One step at a time

MAUI
I was the walking dead. I barley walked, and definitely did not live.
Everyday seemed to get harder and harder and longer and longer. Every morning I woke up and completely lacked ALL motivation to do anything, but I got up and went to work anyway because there where people there who depended on my to open up the coffee shop.
Wake up, satisfy peoples fleshly desires for coffee, go home and sleep the rest of the day. That was the life I lived from June 2019- Sept 2019. October was a whole different ball game. I rarely got out of bed, and when I did it was to drink so much that I couldn't remember if I fell asleep or passed out. Then for weeks after an outing, I'd lay in bed and feel like the most awful human to walk the planet.
The middle of October came and I decided I was ready to be the most careless version of myself I could possibly be. Constant parties, and multiple heartaches that followed. After a night of making one of the worst decisions I could possibly make, I laid in bed and tried to cry but nothing came out, cutting was the only way I was able to release the built up pain and mental terror. I felt like I was dead. The next morning I woke up and told my mom I was coming home and never coming back here again. "You only have 20 more days..19..18" I told myself this every single day, because everyday that I lived there in that bed with no hope, the more I thought about what it would be like to be dead instead of just feeling dead.
The thought of packing up the life I had lived the past 5 months into two little suitcases and ignore the mental and emotional baggage that also came along with those 5 months made my heart ache. So I didn't pack. I sat and stared in disbelief at all I had to do but did none of it.
While I sat there in that room full of bad memories and mascara stains, a friend reached out to me and told me that she was coming to visit to help me pack and to see the island. I waited anxiously for her to come, the thought of no longer having to be alone made a little spark of light jump inside of me that I quickly stomped out because of the guilt that rose up inside of me for not being capable to handle something so simple as packing a suitcase.
She arrived and it was such a sweet time, laughter, sun burns, and food.

OREGON
We both flew home October 26th. Then, life went right back to the way it was before.
Masks on, walls up. I walked through life like I had it together and wasn't wishing I was dead every quiet second I had, or cutting every lonely moment I had.
The start of a new season was exciting at first, I started to feel important and like I did something beneficial to those around me. I got a job as a receptionist and thought that it would give me the hope that I begged and begged for to a God I wasn't sure even existed.
The excitement wore off and the feeling of pointlessness grew. The cutting got worse, and the thoughts of death became more detailed. There was not much release from the thoughts that haunted me, except numbing it in any way I could, so the self harm continued.
It got worse
and worse
and worse.
I would wonder every time if this would be the time that I would die.
I never did by the grace of God.
I decided one day to reach out to a friend of mine and tell her that a wound wouldn't stop bleeding, she then reached out to my mom and told her the reality of the situation I was in and how close to death I was getting.
I needed help but was at work and didn't want to disappoint the people who counted on me to do my job. "I am coming to pick you up to take you to the hospital" my friend told me as I wailed in my car with my head pressed against the steering wheel as hard as I could. "Go tell them you have an emergency and have to go." I trusted what she said so I went. My eyes were swollen and I could barely breathe. I walked in and told them someone I cared about was going into the hospital and that I had to go. I walked out and kinda giggle at the fact that I said someone I care about. There was still a spark of hope inside of me that I thought I had stomped out.

HOSPITAL
I got to the hospital and was absolutely petrified. I got taken into a tiny room with absolutely nothing inside of it and claw marks on the walls and glass from someone who apparently desperately wanted to get out. I sat there and cried, I had no idea how I had let myself get to that point and I never thought I would ever get out of the mental place I was in. I was in that tiny room for 7 and a half hours, then got escorted in a wheel chair up to the psych ward where I spent 5 of the longest days of my life: screaming, scars, medications, and overdoses where some of the horrific things that my body endured while I was there.

Smelling fresh air after being in the psych ward for so long was reviving all in itself. The next day was thanksgiving, I sat on the couch all day and watched movies. The pain was still there but I was able to silence it with the occasional laugh at the characters in the movies. I just wanted to be them, careless, free, full of joy. I hoped it would happen eventually but doubted it ever would.

5 ROCK
This place is where the Lord RADICALLY changed my life and who I am.
I got there on Friday the 29th of November. I met some of the sweetest and most loving people ever in the time I was there. We ate together, we cried together, we worshiped together, we learned about Jesus together. We did everything together.
for some reason, I couldn't let it be enough.
I continued to cut, over and over.
I was blessed my a spiritual momma who really cared about me and my mental health. She ended up taking me to the hospital again to make sure I was mentally safe enough to stay at the ranch. I was and didn't have to get admitted again. We went back and I told her I was going to do whatever it took to get on my feet and as far away from cutting as I possibly could.
The next three weeks were amazing, the connections I was getting to make with the people there and with Jesus is something I will forever take with me. The Lord stretched and grew me, he loved me perfectly and exactly where I was at. He didn't want me to get everything together and then come to him, he wanted me to come to him right where I was at. Absolutely broken, and BEGGING him to show up in someway or I was going to walk away. He did, but still, it wasn't good enough. So, again, I cut. I hid it. I put on the mask, and put up the wall again.
I could no longer stay silent and continue to lie to those I cared about, and ultimately who genuinely cared about me. I told them that I had kept something a secret that was a really big deal, they loved me right where I was at and didn't hate me or walk away, and neither did Jesus.
It is normal for sins to have consequences, I just wasn't expecting mine. They came to me in the most loving and supportive way and told me that they wanted me to go home and do some deep therapy, get out from under the rock of cutting and to come back and seek Jesus with all I have.

OREGON
I left that place devastated, I couldn't believe I had let myself fall back so far again.
Everyday after that I got up and out of the house, I sat at a coffee shop and clung to Jesus with everything I had. There was no way I was going back to the hospital, but in my power I would have. So I white knuckle GRIPPED to Jesus and begged him to walk every step, breathe every breathe, and hold my hand the whole way through it, and he did.
I am absolutely in awe of the work that the Lord is doing in me. I am no where near where I was, he has turned me 180 degrees and pointed me in the other direction, the one where he is the center, not me. It has been one of the hardest nine months of my life but the Lord has shown up in bigger ways than I could have ever imagined.
Everyday after I left 5 rock I told myself I was going to do whatever it took to get back there, but in reality, I did what ever it took to run as fast as I could back to Jesus. He welcomed me and embraced me as if I had never left. He loved me as if I had never sinned or told him I didn't want him any more, he wanted me more than I didn't want him, and that wins my heart over again and again. He wanted me in the most perfect way. He still wants me in the most perfect way, and will forever want me in the most perfect way.
In the waiting to be able to return to 5 rock, the Lord rekindled and introduced some amazing friendships. Part of me wanted to stay here and see all that the Lord had for me here but I was terrified I was going to end up back in the hospital so I told Jesus staying here wasn't an option (funny isn't it). Staying here is exactly what he had in store, he made it clear over and over, and I continued over and over to say "Lord, if you want me to stay, you have to make it really clear." and He reassures me often when I doubt that he has a plan for me here.
I applied to RCC (Rogue Community College) got accepted, and start classes March 30 to become a Psychologist. Allowing other people the place to be heard, accepted, and valued, and the chance to heal. Today is 60 days of no cutting and 60 days of turning to Jesus to cope instead of anything but him. Jesus is in the business of restoring out story for his glory and for our good. We get to point other people to Christ to be able to receive the hope that we have through him, friends how exciting is that!