intense fear of being the friend who always unloads her personal baggage on others. Worrying people won't enjoy being around me anymore. Worrying that if a friend asked how I was doing, I would have a huge meltdown in front of them.
- Wishing I could be diagnosed with something.
- Anxiety.
- Feeling trapped.
- Having intense physical reactions to medications. Medications that feel like modern-day torture.
- Begging my doctor to let me stop the medications and telling him I'll drink several liters of straight 100% cranberry juice to fight the infection.
- Feeling like I'm at the doctor's office much more than I've ever been, yet feeling like it's not nearly enough. Yet I don't have energy to keep going.
- Deciding maybe the medication is worth it to help my mental health. Reacting badly to the medication.
- Constantly switching between feeling physically sick and mentally sick. It seems like when my body gets better, my mind gets worse, and visa versa.
- Being challenged mentally, emotionally, and spiritually. Feeling like my faith is on the verge of crisis.
- Wanting to connect with God, but feeling too sick to kneel. Praying in bed, again and again and again. Feeling too sick to focus on reading more than one verse of scripture.
- Feeling tons of mom guilt for laying on the couch and having my kids watch movies all day because I feel too sick to move.
- Feeling that my kids deserve so much more than I'm even close to being able to give.
- Not being able to care for my or my family's basic needs.
- Seeing my sweet husband running around doing EVERYTHING. Seeing his exhaustion, even though he doesn't want me to see it.
- Feeling starving and nauseous but being unable to imagine anything being edible, especially not anything in our house. Knowing that the longer I go without eating, the sicker I'll get.
- Carrying around the silver sick bowl.
- Wondering what happened to the past me who felt so optimistic and hopeful about almost everything.
- Giving up things that are important to me. Like rehoming all of our animals and no longer being able to be a full-time student.
- Dreading the day my husband starts his full-time job, even though it will be a huge blessing to us.
- Coughing so hard it hurts and makes me nauseas. Feeling like a regular cold shouldn't wipe me out the way it did.
- Wanting to try something to improve my mental health (like going to school, getting out of the house, more therapy appointments, etc), but being too sick to actually do it.
- Feeling guilt for neglecting my church calling and for struggling to reach out and serve other people.
We've been stretched in new ways and have grown in new ways. In a lot of ways I feel weaker than ever, but in other ways, I know Heavenly Father is making me stronger, or at least more authentic. My testimony of who God is has changed. I've realized He is bigger and more all-knowing than I realized before.
I'm grateful for a religion teacher who, when I was in 6th or 7th grade, taught us a goofy rhythm/song to remember this Bible verse:
8 For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways, saith the Lord.
9 For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.
-Isaiah 55:8-9
I've come to really feel that God's ways are much, much higher than ours. I've realized I don't understand God the way I thought I did. And I no longer take statements about God lightly, especially when people assume they understand God. I've learned that He always understands us, but I doubt we often understand Him. Maybe He lets us have little glimpses of understanding, but I think He is much greater, bigger, and much more than we can really grasp. Yet, He gives us treasures of truth and keeps teaching us. And even though He is so big, I can still feel that He is a loving Father who knows us intimately.
I've learned that there is a safe place at church for people like me. And that in congregations where there isn't, there needs to be. "People like me" meaning people who have all kinds of questions, but few answers. People who have doubts, fears, and struggles. People who face crisis of faith. People who are questioning things they used to know so clearly. People who want to believe, but need extra help. People whose health sometimes makes it very hard for them to feel of God's spirit and love the way they used to. People who are learning to distinguish between traditions and culture and real truth from God. People who have gone from being the helper, to being the helped.
Yet, in moments of confusion, loneliness, and hopelessness, I've offered simple prayers and felt God's love for me. I've felt that He knows me and is aware of me.
At times I've worried about my faith, but at other times, I've realized it has become stronger. It is no longer the simple, yet unshakable faith of a teenager who has done the work to learn for herself. It is a faith that lives in paradox and harmony with struggle, opposition, questions, and growth. A more mature, yet imperfect faith, of a woman who has been living God's plan- to come to know good and evil through the experiences of life, and to learn about the joy of redemption, and to hope for eternal life with God through Jesus Christ (Moses 5:10-11).
I'm trying to learn that it doesn't matter what other people think of me, my mothering, my home, my church service, etc. I'm trying to learn to care more about what I think about myself, and to give myself more credibility. I'm especially trying to learn to care the most about what Heavenly Father sees in me.
I've always been one to try to look strong and to be terrified of people seeing me in weakness. I've learned to accept (kind of) the fact that I need help. Well- ok- "learned" is a huge overstatement. I'm trying to learn that. I think in life, and especially in marriage, we have to learn to be both the shepherd and the sheep at different times. The shepherd gives more than his fair share, and the sheep needs help, protection, and guidance, yet is able to give little in return. Jesus Christ has been my shepherd, and so has my sweet husband. Even in times so dark I haven't been able to see it.
I'm grateful for moments of clarity. Moments of peace. Moments of feeling God's love. Moments of remembering. Moments of learning. Moments of changing. Moments of smiling, laughing, being snuggled by cute kids, kissing chubby toddler cheeks, and being held by a dedicated spouse.
