Still Fighting

Still Fighting

Depression has had a grip on me like nothing I've ever experienced before. It loomed over me like a dark cloud seeking for what it could devour for several years before the loss of my family. Then those hurricane-sized winds attacked my heart with the series of unfortunate events that went on from 2022-2023. For those that have been around this podcast for a while, you'll know that before I took a massive break from the show I had announced that I was planning to take a short break to focus on my mental health. This is because I was experiencing depression on a new level than I ever had before and my generic questioning God about life became points of resentment for me. It was during my time of unexpressed anger at God that I first lost my sister and then lost my dad. I was already down and those two events spun me into some dark places that I hope to never visit again.

For this months blog entry, I wanted to take some time to share of the time-capsule moments of my genuine reactions to the events happening around me and events happening to me. I want to share my laments with God and all my questions to hopefully show those reading that no matter how alone you may feel, you are not alone. These are some of my absolute darkest thoughts shared in their rawest, "un-christianize" form because it's important that people see how a girl with a ministry background, a two-parent home, and a foundation in faith can experience the brokeness of this world and through all the anger, mistakes, bitterness, and depression, seek after God for answers.

---

May 2020

I go to my dreams to find love bc I have not found it here, and I’m afraid I never will.

July 2020

Will I ever be happy?

A question I often ask myself

I mean that true, genuine joy

Not the stuff I’m always faking.

I pretend to be happy every day

But when will it be real?

Perhaps I will never be truly happy.

Perhaps no one will ever notice how unhappy I actually am.

Perhaps I’ll have to live with that forever.

January 2021

I haven’t been sad in a while, which is really good considering I used to be sad all the time.

November 2021

The sadness, it's happening again.

February 2022

Depression is like feeling a ton of stuff all at once and not knowing anything about it. Like, I’m sad, but I can pinpoint why. There are so many thoughts screaming in my head, and I am hearing them all, all at once.

February 2022

Today I realized something.

I’ll be 25 in a few months, and I’ve been praying for the same things for 10 years.

I’ve been praying that God would send me a husband for ten fucking years. Ten fucking years. Since I was fifteen.

Not once in ten years have I even had something resembling that.

I'm so tired. So tired of praying for the same thing. Why am I saving myself? Why am I spending my Friday nights alone? Why did I waste my college years being a good Christian girl instead of experiencing sex, and love, and idk.

10 fucking years, man, for nothing.

I’m embarrassed, I’m lonely, and I’m tired. I'm sad because God is not listening to me. Im embarrassed because of how hard I’ve been trying to put myself out there, and I’m just fucking tired of being alone, but even worse I’m tried of praying.

Do you know how sad that makes me? You don’t, but do you know who does? GOD. He sits on his throne and watches me cry myself to sleep, begging him to send me someone to love me, and he does nothing about it.

Well, I’m done begging

I’m done praying

I’m tired. Can’t you see how tired I am, God?

April 2022

I lost myself when she died.

September 2022

Rock	Hard Place
Appreciating my body for what it is and accepting the way it looks.	Wanting to fit into societies beauty standards and be skinny.
Knowing I deserve better than how I am being treated.	Being lonely.
Knowing that I have been blessed with a lot and have very little to complain about.	Feeling depressed.
Knowing I should probably come to terms with the fact that I’m not the kinda girl that guys like or even want to fall in love with	Really wanting to meet someone and fall in love

December 2022

It feels like a dream until I wake up, and the nightmare continues.

February 2023

How much sorrow can a person endure? How much loss can a person take? How much wasted potential and missed opportunities can pass a person by before it’s too much? Before the weight of depression is too much? Before a person takes one too many pills… or takes a knife to one’s wrist… how much is too much? And when does it end?

February 2023

I can’t tell anyone, but I just want to die.

March 2023

A Lament Letter to God.

I am in disbelief that God has allowed so much suffering in my life. I am so young and have missed out on so many things others my age get to experience bc I have chosen to take care of my family. Specifically my sister and my dad.

I prayed and asked you to heal my sister and you didn’t. I prayed and asked you to heal my dad and you didn’t. Your word says if we ask then the door will be opened to us and yet whenever I ask you for something you reject me.

You want me to have a relationship with you when you’ve taken everything from me??? How can I trust you? You’ve allowed so much pain into my life. I don’t even know if you are real.

Would a loving god allow me this much heartbreak? Would a loving god allow me to be this lonely? Would a loving god put me in a situation where I want to die?

I can only cross my fingers and hope that heaven is real and that I will see my family again bc you decide to allow them to suffer and then end their life.

Now I am left with a business and my mother to look after BY MYSELF. I have no future. Don’t you understand how lonely I am??? Don’t you want good things for me?

I thought you had a plan for me? I thought you formed me? I thought I would receive the desires of my heart? All I have received is pain, burden, griefs, heartache…

I thought you loved me?? How could you let this happen? And how could you leave me here? How come we cannot see justice prevail here for the lack of care from the doctors? How come heartless evil people get to live when you took Johannah from this world. She deserved better than the life you gave her. Why did you let her suffer??? Why did you put her body through hell just to take her in sleep??? Why didn’t you let me say goodbye?

Why did you take my dad away? You know he would’ve proclaimed your name all over the world if you healed him… he was so dedicated to you… and you took him??? Why???

Why do you allow us to suffer? We dedicate our lives to you and you allow us to be in pain. While others live lives of luxury.

It doesn’t make sense. You don’t make sense. And it hurts. When you make decisions about MY life… it hurts me.

I’m so alone.

I’ve gone through so much and I’ve done it alone

Where are you?

Where have you been?

I want to die… don’t you understand??? The pain you have put me through makes me wish I was dead…. And where are you in this??

I’ll never see my sister or my dad again. And I’m left with a family full of evil people with self centered beliefs and you took the only two I’m good ones. Left me and my mom here to pick up the pieces… HOW COULD YOU?

God, you have broken my heart. You are supposed to fix my heart not break it. Over and over again I try to trust you, I try to rely on you and you let me down over and over again. It’s the most heartbreaking thing about all of this.

My relationship with you is the most heartbreaking thing. It doesn’t matter what I do, you still allow me to suffer GREATLY. It’s not an honor, it’s not an act of courage… it’s heartbreaking, it’s cruel, it makes me not believe in you…

March 2023

I’ve been left by lovers, left my friends, left by family, left by sisters, left by dad…. Everyone leaves and I don’t know why.

April 2023

The Mixed Emotions of Grief

Knowing they would want you to have fun and enjoy life — feeling guilty for having fun and enjoying things without them, especially if it was something they liked or liked to do.

Knowing that they are proud of you — feeling like you will always have something to prove.

May 2023

I don’t like thinking of the past

Because the memories hurt far too much.

I don’t like thinking of the future

Because I never planned my future without you in it.

So I just live day by day

But mostly hour by hour

Sometimes minute by minute

And on my bad days second by second.

Because to live anywhere else but this very second

Is just too much for my mind to bare.

May 2023

I’m kinda tired of everyone acting like because I’m a Christian and believe in Jesus means that I can’t be depressed, or have anxiety or ptsd. I need help, not prayers.

June 2023

Grief Symptoms No One Talks About That I Am Experiencing

• Headaches

• Insomnia & exhaustion

• Sleeping for necessity and not for rest

• Feeling nauseous after every meal

• Lack of energy/motivation

• Loss of creativity

• Depression

• Suicidal thoughts

• Heavy chest

• Heart raising

• Shaking

• Loss of appetite one day/overeating the next

• Physical pain in my body

• Fatigue

• Flashbacks

• Feeling of foreshortened future bc you are experiencing milestones without the loved ones that are supposed to be there (dad walking me down the isle / getting an apartment with your sister)

• Feeling particularly heavy on certain important days like anniversaries or special events

• Ptsd

• Nightmares

• Stress poops

• Disassociation

• Lack of focus

August 2023

It’s crazy to me how people will ask me if I’m doing okay and believe me when I say yes. I’ve lost more in a few years than many people will experience in a lifetime. I’m in purgatory. How could you believe me when I say I’m okay??

December 2023

I will never be the same because of how hurt I am. It’s simply not fair.

June 2024

Suddenly, without warning or pause I feel like life holds no meaning and the daily things that usually keep me afloat no longer matter. It’s not a feeling I like, it’s the worst feeling of all and what makes it worse is there’s no end in sight. There will be days like today for the rest of my life as I live out each day in their absence. How can God expect someone to bear this type of pain for their entire life. It is an aching pain that can only be explained in the cries of someone who has experienced loss. The disappointment that all the work you’ve done to move past the depression can be reinacted in an instant.

---

Reading thes excerpts back to myself, I am amazed that I made it out alive, there were days when I really thought I wouldn't. Something I understand now that I didnt then is that there is so much faith involved in our questions and laments. Do you realize how strong you are for taking your burdens to the Father? It's a heavy laod to carry and many journeys are spent climbing up steep mountains to reach the comfort we are searching for but we do it anyway.

You wake up every morning and despite your wanting it all to be over, you press on anyway. That is faith in action, that is strength! While the days may still come where you're hit with an unexpected wave of depression the choice to continue fighting still lives within you. These excerpts are proof that the dark days can come and go and while they leave you breathlessly standing, afraid, lonely, and depressed, you're still here. Still fighting. Still choosing life life over death. Still choosing faith over fear. Still surviving. Our very lives are proof that God can handle you at your worst, that you can fight against the demon of depression, that therapy can actually change your life. Our lives are proof that life doesn't end in February of 2023. Our lives are proof that we serve a God of hope.