A Day in the Life of a Girl...

If you'd seen me open the door to the bathroom today, you would have thought nothing of it. Just another smiling college kid, working on your floor, fumbling with the keylock on the doorknob. Right? No biggie. You likely walked right past without a second thought, on your way to the elevator around the corner.

What you didn't see, however, but what you would have seen had you been able to look through the door, might have surprised you. You would have seen me close the door and sag against it, gripping the doorknob to keep it closed from the inside. You would have seen me crumple to the ground, tears spilling onto my cheeks, shaking, and on the verge of a panic attack.

It had been one of those mornings. The ones I dread, the ones that panic me, the ones I hate.... First, the corner store with mom, where I was, in succession: stripped bare and devoured by the gaze of two guys standing by the counter as they nudged each other and leered, startled and scared by another guy who'd snuck up behind me to make kissy noises in my ear, other various harassment, and finally, catcalled, whistled at, and called certain unprintable names as mom and I left and got into the car.

It didn't stop when I got into work, though. The guy who held the door eyed me with a "fuck, baby", and a nasty leer. Then, I got sent to the deli/newsstore where we get breakfast, and overheard the deli guy - who's been hitting on me for weeks, and who I told to stop last week - tell the lady who works with him, that if he was a millionaire, "I'd get out of here, and you know who I'd take with me?..I'd take her" (me). Sounds innocuous, right? You didn't see his face. You also haven't seen the way he looks at me on a regular basis, and you probably didn't know how much those looks scare me, either.

I made it back to work, only to realize that I had to go back to the store for creamer. So, I hid in the bathroom, fighting a panic attack, until I had composed myself enough to go, get the creamer, avoid the deli guy, and rush back to the safety of my office. And perhaps you will understand why, later that day, upon finding myself in an elevator with a stranger who looked at me funny, I glared at him, and informed him that, "you touch me, and I swear I'll kill you"...perhaps not the wisest course of action, but, hey.

Now, I wish I could say that this was a once-in-a-blue-moon kind of a thing that never happens, and is astonishing to me. But, if I'm honest, it happens. It happens a lot. Not always this degree in the course of a single morning, but, in the two and a half (or s0) months that I've been working there, I have yet to make a single errand run without at least one person hitting on me, catcalling me, or ogling and leering. And the events I've described are far from the worst that's ever happened.

And there's a pervading misconception which I've come across over the past few weeks and months, which is utterly and completely false.

Guys, hitting on someone is not a compliment.

Again. Say it with me.

Hitting. On. Someone. Is. Not. A. Compliment. Harassment. Is. Never. Okay.

Catcalling is not a compliment. Checking me out does not make me feel flattered. The guys who call me "slut" or "whore" or "cunt" or undress me with your eyes (yes, I can tell...) only make me loathe and fear them.

And any man who does that...actually, no. Scrap that. Because any male who catcalls a girl, ogles and leers at her, slaps her butt as she walks past, or anything else inappropriate is not a man. No true man would ever do that.... but anyone who does? I am fully convinced that that is a qualification for 'scum of the earth'.

I mean, imagine if the girl you were hitting on was your sister, your mother, your daughter. How would you feel about men looking at her the way you think it's okay to look at me? How would you feel about strangers calling her unspeakable names, touching her, following her around?

That is not flattering. It is violating. It is panic-inducing, and it is just wrong. It makes me feel vulnerable, violated, hurt, dirty, terrified, and it is oftentimes all I can do to keep from breaking into an all-out run to escape.

And it's not just me, either. Ask the girls you know. Heck, ask the LGBT kids you know! Most women know exactly what I'm talking about. I mean, for crying out loud, Uptown Funk, in real life, isn't cool. It's creepy!  And no, it doesn't depend on the kind of clothes you're wearing. I am never, repeat, never asking for it. I have literally worn everything from long skirts to baggy pants to glasses and no makeup, and it still happens.

Street harassment is still a thing. And, it mostly happens to women. Good gosh, I don't walk up to you and be like "nice dick". You wouldn't walk up to another man, a total stranger, and tell him he has a nice dick. Yet somehow it's perfectly acceptable in your mind to leer at me and tell me my "ass" is "fuckable". What the actual heck!? You don't go around grabbing other guys' junk. So why's it okay to grab my butt? Or touch my chest? *hint: it's not*

Be a man! If you like me, be nice to me, hold doors (without slapping my butt as I walk through!)...there are other ways to give a compliment. If you think I'm pretty, then, for goodness' sake, man up and tell me in an un-offensive way. Otherwise, keep your mouth shut! If you like me, then tell me that, and, if I say no, respect me enough to take 'no' for an answer

I met an man last weekend, who intrigued me. An elderly gentleman, he entertained me for quite a bit with stories of his country upbringing. But one story in particular delighted me, hence his designation as a 'man' in my mind. He mentioned that he used to get into fights at the bar all the time as a young man, but, not for the reasons I'd thought.

In his words, "I'd see a guy hitting on a lady, and if she didn't want to be bothered, I'd go over, tap him on the shoulder, and say 'buddy, why don't you leave the lady alone, finish your drink and go on home?', and he'd want to know, 'well, who's gonna make me?', so I'd ask him 'You wanna mess up the bar, or should we go out in the parking lot?' and I wound up in a fair number of fights because of it".

Honestly, that's where it's at. With that one little anecdote, he just made himself my hero.

And I really wish there were more like him.  

I mean, screw even respecting me as a woman.

How about just, at basic, respecting me as another human being?

Could we just get there? Because even that would be a huge accomplishment.

Of Standing Men

An old man sits at a prison table, behind bars, under heavy guard. His worn blue eyes are pensive, thoughtfully fixed on the man standing opposite. This man, younger but not quite young, wears a look of intense worry. He seems burdened with some momentous weight.

But, the old man is speaking, telling a story. He tells the younger man that he reminds him of a friend of his father's, who used to come around when the old man was a boy. This friend of his father's, he said, was pointed out to him by his father, who told him, as a young boy, to watch that man. For twenty years his father's friend had done nothing at all remarkable. Yet still his father said, 'watch that man'. So the boy watched him. And one night, their house was overrun with border guards.

In the old man's words, 'This man, my father's friend was beaten. Every time they hit him, he stood back up again. So they hit him harder. Still he got back up to his feet. I think because of that they let him live.'

The younger man's brow furrows in confusion. 'And I remind you of this man?'

Nodding slowly, the old man replies, 'Standing man.' His eyes unfocus, reaching deep into the past. 'Standing man'.

Now, lest you think that I concocted this all in my own brain...I assure you it was all from Spielberg's latest film, Bridge of Spies. The old man is an alleged Soviet spy, while the younger man is his lawyer. Originally arranged as a farce of a trial for positive PR, it turns into far more when an American spy is captured by the Soviets and the task of exchanging the two falls to the old man's lawyer.

And....I must admit, I've always been in love with the idea of a standing man. I just didn't have the words for it until now. It takes a certain kind of strength - a different level of courage - to stand back up, repeatedly, undauntedly, knowing that you will only be knocked down again and harder.

But what makes a 'standing man'? 

I've been puzzling over it all day, and I think I finally understand.

What makes him remarkable is that...he wasn't a hero. His whole life was spent standing quietly in the shadows. He wasn't some grand person. He had done 'nothing remarkable for 20 years'. And yet, when the time came, when it really mattered - he alone stood.

If he had been a hero, then it wouldn't have been remarkable. If he had been known for deeds of greatness.....But the courage of ordinary men....

See, one does not always have to be great to do great things, or to inspire others. One does not have to be a hero all the time. One simply has to stand back up, over and over and over again. To quietly stand. To never give in, never give up, never bow, never surrender. 

'I think it was because of that that they let him live'. 

And here we come to the deepest reason that I can't let go of this concept. Because I want so desperately to believe that if I don't bow, if I get back up again and again and again, even though it seems that every single time I do, I am knocked down harder and more violently than before, that perhaps, someday, the darkness might let me live. 

But, in the meantime....?

I stand. 

For The Nights When I Want to Relapse

There are days when recovery is...well, not easy, but easier. There are days when I am happy and carefree and secure, when I am able to put the past behind me and drown out the voices in my head with His truth

But other days?

Other days, my brain seems stuck on a loop, incessantly asking what good is recovery!? what use is it, if I'll always to some degree want this? And even if I do manage to get free, who would ever want me with my past?

And I know He mends with gold. I know that in His hands, the brokenness is beautiful, but sometimes I feel only broken and not beautiful at all.

Like, will I ever be free? Truly free? Does it matter if I cave if I'll always struggle with this?

Depression screams hopelessness at me. The devil whispers condemnation in one ear, and shame in the other. And I want nothing more than to find a small sharp blade and watch as the blood runs red. Or overdose myself into oblivion. Or run back to everything I'm ashamed of in a futile effort to hide the pain.

And I know, I know that that will accomplish nothing, save drag me yet further into everything I must escape from. But there are still nights where the pull to darkness is oh so strong, and I grow weary of pressing on when all around me seems hopeless.

Tonight is one of those nights.

The sort of night where I climb out onto the roof, curl up, and sob my sorrows to the stars because they are too great for me to hold, and in the stillness of the aftermath, when I am shaken with weeping and drained to the core, the demons taunt and jeer, throwing my failures in my face and pulling me right back down again.

But I've learned that, it isn't what I do when life is sunshiney and cheerful that counts half so much as what I do the nights during which I cannot drag my weary soul anymore through this worn and tattered life.

So, tonight, like so many nights before it, and, probably, for many more nights after it, I shall crawl into bed, plug in my headphones, turn up the music, and let it carry me away.

5 Reasons Why People Quit Recovery.

So, you finally did it. You had your breakthrough, you hit rock bottom, realized you couldn't live like this anymore, and decided it was time to get better. It was time to recover. No turning back, right? And for a while, things started to look up. Maybe your surroundings hadn't changed, but you were different, determined.

....Until three months down the road, and you find yourself sobbing in a corner, relapsed, or considering it, and on the verge of quitting 'this recovery thing' altogether.

See, recovery is a tricky topic. It's one thing to decide that you want to get better, but quite another thing to follow through on that, and a separate thing altogether to actually see the process through to the end.

For anyone recovering from an addiction of any sort, self harm, eating disorder, or even mental illness, I'd like to share five reasons that I've discovered, on my own journey, as to why we are inclined to quit recovery, and perhaps also offer some tips, both for anyone struggling, and for those who help them

1. Lack of Support. 

This is the most important and my least favorite aspect of recovery. I can't say this enough. Support is vital. God didn't create us to live life alone. Heck, in the perfect world He created, the only thing He said was not good was 'to be alone'. I'm far too independent and far too stubborn for my own good - as my friends will readily tell you - but, harsh as it sounds, people need other people. People who are struggling especially need other people. You need healthy people. People who will lift you up, hold you accountable, speak truth into your life, and point you towards God. 

My advice then, if you're struggling, would be to talk to your friends. Talk to a counselor. Talk to someone. Find someone. Find a community. I would love to think that I'm competent on my own, that somehow, I can independently handle my problems, but truth is, I'm not, and neither are you. And bottling it all up, holding it all in, only means it will come out in other, destructive ways.

If you're friends with someone who is recovering, an important thing to remember is that, in recovery, they need your love and care and support and encouragement and understanding more than they did when they were sick! Because now, instead of drowning or suppressing their sorrows, they're trying to work through them, and need extra support. Not less. Talk to them about things other than their struggles, ask how they are, check up on them, make sure they know they're wanted and not just put up with. "Better" doesn't mean "well", and oftentimes friends, while they may not stop caring, do stop expressing that care once they hear the word "recovery".

And believe me, I know how taxing it can be to help someone who's struggling, which is why my second point is essential. 

2. Trying To Do It All In Your Own Strength

Along the lines of the previous reason, while we desperately need other people, we also desperately need God. We need His support, His promises, His steadfast and unfailing love, His shelter, and we need to run to Him for our refuge when life gets too overwhelming. The times I've become the most overwhelmed, and wanted to quit the most, were the times that I wasn't relying on God, wasn't talking to my friends, and generally, trying to go it alone. 

Talk to God. As the Psalmist says, 'pour out your heart before Him, for God is a refuge for us'. (Psalm 62...easily one of my favorite chapters ever, of all time). There will be times when people can't be there for you. He always is. And the amazing thing about God, I'm learning, is that while people can't always handle the depth of emotion we sometimes feel, He can. He'll take it all - the anger, the fear, the hatred, the pain, the sadness - He can handle it. He takes it, and He holds me. 

This goes for everyone, across the board - whether you're recovering, or just friends with someone who is recovering. You can't solve the other person's problems. Talk to Jesus. I can't solve my own problems. So I will talk to Jesus too, and He gives us the hope and strength to carry on. One of the most important things you can do for someone who is recovering, second only to just being there for them with love and compassion and understanding, is pointing them back to the true Healer, our only Refuge, who is Jesus. 

3. You Didn't Really Have A Breakthrough

I've had several 'false starts'. At least, that's what I call them. A false start is when your emotions are touched, but your heart really hasn't changed. Kinda like Dieppe vs. Normandy, for all you war history people. You emotionally decide that you should get better, but you don't engage your will. Without a conscious decision to recover, and the willpower to see it through, recovery will forever remain an elusive phantom, taunting you, yet always out of reach.

As a good friend loves to remind me, it's all about the choice. You must make the hard decision to recover. In one of my favorite musicals, (Next to Normal), there's a scene where the main character is discussing her life with her psychiatrist, and he tells her to "make up your mind you can live at last, make up your mind to be fully alive...make up your mind you are strong enough...make up your mind to be well!". You must choose.

Honestly, if you're on the other end of this, and not the one choosing, I have little advice for you on this one apart from...pray. Pray that God would show his power, pray that they will make up their mind, and then consistently remind them that recovery is a choice, they can decide, they have the power to choose that this is not how their story will end.

4. The Environment Hasn't Changed

Here I must make a caveat. It isn't always possible for the environment to change, and I realize that. There are situations where, you must choose recovery, knowing that the situation won't, in all likelihood, change, and the only thing different is you. Sometimes it is possible for the entire situation to change completely - which is incredible - but sometimes it isn't.

However, there are always factors that are within your control. Don't choose the bar as a place to meet up with friends. Throw away the lighters and blades. Toss the cigarettes. Pour the alcohol down the drain, and then shred your liquor store points cards. Make a meal plan and have people hold you accountable for eating. Take your medication. Talk to your counselor. Don't hang out with negative influences, which might mean cutting some toxic people out of your life. There's almost always something you can do, and it's worth it in order to get well.

And for those who help? Sometimes, taking away the blade, knocking the cigarette or bottle out of someone's hand, putting a plate of food in front of them and insisting that they eat...can make a much bigger difference than you realize. Sometimes just getting them out of their situation, if only for a few hours, can be one of the best things for them.

But...sometimes, and I say this with great deliberation......you need to get other people involved in order for the situation to change, and that person to get well. In some cases that's calling CPS. In others, it's telling someone who can either get that person professional help, or get them out of that situation, what's really going on. This I say with the additional caveat that this is not to be used lightly, without much prayer, and only as a very last resort.

5. Optimism/Impatience

Last but not least, optimism kills....Now, I grew up on stories of people who prayed and were instantly healed, junkies who received the Holy Spirit and never even wanted drugs again, so I still struggle with this. I want to be better now, and it took me awhile to realize that, just because I've had my breakthrough doesn't mean that life is going to be easy. Matter of fact, it's gotten harder. Recovery isn't easy, and it doesn't happen overnight. And if you think that just because you've had your breakthrough, now you won't struggle, then I've got news for you. Life doesn't work that way. Recovery doesn't work that way, but strength is built through struggle.

There are few things that kill the desire to recover quicker than the realization that recovery is about a thousand times harder than destroying yourself. And if you don't make the decision to recover with that in mind, then, instead of being prepared for the hard times when they come - because they will come, and you will want to quit far more and often than you ever dreamed you would - then, when the dark times come, you will quit. Because you weren't prepared. Plus, if you're naturally impatient like me, the fact that recovery is a journey and a process, not an overnight kind of a deal, will take some learning.

For the rest of you, much as I may have hated it at the time, I am deeply grateful to those who kept my feet on the ground, and reminded me that my breakthrough was, to borrow yet another war metaphor, the Battle of Saratoga, and not Yorktown. Encouragement is so important, but to allow someone you care about to fool themselves into believing that they've been cured overnight, or that recovery will be a snap, does more harm than good.

All that to say. This is in no way an exhaustive list, but if you, like me, want to quit recovery at times, or if you're at a loss for what to do with a friend who has either relapsed, or given up altogether, then I hope this proves useful to you.

As Winston Churchill, a man who knew all too well how to fight against impossible odds, once said, "Never give in. Never. Never. Never."

Never give in, never give up. Keep on keeping on. Keep fighting. Stay strong. Chin up. You got this, and, more importantly, God's got you.

To quote C. S. Lewis, "Courage, child." Both for the one in recovery, and the one helping, "you have chosen the roughest road, but it goes straight to the hilltops" (John Buchanan).

So never, ever, ever, under any circumstances, quit, give up, or lay down and die.

Never. 

They Love Me More When I'm Broken..Don't They?

So, today I'm hopping back on the soapbox because I've noticed an interesting trend lately, and I rather hate it. 

I don't know why - maybe it's human nature - but as soon as people hear the word "better", they automatically assume "well".

And, for the record, better does not mean well. 

I was better - I was so much better - after camp. I trusted God, my friends, my family, heck, my life!

So how did I wind up, three months later, drowning under the screams that everyone would be far better off if I were dead? 

Fall Out Boy captures it pretty well. 

"My heart is like a stallion, they love it more when it's broken". 

And, I've realized it's true. The sad awful reality, and part of why I loathe my depression as much as I do, is that, while, yes, I needed you when I was cutting, burning, overdosing, purging, starving...I needed you to point me to the light, and remind me that things get better....I need you far more when I'm not harming, starving, overdosing, purging, etc. 

Because, before, if life got overwhelming, I at least had my old destructive habits to run back to! I often wouldn't even talk to you until after I'd cut, burned, overdosed...

I passionately believe that it is the power of love - God's and people's - that alone can save someone who is hurt and hurting. 

But, I've also come to wonder if, the reason so many people 'fail' at recovery, is because, as soon as their friends, relatives, etc hear the words 'recovery' or 'better', they...don't stop caring...but perhaps stop expressing that care. 

And much as it pains me to admit it - for several reasons, not the least of which, is that it sounds awfully selfish - I need your love, I need your care, I need your support and encouragement and affirmation more in recovery than I ever did when I was sick! 

Because, like it or not, recovery sucks. It's much more difficult than destroying myself, for sure, and if all your gentleness disappears with my announcement that I'm 'better', then, instead of being able to turn to you with the small things before they become big things, I'll hold them all in for fear of bothering you, and then, when I finally do explode, it won't be pretty. 

If you used to actually seem like you cared about me while I was destroying myself, and then, now, take about fifteen giant steps back, what am I supposed to think? 

If you don't engage on topics other than how much I really want to give up, then I'll not go to you when I do, and if I do, I'll hate myself for going to you, and before long, I'll be convinced that you wouldn't care if I were dead, either, because nothing makes me feel like a burden faster than if you only talk to me, only care, when I'm falling apart! 

And I hate, hate, hate, how abominably selfish that sounds, and I know that part of it is absolutely my fault for being as stubborn as I am, and how firmly I refuse sometimes to lean on anyone else, but if you only love me when I'm breaking, and spend the rest of your time trying to distance yourself from me on all social media, pretending I don't exist, and ignoring my texts.... 

I can absolutely see why 'lack of support' is listed as number 1 under reasons for failed recovery. 

And I don't want to fail this time. I've failed far too many times, far too much, Nor is this an attempt to blame anyone. I take full responsibility for the times I've caved, but, by the same token, if it has taken me this long to learn to trust my friends' love and care, and then, almost all the outward signs of it disappear? 

I don't know. 

There's got to be a better way. 

There just has to. 

In Quietness and Trust

I stumbled upon a verse last night, while researching, and it struck me, since I don't really remember ever reading it before.

It's Isaiah 30:15, which reads,

"For thus the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel, has said, In repentance and rest you will be saved, in quietness and trust is your strength..."(NASB)

The last phrase stood out to me, in particular, though.

"In quietness and trust is your strength"

The ESV reads, "In quietness and trust shall be your strength"

My strength - our strength - doesn't come from how much we can accomplish on our own. It comes from quieting our souls before the Lord, trusting completely in His sovereign hand, in His loving heart.

Now, I don't know about you, but one thing I hate almost more than anything else is inaction, especially forced inaction.

I abhor feeling useless, unneeded, and as though there is nothing for me to do. Ask anyone, I show up places, and within three minutes I am asking 'What can I do? What do you need? Give me a job to do.'. And not even because I'm always just that willing to serve, but I hate just sitting there doing nothing.

It drives me crazy.

Apart from the specific times in which I have either set aside time to rest, or when I have been forced to take time to rest, I cannot stand just sitting by, doing not a blessed thing.

And to come across this verse, in which God says that everything I do, all my hurrying and rushing and working, and "move, God, move!" isn't even strength...blew me away, but I can see why it would be so.

The world measures strength as a matter of physical ability, mental achievement, or difficulties overcome. The emphasis is placed solely on your own ability.

And God says, "no".

True strength isn't outward, isn't easy. It is doing the one thing you find so difficult, which is doing nothing - relinquishing control of your own life, and quietly waiting for the salvation of the Lord, all the while trusting that He will do what He has promised. He who began a good work in you will carry it to completion.

It's not puzzling over things, or working them all out in my head. It's not trying harder, in my own strength. It's not micromanaging, over analyzing, or "God helps those who help themselves". It's not striking out on my own. It's not any or all of those.

It is simply waiting quietly, trustingly. It is being still and seeing the salvation of the Lord. It is remembering that the Lord will fight for you, you need only be still.

That is true strength.

That is what I cannot learn enough, yet find so hard to keep in mind.

To wait patiently on God, in quietness and trust.

In quietness and trust.

To be Wanted

I don't quite know why, but lately I've been feeling...for lack of a better word....unwanted.

It's an awful feeling, akin to an absolute conviction that no one would care/it wouldn't matter if you disappeared, and everyone who calls themselves your friends don't really and truly care for you, they just feel responsible and obligated to look after you.

And it's not as though you can just text or call a friend and say, "Hey, do you still.....want me?" Not only does that sound strange, but, how are they supposed to reply? If you say yes, you do still want me as a friend, I will assume that you're just trying to make me feel better or falsely reassuring me because you don't wish to hurt me. Plus, you'd have to be a fairly hard person to be able to say "no" without caring.

I'm pretty certain that one of my best friends just puts up with me because they cared at one point and now just feels responsible and wishes I didn't annoy them anymore. And unfortunately, I'm sensitive to the point where I can tell when someone distances themselves, or loses interest, or is just plumb irritated, annoyed, and wishes I would shut up. Which is what I'm pretty sure is happening in this case.

I have been so so good about not cutting, but the people I thought I could turn to when I crave it - the people who ought to understand, having been through the same thing - have all unanimously declared that 'you need help' (aka...leave me alone I can't/don't want to deal with you). And I don't understand how I'm expected to be there for them, yet, it never goes both ways and our friendship is on the fritz.

And I truly love my friends, but if I call you crying, I don't need you to tell me I need help... I need a hug, and I need you to reassure me that you love me no matter what.

But, my God, why is it that every single time I think I have finally found someone who genuinely cares, genuinely understands, they get fed up and either distance themselves completely, or drop me?

As Anais Nin once said, "I despise my own hypersensitiveness, which requires so much reassurance. It is certainly abnormal to crave so much to be loved and understood."

And I wholeheartedly agree.

In So Many Words, I Finally Read Prozac Nation.

My mother didn't want me to read Prozac Nation.

She didn't outright forbid it, but I could tell she wasn't pleased. 

It was the same reason she objected to Wintergirls and Little Bee and Speak. 

After all, letting her daughter read books about depression didn't quite jive with her firm belief that I was over mine, and could now just get on with life. 

The thought that maybe my illness was more than temporary didn't seem to have occurred to her, or, if it did, it seemed to have been speedily relegated to the category of 'binding Satan in the life of my daughter'. Never as something which was an integral part of me, something that begged to be accepted and loved just as deeply as the rest of me. 

And since, to quote Cassandra Clare, 'it was books that made me feel that perhaps I was not completely alone', I found myself sitting crosslegged on my bed, of a Saturday afternoon, Prozac Nation in my hands. 

Two pages into it, I am physically doubled over and gasping for air. Somehow she took the deepest essence of how I felt on a daily basis, and condensed it in such a perfect way that it felt like a sucker punch to the stomach, knocking all the breath out of my lungs.

"And then there are my friends, and they have their own lives. While they like to talk everything through, to analyze and hypothesize, what I really need, what I'm really looking for, is not something I can articulate. It's nonverbal. I need love. I need the thing that happens when your brain shuts off and your heart turns on. And I know it's around me somewhere, I just can't feel it"

Sixty pages in, and I am curled up in a fetal position, in the corner of my bed, tears streaming down my face, while small gasping whimpers escape my mouth, much against my will. I am covering my mouth with both hands, trying to hold back the screams.

"He loves her so much. The whole song is about how he's come to take her to the hospital, to rescue her from suicide. I start as if on cue to cry. I am so caught up in the idea that nobody would actually try to save me if I were to slit my wrists or hang myself from one of the rafters in the bunk. I can't believe anyone might care enough to try to keep me alive. And then I realize that, yes, of course they would, but only because it is the thing to do. It's not about true caring. It's about not wanting to live with the guilt, the insult, the ugly knowledge that a suicide took place and you did nothing" 

I really don't remember the last time I had such a strong visceral response to a book. If I had to say, I would pick Ender's Game, and being in tears, shaking, because of his nightmare which was mine, and how does the author know that? 

I spent half the book in tears because "oh my gosh, how does this woman know me better than I know myself?!" and the other half literally pounding my head against my bedpost, wondering aloud, "What on earth is wrong with this woman?!"

Because, if I'm honest, while she sheds a good deal of light on what it's like to live with depression, half the time, hers just sounded like she was doing it for attention. The book seemed to imply that, to a degree at least, she believed that her depression at least in part, was not organic. It began as an attempt at a different persona, and then changed her brain chemistry over time. And while I admired certain aspects of the story, and am deeply in awe of her writing skills, I have little patience with attention-seekers, or those who use depression as an excuse - the ultimate catch all for why their personality is so difficult.

Perhaps this is because my life is a constant struggle to never become like that. Perhaps because the few times I have opened up or told someone how I was feeling, I was dismissed as attention seeking, weak, and overdramatic.

And while I am not dismissing, and never would dismiss, her problems as illegitimate, truth be told, she seems like she has a whole lot more than just depression wrong with her. For instance, she seems, manipulative, narcissistic, and borderline. And I don't say that to judge. At all. I only say that because it highlights some of my frustrations with the book, because not all people who are depressed are like her, and depression is not at all fundamentally selfish.

I only say she sounds attention seeking, because I would never ever ever tell anyone that if I died, my blood was on their hands, especially if that person was doing all they could to keep me alive, which is exactly what she said to her therapist.

I would never use my depression as manipulation - as a tool to be wielded at will, depending on my mood, and especially not against my friends. I would never use it as an excuse, a punchline, a get out of jail free card. An, 'I'll kill myself if you don't - '

And I would definitely not tell just anyone if I was feeling suicidal, which she seems to have no compunctions about doing.

But this book gives me mixed feelings, because I can relate to her so much, on so many things, in so many ways, on so many levels.....

"Whenever I talk to anyone I care about, I am always seeking approval. There is always a pleading lilt to my voice that demands love"

It's true. I admit it. I want so badly to be wanted, to be loved for simply me.

Sometimes I wish I could walk around with a huge HANDLE WITH CARE sign stuck to my forehead" 

Literally. All the time. And the fear that 'my heart is like a stallion, they love it more when it's broken' is real. I am terrified that if I do not need the ones I love, they will cease to love me anymore because they will feel un-needed and walk away

But I also strongly disagreed with some of her conclusions, the big ideas of the book, what you walk away with.

"That's the problem with reality; that's the fallacy of therapy. It assumes that you will have a series of revelations, or even just one little one, and that these various truths will come to you and will change your life completely...but the truth is that it doesn't work that way"

But what if it does work that way. What if, in actuality, the truth will set you free, and does set you free. That doesn't mean we never struggle again, because Lord knows that isn't true. But the truth does change everything.

She also says that,

"If you were to find a shattered mirror, find all the pieces, all the shards and tiny chips, and have whatever patience and skill it took to put all that broken glass back together so that it was complete again, the restored version would still be spiderwebbed with cracks, it would still be a useless, glued version of its former self, which could show only fragmented reflections of anyone looking into it. Some things are beyond repair."

And I lean my head back against the headboard with a sigh, because all I can think is "no". Because I used to believe that, and still struggle not to believe that. I used to believe that once we are destroyed and broken in certain ways, we cannot be fixed. That we never again can be the person we were before. And in a sense, no. I will never go back to the wide eyed innocent I was before.

But I have learned, and grown, and loved and lost, and gained deeper understanding and insight, and God has shown Himself oh-so-powerful on my behalf, and in His hands I am not broken.

In His hands, we are not broken.

The world  may break and damage and wound. But He heals. And He makes better than before.

The book concludes with the author heavily medicated for some sense of normalcy, unable to maintain a steady relationship, and, ultimately, I came away with a dark sense of hopelessness. A sense of, 'well this is what it is, and it isn't getting any better, so, I'll just deal with it as best as I can', and an indictment against the American medical system of pill-pushing.

And while I am under no false illusions about the nature of depression, I refuse to accept that that is how my story will end. I refuse to believe that I will live a wasted, wasteful life, manipulating those around me, absolutely devoid of self control, and seemingly proud of aiding the glorification and romanticization of 'difficult women'..or the romanticization of depression, for that matter.

I know the future will be hard. It has been hard already. But, instead of resigning myself to it, I am resolved to fight harder.

I want to live and love and grow and learn and fall deeper in love with Jesus and marry someone wonderful and have lots of children and climb mountains and watch sunsets and swim in deep waters and sail on stormy seas and I want a beautiful, rich, and full life.

And I absolutely refuse to believe that I am broken beyond repair, because my God makes all things new.

I refuse to believe that this is as good as it gets, because He has promised better, if not in this life, then in the life to come.

I do not want a life like hers.

I will fight to the bitter end, but I refuse to end up like her.

And so help me God, I never will. 

The Present Crisis On Politics

Watching the GOP debate last night, and mulling over the future of America, this poem came to mind, and since it was just that good, I felt it deserved to be shared - and remembered - in the upcoming Presidential race! 

The Present Crisis 

When a deed is done for freedom, through the broad earth's aching breast
Runs a thrill of joy prophetic, trembling on from east to west
And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels the soul within him climb
To the awful verge of manhood, as the energy sublime
Of a century bursts full-blossomed on the thorny stems of Time.

Through the walls of hut and palace shoots the instantaneous throe, 
When the travail of the Ages wrings earth's systems to and fro; 
At the birth of each new Era, with recognizing start, 
Nation wildly looks at nation standing with mute lips apart, 
And glad Truth's yet mightier man-child leaps beneath the Future's heart

So the Evil's triumph sendeth, with a terror and a chill, 
Under continent to continent, the sense of coming ill, 
And the slave, where'er he cowers, feels his sympathies with God
In hot tear-drops ebbing earthward, to be drunk up by the sod
Till a corpse crawls round unburied, delving in the nobler clod. 

For mankind are one in spirit, and an instinct bears along
Round the earth's electric circle, the swift flash of right or wrong;
Whether conscious or unconscious, yet Humanity's vast frame 
Through its ocean-sundered fibres feels the gush of joy or shame; - 
In the gain or loss of one race, all the rest have equal claim. 

Once to every man and nation comes the moment to decide
In the strife of Truth with Falsehood, for the good or evil side; 
Some great cause, God's new Messiah, offering each the bloom or blight, 
Part the goats upon the lefthand, and the sheep upon the right 
And the choice goes by forever 'twixt that darkness and that light. 

Hast thou chosen, O my people, on whose party thou shalt stand, 
Ere the Doom from its worn sandals shakes the dust against our land?
Though the cause of Evil prosper, yet 't is Truth alone is strong
And, albeit she wander outcast now, I see around her throng 
Troops of beautiful, tall angels, to enshield her from all wrong.

Backward look across the ages and the beacon--monuments see, 
That, like peaks of some sunk continent jut through Oblivion's sea;
Not an ear in court or market for the low, foreboding cry
Of those Crises, God's stern winnowers, from whose feet earth's chaff must fly; 
Never shows the choice momentous till the judgment hath passed by. 

Careless seems the great Avenger; history's pages but record
One death struggle in the darkness 'twixt old systems and the Word. 
Truth forever on the scaffold, Wrong forever on the throne - 
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and, behind the dim unknown, 
Standeth God within the shadow, keeping watch above His own. 

We see dimly in the Present what is small and what is great, 
Slow of faith how weak an arm may turn the iron helm of fate
But the soul is still oracular; amid the market's din
List the ominous stern whisper from the Delphic cave within, 
------
"They enslave their children's children who make compromise with sin"...

'T is as easy to be heroes as to sit the idle slaves 
Of a legendary virtue carved upon our fathers' graves, 
Worshippers of light ancestral make the present light a crime 
------
Was the Mayflower launched by cowards, steered by men behind their time?
Turn those tracks toward past or future that made Plymouth Rock sublime?

They were men of present valor, stalwart old iconoclasts,
Unconvinced by ax or gibbet that all virtue was the Past's; 
But we make their truth our falsehood, thinking that hath made us free, 
Hoarding it in mouldy parchments, while our tender spirits flee
The rude grasp of that great Impulse which drove them across the sea. 

They have rights who dare maintain them; we are traitors to our sires
Smothering in their holy ashes Freedom's new-lit altar-fires 
Shall we make their creed our jailer? Shall we, in our haste to slay, 
From the tombs of the old prophets steal the funeral lamps away
To light up the martyr-(fires) round the prophets of today?

New occasions teach new duties; Time makes ancient good uncouth; 
They must upward still, and onward, who would keep abreast of truth; 
Lo, before us gleam her camp-fires! we ourselves must Pilgrims be;
Launch our Mayflower, and steer boldly through the desperate winter sea,
Nor attempt the Future's portal with the Past's blood-stained key. 
 - James Russell Lowell 

The Suicide Note

Hello.

My name is Sibyl Vane. I am 17 years old, and by the time you read this, I will be dead by my own hand.

In the days ahead, those of you who knew me while I was still alive will come to my funeral, cry, some of you will pretend to be sad, and all of you will bemoan my death with words such as these:

"But..she was always so happy!"

"How could someone be so selfish?"

"We never saw it coming!"

And in a way, that's the point.....Of course you didn't see it coming. When you take your own life, no one ever "sees it coming". And, then, they all have the nerve to ask the classic question.

"WHY?"

"Why did you do it? Why did you swallow those pills? Or tie that noose? Or pull the trigger? Why?"

Well. Let me tell you.

You see, most of you know me as the girl who you never paid much attention to, but who was always around. Always there for you. Always had a smile on my face, a cheerful word for you. The strong one, the one who never fell. The happy one. The anchor. The one you'd call when you needed something, but otherwise ignored her.

What you don't know is that that's all a lie. See, behind the happy fairy mask, is a girl who's depressed, cuts, starves, overdoses, purges, is hurt and hurting and heartbroken and falling apart. And no one notices. No one cares. The few times I've attempted to broach the subject, I've been told that I "have a good life" and I have no reason to be depressed. Or, I'm told I need professional help...which is just your nice way of telling me I'm too messed up for you, therefore I ought to be shunted off to others. Trust me, I learned early on that no one really understands what I'm going through. Even my own family....and on that note....

Mom and Dad, I am so sorry. Sorry that you'll be the one to wake up and find your baby girl dead. I truly am sorry.... But, in a way, I'm not. Because you never noticed either. All those times you asked how I was, and I said "I'm fine, just tired", and you actually bought it! Or the times I came out of my bedroom at midnight with bloodstained wrists hidden behind long sleeves and you never thought to question me. Even after you found out I cut, it never  occurred to you that maybe everything wasn't always well. You claim you love me, but, if I'm honest, you've an awful funny way of showing it. There's so much I can't tell you, can't say. Like, that I'm not the pretty perfect little girl you wanted. I'm just not. He broke my heart and I broke my soul, and I am damaged and he took what wasn't his to take and I can't handle all the pressure and this is the only way I know to cope! But I'm still sorry. Sorry you don't like my friends, my clothes, my music...who I am. I disappoint you, I know. But..can't you also see how hard I try to be good and make you proud of me? You're my parents, for crying out loud! You're supposed to know me better than anyone else! Do you not see my fake smile? My forced laugh? You expect so much from me. Perfection. And I'm not perfect. I can never be perfect. I am destroying myself slowly, mind, body, and soul, trying to keep your impossible standard. It's better that I go now.

To everyone at my school, you, of all people, have no right to even be at my funeral. The stares, the whispers, the mean comments both behind my back, and to my face. The way you stare right through me as if I don't even exist. What did I do to deserve your hatred? I know, believe me, I know I'm no beauty, but does that give you the right to call me names? To viciously cut me down the way you do? "Ugly" "Fat" "Worthless" "You'll never be loved" I've come to define myself by your definition of me. Just because you're pretty, popular, and have a boyfriend doesn't mean that I'm less than human! Just because you're a size zero doesn't mean you have a kind heart! I know I'm fat, I know he doesn't want me, I know I'm not the prettiest, or popular, or fashionable...you don't have to remind me every single day! You told me to kill myself, anyway. You should be happy.

And to all my friends, I love you, more than you'll ever know, but please, please, please don't promise to "always be there" when you're really not! You may know me better than anyone else, but you don't apply what you know of me to your daily interactions with me. You've let me skip meals. You've seen fresh cuts on my arms and completely ignored them. When will you learn that "fine" means "I need you to just love me because I am breaking and I can no longer hold myself together with my own tiny hands". But I'll never tell you that because I don't want to seem attention seeking, weak , and dramatic. I don't need to be told yet again that I should "get professional help" or I "just need to pray more" or "suck it up, Buttercup". I will never tell you this, but I need you. I need your love. Realize that I will hardly (if ever) ask for your help directly. But that I'm also never "just curious". If I ask you a series of seemingly unrelated questions about pill popping or some other dangerous behavior such as "how many (insert drug name here) would it take to kill someone", chances are, I already know the answer. My asking you is my way of asking for help; begging you to notice I'm drowning right in front of your eyes and you could save me just by opening them!

But, while this is my goodbye note to the world, it is also a plea of sorts. Please. Everyone. Open your ears. Open your eyes. Open your hearts! If someone says they're fine, or okay, or alright, or just tired....don't always accept it! Don't take everything people say at face value, especially if you already know they're struggling! Dig deeper and actually care to know the real answer. Listen to understand! Not just to reply! I've used the phrase "Oh, I'm just tired" more times than I can count. Not once has anyone come back with "tired of what?" No one asks if I'm actually fine when I say I am. You're all so busy rushing on with your own lives that you forget you could have saved a life just by reaching out, paying attention when people talk, and actually being there when you promise to.

It's too late for me now, but please. Next time someone says "I'm fine", ask them "are you really?" and then listen! Prove your trustworthiness. The next time someone says they're "just tired", ask them "tired of what?". The next time you see that boy who always sits alone at lunch sitting alone again, go sit with him! The next time you bump into that girl in the hallway and she winces and pulls her sleeves down, go befriend her! The next time you're sitting with your little sister at breakfast, and she thinks coffee constitutes a meal, get up, get her a plate of food, then, tell her you love her, give her the food, and don't get up until she finishes her meal!

The next time someone asks you about a harmful behavior or the effects of such-and-such drug, grab them by the shoulders and force them to meet your eyes and tell you the truth! The next time you pass that kid in the hallway that you always see but don't know, say hi! The next time his shorts slip up and you notice his scars, promise me you'll love him just a little harder because of them. The outcasts, the broken, the off the cuff kids, the ones who put on a good little girl mask, the party kids, heck, even the potheads. Everyone. My God, everyone. Brokenness doesn't discriminate!

If you love someone, if you care, tell them you love them! Tell them how much you care! Tell them that they are beautiful and worthy and loved and important and special, and everything that would have kept me here, but you didn't know.

And, really, all it could take is something as small as just a few minutes out of your day, a smile, a touch, a "hello", a kind word, a generous impulse acted upon, an 'I love you and you are special to me' and you could save someone's life without even realizing it!

But on that note...

I must go.

Farewell.


( While this letter is fictional and I wrote it in honor of National Suicide Prevention Week, too often we underestimate our own responsibility in preventing suicide. We can save life. Let's do it.)

On Eurekas

Eurekas are easy.

Well, not easy, but they're shorter. They're a moment of awesome (or aweful) clarity, and they change your world.

But the really hard part is what happens afterwards.

For instance, I can realize that my eating disorder is going to kill me, and that when I'm fifty I don't want to look back and regret spending my time obsessing over my weight instead of living life. That takes a while to get there, but once you're there, it's a eureka moment. And if you let it happen, it's not hard. In fact, it feels wonderfully freeing.

What's hard are the weeks and months ahead, the ones in which you can see your body changing, gaining weight, gaining flesh, growing out of the cute skinny clothes into ones which flatter your normal weight when you're not obsessing over everything you consume, struggling not to step on the scale first thing in the morning, weighing yourself without cringing - all that is the hard part.

The very very hard part.

Because it's hard not to revert when you notice you've put on weight. It's hard not to skip a meal when you notice your pants getting tighter because you bought size zeroes and you can't fit those anymore. It's hard not to obsessively exercise when you look at yourself in the mirror, and it's hard to train your mind to see a size 4 or 5 as healthy instead of unbelievably fat.

But it's worth it.

It's never not worth it.

For your life, your future, your hope. For everyone who loves you. For everyone you love.

It's always worth it.

...But Who Cries On Their First Day of College?

I almost don't know what to think about the fact that my first day of college made me cry.

As in, that evening I broke down in tears in the middle of a psychology lecture because the professor was describing neurotransmitters and their effect on the way our brains work, and she happened to mention that this is where chemical depression comes from.

For instance, there are certain neurotransmitters which cause our brains to react in a certain way, and a certain level of these is needed in order to maintain a healthy balance in the way our brains work, our emotions, etc. And if there is an overabundance, or lack of, certain neurotransmitters, it directly affects the way our brains work. Her example? What she called 'chemical depression'.

In her words, 'the amount of neurotransmitters (serotonin, etc) in the brain actually causes a depression', so if your brain doesn't have as much dopamine or serotonin as it needs to maintain a balance, you will be depressed.

Her next sentences went on to address the concept of treating such depression with medication, and her approach was somewhere in the middle of those who would advocate overmedicating, and those who would say that nothing is serious enough for medication.

I quote, 'There is a lot of evidence and research on neurotransmitters which directs us to understand that they can cause depression and other mental illness and therefore they need to be treated with medication'.

Perhaps I am the only one who found this astonishing, but if you look at it through the lens of the girl who's been consistently told that her depression was demonic possession, spiritual failing, genetic damage, or simply an excuse to get attention, you may understand why astounded me.

Her handling of the issue, treating medication for chemical depression as neither worse nor better than medication for any other physical ailment, such as diabetes, brought me to tears.

Because, I'll readily admit I wasn't expecting that. Not from a Christian college, at any rate. I definitely didn't expect to have this issue crop up so soon after my conversation with a friend yesterday in which I insisted that there was no way I would ever believe that taking medication for my depression didn't somehow make me damaged.

But, she treated it as though it was..normal. As normal as a broken knee or a fever, or anything else medically which required medication. Heck, it was in the middle of a lecture on how biology is essential to a correct understanding of psychology! It wasn't...psychological theory, it was...science!

And I cried.

Because I watched the lies I had been taught for so long regarding my depression crumble and fall and turn to dust.

Because every time I've broached the topic of antidepressants with my parents, I've been told that I'm fine, God and bible reading and prayer cured me and I am now depression free, even though, truth be told, I am not sure I will ever be completely free of this darkness.

Because the month in which I was on depression meds was one of the worst of my life, due to my parents being ashamed of my needing them, and their insistence that, instead of discovering, through trial and error, which medication worked best for me, what was really best for me was to be off meds altogether.

Because I was made to feel horribly guilty for needing medication, for being depressed, for being anything other than the perfect happy little Christian girl who can solve everything with Jesus and prayer.

Because I've been depressed for as long as I can possibly remember, and the thought of not constantly fighting the undertow, day in, day out, every second of every minute of every hour of every day, is oh so appealing.

And I'm not foolish enough to believe that medication is the magic cure all. I'll still feel - pain and hurt and sorrow and disappointment. The point isn't to turn you into a zombie or a happy fairy. The purpose is, well, basically Advil for your brain.

If I stub my toe, and take Advil for it, and then someone smacks me in the head, just because I took Advil doesn't mean I won't still feel the smack in the head! It doesn't cure all, but I've come to believe that perhaps it could, if not 'cure' me, at least help.

Which, at very least, is a far cry from....even yesterday.

And while this definitely doesn't mean I'm planning on walking up to my parents tomorrow morning and blurting out, 'So...I think I might need meds', it does mean that at least I don't view myself as damaged anymore even if I do need them.

And it's improvement.

'Am I There Yet?'

I've never been the most patient person.

Ever since I was little, I'm the one who'll rush to get the job done the fastest - granted, I've also learned how to do it quickly and efficiently, but I've never been one for waiting around.

(Except when it comes to procrastinating on my homework..but that's a totally different matter ;) )

And sometimes, in life, I can complete whatever task I have before me quickly and efficiently. But other times? Not so much.

Especially when it comes to this whole recovery business. You know. I  feel like the pesky kid in the back seat on long car trips who, every two minutes, asks, 'are we there yet?'.

And lately I've found myself echoing those same sentiments.

'Am I better yet? Am I there yet? Have I recovered yet? How long is it gonna take? How much longer till I arrive? Will I ever get there? Why's it taking forever!?'

It's as though, in my mind, recovery is a destination to be arrived at. It's a place I'll finally come to, where I no longer struggle, and that battle is completely won. Which, honestly, is far more appealing than the reality that I'll probably struggle with these things, to some degree at least, for the rest of my life.

The problem is...thinking of recovery as a destination to be arrived at simply isn't the truth. And it tends to make me despair when I start thinking, 'am I there yet?' instead of looking back at how far I've come.

Because ultimately, I won't be 'there yet' until heaven. He who began a good work in me will complete it...but once it's completed, there will be no more use for me here on this earth, and He'll take me home.

So, instead of my usual impatient self asking 'am I there yet?'... I need to remember that recovery is a journey, not a destination. Heck, even life in general is not a destination. Our destination is heaven. Life is a journey.

I won't be 'there yet' till I reach heaven.

And in the meantime, I need to remember how far He's brought me already, and praise Him for it.

Because, it's amazing. He's amazing.

And He will complete His work in me in His perfect timing.

I need only trust Him.

Trust Him and do what I know is right, despite the cost.

Trust and Obey.

Which is far easier said than done, but if He gives me a task, He will also give me the strength to accomplish the task He has set before me.

<3 Tirzah

When It's Not Worth It

I love those days when you're at the end of your rope, exhausted, stressed, and frazzled, and then God suddenly shows up in an amazing way and completely turns the day around.

And since something like that happened recently, I'm totally sharing it with you guys, because the lessons I learned, and the lessons to be learned from what happened are absolutely worth remembering. 

So, in case you were wondering why I've been rather missing for the past month or so, I've been intermittently working at a tiny, extremely rustic, Christian camp, about 45 minutes from my house. And if you doubt the 'rustic', we sleep in lean-tos or wooden cabins on metal cots with mattresses which are maybe four inches thin.....the kids go on an overnight where there are no bathrooms, and they sleep out on the ground under the stars....and the bathrooms at camp are legitimately one of the most disgusting things I have ever seen. 

Cleaning them? *shudder* Technically it's the handyman's job, but he also has volunteer staff, who are too old to be campers and too young to be counselors and therefore come up for a week or so to help out, called Junior Staff, or J-staff, to help him at certain times throughout the day. But..since they can only hire 8 counselors, sometimes J-staff end up being counselor age, they just weren't hired, or didn't apply soon enough, or any number of factors. 

Anyhows, on this particular week, I happened to be J-staffing. It was a Wednesday afternoon, the handyman this year was notorious for not doing his work and shoving it all off onto J-staff, I was running on complete empty, had had absolutely no time with God alone that entire week, and, since I spent all my free time helping out, had been running nonstop since I arrived, with no breaks. In addition, I was completely and utterly exhausted, and struggling with being back at camp due to all the painful memories from last year. 

It got to the point, where, just prior to my shift with handyman, I handed the cook, who I trusted implicitly and called 'Mama', my knife and lighter because I knew, with the frame of mind I was in, that it was no longer safe for me to be in possession of them. 

Well, I loaded the wheelbarrow/wagon thing with cleaning supplies, and the handyman and I headed off to clean the girls bathroom. I don't remember where the other girl was, who shared my shift, but at that point, her presence was irrelevant since I usually ended up doing all the work anyways. He noticed something was wrong, and asked me if I was okay. Of course I said I was. And of course it was obvious I wasn't. His reply was, 'Well, that's a  lie', which I ignored. 

We got to the bathrooms, and I started cleaning. I honestly don't remember what he did. I think he went to go get something, the other girl showed up at some point, and I gave her a small job which took her the entire time. By the time we had finished cleaning the sinks, toilets, mirrors, doors and walls, and I had grabbed the broom and begun to sweep, he showed up again, and said, "If you do a thorough job sweeping, we don't have to mop today." That was the last straw for me. 

I started genuinely fuming. 'If I do a thorough job!? When have you ever known me to NOT do a good job? I do more in one hour than you do in an entire day. I'm not bragging, but it's a fact that I am a hard worker...unlike YOU...and I'm sick of doing all your work for you...blah...blah....blah....' I was so furious, I gave that bathroom the best sweeping it had seen all summer. I swept every nook and cranny. I swept the walls, I swept down cobwebs, and pretty soon had collected a rather large dust pile. 

That's when I noticed it. 

I pulled it out from a corner, way behind a sink, with the broom, and heard the scrape of metal on concrete. It was a penny, but not just any old penny. 

This penny was black with years' worth of dust, dirt, and grime. It had been behind that sink for goodness knows how long, and was now filthy. The girls bathroom at camp is notorious for overflowing toilets, and other equally gross things, and it had been sitting in all that filth, gradually growing blacker and blacker by the day. 

The handyman walked in, just then, and noticed the penny in my dustpile. He looked at it, realized what it was, then remarked, "If it was a dime or something, I would pick it up. But a penny? On the girls bathroom floor at Camp? It's not worth it." 

Those words, 'it's not worth it', struck me. Who was he to determine the worth of something else and to deem it unworthy of rescue?

So, I reached down, as soon as he had turned his back. and combed through that pile of filth until I came to the penny. I picked it up, brushed off what I could, and then tried to make out the year on the coin. He turned back around, realized what I had done, and asked me what year it was. I couldn't figure out, and after rubbing off some more filth I was surprised to find that it was a dime, not a penny, after all. 

He took it from me, and was able to make out the year. 

The wonder and astonishment and sheer disbelief in his voice when he finally saw what it was, brought a smile of pure joy to my face. 

It wasn't a penny after all. It was a dime. But, what's more, not only was it a dime, the year on it was 1897.

Over a hundred years old, and worth something by anyone's standards.

I may have gloated a wee bit as I took the dime back from him, with an admonishment to "let this be a lesson to you...nothing is 'not worth it'".

That discovery changed my entire day - it completely turned my attitude around and brought a genuine smile to my face.

It also started me thinking about how God does just that for us - he looks at the penny in the filth, the one that everyone despises, scorns, and discards as 'not worth it' - not worth salvation, love, acceptance, or healing - and He reaches down, in His infinite love, picks us up, cleans us off, and restores us.

And sometimes, after spending so long in the pain, we ourselves begin to believe the lie that we're not worth it. I know I did. The pain burrowed so deep into my soul that I became convinced that my life was beyond repair. I've also had those words spoken over me more times than I can count..'It's not worth it to try to save her', 'She'll never be better', 'She's too far gone', 'She can't recover'....

But ultimately, in His eyes, there is no one beyond His reach. There is no place so dark, so shameful, so far that He cannot and will not rescue you, and, in His hands of love, our true worth is revealed. We aren't filthy pennies. We're antique silver coins, over a hundred years old, worth far more than face value by anyone's standards.

Because He takes the pain and makes something wonderful out of it. He welcomes home all who are lost. His love restores, recovers, repairs, and heals.

It's what He did for me.

It's what He wants to do for you....if you'll only let him.

Please let Him. 

"To Save A Life" - Or, On HSLDA and the Rights of the Child.

I've read a lot of blog posts lately slamming HSLDA for being pro parents' rights at the expense of children's rights, protecting abusers, lobbying against mandatory education, and the like.

And quite frankly, I'm sure that probably happens sometimes. Anytime you lobby for the rights of the parent, you risk disregarding the rights of the child, and vice versa. Things slip through the cracks. Granted, there will always be people who abuse both their children and their rights as their children's parents. And mandatory basic education today could become mandatory state education tomorrow. I realize that.

But. I'd like to tell my story, if I may, and perhaps weigh in on my experiences with HSLDA.

So will you give me a few moments of your time?

I thank you.

My birthday is towards the end of winter. February, to be exact. But I'm not a huge fan of the snow.

A month after I turned 16, the depression I had been struggling with for a little over 5 years worsened, due to a painful breakup. I had been self harming for a while, developed an eating disorder, and that, plus the depression, put me in a fairly vulnerable state.

April of that year was the annual MassHOPE Homeschooling Convention, and I donned an armful of bracelets, along with the good girl mask, for a weekend, not really expecting anything positive to come of the convention.

Was I ever wrong.

The Teen Program that year was run by a team from Generation Joshua, the youth branch of HSLDA, and they had set it up in such a way that each teenager was assigned a post, based on his/her capabilities, in either the legislative or executive branch of the American Government, and had to navigate assorted diplomatic and other scenarios both at home and abroad.

It was a blast. My brother and I stayed up late, discussing the day's events and planning for the next day, and mom remarked that she couldn't remember the last time we were both this excited about something school - related. But what I learned from the program, about how the government works, wasn't actually the most memorable thing of the weekend.

He was.

I don't remember when I first noticed him.

Perhaps it was when he was introduced at the beginning, along with the rest of the staff. Perhaps during one of his "passing-out-paper-clips" rounds. Or perhaps the fifth time he stopped by my table to ask how things were coming, and didn't seem to mind how hysterical we all became over the smallest hilarious thing. Or perhaps it was when I heard that my used-to-be-best-friend-who-I-just-met-again-that-weekend slapped him in the face and stole his phone simply because she came back to find him sitting in her chair for a brief moment, and he didn't seem angered by it. Or perhaps it was when, after an hour of asking around, he was still the only other person who knew the difference between the Sunni and the Shia Muslims.

I don't know.

What I do know is that he piqued my curiosity, since he seemed unfazed by the myriad of questions I asked, and after the weekend ended, I found him on Facebook and sent him a friend request.

He responded, and we started talking. I quickly discovered that my first impression of him was accurate. He allowed me to ask questions, encouraged me to keep seeking the truth, and somewhere over the following months we became friends.

I was struck by how non - judgmental he was, and the way he reacted with understanding and compassion, upon learning that I self harmed. He didn't pull away from me, or shun me when I started questioning much of my fundamentalist upbringing, and discarding large portions of it at a time. In fact, he encouraged me to keep questioning and discover the truth for myself. He never unthinkingly touted the party line, and his answers always reflected deep thoughtful contemplation.

He allowed me to ask "why" incessantly, and didn't get irritated or accuse me of trying to pick a fight because of it.

I found myself turning to him more and more with the difficult questions - the ones no one else was willing to tackle along with me. Such as, "Is God male or female, and how do we know?" "Does modesty matter, and why?" "Is 'Christian patriarchy' even Biblical?" "Why is Western Civilization considered the epitome of Christendom?" "Was the Civil War really just over states' rights?" "What about the role of women in the church/home/state?" "Is courtship actually Biblical?" "What about purity?"

To date, he is still the only male to ever take the time to explain and discuss modesty with me.

He never made me feel inferior, never berated me for asking stupid questions, or called me anti-establishmentarian or a rebel, and never made me feel ashamed for being smart and that I had to 'dumb myself down' in order to be understood by him. He never lorded it over me that he was three years older, or treated me like a child.

Rather, he engaged on the difficult questions, and the fun ones, such as westerns, music, hobbies, etc.

When he found out about my eating disorder, he didn't laugh and exclaim that I was skinny enough as it was. Nor did he attempt to solve my self esteem issues with a trite compliment. He reminded me that it was alright to allow scars to heal, and the pain I had experienced was no less real, simply because I no longer had the visible reminders of it.

He broke all the stereotypes.

Slowly, I grew to trust him.

I knew I could safely go to him for sound, yet understanding, advice on basically anything.

Such as the night I messaged him asking what he would tell someone who was planning on ending their life, and he insisted that I tell the person's parents, because suicide is serious, and gave me his phone number in case all else failed.

His insightfulness struck me a few days later when I confessed that I was the suicidal person I had referred to in our earlier conversation, and his first response was that he had had his suspicions, therefore that revelation didn't come as a surprise to him.

That conversation ended with me promising, at his request, not to kill myself. His argument? He wasn't asking me to stop cutting, or start eating. Those things take time, he said. All he asked was that I choose life. So I agreed.

Two days later my father received a phone call from the director of GenJ himself, informing him of the way I was feeling, and that night ended with me in the Emergency Room due to an on-purpose overdose - they called it a failed suicide, and told me I was lucky to be alive.

It seems my friend cared more about whether or not I was alive, than whether or not I hated him forever for telling his boss in order to get me help before it was too late.

He later told me that this wasn't the first time GenJ/HSLDA has had to intervene to save a life, yet, because of client confidentiality, were prohibited from publicizing those stories, and that while I was in the hospital, they had all been praying for me.

Exactly a week after my discharge from the hospital, I turned 17. By this time, I was fairly convinced that I had had my breakthrough - the week I spent in the hospital - and was now healed, and would no longer continue to struggle. And, once again, I was wrong.

My time in the hospital was only a partial fix. It temporarily allowed my issues to be brought to light and addressed, but the underlying unhealthy mindsets, which I remained a slave to, persisted. Within a month of discharge, I found myself once again in the same place where I had been prior to hospitalization - hopeless, despairing, starving, cutting, and isolating myself within the walls of my pain.

But instead of walking out on me, pointing out my failures, or calling me a disappointment due to my seeming inability to recover, my friend insisted that under no conditions would he allow me to push him away and shut him out. He consistently spoke truth to me, even when I had no desire to hear it, and kept telling me, over and over again, to 'never ever ever give up'.

..and that I ought to come to camp.

See, Generation Joshua runs three, week-long, camps,  at various locations around the country, and he apparently felt quite strongly that camp would be a positive experience for me. So, somehow, after much persuasion, I wound up at GenJ camp, in Virgina, for the last week of June.

By the time I made it to camp, I was a mess. I had starved myself for three weeks straight, prior to my arrival at camp, and although I hadn't cut recently, to my shame I lied to him, and packed blades 'just in case'.

But that week blew me away...no, God blew me away. The people I met there were unlike any I had ever experienced before, in the best way possible, and every night, the chapel message left me in tears. It was as though God had decided, at the beginning of the week, that 'Since I have your undivided attention for the entire week, and there is literally no way you can escape me, I am going to pull out all the stops on you...simply because you have been wandering long enough....and it's time to come home.'

And through a series of events far too lengthy and complicated to go into in detail here, He did just that, and by Friday evening, the truth finally broke through to me, and I realized just how much I am loved, not only by others, but by God.

The lessons I learned that week changed everything. I regained my hope, my purpose, my faith, my life! I learned how to recover, and I truly chose recovery. To never ever ever give up. For him. For my family, my friends, and for myself. And by God's grace, I never ever have to go back.

See, I feel like it's so easy to forget that HSLDA is an organization, just like any other, composed of a group of diverse men and women with an overreaching aim to help and protect homeschoolers. There will be differences between their worldviews, and they sure aren't perfect! Abuses will occur, regardless, but abuse happens to public school kids, private school kids, and boarding school kids, also. Some homeschooled children have died. But then again, so have countless kids in the inner city, and heck, even in the suburbs, and where was the government to intervene there? Besides, I know for a fact that neither he, nor anyone he works with, would ever endorse or condone allowing a parent to harm a child.

So, for me at least, HSLDA basically saved my life. Well, my friend really did. But, if he hadn't worked for HSLDA, I doubt he would have told his boss, because his boss would not have known what to do. His boss would never have called my father, and I would probably be dead right now.

I am alive because a young man from HSLDA made the hard decision to save his friends life, even if it meant she might permanently hate him for breaking confidence, and then patiently, unfailingly, walked beside her for the next six or so months until, not only her life, but her soul, was finally saved.

Because his self-styled older sister convinced him to do what he knew was right, despite the cost, and, while at camp, held me when I cried, and allowed me to break down to her as she reminded me of truth, long forgotten, which I now believe again. 

Because his best friend and best friends wife were willing to interrupt their pleasant evening of friends and fellowship in order to join hearts in supplication for the survival of someone they had never even met, and welcomed her later, when we met in real life, with open arms.

Because one of his closest friends, who was also my camp counselor, instead of rejecting me when I came to her with everything I had been struggling with, hugged me, and allowed me to open up safely without fear of misunderstanding.

But, finally, I am alive because the head of GenJ thought that the life of a teenage girl he had only met once was worth a phone call to her father asking him to get help for her before time ran out, which started a chain of events, ending in my salvation.

So, for everyone who says that HSLDA doesn't care about the lives of children, only about the rights of parents, please hear me when I say that I would not be alive right now if it were not for HSLDA.

And for that, I will be eternally grateful.

On Loving Others as We Love Ourselves

All my life, I've been the strong one. 

I've been the one people turn to for advice, for counsel, for a safe place to talk to, for someone to listen and understand, and for someone to just lean on. 

And I didn't question that. In fact, I loved it - still do. I love helping people, I love seeing their eyes light back up, and watching them come broken, and leave, well, better at least. 

But the problem was, I was drowning. There's a quote, 'Sometimes you don't realize you're drowning, trying to be everyone else's anchor'. That was me. 

And I couldn't stop. I couldn't say no, I couldn't tell the person I was helping that they were actually hurting me, I couldn't be struggling, and, to quote a friend of mine, I was 'addicted to helping people' because, while they hurt me, they also made me feel needed, wanted, important, and valuable. And the things I was helping friends with weren't small things, either. These were kids on the verge of suicide, kids struggling with eating disorders, self harm, abusive families, PTSD, etc. And I had been told I was 'the only person who understood', so I felt as though I had to be there, I had to save them, because there was no one else. 

Plus, everything I had been brought up on, everything I had been taught about the Christian life, was that a true Christian puts aside himself/herself and puts others first. We are to love our neighbors, think of others more highly than ourselves, look out for the interests of others, and, above all, we are to live selflessly, like Christ. What they don't tell you, though, is that, although I could relate in a special way because I was going through those same things, helping over a dozen people at the same time with those same issues while also struggling with those things yourself, just isn't healthy. 

But, every time I said no, ignored a cry for help because I was already over - overwhelmed, or prioritized my own needs over that of another, I felt horribly guilty and selfish. After all, we don't live for ourselves. we live for others, right?  As another friend put it, 'The 'christian' thing to do is to sacrifice your personal well being, to help someone else'. 

See, the thing is, though, that's a lie. It's a noble lie, yet a lie nonetheless. 

The second greatest commandment is to 'love your neighbor as yourself'. But for me, at least, I lived as though that verse actually read, 'love your neighbor instead of yourself'.  The problem with thinking that way, is that, unless you love yourself, you can't love others! 

'So often we think that is an admonition to treat others better. But if we are broken and empty, we have nothing to give. Our neighbor is worse off if we don't take care of ourselves. we must love and care for ourselves, then how can we love our neighbor?' 

And, honestly, that's the truth.

It's not selfish to learn to love yourself before allowing others to pile their burdens onto you until you're sinking. It's not selfish to say no, if you're drowning, and they thoughtlessly continue to tax you without giving anything in return....

It's not wrong to love yourself. 

In fact, it's necessary. The verse says 'love your neighbor as yourself'', but if I hate myself, then I cannot truly love my neighbor as myself, because to do so would be to hate them! It's not vain or selfish to take care of yourself, to love and care for yourself. 

You have to. 

Also, I can't derive my worth, my knowledge that I am loved, and my sense of identity from whether or not I can or can't talk people down. I learned that the hard way at the end of last year when three separate friends of mine attempted suicide, all within just weeks of each other. There were a few times when I slept with my phone in my hand, because I didn't know if, when I woke, they would still be here. Thankfully, none of them died. In all honesty, God saved them, because it sure wasn't me! 

And, that's not to say that true selfishness (definition: of a person lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one's own profit or pleasure), is okay. Because it's not. 

But it's not selfish to love yourself. Selfishness would be utter disregard for the feelings and thoughts of others because you're so absorbed with your own pursuits. Quite frankly, selfishness would be throwing all your burdens on a friend you knew was struggling, without caring how they were affected by it. And saying no isn't, by definition, selfish. It's necessary. And it's a lesson I'm finally learning. 

I am learning that I can't save everyone, much as I would like to, and that sometimes I can't be the person to talk everyone else down when I can barely talk myself down! 

And I'm learning that that's okay. 

That it's okay to say no, it's okay to take care of me, it's okay to allow myself to heal before I try to heal others, but, most of all, that it's not only okay to love myself, it's necessary. 

And it's about time I started. 

<3 Tirzah