For the Unmarried Season of Life

Are you dating someone that you  hope to one day marry? Are you having a hard time knowing how to honor God and your future spouse? Trust me, you're not alone. I can assure you that nearly every Christian couple has done something they're ashamed of while dating, but some are better at hiding it than others. Of course, some are also better at setting and following boundaries- like deciding to never be alone together. 

At this point in my life, I have a lot of friends who are meeting their future spouse and dating, who are engaged, and who are married. As for me, I just got married about six months ago, and around the same time, one of my best friends started dating her boyfriend and another close friend got engaged. I think we're all very happy with where we are personally, as well as happy for each other. I wanted for so long for my best friend to be in a relationship, but eventually I came to terms with us being in different seasons of life.

For two years, she listened to the ups and downs of my relationship, learned what big decisions we had to make along our journy, and supported our relationship. I also had several sorority sisters who were there during this time, who listened as I talked about my struggles being in a relationahip. Some girls understood more than others because of their own experiences, and none of them ever judged me.

Before I was in a serious relationship, everything seemed so cut and dry. Sexual intimacy was just off the table. It sounded easy enough- no closed doors, no spending the night together, no going past first. I even went as far as to declare I wouldn't have my first kiss until my wedding day. (Can you tell I was swimming in the Christian Kool-Aid?)

But then you start dating someone, and you fall in love, and the temptation gets worse and worse. At first, we kept the bedroom door open, but then it would be closed so I could focus on studying...and then it would be locked so no one could walk in on us. It didn't take but a few months before I was spending every night in my then-boyfriend's bed. It became an addiction.

We met with an older couple in our church every so often for counseling, and they basically just told us to stop. (Because, you know, it's that easy.) All that did for me was grow the shame. I was afraid of anyone finding out. I was scared that I would be judged, that I would be the girl everyone wanted to throw stones at if they ever found out. It wasn't until I found my sorority that I finally felt safe enough to be honest. Who would believe that a Christian sorority would be the safest, most accepting place for me to be a sinner? Girls loved and supported me through it. I wasn't the only one who had pushed the boundaries of what's okay before marriage

Girls didn't tell each other that what they were doing was okay, but we made sure that everyone knew their shortcomings didn't define how we saw each other. We supported each other, offered accountability and offered whatever type of help we could offer.

As someone who is now married, I can tell you that it's not worth it. Wait. Wait until your wedding night. Wait until God's timing. I listen to my friends who are still dating and who are engaged, telling me what they have decided to compromise on. They tell me they have no conviction on certain things, and therefore they think it's fine. It makes them feel nice. I get it, really, but not having a conviction is not the same as something being right. That's like saying that apologizing for hurting someone is the same as having never hurt them. It's not. An apology allows you to work things out, but it doesn't erase the past or the pain that was felt. Now that I'm married, I wish I wouldn't have done anything. I really do wish I had waited until my wedding to kiss my husband. I wish we had waited until our wedding night to have sex.

Let the passion build. Think of it as a savings account. Every time you want spend the night together, make out, have sex (any type of sex), stop, take a deep breath, and hold that desire in your heart. Don't take any of the joy away from your marriage. I'm finding, more and more, that passion is essential to marriage. You may think that you need a certain amount of physical intimacy in a relationship, but you don't really. I know people that did actually wait until their wedding day to have their first kiss. I really think that that has to have made for a great start to married life.

I know it's not easy to stop in the moment. It feels soo good. But in 10 minutes, it won't. Find someone who will keep you accountable. Don't just tell people who will make you feel like it's okay. When I was engaged, I started having sex and there was really only one girl in the sorority I would talk to about it because she would tell me it was okay, since I was almost married anyways. I didn't tell my best friend because I didn't want her to tell me I needed to stop...because I knew that the thing I was doing wasn't the thing God wanted me to do.

I started out my marriage feeling distant from God. Neither my husband nor I have made it a habit to read the Bible, pray, or worship. We tried to when we started dating, and we've tried a couple times since getting married, but it's never stuck. Don't make our same mistake. make sure your relationship with God is always more important than your relationship with your significant other. If you do that, I'm sure you will have a much easier time avoiding temptation, and your marriage will be full of passion.

a messy life

Honestly, it's been a weird time. Really weird. (No, I'm not referring to the Corona pandemic and everything that has come with it, though that may play a part of it all). As I'm sitting here, typing my story, I am on a leave of absence from my usual job. (I'm a Starbucks barista.) The reason why is what I'm here to tell you all about.

See, nearly a year ago, I began being sexually harassed at work. I wasn't the only one. There were three or four others that made complaints to our manager about the same guy. He would touch my butt, tried to get one girl to come to his apartment to hook up, sat on another's lap, and offered another his "sausage delight," to which she wittingly told him that it would be a "sausage denied." This guy wasn't by any means a good employee either, so it isn't even as though the manager felt he would lose something if he dealt with the harassment, which would be a bullshit excuse anyways. He just didn't want to deal with it. He acted compassionately towards us when we would talk to him about it, but he had zero follow-through. And this isn't all.

In the coming months, I would be verbally and physically harassed by another coworker who transferred into my store. She yelled at me most days, slandered me both to my face and behind my back. The physical part? She threw tongs at me. Yes, the cooking utensil common to most kitchens, which we use at work as a tool for getting food in and out of the oven at Starbucks. I managed to move out of the way, but it came inches from hitting my face. I told my manager about this incident the same day it happened, the instant he got in that day. But nothing came of it. He acted slightly concerned for half a minute then moved on with his day. When I told him about the slander, he said he'd deal with it. But by this time, I had learned not to believe him. So I challenged him. I asked him exactly what he was going to do. Ultimately, he stabbed me in the back and then claimed he just didn't want to take sides.

Honestly, when I started this post, I wasn't planning on sharing all of this. But there it is. Though lacking a lot of detail, that is what half of my 2019 looked like. I was distraught and barely hanging onto my sense of self. Even my academic advisor tried to help me find a therapist because I was drowning and she could see it. But all the efforts to hold onto the nonexistent life ring was to no avail.

On December 7, 2019, I attempted suicide. In all honesty, I barely remember it. The beginning is fuzzy, then nearly a whole day went by without my awareness. But what I do remember, is the pain leading up to that decision. It wasn't something I just thought of that day and went through with. It was something I had been contemplating for months by that time. Most days, I barely made it through. I had panic attacks at work and at home. I cried while I made lattes and while I wrote essays. I would cut myself during work breaks just to ease the anxiety a little bit. I dissociated so often that my manager came up with a sign to be able to ask if it was happening. My flashbacks became all too present once again, and they would come at any time of day but especially at night. I was so terrified of them coming that I wasn't sleeping because they always came when I'd go to bed. I was so sleep deprived...that I was hallucinating. I had so much anxiety that I stopped eating. At first, I just didn't have much appetite. Then...then came ANA. Some of you may know her, but to others, this may seem like a foreign term. I was anorexic. For nearly 4 months before I tried to take my life, I was eating only minimal calories and drinking coffee and diet soda to keep my appetite suppressed. I focused on being skinny because anything seemed better than focusing on my actual problems.

Now, I had support from a few people. My husband tried to be there for me, but he didn't know about ANA or my suicidal feelings. My friends at work knew I was going through stuff because of what was happening at work, but didn't know the extent of my internal struggle. Even my manager knew a lot because, at the time, we were really good friends (or so I thought). But I'm the only one that knew I wanted to kill myself...so no one was there to try to stop me. So I did it. I tried, and I think I can finally say, several months later, that I'm glad I failed. I don't know if I'll feel that way tomorrow but I do know that I feel that way more often now than I did even one month ago.

In the immediate aftermath, I had SO MANY people surround me. Friends back home were texting and at Christmas time were extra supportive, friends and mentors here visited me in the hospital and made time to see me after I got out, and even the coworkers I wasn't super close with tried to help me out and make work easier and less stressful for me. It was like the whole world wanted to be my bubble. And then it was gone. It was over as quickly as it began. (I even had one friend tell me I couldn't text him anymore, and that hurt more than you can probably imagine.) Now I know people didn't mean for it to happen that way, but that doesn't change the fact that it did. I know it doesn't mean they cared any less, but my need for support was and still is just as high.

Now fast forward to today, July 11, 2020. A lot has happened but a lot is only beginning to change. For nearly 10 months, I have wanted to kill myself most every day. I have been anxious and depressed and self-injurious and constantly exhausted and dissociated and JUST PLAIN SUICIDAL. But I'm still here.

I had to take a leave of absence from work because dealing with people all day, every day only exacerbated my symptoms. I could no longer take the rude, the overly cheery, the emotionally normal...any of it. I could no longer play the fake happy human that customer service requires. I would wake up dreading it and leave feeling exhausted and like there was no reason for me to keep living. One weekend, I spent the whole weekend contemplating suicide. All I wanted to do was die. I wanted to try again. So I did the only thing I knew I could do to stay alive; I took a leave of absence and increased the frequency of my therapy. So here I am now, about three weeks in and finally starting to heal. I'm finally starting to feel stronger. Maybe this whole experience has helped me be closer to who I want to be or maybe it was a detour I was able to learn from anyways. Either way, I am finally starting to believe I have it in me to be whole, though I don't yet know what that really looks like.

I still get depressed, and anxious. And I still have days where I feel suicidal. But it's getting less troublesome. I'm learning how to take better care of me. I'm learning what that means and what that looks like. And I'm not always optimistic about it, but I'm doing it. I'm finding reasons to be alive. I'm barely managing some days, but there are now some that I flourish

I'm no longer sinking, reaching for the life preserver that wasn't there. But I am swimming. I found a lifejacket that helps me stay afloat and I am making the strokes and kicking forward...or at least floating in place on the rough days. So I may not be good, but for now, I'm good enough.

Life with Complex PTSD

I don't hide my illnesses from the people in my life. Most people who know me know about at least one of my mental disorders. I use my own mental health issues as a platform for reducing stigma by living with it in plain view, sharing about it, and helping others to understand what mental illness is really like.

So here's a story of who I am. This time around, I'll tell you about my complex PTSD (CPTSD). I'll tell you about how I cope and when I have failed to cope well. I'll tell you about what goes on in my head at times and the terror that can overcome me without even a moment's notice.

Most days, I can get through with little or even no impairing symptoms. Part of that is due to medication and part of it is due to the skills I have learned.

I take time almost every day to thank God for the blessings in my life because I know that research has shown that practicing gratitude improves overall mood and reduces negative feelings (such as anxiety). When I begin to feel like anxiety is trying to overpower me, I use deep breathing, or progressive muscle relaxation. Progressive muscle relaxation is a technique in which you tense up one part of your body, such as your left shoulder, letting yourself really feel all the tension your body holds in just that one place, then slowly release the tension; you can repeat this in different parts of your body, as many times as you need. Recently, I have begun asking someone nearby to feel my pulse and tell me if it feels normal because I find myself feeling like it's racing and like I can't breathe, so I reach out for help. I ask a friend to get coffee or lunch bc I need to talk. I facetime friends to distract me from my own brain.

I also often cope in ways that aren't so great. In moments of sudden anxiety, I will often dig my nails (which I usually keep very long) into my skin, usually the inside of my hands but also sometimes in my arms, legs, back, or stomach. I may even carve deep scratches if the anxiety is bad enough and I am just floundering. I will also shut down emotionally, not allowing myself to care about things going on around me or tasks I am currently completing because all I can handle giving my focus to is the anxiety. It can even become so overwhelming that I dissociate, which for me means either losing my sense of self or my sense of realness. I can feel unreal, almost like someone else is controlling my body but I'm still there and I know what is happening. I can also feel like I'm in a dream, like what's happening around me is not totally real. Occasionally, I even find myself losing time, albeit only a few minutes.

But you see, I can go months without a single flashback or any re-experiencing symptoms. I can live in the present. But it never lasts. It can’t last. When life starts to get tough, my brain joins in. Every time I try to sleep, here they come. When I’m cooking dinner and something burns, here they come. When I go to church on a Sunday morning, sitting around familiar faces that only know half of me, here they come. At work, trying to help a customer who's behaving angrily towards me or even just towards the person with them or on the other end of the phone...you guessed it, here come the flashbacks. There's more to say about having this disorder than I can say in just this one blog post, so I will probably write on this again in one of my soon-coming posts.

Mental disorders is my reality. I've accepted it, even though there are days I hate it. But I'm glad I know what I know. I'm glad I can use my own experiences to help others. I hope my blog helps you. I hope you feel a little less alone knowing I'm struggling too. We're stronger together, so please join me in this journey. Please subscribe and share my blog if you feel like it benefits you. Thanks y'all!

Loving the Body I Live Inside

I started seeing a new therapist. I said something that led him to ask if I had any concerns about my relationship with food. Confidently, I said, "No." It wasn't a false confidence. I really believed my relationship with food was fine; I had never examined this area of my life closely enough to think it needed to be worked on. In fact, he wasn't even the first health professional to ask something along these lines, but I had been certain this was one area where I didn't have a problem. But for some reason, this time I couldn't get it out of my head. "Should I be concerned?" I thought. "What if I do have a problematic relationship with food? Maybe I do need to work on this." So I went back the next week, telling him that I think I was wrong about what I had said, that maybe there was a problem. I told him how much weight I had lost in the previous couple of months. See, at that time, I wasn't particularly concerned with my weight or my body overall, but I had basically stopped eating. Something about eating brought me anxiety. I only ate small amounts of food and only once or twice a day. Like a smoothie in the morning and a few chicken wings at some later point in the day- and that was a good day. Even the food I liked most didn't entice me. I even began puking when I didn't like that I ate something in particular; it made me feel gross, gave me anxiety after eating it. I was lucky enough to have a great therapist, who knew what resources were available to me, who got me connected with the resources I needed. It was a long process, several months long, learning to eat again. For the whole first semester of my senior year of college, I would have hot chocolate for dinner. I would make Mexican hot chocolate on the stove, with milk because it was one thing I knew I could tolerate and get some of the nutrients I knew I needed. This was the start of my healing journey, though not the beginning of my troubles with food or my body image.

I began struggling with my body image when I was in middle school, common I know. But what may be less common is that I started to have disordered eating at that point too. I had stretch marks, and I was one of few girls at my school who weren't basically a size 0. Girls talked garbage about other girls' bodies. My sister talked about my big butt a lot, which wasn't necessarily a positive or negative; it wasn't something a 12 or 13 year old needed to be told constantly. One of my brothers would say that every woman should be a size zero, and most of the girls he dated were at least close to that. I didn't think I was pretty. I didn't believe I could be. But I knew I could go hours without eating, and the way my life was structured at that time, I worked out three times a day, about 4-5 hours in total. Sometimes I'd skip meals, other times I'd cut out certain foods. Either way, I was constantly undernourished. But I still always felt a little overweight. I felt out of place in my small private school, and somehow no one ever noticed the pain I was in most days. This behavior stopped for a while, but resurfaced in my senior year of high school. I lost 11 lbs in about 2 months, working out most every day and limiting myself to 1300 calories. I thought I was just being healthy, getting back in shape or whatever. It wasn't until a few years later, after I started therapy and my journey to repair my eating, and was deep in studying psychology (my major), that I realized I had had an eating disorder all those times. I had had no idea. But now I do. Now, I forgive myself for all the harm this did to me. It's time for me to move on and so I am letting go, braving a new day in the skin I am finally learning to love.

I have loved and hated myself throughout the years of my life. But I'm working hard these days to love, always and only love myself, body and soul. There are still days that I wish I didn't have the stomach I have or that I want to weigh what I did when I was in middle school. But the reality? I'm a woman in a woman's body. I have curves and angles. I have a body that is meant to carry babies and be strong. I have a body that is able to take on the hurdles of life. And honestly, I need to be able to accept that. I want to be able to accept that. I want to see myself as my husband does. I want to see the most beautiful girl in the room, every time I look in the mirror, no matter who is around me. I want to know my own strength. Don't you want that too? Ladies, we are in this together, whether you're 16, 26 or 63. We all need a reminder, sometimes, that we are beautiful. So here is your reminder: You are beautiful. You are lovely. You are fearfully and wonderfully made. You are loved. You are important.

Life without eating

I have an eating disorder. I have had eating disorders multiple times over the last decade or so of my life. It started in middle school. I hated my body from the time I was 11 or 12. I have always been curvy and as such, I was thicker than the other girls. I couldn’t stand being “fat.” It was only the beginning. My self-hate had many years of growth ahead still. Even now, it’s a daily battle to stop the hate.

 The first time I had a disorder, I would refuse to eat certain foods and if other foods were unavailable, I would not eat. Some days, I wouldn’t eat until I got home after 6 in the evening, after having worked out 3 times that day. This happened a few times in middle school, but always for short periods of time because my older sister was obnoxiously good at noticing my habits. I was always active, playing sports year round and spending much of my free time riding my bike. But it made no difference. I never got any skinnier, no matter how much I avoided eating or how many calories I burned. The only thing that ever changed was my perception of myself. I looked uglier every time I glanced in the mirror. Clothes stopped looking good on me. There was even a period where I didn’t want my husband to see me naked. It didn’t matter what others told me. It only mattered what I told myself. I said I was ugly. I said I was fat. I said I couldn’t possibly be attractive. When my husband grabs me, I wince. No, he isn’t abusing me. (I’m abusing me.) It just reminds me of my “problem areas” which is like every area, or so I’ve thought.
I have been literally, physically repulsed by food because it would only lead me to thinking about how fat I am and how good has made me that way. If I felt uneasy after eating, I’d make myself throw up right after. That was one of my eating disorders. I had to find a way to make myself get some kind of nutrients. I made myself Mexican hot chocolate on the stove every night one semester and called that dinner. It was the only way I knew I could get myself some protein and other stuff that milk is good for. This may have been the longest lasting disorder, and after I beat it, it came back again and again. It is the first time I recognized that my relationship with food was unhealthy. I’d had multiple therapists ask but I’d thought food and I were fine. I’d done such a good job of lying to myself that I really truly believed it. This wasn’t the first disorder and it wouldn’t be the last.

This was an early point in my journey. I was only just beginning to see that I saw myself as a problem. I have always carried myself confidently, and it convinces not only myself but also everyone around me that I love me. But it’s a lie. I have hated my guts since I was a kid. Adolescence made it worse, and the life inside my head only found reasons to continue to destroy myself. Even now, at 25, I struggle with counting my calories and restricting and purging (with or without a binge) and criticizing my reflection and deciding not to go to events because I feel THAT self-conscious in every single outfit I pick out and crying because of it all.