My husband is in the military. We recently moved from one side of the country to the other. Our 4 years in the Pacific North West was grueling, lonely, and spiritual dark. I had a psychotic break a few months after being there. Life was great, financially, maritally, spiritually. In an instant; at 5:52 pm on December 28th, 2018, I felt like I had physically broken open. I began to feel and hear not only myself but something demonic speaking into me. Back story I was sexually molested as a child by family member. My father ran a prostitution ring, was a major drug dealer, and an addict himself. He went to prison when I was 8. I have 9 siblings. 7 from my from 2 from my dad. In their only child together. Although my dad did all these things that ppl would assume gave us money, we were very poor. Food banks, boiling water for baths, roaches, no lights… all things I thought were normal for most of my childhood. Again my father was an addict, and so was my mother; although I didn’t believe it . I went from living in a home with my parents and 6 of my brothers to just my mom and her only son; who is one of my abusers. My mom became verbally violent over the years. She would call me racial slurs (I am mixed she is white), she would tell me I’m useless like my father, she would sit on me, at one point she smacked me in the face with a belt. Through trauma recovery therapy I’ve gained understanding and some memories I had blocked out. I was also an angry child. Left to my own devices so to raise myself, I was psychologically broken. But at that age I did not know what was going on nor how to properly respond.
Back to my original text. After that moment on December 28th I experienced a 7 day panic attack.followed by a year of regular full blown panic attacks and two years of sever anxiety… now I just deal with the repercussions of those experiences and acute anxiety that sometimes flares to be slight more. I could have a thought and something would audibly tell me the opposite. I lost 30 lbs in 30 days because i feared I feared eating. Something was telling me there was basically poison in the food, it would kill me. I couldn’t drive for months. I became afraid of volcanos like yellow stone ruining the earth, sink holes, buildings collapsing, my heart stopping, brain a aneurisms, respiratory failure, etc. i feared going to the hospital. I am afraid of medicine. I was afraid they would admit me and then therefore have control over my medical care for a time. My mother once put me in an inpatient mental facility, I think I was 15. They put me on a new drug every 3 days for for almost 2 weeks, I was allergic to one, that was fun. They poked and prodded at me, woke me up every 90 minutes to make sure i was alive and take my vitals. What’s unusual about that is I felt safer in there, more at peace than I did with my own mother, although I wouldn’t say I felt safe at all. That also started a “fun activity for me that lasted some years.” Popping pills for mental relief from the life I was damned to live.
While living in the PNW we struggled to fine true biblical community. My relationship with God had been strengthening through my suffering. I immediately turned to God when my psychotic break happened. I began praying psalms 91’over my house, putting crosses on every door with oil prayed over and given to me by a friend when we lived in Alabama. I prayed over every room all day, I read scripture out loud for hrs and hrs because it was the only thing that kept me focused not on what was happening in my body. I cried a lot. I screamed a lot, I’d go from hot to cold, to freezing and back up that chain. I watched no tv for so long, all of it seemed very demonic to me. I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia around this time. I began seeing the world as the Bible says it is only i didn’t know how to respond to anything I was learning or understanding other than to fear. I was. Having panic attacks in church, and as new ppl in a new state I was alone. I started running more. I had been a runner 2-3 miles most days. Then I took up distance and began running anywhere from 70-100 miles every month. It was the only time I felt alive. That feeling lasted for about 30 minutes after I finished stretching everyday. So I became addicted to it. We were apart of three churches in 3 years. We left the first because of serious non biblical practices that we didn’t realize were happening. I blame my fear for blinding me. But God used that to grow my faith . The second church we left for that similar underlying reason, yet a different situation. This one I was out in a situation to be a second woman in a meeting with two women and the friend who asked me there so she wasn’t the only women (which they were okay with) also (she has actually moved there from Alabama I had known her for years) they all but manipulated the Bible’s view of sexual sin, exposing their belief to be firmly against what the Bible says. Understanding my associate pastors belief that looking at naked women is not a sin for every married man. What’s sin for one person isn’t sin for another sent me down a spiral and we eventually left that church and God quickly brought us to Lake City Community Church In Lakewood Washington. We only had six short months there, before PCSING again. Those six months changed my life, brought healing, family, accountability, understanding… it gave me ppl who are to this day (8 months after leaving) still praying with and for me, keeping my husband and I accountable in our marriage, loving on us from a distance. I’ve never felt closer to heaven than in that place. Their leadership is set up so biblically, their accountability within church leadership is like nothing I’ve ever seen. Their missions, outreaches, ability to connect with ppl, create family, and mean all of it. Their true love for the world and Gods ppl changed my life. Washington is the most spiritually dark place Ivve ever experienced when we drove past the state line into Idaho I physically felt something leave my body it was supernatural and insane! I know I was dealing with oppression. I also saw a trauma recover therapist for two years there. He was a Christian man and actually started the first Christian therapy office there in 1991 with his brother. He had retired from the military and from therapy. God laid it on his heart to come back privately to help specific ppl God would bring to him. That was a month before I found him.. (my husband attended and was apart of that most of the time).
Through all of that time in Washington I have become jaded and I often don’t feel like I am who I am. I’ve never in the life I can remember been so lacking confidence: one thing I always knew was my worth, through all the pain and abuse I knew I was good enough. (I do have about 1/2 my life 17 years of forgotten blocked or partial memories) lacking confidence has been a struggle. Making friends seems extra hard, sometimes I find myself in the same spot accidentally for hrs at a time. I can’t seem to do the things I used to be able to do. I get too overwhelmed to have a full plate. It’s harder to keep my house clean, although I do because my skin crawls if it’s dirty. It’s hard for me to be friends with ppl because I was broken so many times by people in Washington.. which somehow made all the times I was broken by ppl as a child come to light and that’s a burden I’ve started carrying that I had once pushed away and forgotten about purposefully. I’ve always been open about my past life, all the trauma all the decisions I made (I haven’t even began to touch on my story in this) now I feel hopelessly depleted and don’t want to start over with ppl. That’s always been something I loved about the military. Moving and growing our kingdom family. Knowing ppl all over in different churches and bringing our experiences with us to know places. Now I’m jaded and I don’t want to be, I’m lost and I need found, my anxiety is much better but I’m still always afraid to die. I dont agree with my feelings and thoughts concerning those fears but they won’t go away.
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