And we're off! with our first radio transcript -June 5th 2018

Transcript from June 5th 2018 Airing on Lutheran Radio UK

Hello! My name is Svenja Dollar. I have a lengthy history of mental illnesses. I am rather outspoken and extroverted, so through my entire journey I have been (whether intentionally or not) bringing attention to a mostly taboo subject. I have been told, by many many individuals, that simply sharing my story has opened peoples’ eyes, has brought faith and encouragement to those struggling that they are not alone, and has created a safe environment and opportunity to ask questions. The more encouragement I have had the more I have shared and been open with my journey, which led to more people addressing me with these positive impacts and caused for more openness, and so here I am, broadcasting my story on the radio. Showing people a single journey that has facets and many unique twists and turns to encourage questions, conversation, and outreach. That being said, this is just MY story, it is not the textbook manifestation of depression, or personality disorders or what have it. If you worry about any mental health disorders being prevalent in your or someone else’s life, please contact your GP (general practitioner) or your local helpline.

As I was praying and thinking about how to create this new series on mental health, I ran into the same problem over and over again. That everything is so messy, so intertwined and so unique to each person, that there was no way I could create neat and clean segmentation of subjects by topic, chronology, or questions. What I realized is that mental illness is so deeply entrenched and soaked in emotion, the only way to begin to unpack such a sensitive topic, is through emotion. But how can I emote these topics on radio? Obviously through spoken word, but through what? song? poetry? And then it hit me. My journal. That was something very emotional, in that the entries were created without filters and pretty much at the time of the events. So at the beginning of each segment, I will be reading a selection from my diary, and then we will unpack all the topics and subjects addressed, all the troubles and questions posed, and all the solutions and prayers that helped me through.

Now, I can only speak to my own journey, but fortunately and unfortunately, I suffer from a wide range of mental health problems. So hopefully you can relate to at least something in my jumbled mess. And, with the WHO’s numbers of at least 1 out of 5 adults in Europe struggling with mental illness, if you don’t personally relate, you most likely can gain knowledge and insight into a friend or loved one’s struggles.

So in choosing this first excerpt I reread my entire diary, and I was overwhelmed! I was reliving all of these terrible times and all of these great times, and so many hit the nail on the head with explaining emotions (but then of course, who is better at explaining my emotions that me...so I am a bit biased).

So I prayed and prayed and I was led to this entry from April 9, 2013.

“For three weeks I have been letting my eyes drift, letting them daze and glaze and blur out all the sharp edges of the days. For days I have been feeling the immensity of my life weighing in my chest, stealing the posture I was so proud of. And after almost a month, I found myself sitting defeated and motionless in the dark, on the cool bathroom floor staring at the varied textures in the small room. The little light under the door gave a sleepy life to the surfaces, pulling my attention from the bland haze in my mind. I listened to the little clicks and breaths [my snake] Misha was making, swallowing a rat whole must be hard work. And [then] I realized the grace of God was in me, leading me. He was feeding me like he does Misha, and clothing me as He does the wildflowers by the dam. I am saved, forgiven and loved. I am His.”

This was written 4 years ago, but it still is full of emotion for me. It is probably one of the most telling entries I have. It encompasses the haze of depression but also displays the little light of hope that God had brought me. So I will address those three topics today: Haze, Hope and God. At this point in my life I was a senior in high school. I was very involved: I was president of JSA, I was vice president of NHS, I was 1st chair in my french horn section, I was a quartermaster in band as well. I was secretary of president’s council and I was taking mostly college level courses. To top it all off, a month later I would graduate with highest honors at #6 in my class and would give the final speech at graduation. I was so successful. But as you heard, I wasn’t doing well. I was severely depressed, but as luck should have it, I was also struggling with OCD and anxiety symptoms that are basically all that kept me together and going (though that was probably as harmful as the depression if not more). I was a ball of mental ruin. But back to the depression.

Here you can hear the very typical complaint of depression. The “haze” or “cloud” or “fog” that is commonly described by people who have suffered through this. It feels as if you can’t think clearly, you can’t focus, and you definitely can’t work effectively or efficiently. This isn’t only in the mind either, as you heard “for the last 3 weeks I have been letting my eyes drift, letting them daze and glaze and blur out all of the sharp edges.” I was having a hard time even focusing my eyes on what was right in front of me. The haze reached to every part of my life, I started doing the bare minimum when it came to dressing and bathing myself, I started doing the bare minimum (and sometimes not even that) on papers and homework, half of me not caring anymore because I couldn’t focus enough to care, and the other half just praying that my good reputation with the teachers would let me slide by on a few assignments.

But a few assignments turned to a bunch and a few days of sweat pants turned to weeks. And, as telling as these things seem to be today, I had no idea this was not normal. It all came on so gradually that by the time I was struggling to eat or bathe, I just chalked it up to being “senioritis” or realizing school wasn’t everything. Those possibilities were so rational, I just kept subsisting. It wasn’t until I realized how powerless I was to STOP acting the way I was, to start getting assignments in on time, to start dressing chic and savvy again, that I started to panic….but only when I had the energy to panic. So depression became this leech, this haze, that even kept me from worrying about my own condition. Then it morphed into constant sadness, at crying about any stress or any other emotion. I would cry because a dog was cute, and not even happy tears, just absolute distress about the burden of feeling any emotion other than nothing. The haze turned into a suffocating smog that had me crushed into absolute submission.

And then came the prayers, I prayed for help, I prayed for healing, I prayed for death, I prayed for relief. My prayers were coming out of a place of desperation. One of the only wishes I have now, knowing how things played out, was someone to pray with me, to help direct my desperate cries for help to what would actually help. To stop my prayers for death and to encourage my prayers for health and strength.

Prayer is something that I could do inside my head, it was the first step to my recovery, it was accepting that I was broken and accepting the fact that I needed help, but with my minute amount of strength, the only thing I could do was pray silently in my head, hoping that help would be sent in any form whatsoever.

Then came the realization that any strength I had, any good things or help offered to me, were from God. As it is written in James chapter 1: "Every good and perfect gift is from above, coming down from the Father of the heavenly lights, who does not change like shifting shadows."

It was the next step in my recovery: realizing that there is a world outside of my head and my hopelessness. The Haze came, then hope through the belief that praying could help me, and then came God. He was always there but at the time it seemed to me that God had re-entered my life through my realizations of goodness in the world. And though it sounds like a happily ever after ending, it was only the start of a long road to recovery. But God was with me and that was all that mattered to me.

So this little bit of my story, this little snippet of about two months, it is truly showing of what it can be like (not necessarily what it IS or WILL BE like for everyone). I was enveloped in a fog that was completely suffocating and energy depleting. I was unaware of the severity of my issues (and even if someone pointed out my issues. which a few did, I just scoffed and waved them away), until I tried to get out of the funk and realized that I had been in a sort of prison the whole time, that it wasn’t my own choice. After that my prayers were desperate graspings. But those desperation induced pleas were the start of my recovery. A recovery that has lasted for the last four almost five years.

This bit of my story is not a representation of every person with depression. There are probably pieces here and there that are resonant with individuals. But this story, as with all of these coming segments, is simply a conversation starter. To bring attention, publicity to them. To bring them out of the silent taboo darkness that has isolated so many. These issues are more common than bone fractures according to the The National Center for Biotechnology Information. So I share my story in hopes of bringing these common issues to light.

I pray God will work through you all with His love and caring nature. And if you are, or think you are suffering from any type of mental illness, do not hesitate to contact your GP right away.

Blessings, Svenja Dollar