Black holes, mush, the vortex & the meadow

The year 2024 was A BLACK HOLE. It was nothingness. It was when all the anxiety and depression that I'd pushed down and made go away with medication or sheer determination for 30 years came shooting out of me sideways. I fell, headfirst, into a very, very dark HOLE.

I picture life like this:

For those people who are not plagued by depression and anxiety, their life is a beautiful green meadow. Rows and rows of wildflowers and willow trees and just all the things that a beautiful meadow is in your dreams spread across the landscape of their life. The sky is blue. There are puffy clouds. Birds are chirping and the temperature is a perfect 72 degrees. Can you picture the meadow?

I'm not naive enough to think that their life always looks like that, of course. But for the most part, even when hard things happen, that meadow is always in sight. They might face incredible challenges, but because their body is living in the harmony God intended, they repeatedly return to the meadow.

Everyone is born in the meadow. But some people, whether it be because of genetics or life circumstances or trauma, wander (or are violently yanked!) away from the meadow. Some of these people lose sight of the meadow when they are a very young child as an unfair childhood knocks them down before they can even really enjoy the meadow. For others, the meadow gets progressively farther and farther from their view as they age and their trauma piles up around them. 

Once you get far enough away from the meadow, the landscape actually begins to get very marshy. And once you wade through that marsh for long enough, you can eventually reach a BLACK HOLE. 

In 2024, I fell into the HOLE. 

The HOLE isn't as bad as hell, but for those of us on Earth, it is about as bad as it can get. No one can understand how bad the HOLE feels unless you are lying at the bottom of it. It's so deep, you can't even see the light. You are devoured by depression and anxiety and can't even fathom that it is possible to not be in the HOLE forever. 

Nice people outside of the HOLE will try to offer bits of encouragement about "just trust God" or "pray a little harder" but when you are in the HOLE you have trouble even breathing. And breathing becomes your prayer.

I had to sit in HOLE. I had to lie on the floor of my bedroom begging God to save me from that HOLE, and if he wouldn't, then please let the HOLE swallow me because the blackness was way too black for me to stay in it for very long. I wanted to die. I dreamed of dying.

The year 2024 was gut-wrenching sobs. It was hanging on for dear life. It was being unable to care for my children. It was struggling to even get in the shower on any given day. I pleaded with God to end the misery. Why was He letting me be in this HOLE? Rescue me Jesus!

He did. 

While I was down there, he brought a few truth-tellers into my life. These are people who had previously been in the HOLE or people who just genuinely have a compassion and have learned how to help people in the HOLE. For me it was a Christian Counselor. It was a Cousin who had lived in the HOLE for longer than anyone should humanly be able to. These humans actually have special super powers that allow them to join you in the HOLE but not be affected by it. Since it is your HOLE and not their HOLE, they can lay on the floor next to you and rub your back and remind you of truth: 

Jesus loves you. You won't stay here. This is temporary. Hang on. It won't like this be forever. There is an end to this misery. The pain is unbearable. Hang on. I am here with you. I will remind you everyday of the truth that you can't see because you are so deep in the HOLE. 

I never, ever, ever want to face that HOLE again. 

And truly, I don't believe I will. Because I have laid on the bottom of that HOLE and looked up at the sky I know is there but cannot see, and I have looked my sadness directly in the face and learned where it came from and why it was there and with God holding me up and some amazing supporters cheering me on, I slowly began the long climb out of that pit of despair. 

I know the path now. So if I ever start slipping again, I believe the fall won't be quite as great. 

The climb took me about eight months. It's tough climbing out of a HOLE because you slip a lot. I'd be twelve or thirteen steps up the side of the HOLE and suddenly a storm would start brewing, and I'd slip. Sometimes I'd slip almost to where I had started from. I'd have to take a break and take a nap and talk to my truth-tellers and to Jesus and remind myself of the truth all over again before getting the energy to begin climbing again. Slipping was disheartening. Lies like this would begin to swirl:

You are a failure. You won't ever be able to get out of this HOLE for good. Can you imagine what people think of you right now? You aren't strong enough. You are too broken. You are no good. Give up now.

But with the truth-tellers and Jesus whispering in my ear, I'd find the courage to climb again. 

I've been out of the HOLE since July. Oh, to be up on the side of the HOLE! I have been doing so well in my journey that I actually get to visit the meadow quite often. I mostly live in the meadow now. It's so beautiful. It makes me think of heaven. How wonderful heaven will be. 

In between the HOLE and the meadow is marsh where I lived for most of my life. Some days, my feet kind of sink down into the marsh. I don't like the way that marsh feels. It is hard to believe that prior to my fall into the whole I lived in that marsh. How did I not understand how to get out of the marsh and go frolic in the meadow? But the marsh was all I knew. So I accepted it. It wasn't a meadow, but it wasn't a HOLE so it at least felt ... reasonable.

The marsh is the anxiety and worry that was part of everyday of my life for as long as I could remember. Many of you know what that feels like. It is all-encompassing. It is devouring. It is exhausting. 

The content of the marsh is different for everyone. Some of you, like me, have a marsh mixture that felt like this: 

They don't like you. You aren't good enough. You are a failure. See that look on her face? She is disappointed in you. He doesn't want to be your friend anymore. They will forget about you. They meant to leave you out. You will never change. People will always dislike you. You frustrate everyone. You are too loud. You are too big. You are too much. You are too dramatic. Tone it down. Be less. They will like you more if you act like you are supposed to. Be what they tell you to be. 

That is my marsh. My marsh always involves people. I am not pleasing them. I'm not good enough. Someone is going to get mad at me. Someone won't like me. Or someone won't like one of my children.

And the truth is, I had lived in that marsh for so long, I didn't even know it wasn't normal to live like that. I kinda thought everyone lived in marsh. 

Your marsh may surround health. I have three friends in this marsh. Their marsh feels like this: 

You are going to die. Feel that thing in your stomach? It's cancer. That numbness is a sign. You have MS. You are going to get ALS. You will die of Parkinson's. They are going to find a tumor on the ultrasound. Your headache is a brain tumor. You are going to die soon. You are going to be a burden to those you love. It's just a matter of time. 

Can you feel what that marsh feels like? How incredibly devouring and exhausting it is? Whether it is a fear of man or a fear of death or a fear of some other "something", the facts remain the same: you are in a prison. 

For me, however, when I fell in that HOLE, all I wanted was to climb out and live in the mush again. Just let me get back to that prison. At least it was a prison I knew. It felt so much better than the HOLE. 

The problem with the marsh is that you can feel comfortable in the marsh. You can decide to stay there. Because at least you aren't in the HOLE. 

There's one other location in this illustrated world that I want to mention. That location is the VoRtEx. Now the VoRtEx exists on the side of the HOLE. It's at the very top like sort of begins. You aren't even close to falling in the HOLE. You have your feet on solid ground. But the ground is still a little like marsh so sometimes it doesn't feel too solid.

It's in the VoRtEx that the old lies and the old way of thinking try to overtake you. Sometimes you are only there for a few minutes. Sometimes it is hours or days or even weeks. It's a place where the old familiar thoughts try to take over and you have to fight and pray hard to tell them that they are no longer in line with your new way of thinking. 

In my case, I have to basically get my mind to start saying something like this: 

You aren't who you were. The approval of man doesn't define you anymore. You've seen the beautiful grass. You aren't going to stay here. What he thinks of you is not truth. Your worth is in Christ. Jesus is your definition. The approval of man isn't what matters to you. 

Sometimes, if the VoRtEx is especially frustrating, I may have to call on my truth-tellers again to remind me of the truth. But each time I fall back into the VoRtEx it seems to be easier to find my way out. I am starting to recognize the patterns. 

I write this piece for any of you out there living in any combination of VoRtEx or marsh or BLACK HOLE. I hope you could see yourself in something I wrote and you can feel in my words that: 

YOU ARE NOT ALONE!

and

YOU WILL NOT STAY HERE!

This need a combination of things. You need truth-tellers. You need Jesus. You need prayer. You may need counseling and you may even need medication. Don't go through this alone. Reach out! 

The meadow is waiting for you.