the Unexpected Path

 

When I was younger, I thought my life was going to be a certain way. 

I thought that I was going to be a writer, and my first book was going to be a book of letters written by a young girl my age, who lived on a farm with her siblings like me, whose father was away at war, who she was writing to (not like me). 

But then life gave me my first twist. 

School was always a struggle with me, and the older I got, the harder it got. Math would send me into wailing rages filled with anxiety. I wasn't even reading on my own till I was 11 years old, and it took me longer to get these simple tasks done. 

I am beyond grateful that my mom chose to homeschool me and my older siblings. This meant that I had the space to learn at my own pace and to also work with my mom one-on-one, but despite all the help I was getting, I still had Sunday school teachers who would come up to my mom, concerned that I wasn't reading. 

But my mom wasn't worried, she put up with my outbursts and patiently worked with me until one day I put two and two together, and read a whole chapter on my own. The best part was her joy at my success, that she never gave up hope that I would begin to read when I was ready, and when I read her my first paragraph of a story I had decided to write down, she cried. 

But math was still the bane of my existence, and spoiler alert, it still is. 

At 13, another homeschool mom recommended the book, Upside-Down Brilliance: The Visual-Spatial Learner by Linda Silverman, which practically saved my schooling experience. Doctor Silverman had built a testing center, and at 16, through the generosity of my grandfather, setting aside an investment fund he had started for me at my birth, I was able to be evaluated. 

Turns out I am very smart with severe learning disabilities. On paper, I look average, but the truth is I struggle with a lot. My brain does not work the way yours does, and so I need extra help to get through life. 

I was also diagnosed with Sensory Processing Disorder, which includes Auditory Processing Disorder and Vision Processing Disorder. The brain is supposed to sort the senses taken in by my body, but everything is out of whack, so the brain does not process the information as it should. Thus, I still had meltdowns at 17 like a toddler.  Life was simply too overwhelming, and so I had to learn skills and go to therapy to help me cope. 

All through my younger years, I thought I was stupid because it took me so long to get through schoolwork, and I struggled so much to grasp the simplest math problems. 

But the first thing Linda Silverman told my mother and me at the end of the testing was that I didn't need to finish high school, but I should go straight to college. She said that I needed to know just how smart I was, and she told me that I would be able to study anything I wanted to; it just may take me a little longer. 

I sat in that office grasping my mother's hand, my head ringing with, I'm not stupid, I'm not stupid, I'm not stupid!

I still graduated when I was 20 years old, on a very stormy and rainy day. I was in total meltdown by the end of the day, mostly in relief that I was finally done. I had taken two college classes, attended an online nutrition school, and completed three months of a Bible gap program. 

I was enrolled in college that summer, and started the fall of 2017, and I was so excited to finally fly the nest. 

But this is when the second biggest twist of my life happened. 

Within the first week of orientation, I threw up one day. And then I started having panic attacks so bad that I wasn't sleeping, I was throwing up more, and one night it got so bad that I collapsed on the floor. My mom was coming to campus multiple times a week so that I could start taking anxiety medications, which the school nurse wanted me to be monitored since it was my first time taking pharmaceuticals. She would sleep on an extra mattress on the floor, trying to help me get to a place where I felt like I could succeed. I loved the classes I was taking, and I was loving getting to know the girls on my dorm floor. I had so much support, both from the college campus, the church I was attending, and my siblings. But I was barely hanging on, and one tearful night on the eve of my 21st birthday, I made the decision that it was time to go home. 

School was hard enough. I knew that it was going to be a challenge and was going to be super hard with all of my learning disabilities I already had. But trying to maintain regular school stress on top of a mental breakdown just wasn't going to work, and I knew that my going home and dealing with what was happening with my brain was what was best for me at that moment. 

But I was crushed, and I felt like the worst kind of failure. 

I didn't know that I was going to be living in mental illness hell, though. 

From 2017 to 2023, my mind was not my own. Around 2018 or 2019, I was diagnosed with rapid cycling bipolar, which meant that every five days, I was going from wanting to end my life to being manic, and having almost completely out-of-control impulses. If my sensory processing disorder were a roller coaster, my bipolar disorder was worse. 

I almost had freedom. I had gotten a taste of it in school, but all of a sudden, everything was ripped away, and I had to deal with the mess that my life had become. My dear family was in protective mode, and so the freedom I craved to make my own decisions and manage my life the way I saw fit was practically non-existent, and the days when I was manic, I turned into a hurtful, vengeful beast that lashed out at my mom, who was only trying to keep me safe. 

In the end, I ended up in the psych hospital after one night, deciding that running from home was my best option, and walking fifteen miles in the dead of night. 

It took a second stay in a different hospitable before I finally got the help that I needed, and since then, praise God, I am now free. The doctors found me the right medication that has freed my mind, leveled it, and brought me back to life, which means I am thinking clearly again. 

But the road goes on and on, and has many twists and turns, and the latest one has left a gaping hole in my heart. 

My mother died. 

One day she was alive, and the next moment she was not. 

She died in her home state of Texas, and I didn't even have the chance to tell her goodbye because I wasn't with her when she passed. No one was, and so I had to deal with grief and a loss I thought I wouldn't have to deal with until I was an old lady. 

Everything about it was so unfair, and my first thought was that I would have killed God if I could have for taking her from me. 

My mother was my rock, and I couldn't imagine doing life without her. I still can't believe that I am doing life without her today, though it's been almost two years since her passing. 

Here is the truth, though. 

God is still faithful. 

He took my mother to be with him right when it was her time, and right when it was the right time for me. 

My mother's life and my life were never out of God's control, and He loves me so immensely more than my mom ever could or ever did. 

I know this because we had a conversation about it. I was outside on a chilly day and I asked Jesus why he took her when he did. he told me that I had been relying on my mom my whole life, I idolized her despite all the times she drove me nuts or I felt like she was too overbearing, but it was time to rely on him, to stand on Him and to have Him as my rock. 

It was for my good that He took my mom away, and so I have been learning to walk this life not reliant on another human being, but reliant on Him. 

Only Jesus can feel the void left behind from brokenness, loss, loneliness, and grief. 

It has not been easy, this road I have been traveling. I have fallen down many times, been caught in briars, my feet are worn, and I have a lot of scars. But God has promised me in His Word that His grace is sufficient for me, and I tell you that the journey through life is full of his grace. It has held me and bound me up, and by his mercies I am able to get back up, knock the dust off my britches, and begin walking again. 

I welcome you to come walk along with me for a time.