I remember the day I had hit my lowest point. I felt like my God, my Heavenly Father, had thrown me under the bus and left me there. I stood in my shower sobbing asking questions like How could He do this to me? Why couldn’t He have my back? How did I get to this place?
I had started my healing journey about 2 years earlier. Things were going okay and then when Elise, my oldest, started kindergarten I had a break down and decided it was finally time to go to therapy. That is when I was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
It was a relief to have a name for what I was experiencing. It gave me a reason for the way I acted and felt other than that I was just a terrible person. But it also caused my world as I knew it to come crashing down around me. I felt adrift in unfamiliar waters. At night I would huddle against my husband while we watched TV, seeking stability and love.
As it always does, it got worse before it got better. My therapist described this as being in a cauldron of water and all the things that stayed dormant on the bottom were being stirred up. My triggers were on high alert.
In therapy sessions I would tell my therapist how I saw things and she would suggest a different view of things. In that week’s session I had driven home brokenhearted feeling like I would never be loved the way I so desired to be. That this would be how things are indefinitely. That combined with the reframing of my life in therapy brought me to that day in the shower.
All I wanted was to be loved and at the time I couldn’t feel love from anyone, and definitely not from my God. What was I to do? I was trying so hard to be and do good and to connect with Him.
Even though I felt like I was not receiving anything from Him, I actually was. One day after the shower incident I asked what I should do and I saw an image in my mind of me sitting in my stake president’s office. So with faith I made an appointment. My stake president, who is an amazing man and doctor, told me that I was there so that he could tell me that God loves me. Then he told me that he thought I had depression and to make an appointment with him. So I made another appointment but with apprehension.
I sat in the doctor’s office waiting for him while trying to keep it together. He had me fill out a questionnaire that indicated that I did have depression and he gave me a prescription. He explained that depression can get in the way of feeling God. I wasn’t sure about taking an antidepressant but after a good friend and my therapist told me that the pills would make the
I started taking them the first week in November and prayed that they would kick in before Thanksgiving. My doctor stake president had told me it could take at least 3 weeks. That week I attended the temple and as I sat in the celestial room the voices disappeared and my peace returned. It was a miracle of love. My Heavenly Father’s love for me. I felt like myself again, I was so so grateful and relieved.
That’s not to say that I’ve felt amazing every day since or that Thanksgiving was great, but I once again felt God in my life and that allowed me to access the healing power that He freely offers.
I experienced a lot of hard times after that, but also a lot of really good times of grace. I know that He was with me the whole time and that He led me through all the steps that brought me to where I could feel His love again and make progress in my healing.
No matter how hard it gets I can remember that He is with me and making all things work together for my good.
You can visit my website at, http://www.ladderoflife.org/