The rest of the 2021 went by at a much slower pace, following the head injury. We worked on the buck barn, slowly but surely. It did finally get finished by fall 2021.

May turned to June, and June into July. Things weren’t moving all that fast in our lives as far as building projects, but we still had work, school, church, and volunteer and service positions, and extracurricular obligations. Even though it wasn’t any more stuff on our plates than usual, I was feeling the overwhelm.

In the midst of head injuries, poorly conceived chicken coops, and all the things it takes to run a farm, I was dealing (or not dealing) with some very personal, emotional traumas from my childhood and my parents’ divorce.

Things were about to hit a fever pitch within my heart and mind. I was running on fumes, trying to be everything to everyone, never saying no, never realizing that I had the power to say “No.” Never resting. I wasn’t sleeping. And I was angry. All the time.

An anger that I felt deep in my gut, so entrenched in the emotional warfare of my upbringing, but also mingled with warm childhood nostalgia. I didn’t know what to do with it, how to reconcile it, how to let it go. I wasn’t even fully conscious that any of this existed within me. It’s only looking back through the lens of therapy that any of this makes sense to me today.

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So what does one do when they’re emotionally traumatized with no way of processing or wrapping the mind around all that has transpired? Stuff it, of course.

I didn’t even know what I was angry about, per se. Yeah, my dad left and my parents were divorced, but I had a good life, and it happened, but it’s over now. Pick up and move on.

The lack of awareness I had that I was even traumatized by their divorce, my father’s betrayal, his choices, etc… still baffles me. And the fact that I had no awareness that my childhood and teen years had been a train wreck? But kids have no frame of reference that their family isn’t anything but normal. How could I have known this wasn’t the way things were for everyone? You don’t know what you don’t know.

If I’d been raised in an emotionally stable home, then I could have maybe tackled the abandonment and the divorce more readily and with more clarity, and this one isolated incident – an indiscretion – would have just been the one bad thing that happened in an otherwise perfect family.

If only it were that simple.

My childhood experience was so pressed down, compartmentalized, and denied, I didn’t even know how to bring it up to the surface to deal with it, let alone know it needed to be dealt with at all. If I had such a happy life up until this point, then where was all this anger coming from? I couldn’t deal.

And I didn’t want to deal. Stuffing my real feelings and my real needs were the status quo for the family scape goat. Turns out, a narcissist will choose someone close to them to offload all the blame and responsibility on, and it’s how the narcissist manages to keep all the wheels spinning and the attention off of them.

It was my job to carry the weight of everyone else’s emotional suffering; I was to have no needs. So I didn’t. And if I ever tried to assert my needs above someone else’s, that was made clear it wasn’t to be borne.

And then I wondered why I never had my needs met, and no one knew how to meet them. I wasn’t communicating them to anyone. I was a silently wounded animal, with no voice with which to scream from the abyss that was my shattered emotional well-being and teetering mental health.

I’d lived like this for years.

Though I had every intention of cramming each negative thought, emotion, and need back down into the pits of my gut where I believed they belonged, there came a point where there’s just no more stuffing anyone can do. I had crammed it down my entire life, and quite well, but now this – this was too much. There was no more room in Pandora’s box. It was too full.

My lack of margins was bleeding into every facet of my life.

The trauma had taken hold, and a root of bitterness was so engrained in my personality, I didn’t know where I ended and it began. It consumed me. I no longer controlled it; it controlled me.

Bitterness-turned-anger will always find a way to unleash itself, even if it has to leech its way from your very pores. It was changing my personality, causing me to snap and yell and always walk the edge of verbal hostility toward everyone around me.

Sure, I could put on a brave, happy face for others, but it was a mask, and I was exhausted carrying it around. But I had to keep going. No one could know how I really felt, because if I showed all these ugly things to others, who would love me? Who would accept me then? It was all too hideous to share the truth.

To allow someone else to share my burden would have made my load lighter, and I’d have seen that I wasn’t alone, and that I didn’t have to shoulder it on my own. But there was too much credit given to the belief that I had to be strong on my own. And pride was definitely mixed in there as well.

Now, I didn’t know any of this yet. I’d grown up in a family that would scream and yell at each other all the way to church, and then once we hit the parking lot we’d put on our “church faces” and go to Sunday school like our last name was Cleaver. Hypocrisy at its finest.

Gross.

I think now it’s why I try to live as authentically and honestly as I can. I’ve realized that imperfect people go to church, and I’m one of them. No one has got it all together. But that feeling of needing a picture perfect life is set up as the ideal. Highlight reels on social media and hurting and hiding people within Christian communities seems to be the norm. Why are we not talking about our struggles more openly? Wouldn’t this look a lot more appealing to anyone on the outside? If we were just honest?

How long have we believed that Christians (or other Christians) actually live above sin, struggle, pain, and vice? And that if we, Christian or not, don’t live in perfect holiness like others do, we’re somehow not doing it right?

The lie: “A good Christian has it all together and never has skeletons in the closet. If you have skeletons, you better hide them well, so no one finds out. Oh, and learn to be judgmental of those who are honest about theirs, because, eww.”

The truth: we all have sin, struggle, pain, and vice. What we need to do is get honest about it, tell others, and then deal with it properly, whether that is repenting, asking for prayer and accountability, laying it down, getting therapy, or just talking and finding out you’re not alone. Grace covers a multitude of sin, but we have to confess it if we’re ever going to deal with it.

Just like an addict must admit they have a problem before they can fully immerse themselves in getting clean, so a hypocrite must admit they have a problem so as to rid themself of the whitewashed tomb full of dead men’s bones.

I can’t just fake it ‘til I make it when it comes to becoming more like Jesus. There’s no masking up when it comes to walking with Christ – not if I want to do it authentically. I can be real about where I’m at, knowing that’s not where I want to stay, because I want to reach for something better. But it has to start with honesty.

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So, in all of my anger, not dealing, emotional carnage, etc… I didn’t know this, or recognize it. And once I got home from wherever it was I was wearing my “holy mask,” and I was safe from others discovering my charade, I could rip off my plastic smile and terrorize my husband with my verbal gymnastics and talk too harshly to the kids. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.

Who was this person?

I was stuck, and I didn’t know how to escape. The hole was too deep, and the more I tried to climb out on my own, the deeper the hole became and the ever more stuck I was.

I didn’t know who I was anymore, and I don’t think anyone around me really knew what to do for me, or about me. My hubby tried to talk to me about these things, but I was so vastly unpleasant – a ticking bomb – anything that came from my lips was vitriol, and the only defense was to shrink back from me while trying to not set me off. I was hopelessly miserable.

So what was to come next?

Oh, yes; my impending mental breakdown.

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I went to my ensemble practice like I did every Monday night. Rallied all that I could so I could sing through the songs and then go home and go to bed. I was exhausted. And anxious. Overwhelmed. Burned out.

Practice let out, and I was on my way home. Out of nowhere – well, not nowhere – I began having chest pains. I was having a hard time catching my breath.

I’ll save you the list of symptoms, but I thought I was having a heart attack. I called my hubby and told him what was going on.

I ended up in the emergency room, thinking I was dying. Or maybe I just thought I wanted to. Not literally. But that feeling of just being so tired of the daily grind, not enjoying life, and still knowing you have to survive and keep going. My life was heavy. Paging Dr. Depression.

After testing and waiting, the doctor finally came in, and he talked with me. It wasn’t a heart attack; it was a panic attack.

God sent me a doctor full of compassion, which was exactly what I needed in that moment, and we discussed some options for managing my stress, anxiety, and what turned out to be depression.

Why didn’t I realize any of this on my own? Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt, you know? And, of course, all the stuff I’ve already described. The sheer pride I had, thinking I could just will myself to feel better, stuff down the bad, and put on a happy face… it just wasn’t working anymore. It hasn’t been working for a while.

It was time to enter therapy.

It was the intervention I needed. Had I not had the massive panic attack, causing me to think I was dying, then I might still be that same angry, bitter shell of a person. I’m really thankful it got to that point for me, because I needed to hit what was my personal rock bottom.

I started talking to a Christian counselor, who was amazing. Without going into every single detail, she was able to give me new perspective, she challenged me, and she helped me wade through all the emotional baggage I’d been carrying with me for 37 years.

I still have my moments of pain and struggle, but I now have tools with which to deal with these things in a healthy way. And through the process of therapy, I was able to forgive, let go, lay down, and heal. It’s still a process, but as things come up, I don’t stuff them anymore. I look at my problems/issues/past/trauma with fresh eyes, recognize it for what it is, make it obedient to the truth of Christ, and move forward.

It’s a choice within my heart and mind to believe what Jesus says about who I am in Him, to rebuke the lies of the enemy, and to live in the freedom God so willingly and lovingly offers.

I may feel certain things, but feelings do not add up to truth. It’s my job as a believer to line up my feelings to God’s Word and change my feelings if necessary.

If I think I’m no good, not enough, unworthy, replaceable, un-usable for God’s good purposes, etc… then I’ve got to take those feelings to the cross of Jesus, crucify them, and leave them there at His feet. And then I have to replace the lies with truth. I must choose to believe what He actually says about my worth, and from where it comes, how He sees me, and who He says I am in Him. It’s not because of anything I’ve done to deserve it; it’s only because of His blood, His sacrifice, and His unfailing love that makes any of this possible.

My feelings are relative, but God’s truth remains.

There is such freedom in knowing it’s not I who hold my salvation, my value, and my life in my own hands. If I did, it would be on eternally shaky ground. Knowing it’s Christ who holds these things for me, I am wholly free. There is nothing good in me apart from Jesus, but He says I am loved, accepted, created for His good works and purpose, and He has a plan for my life.

Seeking Him with my whole heart is the only job I really have, and whatever He lays at my feet to do, whatever work He has for my hands, I will faithfully set my heart to do, because I love Him.

How can I not? He gave me everything when He set me free. I owe my life, my soul, my heart, and my eternity to Him. He is my all in all. There is no turning aside from that. He is where my heart is now, which means I have all the freedom of soul I ever wanted.

Ultimate freedom in ultimate surrender. How awesomely contradictory is that?

He saved me from my past, my pain, and myself. That doesn’t make me better than anyone. Quite the opposite, in fact. It has humbled me.

I believed I had no value, so I worked my butt off and bent over backwards to earn it via approval of others (part of growing up under a narcissistic parent and a codependent family), and even when I received it, it was hollow.

Now I have confidence, not of my own merit, not because I deserved it or earned it, but because the One who created the universe calls me His. Any confidence I have is in Him, because I know what He did for me and how He loves me. It’s only because of Him.

When I look back and see what He’s done, the lengths He reached, the miles He walked, the death He died in my place. It breaks me. Not in despair the way I was broken before, but in the best way, to live a life of thankfulness, surrender, and love, because I know what His sacrifice took. I know the ugliest parts of myself, and He washed it away with His love. Because He loves me. When I was angry, bitter, ugly, someone who spurned Him, someone who despised Him. He loved me anyway.

Who else loves like that?

No one. There isn’t anyone who ever loved me like that. Save for Him. I owe everything.

“Jesus paid it all. All to Him I owe. Sin had left a crimson stain. He washed it white as snow.“

Now I can boldly proclaim what He has done for me, with the confidence that only comes from the throne and who He says I am. And I choose to believe that. No matter what anyone else says, I know that to be the truth.