I don't think I have ever shared why I named this blog "Walkin' Free." Sitting in Bible Study today reminded me why I chose that name and also brought up some things that I truly want to run from.
Run
Away
Forever
Hide
Cower
Flee
Tremble
Scream
Despise
Fall
I am sure none of the ladies sitting by me had any idea that all these things were streaming through my head, or that it took much effort to stay seated at times. I still physically want to run and scream and fall flat on my face before the bondage that was once my life. Our life. It is like I'm drowning all over again.
Deciding to do "Breaking Free" by Beth Moore again was an easy decision. It was the study offered this semester, I had done it before and was forever changed by it, and why would I ever turn down sweet time with sweet ladies in the Word? I was so excited to dive right in, watching with great anticipation to see what God wanted to squeeze out of me this time around. I could not wait!
Glancing over the new workbook caused my heart to beat a little faster.
What is up with this? You are free, lady, so act like it! Why are a bunch of words on a page freaking you out?
Handwritten words on the cover and throughout the workbook kept hitting me in the stomach...
flooded my hurting heart
beauty from ashes-I get it!
a God who breaks strongholds
God had bigger plans
it wasn't about me at all
didn't know how heavy it was
He is standing by my side
I got down on my knees
I have begun to tear down those high places
All of these phrases could have been written from my heart during our time of bondage. I clung to God using the tools I learned in this study because there was no other hope to be found. I watched Him create beauty from the ashes of our lives, our marriage, and our children's lives. In fact, I'm still watching Him work, and I take great delight in it. So what's the problem?
The problem is another version of bondage, the bondage that is always waiting just outside the white picket fence of our life.
If it happened before, it can happen again.
With permission I can talk about what happened before. Hopefully I will share enough to make all this make some sense, as well as give someone else hope that needs it. I have no desire to go back there, but we also agree that some stories need to be told. It is our past, not our present or future, and we will leave it there!
Tyson spent 3 intense years, with many more leading up to those having warning signs, living with a panic disorder. Some call it anxiety, panic disorder, panic attacks, depression...the list goes on. Signs were there from the beginning, but neither of us knew that the little episodes were more than a "nervous stomach" or just being selfish/stubborn about different trips or activities. We had no idea that those small instances would become a timebomb waiting to explode. The first true explosion occurred in the car, going on a trip. Most problems happened before or during a trip or travel. It had increasingly become a mentally exhausting battle to even bring up a trip anywhere because of the arguments and worries Tyson would have about it. This time all the internal stresses came to fruition in a full blown panic attack. Tyson was trying to get out of the car while we were driving, was making no sense when he was talking, was thinking he was having a heart attack, and was completely irrational. I tried to talk him out of it, yell him out of it, cry him out of it, and beg him out of it, but nothing worked. We were in turn stuck in Waco for weeks trying to get him better. He lost about 30 pounds in 3 weeks. He was violently ill and did not leave the bed most days. I had no idea what to do. We did not know that a panic attack drops your seratonin in your brain, and that takes weeks to build back up. So the cycle began. Normal life, a trip would come up, irrational behavior and talking would happen, trip would loom closer, panic attack would occur, trip would be cancelled, normal life would again slowly come back. (Tyson's panic happened in and around travelling. We do not know why that triggered it most often. Please know that panic is different for every person and can happen at any time for them. I am not trying to say this is always how it is for everyone.) This cycle was extremely taxing...on him, on me, on Makenna, on our life. I tried so hard to fix it. I prayed, cried, pleaded, read, persuaded, manipulated, screamed...you name it, and I probably tried it out. I would truly think that it was getting better until another trip or new event would take place and he would have panic attacks again. Soon the panic began to affect his ability to keep the kids...we had Tracen by this point...his thought processes about everything we said or did, and his control over every situation. I was not allowed to go anywhere outside the city limits for months at a time. His bondage had become my prison. His mind would freak out, causing him to say horrible and completely irrational things to me. Things that the everyday person might not think were all that bad, but to a person controlled by another, they were debilitating. I was a basket case, and poor Makenna took most of my anger and despair. I would stay up for days and days, worrying about what this was doing to her. I would talk and talk and talk to Tyson, trying to rationalize his behavior to himself, not knowing we were dealing with an imbalanced mind that could not get what I was saying. To him I was trying to ruin his life, take away his safe place, make him do what he did not think anyone should have to do. To me I was beside myself trying to fix it all, keep everyone happy, and thinking he was just choosing to live like this because of fear. We didn't know about what had gone on in his brain. I started to believe that I was the irrational one. That something must be wrong with me. That maybe this was how we were supposed to be living. I watched Makenna go from the happiest, albeit strong-willed, child, to screaming so hard when I forgot my purse in the car that she would have an accident on herself, waking up screaming and sobbing every night for 9 months straight, not eating and losing 10 pounds in 10 days, her eyes glazing over because she was so confused about what her parents were becoming, and all the joy being taken from her little heart. For 3 years this was our life. We missed reunions, countless friends' weddings, family events, just everything that happened during that time. One of the worst parts about it was that Tyson had no idea how much this was affecting us all. He knew he had panic attacks and hated them, but could not think past that. He had no idea what he was doing, saying, or creating with his actions and words because his chemicals were all off. But I knew. Much damage was done in our home by both of us during those years.
Towards the end of it all, the absolute breaking point for me, I asked him to do "Breaking Free" with me. We didn't have the videos, but we worked through the study. Even reading the Word at that time was nearly impossible for him. The bondage he was in had even convinced him the Words of God would be too painful for him to read. But slowly he did read. He memorized. He found an amazing man of God who had been through Hell himself to be his counselor. He read a book that enlightened us about only getting meds from a Psychiatrist because of all the schooling they had gone through that other doctors had not. He found hope. He found healing. He broke free.
But did I?
This bondage, though I have tons of other areas needing LOTS of work, came from his bondage imposed upon me. How do you get out of that? We learned through the study how to get out of that prison, and I believe we did, but was I really free? Tyson did not even remember most of what he said to me and created in us during that time. He was able to pick up where our marriage and family left off with some form of amnesia from those days. I, on the other hand, remembered every word, every moment, every scream, every sob, every cry, every attack, every over-analyzed portion of that time. I hadn't gone anywhere. I had not come out of this unscathed, or with a clean conscience myself. I was still there trying to understand what on earth had become of our life.
Tyson's healing was miraculous, amazing, and I will shout it from the rooftops until the day I die. My God is who He says He is and does what He says He will do! He has broken the chains and freed this captive.
So why all the fuss?
The thought that this is not "for real" or 100% complete haunts me at times. I have had to re-learn how to not over-analyze, how to have a normal conversation without looking for any underlying meanings, how to bring up a topic without even thinking about what it could cause, how to be a wife and a mother without impending doom over my head. I have not done any of the above very well at times before, during, or after the mess. I have a lot of junk of my own God wants to get out of me, too, and I am in NO WAY saying that Tyson was at fault for everything for those 3 years. I am just saying it is hard...
Hard to walk free.
The freedom I cried and prayed and begged and pleaded at the feet of Jesus for during all those years...is hard to walk in.
So this blog is called "Walkin' Free" because that is what we are trying to do.
And "Breaking Free" is what we did, and what we will continually fight for, the rest of our days.
I am choosing to believe the Truth and not the lies that fought to overtake me once again while I was sitting in Bible Study, and I will use these reminders from our old life to spur me onwards toward God's future and plans for our new life.
Because we are free.
And you can be, too.
The Spirit of the Lord God is on Me,
because the LORD has anointed Me
to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
to proclaim liberty to the captives,
and freedom to the prisoners;
to proclaim the year of the LORD's favor,
and the day of our God's vengeance;
to comfort all who mourn,
to provide for those who mourn in Zion;
to give them a crown of beauty instead of ashes,
festive oil instead of mourning,
and splendid clothes instead of despair.
And they will be called righteous trees,
planted by the LORD,
to glorify Him.
They will rebuild the ancient ruins;
they will restore the former devastations;
the will renew the ruined cities,
the devastations of many generations.
Isaiah 61:1-4
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