Quick request: if you know me offline, would you please not read this? Thanks. I promise its not because I don’t love you, its just that I need a little separation between the vulnerability here and the people I see on a regular basis.
I saw that Jeff Giesea had posted a “playlist of your life” on his newsletter and loved the idea. Mine, unfortunately, is kinda ugly. I wanted to share it anyways, but I ask that you withhold judgment and tread lightly. If things get uncomfortable I plan to take this down. Thanks for understanding.
‘93 or ‘94? Born to Be Wild by Steppenwolf. I’m maybe 4/5. I don’t know any of the lyrics besides “born to be wild”, which I can belt out with all the confidence of a child, but the feel of the song is intimately familiar to me. We’re on a family road trip, Dad’s home from sea. My imaginary best friend is Sonic the Hedgehog. I spend most of the trip talking to him or else imagining where the car’s eyes and mouth would be if it was alive. Obviously we are seated in the belly.
‘97 - Everybody (Backstreet’s Back) by Backstreet Boys. I’m 7 ish, maybe 8? My cousin is currently obsessed with Backstree Boys and brings a CD and a music video down from Canada when she comes to visit us in Orlando. She doesn’t like N’Sync, so I don’t either. I’m obsessed with the Halloween themes in the music video. It’s a good thing mom doesn’t know the contents of this video or I would never be allowed to watch it.
‘98 - Go West Young Man by Michael W. Smith. Both of my parents have converted to Christianity by this point and I’ve likewise made a profession of faith. We’ve begun homeschooling. Our house is a revolving door as hospitality and fellowship are super important to my parents. I love it and will look back on this period of life fondly. I insist on sitting in the adult church services instead of attending Sunday school.
‘99 Entertaining Angels by the Newsboys. We move to Kansas. I hate the world. Also, the first time I meet a “large” family. They have six children and in all my ten year old wisdom, I decide it’s way too many (jokes on me). In my defense, it’s just a very loud house and we spend six weeks living in their basement while my parents house hunt. We don't know it yet, but the next three years are the last of the good ones. We will make amazing friends, plug into a fantastic homeschool community, and live fully and beautifully for three incredible years. Then everything will go to hell in a handbasket. Ignorance is bliss, right?
‘01? Maybe ‘02? What’s a Girl to Do by Doug Phillips. It's not a song, but it will become the soundtrack for the next twenty-ish years of my life. Basically, its the first time we hear of the ideas that girls should spend their lives preparing for the role of wife and mother. We haven’t fully gotten on board, but we’re taking big jumps. It’s the door to years of psychological isolation, depression, fear, and despair.
Silence. It’s ‘02 ish to ‘05. We’ve moved to NJ. Life is hell laced with moments of connection and happiness. We’re not revisiting these memories here. In a really low moment of loneliness and desperation I’ll tease a friend and push a little too hard and they’ll attempt to strangle me. It’s one of those moments you don’t really forget, gasping for air and clinging to someone’s wrist.
Year? - I Can Only Imagine by Mercy Me. I’m not allowed to listen to contemporary Christian music any more, but the mother of the family I help once a week doesn’t know that. She burns me a CD with a couple songs on it, this one included. I listen to it in the car and savor it with a guilty conscience. I’ll eventually throw the CD away, crushed by the knowledge that I’ve deceived my parents. Everything here hurts, everything is too much. I start purposefully forcing myself to stay awake long beyond seeing double, beyond nausea, beyond being unable to keep myself upright. A therapist will later suggest that the way I deny myself sleep reminds her of the way some of her self harm patients speak of hurting themselves. It’s never fully categorized either way. I become a compulsive eater. I suffer from constant stress headaches and my heart literally never stops racing, I can barely breathe, I never feel rested. I’m convinced that this is simply the cost of obedience and offer my suffering as “worship” to the Lord. Due to a misinterpretation of Matthew 6 I will determine that I have to hide any and all symptoms I am experiencing and due to misunderstanding the nature of contentment and the exhortation not to complain, I will not only not tell anyone how I feel, I will begin to actively hate myself and berate myself any time I even think about how tired I am or how miserable I feel. I will cultivate a very strong cognitive dissonance. The next decade-ish will proceed like a dream and I will spend years in therapy trying to understand that period of my life because I will quite literally remember experiencing it as two lives laid over top of each other - one that is laced with anger at my weakness and fantasies of living a life that is completely different from the one I live - one where I go to college, have friends, fall in love, build a career and am healthy - and the other the actual experiences but disconnected from their impact. It’s full of beautiful moments and a complete disconnect from my body. I constantly feel like I’m floating inside myself, detach from reality. During this decade I will marry and start having children and be deeply confused by the life I’m living and the world I’m building in my mind.
2009 - It’s Good to Be Us by Bucky Convington. I’m nineteen and I meet a sweet and slightly awkward farmer. He’s got these beautiful green-brown eyes, the most amazing hands I have ever seen, and is the most confidently un-cool person I have ever met. Being possessed by a desperate desire to “be cool”, I’m over awed by how happily he lives while being completely uncool. He sings off tune, but sings to me anyways, wreathed in smiles and strength. I both fall in love and feel trapped. I suppress the trapped feeling - thank God - and marry him anyways. Best decision I have ever made. This man will be extremely influential in helping me eventually heal. He’ll catch the parts of me that fall through the cracks and never berate me, always believing the best until I learn to see some good in myself.
2010 - Baby Mine from Dumbo. I’m twenty and give birth to my oldest, my daughter Elise. I don’t know it at this point but I’ll only have her for a little over three years. I’m in head over heels in love with this beautiful little girl. I sing this song to her constantly as I care for her. Motherhood is the most beautiful, complex and fulfilling journey I’ll ever take.
2012 - Marching to Zion. The kids and I sing this song every time we march up the stairs to nap time. I have a two year old, a one year old, and am heavily pregnant with number three. Motherhood is very intense, my physical health is wrecked, my mental health has been tanking for a while, but these kids are my everything. I will look back on these years in complete confusion - how could the most beautiful moments be wrapped up in so much cognitive dissonance and suffering? I have multiple health breaks and try to hide it. The panic attack at church I can’t hide, but I get pretty good at hiding the rest.
2014 - Cinderella by Stephen Curtis Chapman. The first time I hear this song, I weep, imagining the few short years I have with my little girl before she’s old enough to marry and start a family of her own. I’m twenty-four and have four children, 3.75 and under. We move to Tennessee. I’m five weeks postpartum. The night we arrive I make a stupid miscalculation while driving around my parent’s farm pond. Myself and my four children are in the vehicle when it falls into the water. We get two of the boys out; myself, my daughter and my youngest son drown. My dad manages to fish my body from the vehicle and I am revived. It’s too late for my babies. I spend the next five days in the hospital being treated for double pneumonia and hypothermia. It's hard to cry when you literally can’t breath. It’s hard to live when you’re grieving. I comfort myself with the hope that my life will pass quickly and I can die and see my son and daughter again.
Silence. My life falls apart. I have more health breaks, including a period of being on forced bed rest since I can barely walk from my bedroom to the bathroom in our tiny 500 sq. ft. apartment. My mom wants me to homeschool my younger siblings. We live on their property. I do my best.
Silence. Things get super ugly. We’re not going here.
Silence. I’m breaking. My husband travels extensively while building his business - which is not a preference but a necessity. Neither of us have anything beyond a highschool diploma. While he’s not make much, he’s making more than he was able to at his two previous places of employment. He puts insane hours in at work and then throws himself into childcare and supporting me when he gets home. I’m doing everything I can to hide my depression and continual health complications. I know being a “good wife” means doing everything I can to make sure he’s successful and not complaining. So I hide the best I can. I can’t even register that anything is wrong, only that I’m weak. I hate myself. My mother has completely lost her mind - literally. We find ourselves chasing her to Missouri when she abandons several of my siblings at a commune for a few hours before realizing its a bad idea. There’s a tremendous amount of ugliness coming to the surface. I can’t feel anything. Nothing makes sense. I know my parents love us.
Year? Bad Blood by Taylor Swift. I’ve been vacillating between periods of extreme “sensitivity” where I feel everything dialed up to the highest degree, like some sort of fantasy empath - I’m “absorbing” everything around me and I cannot live with the excessive *feeling*, I numb like a crazy person, burying myself in books twenty hours a day, just constantly reading, trying to keep feeling at bay. I won’t let myself sleep until I literally cannot stay awake. I have to take short breaks to take care of the boys, but those are nearly unbearable. It’s broken up by periods of depression so deep I can feel nothing. This song plays and I beat my head with my fists. I finally call a therapy office.
Year? Voices by Motionless in White. The noise in my head is so bad I cannot function, I’ve finally managed to figure out how to live without reading all the time - constant music. It sucks because I cannot connect with people but I can finally be functional - I’m back to getting food made and kids bathed. It takes everything I’ve got, I often curl up around my husband’s feet because I cannot breath on my own. He becomes my recharge station. Continuing to work excessive hours to make ends meet and then throwing himself into trying to help our struggling family survive at home. I start making a meal, half way through I can’t believe how stupid I am for what I’ve chosen to make. I can’t shut the voices up. I start a second meal, I can’t believe how stupid this option is either. Honestly, how stupid can I be? I’m a failure. A complete waste of oxygen. I would rather die than keep messing this up. But I’m desperate to live for my boys. I just want to be a good mom. God, I can’t get better fast enough. I’ve been in therapy for a while now, my therapist insists I’ve experienced trauma. I know she’s wrong. The only reason I folded was because I was too weak. I’m desperate to get better and show up for my kids. I feel like I cannot get better fast enough.
Year? Parents by Youngblud. I’m starting to question the story I’ve told myself about my life, but anytime I do my depression comes back like an anvil, so I just keep working on symptoms as I can. I finally get a sleep apnea diagnosis. For the first time in my life I feel. . . not rested, exactly, but my heart stops racing so much.
Year? Don’t Lean on Me by The Amity Affliction. After several years in therapy I’m finally seeing the progress I so desperately need to see. I get two PTSD diagnosis, one technically qualifies as a C-PTSD diagnosis. I still feel like a fraud when I think of applying these to myself.
2024 Defend by STIM. This is my first year where the depression is light enough that I actually think I don’t have depression. I end up with an “early onset persistent depressive disorder with anxious distress” diagnosis. It boggles my brain, because this is literally the clearest my mind has been since I was thirteen. Its also the happiest I’ve been since I was twelve. My family is finally thriving again. We’ve put putting so many desperate measures in place to try and protect the kids while I fall apart. Crazy enough, it seems to be working. They are, beyond all belief, thriving.
2025 Even in Arcadia by Sleep Token. I have a job, I’m building self confidence. All the years of going through the motions did have a pay off - some of those behaviours helped me to care for my children despite significant physiological and emotional distress. The last five years my husband and I have been unpacking all the things that I have been hiding and he has bent over backwards to do everything he can to provide support, love, compassion, rest and acceptance. My children are all healthy, have friends, are (amazingly) caught up on their education and are performing often above grade level. We’re a pretty normal family, all things considering, and while there are some lingering affects from my severe depression, on the whole everyone is thriving. Which is not a brag, it’s a reassurance. I nearly drove myself into a grave trying to make sure that they had a secure and safe home life no matter how bad things got in my mind. I need to see their smiles and feel their hugs and hear their silly chatter and stupid arguments just to remind myself that we made it. We’ve had child care support from a close friend and from one of my sister’s in law, who moved in with us, for several years and I can finally afford to pay the friend who has been helping so that my kids can be loved and cared for even when I am struggling to do it.
Obviously, there’s a lot more to this story. These are highlights, there’s a lot of details missing. It’s deeply personal and I would ask all readers to remember that there is a fuck ton of complexity that did not make it on to this page. If the comment section gets weird I am taking this shit down so fast.
Thanks for reading!
That’s a lot for anybody…. Oof. So glad you’re seeing the light at the end of this darkness. You are loved.
You are an amazing human. I am so very sorry you have had to go through all of this, but so happy you are finding peace and your children are thriving. ❤️