I thought a sneak peek into how this whole thing got cooked up was necessary. This is one of those "If you didn't know" sort of things.
So, the moving out process is over and done with. I’d say I am sitting pretty these days, gazing across the vast landscape of summer vacation and all the freedom it brings. Family time is abundant, seeing old friends is prevalent, and most of all, time is laid out in front of me like a steak on a silver platter. In this first week of my prolonged break, I’ve had a substantial amount of time to sit and think about the milestone chunk of road that is now behind me. Questions concerning where I am now have been multiplying in my thoughts recently, especially the question of “How did I get here?”
The beginning of high school is a complete blur nowadays; life was like landscape zooming by outside a train car window back then. But what I realize now is that who I am was just a block of cold clay in those days, and the molding was only just getting started. It was Freshman year of high school that my anxiety started clawing its way to power, seizing my identity and forcing its way to the center of my being. I slowly reached the point of viewing everyone and everything around me through fear’s eyes instead of my own. God’s help wasn’t even in consideration for candidates to pull me out of the hole I quickly found myself mired in. He was just a distant entity then, a faint force in the sky that wouldn’t dare to waste His time on some kid and his personal issues.
Day by day, school became associated with dread that year. I had already thrown away many parts of who I was up to that time – most significantly, my love for drama, music, and entertaining people that defined a solid chunk of my childhood. Things that were unacceptable in the eyes of a mental disorder became my rules to live by. I essentially became a zombie, or walking dead, as it was not the real me walking the halls of my school, but fear itself. Life became merely playing host to anxiety that Satan only intensified, constantly reminding me of my position as a person – out of the way where no one would have to deal with me. Prayers for the day (if any) consisted of begging God for the teacher not to call on me, that my hands would stop sweating, and that I could walk down the hall and not wonder what awful things people were thinking about me. As high school raged on I would only drill deeper into the hole I had dug, further separating myself from most everyone, including the God that I hardly acknowledged anyway.
Today, one of my daily praises is for my immediate group of friends that kept me from losing complete control of myself back then. My one form of security was in their hands – it felt like their friendship was the one thing I had going for me. They are all probably unaware of this, but during that time I held onto them with a vice grip as if I was attempting to ice skate for the first time. Their approval was my totem; the consistent symbol that I had not been completely rejected. As I grew more and more dependent on those seven guys, those outside my circle of trust became my opposition. A false perception quickly formed; one that had everyone I didn’t hang out with on a regular basis out to get me, as if their one goal was to leave me completely embarrassed and humiliated.
Quite sadly, the day I realized the irrationality of all this didn’t come until the middle of my monumental senior year. After the first semester had passed I was in a dark place, convinced it was depression that I had stumbled upon just a few years before. Realizing that the “chapter ending” year was halfway over and that I had wasted it was hurtful. College was looming just down the road and I hadn’t completed any of the goals I wanted to complete for my last year of high school. For the first time in a long time I felt a fire deep down inside of me that was overwhelmingly clear – the desire to fight the fear that was ruining my life.
I decided to finally sit down with my mother and go over what had destroyed my spirit for so long. For a while I thought all teenagers felt awkward and rejected like that; that it was just something all adolescents had to go through to be “mature.” After hearing of the simple tasks that I saw as dreadful, my mother explained to me that it wasn’t something seen everyday. I was dealing with something much more serious than teenage awkwardness, and that I couldn’t fight this battle on my own.
Thinking on the idea that something was wrong with me was degrading – I felt like a crazy person without any credibility. I also found explaining my symptoms in detail to my doctor I had been seeing for a while particularly unsettling, but he agreed that I needed assistance. He suggested a certain anti-depressant medication that would increase my level of serotonin, the neurotransmitter linked directly with feelings of well-being. What is cool about the day that I sought help was that God was right there waiting to open the door to recovery the whole time. It was like I was in a hall of mirrors, looking for a way out. All I could see was myself in every direction; I had become obsessed with having pity on myself, and I didn’t realize that the only way to freedom was the one that didn’t revolve around me.
In just weeks time I felt like a new person. God was good, people were good, and senior year was good. Although I had been going to school with the same hundreds of kids for almost five years, it was like I was seeing them for the first time. Every conversation was a monumental one, and every stroll down a hall full of kids was a new experience. The world was different – a good different. I made a great effort to get to know as many new people as I could in the time that I had left; I even forced myself to talk in front of the high school in our senior chapel about not letting fear hold you back (I was nauseas for three days before I spoke). Everything was in perspective then, but what I didn’t know was that I had only won a battle that was part of a war. I had scratched the surface for sure, but things went way deeper.
Grace and Peace,
J. S. Wade
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