Walking on the Water

I have struggled with clinical depression and anxiety for ten years. Well, really, in retrospect, I have figured out that I have had the anxiety for a lot longer than that, but it was never identified as such. How ironic, given that I have a clinical psychologist for a mother! Anyway, over the last few months, I have felt God nudging me and nudging me towards taking the step of faith of going off my medication. I have been on some kind of medication for almost all of the last 10 years, and during the brief interludes in between meds, my life has gotten really ugly (read: cutting, suicidal thoughts, major anxiety attacks, really scary stuff). One time, a couple years ago, it go so bad that my husband took my daughter away from me because he didn't want her to see me like I was. That was one of the worst moments of my life.

It didn't help, though, that my daughter had a very bad start to life when she was born possibly because I had been on antidepressants throughout my pregnancy. Talk about guilt-inducing!! After her being in the NICU for 10 days, the attending doctor we'd been trying so hard to get through to for days came up to me and said, "So, I see you were on Effexor for a while." (Mind you, we'd told him, one of his residents, a nurse, or some other bipedal hospital staff person this about once a day for ten days.) Through a veil of furious tears, I said, "I'm still on Effexor, and I've been telling you that for days!" His response: "Well, that might be a problem." (Editorial note: this was one of the closest moments I've had to hitting someone out of fury in my life, but I refrained. Go me.) From the moment I found out I was pregnant, I had asked just about anyone who had a heartbeat... therapist, psychiatrist, PCP, OB/GYN, midwife, you name it... if I should go off my meds to protect my baby, and every one said it was a cost benefits analysis that pretty much came down to the reality that I dissolved into a major mental health disaster case when I was off my meds and a mentally healthy mom was really important for a healthy baby. Somehow, between the beginning of my pregnancy and the end, the "common knowledge" about Effexor changed and no one told me. To this day, no one can say for certain if my being on meds messed Evie's health up when she was born or not. Believe you me, I suffered HUGELY from guilt and honest-to-goodness PTSD about my daughter's stay in the hospital for the better part of the first two years of her life, and I'm not sure I'm still completely done with it. So I've been caught in this trap between wanting to stay on my meds to stay sane and wanting to get off my meds because I want to have another baby (preferably one I don't poison) and don't want to continue this pattern of feeling like a crack junky (only legal!).

Several sisters in Christ within the last month have shared that it's been on their heart to encourage me about taking a step of faith that God would fully deliver me from the need to be on medication. I have struggled with the idea of healing at God's hands forever, it seems... I certainly believe God CAN do anything He wants and He is Lord of all things, including my mind and body. At the same time, though, I also know that I don't understand how and when He chooses to do that healing. As a good friend and counselor so wisely put it, "You can't prescribe God." It's not as easy as saying, "Go home, take two advils and some God and call me in the morning." I know how hard it has been to deal with my mental illness over the years, but I also believe adamantly that He has used my suffering to know how to comfort others with the comfort wherewith I was comforted. As a social worker, I have been very blessed by being able to look people (especially women) straight in the eye when they pour their hearts out to me about the miseries of depression and anxiety and tell them the straight truth: I know how you feel. I don't usually go into the gorey details, but I know they can sense that I get it for real.

After a TON of prayer and thought and lots of seeking counsel, it became very clear to me that God was telling me now was the time. I took a step out of the boat and went off my meds. I never intended to go off cold turkey, but I ran out on a Saturday, forgot to pick up my refill on Sunday, and then had to go to work before the pharmacy opened on Monday, thereby getting through 48 hours without any meds and feeling okay. It seemed very clear that God was trumping my rational, cognitive brain and saying we were going to go whole hog on this one, so I continued to refrain from any medication, instead of tapering off it as I planned. That last pill was one week ago today. I know that doesn't sound like much, but if you have any idea how hard going off antidepressants can be, you'll understand why those seven days are a major miracle. I have been so blessed with the gifts God has given me that seem to be exact reenactments in my life of stories straight out of the Bible... I am the man on the mat whose friends carried him to Jesus, even though it meant cutting a hole in the roof of a house. I am the woman Elijah told to go to her house and make a small meal for him when she and her son were starving, after which she would be blessed with more than enough to keep them from starvation. I am Peter, stepping out on choppy seas, sinking every time I do anything but keep my eyes directly focused on my Lord. I know in the grand scheme of the miracles God can do and has done, mine is fairly small, but in my life, it is huge and I have been so transformed by keeping my eyes focused on Him, the Author and Finisher of my faith. I pray that maybe just one person will read this and find that it meets them where they are at in their lives. If that happens, let me tell you my brother or sister, that when God sends you on a journey, He will absolutely not give you more than you can handle. He WILL stretch your thinking on what that max point looks like, but through His power YOU WILL NOT BREAK!