So after being a cripple and acknowledging my need of assistance from other people combined with the persistence of my parents and my mentor (who I met at the end-ish of the Summer) and God's persistent nudging I decided it was time to get some more help. I started seeing a counselor. That was so hard! I'm a psychology major for crying out loud, shouldn't I just be able to analyze myself out and be okay? Guess not.
Anyway, I wish I had a videotape of my first session with Gary (the counselor) and the last one we had together (this Monday). The first one I pretty much sat in a little huddle on a chair in his office and cried hated my life and was just a hot mess. Hadn't showered, I'm pretty sure I looked as bad as I felt because he gave me his number and said I should call if I was ever in a bad spot. Anyway, every week I went to see him and every week it was hard to admit to myself that I needed to go because I couldn't solve everything myself. And every week the 20 minutes there and the 20 minutes back were growing experiences where I alternated between yelling at God and praising Him for being gracious to me.
After I finally caved and started seeing Gary (a couple weeks into school) I finally threw up my hands and was like - "screw it" - and just decided to go all out. If I was going to do this counseling thing, I was going to do it right and stop trying to pull myself together on my own and just keep admitting that I was a mess and needed help and let God have His way and do whatever He was doing because at this point I had no clue what I was supposed to do about literally anything in my life.
About a month into school and I believe my second week of counseling I had an awful, horrible panic attack in the middle of a lab for my capstone psychology course (meaning the biggest and most important class psych majors have to take). I got up in the middle of the lab and walked out. I had to drop two classes and also tell teachers I needed extensions because I just couldn't get assignments, even easy ones, done on time. That was also really hard because it was like I had to constantly admit to so many people that I couldn't do something. I don't know where I got this idea (just kidding, it's from Satan) that people wouldn't love me and would condemn and reject me if I failed at things and that not being able to do something made me a failure, but that's how I felt every time. It was awful! I also stopped eating because I wasn't hungry, I was always ready to sleep even when I wasn't tired, and life just felt like a constant discouragement.
So. Scheduled a doctor's appointment at the persistence of my mentor, parents, and Gary. And the doctor was like - "Let's try some drugs." I don't like taking medications. But by this time I was willing to finally admit that it was possible I couldn't pull myself out of this slump by myself. Sometimes I think that your body really does just freak out and do it's own thing and I guess I admitted that maybe a prescription something-or-other would help. So no I'm on anti-anxiety/depression stuff and we are into the second month and it definitely helps. It regulates my moods so I don't feel everything in super over the top extreme high feelings or downwards spiral my life is over feelings, either. I'm not planning to be on them forever - maybe just a couple months. But every day I have a very physical reminder in the shape of a pill that I'm not doing anything on my own. And every day God, my husband, stands with me while I take that pill and says "I still love you, no less than I did without that pill."
Here's where I'll relate all this back to another devotional, titled "Even in Adversity."
For I am convinced that either death not life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height or depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Romans 8:38-39
"The apostle Paul suffered all sorts of hardship and persecution and still knew that nothing could separate him from God's love. Nothing has changed. Hardship and heartache are our lot in life. We don't know what God is orchestrating "behind the scenes" in our lives, but we can be assured of his love. We don't know the reasons for the things that happen to us, but we can remember God has our best in mind. When trouble comes, will we come to grips with the fact that God is present, working behind the scenes with his big-picture purpose in mind?" - devotional
During this process of counseling and what-not, God had this sneaky plan all along to get me where I'm at now. Nothing that whole time separated me from the super-intimate love He feels for me! Not a pill, not counseling, not dropping a class, not hating my life, NOTHING. Not one darn thing. Granted, it sounds great that I figured it out but that was a total process and I didn't understand or feel that the whole time. But God had to put me through those things or I wouldn't have understood that nothing separates me from His love! And the next blog focuses on me during the point where I got really super frustrated and angry because I didn't know what the point of my life was and desperately wanted God to let me in on the whole "behind the scenes" whatever it was He was doing! I just had to totally trust that God did have my best in mind this whole time. So all I had was blind trust. And it was super hard. Trusting blindly is and probably always will be hard! And as I've mentioned I have some trust issues with men so viewing God as my husband and all is still hard to accept because I'm so insecure about getting left!
Anyway. More later. But the word to take with you from that devotional is: NEAR.
God is NEAR.
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