“It hurts no matter what I do.” - Tori Kelly
After putting together my book of poems, I thought that sharing about my struggle with depression was done. It’s honestly still challenging for me to get through the first 2 parts of my book because I can remember exactly how I felt when writing those poems. I remember thinking that I would never move past those feelings of hopelessness and sadness, and some of them were written more than 5 years ago.
I believe that mental health is discussed a lot more than it has been in the past, but I still don’t think it’s discussed enough. I’ve talked a little bit about how I was apprehensive to start medication because I thought that needing medication meant that I didn’t believe that God could heal me. It turned out that starting the medication required me to have faith that God has given me tools to overcome depression and that He would in fact heal me. There was a point in time where I barely wanted to admit that I started going to therapy, and now I know that my therapist was sent by God Himself.
I know what it feels like,
To wake up and remember that you have to do a day of life all over again and dread getting out of bed. To stair aimlessly at the ceiling, because trying to feel nothing feels better than feeling your emotions. Dragging yourself to the shower, crying while you’re getting dressed, crying while looking at yourself in the mirror, wondering where you went wrong. Crying on the way to whatever your destination is, in a daze, then painting a smile on your face to make it through the day.
When people say, “you never know what someone is going through so be kind”, it always resonates with me, because you really don’t know what someone is going through.
Some days I just sit in amazement at how much my life has changed, and how I am able to see life through a different lens now. I’ve had to learn that I can’t compare my life to someone else’s. I can’t pretend that something shouldn’t hurt because it may not be as bad as someone else’s experience. That way of thinking just prevents me from healing and causes me to push things deep down into my heart and mind when God needs them to come out so He can fill me with His love.
I’ve been going to church since before I can remember clearly, and I’m so lucky that my parents made sure that I went to church as a child. Even though I lost my way, I could always feel God’s pull. Trying to grow up and find myself while dealing with rejection, abandonment, disappointments, and other issues that a lot of us commonly deal with caused me to build walls that God never meant for me to build. When we don’t talk about these things, I believe that we remain in bondage to the shame and pain they bring. But God doesn’t want us to live that way. Jesus sacrificed His life so that we don’t have to live in condemnation, but in His Grace.
Now, it’s not that I don’t have issues that I deal with, I just know that God has me no matter what. Yes, I still have to cry, maybe even scream to express what I’m feeling inside. But after I’m done with that, God lets me know that He hears me and has bottled up every one of my tears.
-Jarnai
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