The first time I remember ever feeling depressed, I was in high school. It lasted briefly -- off and on for a few weeks -- and then dissipated.
The next time I faced this demon was after the birth of our son, Elijah "Sidge". I had two boys under nine months apart. The depression did not take hold very significantly at this point. However, the anxiety of trying to please people was kicking into full-gear.
And then after my daughter Abigail was born, I fell into a pretty deep pit. It started as what was just some "Baby Blues" but quickly morphed into a longer battle. We were in Turkey at the time, and I saw a counselor and used Zoloft to combat the PPD.
Again things went dormant. Until my last pregnancy with my daughter Hannah. We aren't sure exactly why, but this pregnancy was totally different than the others. By the time we did our IVF transfer, I was deep in a depression. In hindsight, we shouldn't have gone through with the procedure. I should have gotten healthy. But, I didn't, and I spent her entire pregnancy plagued by anxiety, panic attacks, depression, and intense nausea. It was ... HELL. Honestly.
John and I worried that following her birth, the PPD would be even worse than it was with Abigail's emergence into the world. But in God's mercy, it was not. Nearly the moment that Hannah was born, the depression and sickness left, and I was able to enjoy our last year in the Azores with four children.
Around 2018? (I'm not really sure what year but I think it was close to this), I ended up going back on Zoloft again. This time it was intense anxiety that was dominating my thinking.
Anxiety is hard to explain to people that haven't felt it. It seems like something you can just snap your fingers and "get out of it." It seems like you can just ask God to clear your mind. But it doesn't work that way. The anxiety is intense, all-consuming, and often "fanatical" in nature. In my case, the anxiety always centered around something someone said to me or what they thought of me. It always had to do with people-judgment.
Medication again. Anxiety gone again. Back onward and upward with my life.
That's what I wish I would have understood. My husband was brilliant at dealing with panic attacks and anxiety and depression after years as a military doctor and now on the front line of people "thinking they were dying" with anxiety as they came into the Emergency Room. But neither of us understood that the anxiety I was experiencing had a ROOT CAUSE.
Until 2024.
It was actually in October of 2023 that, in search of help with my plaguing migraines, I went off all medicines -- specifically the Zoloft that I had been on for years.
I really thought that I would be okay. I had grown-up a lot. I understood a lot more about myself as a people-pleaser. I could fix this.
Wrong. So, so wrong.
By early February, we made the decision for me to go back on Zoloft again. Of course, this doesn't kick-in right away, and I was on a struggle bus with my anxiety.
And this is where I see God all over my story. So many pieces had to come into play at the same time for me to get to the root of what was happening to me inside my brain. Inside my body.
It begin with me reaching out to Kim. Kim actually was Elijah's counselor for a brief time when we had returned to America. Elijah had faced some challenges in reintegrating back into American life. The stress of the move had broken him down a bit. And Kim helped us get to the bottom of what was going on with him.
When we moved away from Kim in Spring Hill/Nashville and settled on the farm in East TN, we stayed in touch with Kim. And when the Pandemic rocked our world (and especially my husband as a front-line worker), I reached out to Kim for some help in the stress of that event.
And now, it's 2024. Pandemic is over. But Wendi was struggling. So I sent Kim a message and asked if I could do a chat with her. She was actually on vacation but agreed to meet with me online.
John was there for that call. And Kim nearly instantly "diagnosed" the problem. This was people-pleasing that I could not control. This had been hard-wired into my neural pathways -- either genetically or environmentally.
And that meant it could be rewired.
I wasn't sure what any of this meant ... exactly. But Kim discussed EMDR with both of us, and primarily with JB. At some point, I will do more discussion on what EMDR is exactly, but for now, let me say, that it's a way to help patients dealing with trauma (think PTSD).
Of course, this seemed extreme for me. I hadn't faced any trauma. I don't know if this was too drastic? But, I decided to move forward.
First, however, we had an amazing trip to Costa Rica scheduled at the end of February. I kept taking my Zoloft and went on the trip. I managed to keep my anxiety "hidden" from everyone except John and my friend Meredith, but inside, I was a tangled mess of anxiety. It was awful. And quite honestly, pushing myself through that trip, probably played into what happened when I reintegrated back into life.
We arrived home on a Sunday. Early on Monday, I was at my big homeschool co-op for our Mondays. I was on the Board of Heritage Home Scholars, but with my anxiety flaring like a mad-woman, suddenly I found every single possible conflict with people feeling like I was going to be shot. I'd rather have faced a bear in the woods than any possibility of conflict with a person.
By the end of the day Monday, the breakdown had begun. I ended up sobbing in a Sunday School room with my friend Meredith (a mental health PA coincidentally ... or not so coincidentally.) I made an immediate decision to take a leave-of-absence from the Board. However, within a week, I made the decision to step off permanently. The anxiety inside of me had become so deafening, I was losing the ability to function in "normal" situations.
And that is important to note. I wasn't even facing any monumental situations with homeschool or with friendships or life that would evoke such a visceral reaction. These were tiny things that Wendi, medicated, would have zipped through with relative ease.
And that's another part of my story. The fact that I zipped through everything relatively easily. I took on so much. Emotionally. Physically. Mentally. And just did it. Did it. Did it. Did the next thing. I will expand on this facet of my journey in posts that I will do in the future, but for now, I want to share that all of this had been brewing for years. Decades maybe.
Only I had no idea it was brewing at all.
By early March, the anxiety I had been feverishly try to put back to sleep, had morphed into a depression. I am really not sure which of these beasts is worse: feeling so anxious you can't eat or sleep or being so sad that you can't eat or sleep. They both SUCK. They both defeat you. They both ruin any attempt at enjoying life. Terrible. Awful. I would not wish them on my worst enemy. Honestly.
I also could now connect with Kim as we were both home from our vacations. And we did. And we started EMDR. And I quickly realized that this people-pleasing was something I had learned. I had somehow, as a child, begun to see that I could only be "okay" if everyone else was "okay." My brain actually interpreted conflicts as REAL THREATS. My wiring was faulty. It was broken.
And this meant that without good therapy, I probably would NOT be able to change this. Sure, books and effort and prayer and Jesus could help me. But it didn't matter how many times someone said to me, "Wendi, just don't worry what people think." I could not STOP the worry that would overcome me during those times.
But here I was, completely and utterly destroyed to the very core of my being. I was losing weight rapidly. I couldn't eat. Could barely get out of bed. Could barely function. I usually managed to move my kids from thing to thing, but it was painful to do so. Every day felt like it was 10,000 hours long. I would wake up the next day only to dread having to face another day. Anxiety and depression robs you of life.
I have no misunderstandings about what drives a person to kill themselves. I totally get what drives them to do so. It is that dark in that valley. It's terrible. Without Jesus? I have no idea how people survive. Truly, the thing I clung to the most in the darkest weeks was: "I will never allow my children to grieve as hard as I am grieving right now. I will take this pain for them." I had to live. That's all there was to it. There was no other option.
I also have an understanding of why people kill their children and then themselves. In those darkest moments, there is a part of you that says: "I don't want to hurt. But I don't want them to hurt. This world is pointless. You just move from one grief to another. What is the point? Will I just finish grieving with this depression and then have to get up and do this again with another loss in my life?"
In the course of all of this occurring, one of my dear friends, Tammy, lost her husband in a tragic and unexpected water accident while out of the country. This didn't help matters of course and only added to my "What is the point of this life?" feelings. Life was so hard. So so hard. So painful. All there was was pain,
Of course, that wasn't true. That isn't true. But that's what depression does. It lies to you. It tells you things that are not true. And you can't stop them from speaking. I could have a good day and know all the things. And then the next day, I couldn't remember ANY of those things.
But, and here is where God is so crazy cool. He gave me JUST THE COMBINATION of people and support I needed to navigate through the crap that was threatening to kill me. My cousin Cara, who battled a similar journey for many more years than I could dream of, decided to walk through this CLOSELY with me. My Aunts. Friends. Family. I had a team. And I reached OUT.
And now, here I am. It's May 8th, and I have spent the last week feeling like Wendi. The last two days, I started eating again without forcing myself to do so. I know if I am not careful, the silver lining to this whole journey (my loss of 45 pounds) will go down the drain. I'd like to not put all of that back on. But man, you miss loving food. When food is a chore, that isn't much fun.
Anyways ... this is just Part 1. I will continue this story soon with more of what I have learned and am learning and will continue to learn. This will end up being one of the best things that ever happened to me. I know it.
