Mental Health

Courage is Facing the Horror

But you do not face it alone.

The mountain of soggy tissues on the couch was evidence of how hard I cried that night.

I sat there saturating tissue after tissue after tissue with my snot and tears, saying over and over again: I can’t do this, I can’t do this, I can’t do this.

Tears are the best make-up remover, so at least I didn’t have to wash my face before bed. Good thing, because that violent cry took every ounce of energy I didn’t have.

Before I cried, I got angry.

Angry at my son for things he cannot help. Angry at what OCD has stolen from us. Angry at myself for accommodating too much, for not seeking help sooner, for not finding the right help yet, for not doing some unnamed thing in the past that would have prevented all this pain.

I unleashed a yell from the depths of my belly that felt 25% satisfying and 75% terrifying, like the crunch of an unwelcome insect through a twice-folded paper towel.

As on each one of the rare occasions that I have allowed myself to yell, remorse swiftly followed, and with it came torrents of tears. Barely able to see the phone, I somehow managed to text my husband at work: please pray, I can’t do this anymore. Then I texted a close group of friends: I need a miracle. I need the Red Sea parted, the blind man healed, the water turned into wine, the bush to burn but not be consumed, Lazarus raised from the dead.

One of those friends responded with a link to her recent painting.

I stared down at the phone. This adorable, glowing lion was smiling up at me, admonishing me to “Be strong and courageous.” I pushed aside my first thought — I don’t have time for cute right now — and clicked the link.

My insightful and talented friend included this Eleanor Roosevelt quote in the description of the painting:

“You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, ‘I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.’ You must do the thing you think you cannot do.”

My memory of the rest of that night is vague.

I know that I left the pile of tissues on the couch, didn’t wash my face, and cried more when my husband got home from his Friday night Uber run.

I didn’t have the mental energy to receive the wisdom my friend passed on. I went to bed still feeling hopeless and added that night to the list of moments of despair I’ve experienced in the last couple of years.

In my darkest moments, I want to run away — if not forever, at least for a little while.

I ask God to rescue me, to make it stop, to miraculously remove this burden and make my life what I want it to be. If can’t run away, and if God doesn’t choose to rescue me, I’ll just close in on myself and try to hide in the bottom of a dark hole like Alex in Netflix’s Maid.

I don’t remember when I went back to really look at the painting and its description. When I did, there was that lion, and there was Eleanor Roosevelt telling me to stand up, to turn around, to open my eyes and see the horror I have been through.

Horror feels like too strong of a word.

There are much more horrible things in the world than what I’ve lived through, much more horrible things that people are living through right now. Systemic racism. Sex trafficking. Natural disasters. Starvation. Cancer. War. Car accidents. Mass shootings every day.

So I don’t know if I’m allowed to say this without discounting all those horrors, but here goes.

Being a parent of a mentally ill child is a horror. And I’ve lived through it.

If I was strong enough to live through yesterday, then I am strong enough to live through today. And tomorrow. And the day after that.

My friends sometimes say to me, “I don’t know how you do it.” Most days, I don’t either. But if I look at the rest of the verse my friend put in the mouth of the sweet little lion, I remember.

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be frightened, and do not be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go.

— Joshua 1:9

Truth be told, if it were just up to me, I would (and do) look the horror in the face and say, “Sure, I got through yesterday, but today is a different story. Tomorrow? Forget about it. I’m out.”

It is only when I remember that the Lord is with me, that I don’t walk this road alone, that I can look at what I’ve been through and know that I am strong enough to keep going.

I begged God for a miracle that night.

But the true miracle is being able to open my eyes in the morning, put my feet on the ground, and say, “Okay, God. Let’s do this.”

The next time I want to run away or curl up in a dark hole I will think of this sweet little lion, smiling at me, telling me that I can do this because the Lord my God will be with me wherever I go.