Broken for Destiny
I had just started a new job. After only a year in my previous role, I had the opportunity to take a more senior position. More money, more responsibility, and a level of autonomy that I was searching for. Things were looking up. My boss and I had a great relationship, the person I shared an office with was nothing short of amazing and quickly shaping up to be my BFFL. I was beginning to do some traveling and spending time with my roommate and long-time friend, and just enjoying life. I had busied myself with happy hours, and dates, and counseling friends, and most importantly, night brunches. Life was good.
But… it wasn’t. It was kind of empty. I was holding on by a thread. I felt myself slipping away from myself. I was wearing a mask; I was faking it. I was doing all of these things, and being in all of these places, and spending time with all of these people and I wasn’t really there. I was in this weird depression space that wasn’t actually depression, and I somehow knew that, but I didn’t exactly understand what was going on.
Let’s rewind a bit so to get a more complete view of the story. I had been in an on-again, off-again, WB teen mellow-drama relationship with this guy. It ended weirdly with him just ghosting me. It hurt but I was okay because for some reason I just knew that he and I weren’t meant to be together. So, when I reluctantly started sharing with a few of my friends about the mask I was wearing, the veil that I felt was over my face, they brushed it off as depression, but I knew it wasn’t. I knew something else was going on with me.
One morning, I was sitting in my office, my work BFFL left for her daily walk and my heart began to race. I sat there and couldn’t breathe. I just stopped. Everything, my whole body felt strange. I felt like my whole person was outside of me. My brain was foggy. I felt like I didn’t belong in my own skin. I immediately felt detached, like my soul and my spirit weren’t together anymore.
I sat in the office and started to cry – I don’t cry – and almost hyperventilating. It was all weird and uncomfortable. I instantly felt vulnerable but was able to pull myself together enough to call one of my safe spaces, a friend turned mentor and big sister who helped me to understand that I was, indeed, having a panic attack. Just as I was getting off the phone with her, my officemate walks back in and helps to confirm what was going on. I was so embarrassed, and the world seemed too much to face. That day, I held myself together enough to make it to my car at 5:05 pm and drive out of the parking deck, but as soon as I hit the highway countless strangers saw this woman who was strong for everyone else cry her way home.
This is how I ended 2019.
Every single day for five months I cried. I cried in the car, I cried in my bedroom. I scurried away from my roommates and their friends having fun to cry. Even the most casual of interactions became too much for me. Chatting for too long with the neighbor or having to spend too much time in the grocery store catapulted me into a frenzy of anxiety-induced tears compounded with the frustration of vulnerability peeking through my well-polished “strong friend” exterior.
I have never been one to cry. Tears are not constructive; they get us nowhere. If we want to change something we use our words and put thought to action. There is no space in the change equation for tears, all they do is stain your face and make you look weak… or so I thought…
Gracefully Broken
I can’t explain to you how I knew but I can stand flat-footed and say to you today that I know without a shadow of a doubt that I was not going through depression. I know that the anxiety attacks I experienced were not a result of a break-up, too much pressure from work, dealing with friend relationships, or any combination of the aforementioned. What I experienced starting that miserable day in my new office, at my new job, witnessed by my new friend and office mate and the tears witnessed by the numerous strangers on the highway that followed were not physical, fleshly depression, there was something else going on and I knew I just had to lean into all that was happening within me.
I have always been a rather spiritual person, I study, I pray, I listen, I do – you know all of that stuff that good Jesus followers do. We all ebb and flow, sometimes our relationships are closer with our divine creator than others. Around the time when I began to feel torn apart, I felt rather disconnected from God. I knew he was there, I could feel him, but it just wasn’t the same. It felt as if there was this wall around my heart preventing me from sharing the intimacy I once shared with God. I would pray and I know he could hear me because, I mean God, but then he wouldn’t answer me and then I’d get frustrated because we are supposed to have a relationship and the cornerstone of any relationship is communication, and communication is a two-way street, but he wasn’t talking back to me. And I was in pain. I was feeling more and more vulnerable and exposed, and I felt myself slipping further and further away. I was breaking…
As I was breaking, as I was losing myself, I forced myself to talk to friends. Not everyone but to keep few people informed about my mental state in case it got to the point where I wasn’t strong enough to put on the temporary front I put on to make it through days. I shared with a friend who works in the mental health field and a few others who don’t but each suggested that I “go talk to someone”. I wanted to, I truly did but I didn’t know what to say. I had no idea where to start. There were so many things wrong but nothing wrong at the same time. Yes, one could argue that the ghosting break-up and general life were the things that were making me feel as I did but somehow, I know that was not the case. I continued to pray even though I wasn’t hearing anything back until one day, nearly five months after that first panic attack I got my first peek into clarity.
I couldn’t do it anymore. I was DONE! I literally could not handle life. I wasn’t suicidal, but I was definitely ready to give up. I was tired of trying. I was praying for clarity and it seemed like my prayers weren’t going anywhere. I was not sleeping more than a few hours a week and my panic attacks were coming more frequently. I was ready to give up, why try anymore? Why push for things to get better, this was how it was; this was my new life. I was exhausted, not just physically but also spiritually and emotionally. I was drained.
Sitting in my bed, ready to give up I sat with my iPad in hand I began pouring out all of my frustration. I spewed out in the most raw form of my honesty; I wrote with all of the strength I could muster, seeing through my tear-blurred eye:
I can’t do this!
I. Can’t. Do. This!
I CAN’T DO THIS!
My eyes stinging red, my heart pounding out of my chest, my skin pulsing I scribbled larger and larger:
I CAN’T DO THIS!
I CAN’T DO THIS!
I CAN’T DO THIS! …BUT YOU CAN
I CAN’T DO THIS, BUT YOU CAN!
I CAN’T DO THIS, BUT YOU CAN!
It was in those last three words that I began to feel peace. I began to feel a sense of calm come over me. I knew he was going to talk to me again. God was allowing me to become broken so that I would allow him to be the potter he is and put the pieces of me back together. He needed me gracefully broken.
Together for Destiny
A few days later God started talking to me again. The blockage that was separating me from hearing from him was becoming unclogged. I was able to get through days without tears and panic attacks again. They weren’t all gone but they were subsiding. I was feeling better but there was this terror that was coming over me. There was something coming. I could sense the other boot preparing to drop. God wanted something from me – he needed something from me.
Calling is something that I understood from a young age. I know and have known that we are all called to do something in Christ. We all have a task to complete and each of our tasks work together in unity to create the beautiful tapestry that is the beloved community. I also understood that our callings are something we complete and then we are finished. Jesus completed his task and he died. That’s not something I was ready for. (Neurotic, I know) But God was trying to get my attention so I would start walking in my destiny. He wanted to awaken something in me that he could use me.
God needed me to use the gifts he buried deep within me to connect with people. He seeded within me the ability to communicate with his people. He has gifted me with the unique ability to use my words and perspective, and ability to empathize with others to share with them whatever message God is trying to get to his people. God has positioned me to be an ear, a loving smile, a warm hug, and a voice of reason or challenge to my friends, and to share my not always very unique stories and experiences with people so they can see his divine hand working in my life and in their own.
This is weird. I don’t completely feel comfortable doing this work. I had been so guarded for so long. I never shared my own stories. I never allowed myself to be vulnerable with others. I never liked sharing my pain, embarrassment, excitement, reluctance, anxiety, - NOTHING! I don’t like burdening others with my woes, and I hate the idea of being that person who always has a story to relate to what is going on in somebody else’s life. God broke down that wall. God needed to rewire my brain so that I would stop thinking like this and be open to sharing my humanity because it is my humanity that will show others God’s glory.
I was broken and now am being put back together. I am connected to God and am hearing his voice again. I am allowing God to flow through me as I communicate with others. I am sharing my story. I am being a sounding board for others. I am allowing my life to be an example for those who are seeking something, who are searching for direction or answers. I am allowing God to work through me. That’s all he is asking of us but sometimes we are too hard-headed to let him do that.
As my pieces are being put back together, as I am allowing the potter to create the masterpiece, he wants to create through my life I have found a peace. I have found a calm and a place of rest. My panic attacks have all but subsided. I am sleeping again. I woke up one morning and just felt like myself again. What felt like a weird depression-like but not quite thing has passed. I am unblocked. I feel re-connected to God and I am continuing to be open to how he wants to use me. I have truly internalized and live the simple prayer: Lord, may my desires align with your will for my life.
I am beginning to walk in my destiny.
