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 or your local helpline.
So, the last two segments we went over some aspects of depression. And today we will stick to this topic, but in a less obvious way. We will be focusing on unequal improvement during recovery and how God has factored in my staggered steps forward. The following excerpt is from later in my recovery from depression. I wasn’t completely better yet, but I had more energy than before. Much more energy.
March 5, 2013:
“Cars (and the ability to drive them) are amazing things, of course there is the obvious reasons that it provides a mode of transportation from point A to point B, it frees you from you family’s schedules and willingness (or lack thereof) to drive you places, it offers warmth and chilled air when you need it after days in the park, but possibly my favorite reason, is one that I have discovered very recently. It allows you to turn the music up as loud as it will go, speed 60 in your neighbor hood and scream at the top of your lungs until you can actually feel your face going read and your veins popping out. It is a great feeling, to know you can go anywhere stop where ever you want on your way home. The release of all of that tension/nervous energy was amazing…”
This excerpt is so very different than the other ones I have aired so far in that I’m doing something. I’m not stuck in slow motion, or suffering from mind clouding emotions or lack thereof. I have enough energy to do something about my emotions. And this was not necessarily a good thing all the time. I began to act on my sadness, crying a lot and often. I began to act on my anxieties, through self harm and speeding through residential streets at 60 mph. I began to act strangely; running away when overwhelmed, and actively making plans for suicide as solutions to my negative emotions. This new found energy was a very early step in my recovery, but it came before I had gotten a good handle on healthy coping mechanisms and only slightly after I began to identify the actual emotions themselves. This combination of factors was something that prompted my psychologist at the time to raise these concerns with me and my husband, Christian. His main concern was suicide, as my increased energy would make me more prone to act on my depressed thoughts and feelings. This situation is not a step that every person with depression or mental illness goes through during their recovery. As always, I have to say that this is just MY personal story. The individuality of mental illness and its sufferers is what makes psychologists, counselors, therapists, and psychiatrists all so important, because they have the schooling and the know-how to see to and care for your individual experience.
My individual experience was a bonafide roller coaster. I would make some steps in self awareness (which is good) and then the new found knowledge would send me for an emotional loop-de-loop as now I have to face their negative manifestations as I was no longer shoving them deep down. This emotional instability and feeling helpless to do anything about it led me to dip into depression again and again. It was during this time in my life that the Bible, God’s word, became so much more important to me. It was the only thing in my life that would stay the same, that wouldn’t get tired and need a day off from helping me, that wouldn’t be a “test” to see if it would help me in my circumstances, that wouldn’t have to be a phone call or text away, that I wouldn’t have to wait for. God’s words were with me through everything, and I found true solace and stability in these words. And, if you haven’t already made a connection to a verse or two that I was living first hand, let me show them to you, because they’re pretty great verses.
First we have Ephesians 4:14-16 “so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes. Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ, from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.”
Here Paul is speaking about becoming grounded within Christ and His love that permeates through our community and connects us with each other and with Him. We should do this not only to become closer to Christ, but so that we will not be tossed to and fro by cunning men. And in my life, I was peddling my own cunning deceit to myself. Telling myself that my wayward emotions were my own fault, and that my guilt is wholly justifiable. But I found an anchor and a hope in Christ Jesus in God’s words.
The other verse, is in Matthew 7:24-27. “Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
Here we see that when the whole of my world, including my friends, family, and myself, were all struggling to keep my head above water, God offers a stable and safe life rooted in His word and His love.
These two verses were not ( and are not) my favorite verses, and at times, I even hated them because they seemed to mock me with their simplicity and their promise of something that I did not have and felt I never could. But, I did think of them when I felt that the rug had been pulled out from under my feet through panic attacks, running away, or a particularly hard therapy session. And remembering those words, that God offers me a stable foundation to weather this storm, my heart was kept open by Christ for Christ, at a time that I could keep it open for nothing of this world, positive or not.
My journey is not usually so directly noticeably influenced by God, I usually find verses or prayers that encourage me and I can turn back to, but in this moment of recovery, I felt the verses with empathy and not with hope, because I knew that I was the person in the verse, that those things were happening to me.
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 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