Never Give Up

I know what it's like to want to give up. To feel completely hopeless, like nothing will ever get better. Like the darkness will never turn into light. Like there is no strength left to fight with.

I was there, with the pills in my hand, in 2005. The thoughts (lies) going through my head were, "My family will be better off without me. My babies deserve a better mom. My husband will get over the loss of me and find someone new... someone without so much baggage."

Two years earlier, in 2003, I gave birth to my second daughter, Jordan. The entire experience, beginning with the epidural, was traumatizing. The anesthesiologist hit a nerve in my spine, but despite my crying out, he refused the possibility that he had done it incorrectly. I pleaded through excruciating pain to check it, but only after my husband raised his voice did the anesthesiologist return.

"Oh," he said, and redid the procedure.

So many things should have happened differently. I wasn't informed when the OB decided to waver from my birth plan and not give me a full epidural. I wasn't heard when the pain of back labor overtook me, and I wasn't comforted when the pain was too much to bear.

I had no control, no voice, nor any power during that entire birth experience. I was helpless, especially when they sent my husband away from me during the delivery because I wasn't pushing the way I needed to.

I was too traumatized. What should have been a joyous experience with my husband became a terrifying ordeal that emptied me of all my will, joy, and presence.

It's no surprise that, following the birth of my precious girl, the symptoms of PTSD and depression began. But the childbirth trauma was just the trigger for the uprising of a deeper darkness: a past of childhood sexual abuse.

I did not know what a flashback was, so imagine my shock when I began hallucinating violence in front of me, or suddenly relived an assault from my childhood in my mind. How do you explain that to your family without fear of them thinking you've gone crazy? I certainly thought I had, and the fear of getting locked up in a psych ward kept me from talking about what was going on.

I had a brand new baby, and my already sleepless nights were consumed with violent nightmares when I did sleep. I remember staying awake as long as possible, hoping the sheer exhaustion would somehow help me sleep deeper, without nightmares.

My family grew concerned about my depression, as that was more difficult to hide. I tried to keep pushing through, and for several more months, I did my best to manage my secret pain on my own, but eventually, I realized it was bigger than me.

To my great relief, the doctor did not send me to a psych ward, and she diagnosed me with Complex PTSD. It helped to know there was a name for the horrors I kept experiencing in my mind. The downside was that my body rejected every medication that may have helped me manage my symptoms better.

My doctor also insisted that I seek therapy, or else she would send me to a psych ward. Over the next several months, I was rejected by EIGHT different therapists. Each of them told me, in a sense, that my issues were too much for them to handle. Of course, I took that personally, and their words only intensified the feelings of shame, pain, and inadequacy I already harbored.

It didn't help to read online at the time that there was "no cure for PTSD."

For the next year, as symptoms worsened and persisted, so did my feelings of hopelessness. There's no way out of this, I thought. Nothing will change. I will never get better. I can't be a mom or a wife. I can barely take care of myself, let alone two girls and my husband. I am not strong enough to do this. I can't do this. There's no way out.

I didn't realize then that I needed to get my eyes off myself and find something to fight for.

Then, I got three miracles.

Miracle #1 was finally finding a therapist in 2004 who welcomed me in (but help was too slow at first).

Miracle #2 was that the instant before I tossed those pills into my mouth at 1:00 am, my cell phone rang, jolting me and the pills across the couch. My best friend on the other end said God had nudged her to come and see me. She felt an urgency in her spirit that I needed help, and she was sitting right outside in her van.

Miracle #3 was that during a therapist-ordered stay at her house, at 3:00 am one depressed, sleepless night, I turned on the TV and found a Christian speaker named Joyce Meyer looking right at me saying, "Jesus died for you—do you know how much He suffered on that cross? I mean, unbelievable agonies that we cannot even imagine. And He didn't do it out of some obligation; He did it for us because He loves us that much. And if He could do that for us, how insulting is it for us to hate ourselves, reject ourselves, be against ourselves, and only think about everything that's wrong with us all the time? There's not one of you that would like your children to feel like that."

My children... I thought of my two girls, sleeping in their beds at home, and in that moment I had clarity. I pictured Mike with the two of them, in the wake of my fatal choice, and saw only devastation. I saw all of them darkened by the selfishness of my actions. I saw my daughters' day-to-day existing with the heaviness of the knowledge that their Mama had given up. And what would that teach them? That giving up is the answer. That life is not worth fighting for. That they were not worth fighting for.

I saw them in the future, living with that belief and the empty spaces I had left behind. And a profound realization crept in that if I gave up, the chain of abuse would remain unbroken. I know well that abuse passes down from generation to generation until someone digs their feet into the harrowing muck and pays the price of healing. If I didn't do it, it may be one of them. The thought of Lacey or Jordan enduring even one act of abuse, or the destructive PTSD that I now lived with, choked the breath out of me.

I wept uncontrollably over what I had almost done to my family. I didn't suddenly feel worthy or capable of the fight ahead, but I knew I had to try. I had to give it everything I had.

That was 19 years ago.

Here's what I would have missed out on:

• Experiencing the powerful transformation that can happen when you take 100% ownership of yourself, your choices, and your journey;

• Strength and new power from facing my past trauma;

• The year my nightmares and flashbacks subsided after doing so;

• Finding purpose through my pain and becoming a certified life coach in 2013 (not easy with PTSD);

• Leading a PTSD support group soon after at my daughters' middle school library;

• The enormous, fierce bond that formed between me, my husband, and our girls because I fought the battle with them, rather than on my own. I talked openly about the struggle I was going through in age-appropriate words. My authenticity taught them resilience, strength, and the value of perseverance;

• Creating a community called The Do Brave Society to help others live courageously and heal from trauma;

• Going from being terrified on-camera to comfortable and relaxed;

• Creating a 1-year trauma-healing program, The Brave Journey, and seeing lives forever changed by the participants' courage, strength, and vulnerability;

• Both of my girls graduating high school after pushing through their own battles and never giving up;

• Seeing my girls grow up into beautiful, amazing women with contagious personalities and abilities to love beyond words, flourishing with their unique, artistic gifts, and shining light into this world;

• My oldest daughter, Lacey, marrying the love of her life, and asking me to officiate their wedding;

• On August 2nd of this year, the gift of standing next to Lacey and her husband, James, as she gave birth to twins. I'm a grandma!!

• And today, August 24th, feeling the abundant joy of Lacey and James taking their babies home for the first time after 3 weeks in the NICU.

• The joy of being married to Mike - my very best friend - for more than 25 years. C-PTSD challenged our relationship in every way, but we laugh, love, and live with faith and optimism every day. I'm the luckiest girl!

After I made that emotional decision to fight C-PTSD in 2005, positive change was microscopic and sometimes seemed nonexistent, but I was changing on the inside first. Over time, outer changes became more apparent.

Transformation is slow; it requires the utmost patience!

The journey was brutally painful at times, but hundreds of small breakthroughs along the way kept me going, and my beautiful family never gave up on me. The pain of healing was, without a doubt, worth it. I am so grateful to be here. Never again, have I thought of quitting. I cherish life, I cherish the struggle, and I cherish God and my family.

No matter what you're going through, IT CAN GET BETTER. I started this blog and podcast to share my journey, how I made it through, and what it takes to heal. I'd love for you to follow along! Subscribe below for updates!