Struggle and Faith

My name is Madison, and this is my story.

For those of you who don't know me, I'm sixteen years old, and I am studying at Wake Technical Community College. I have goals of earning my Associate's in Science before I graduate high school, from where I will then transfer to a university where I will major in computer science. Most people see my life and recognize that I am very blessed, which I am. But most don't see how I have struggled and worked. While I'm exceptional in academics, it doesn't mean that everything comes easily to me. It's kind of like that saying "I'm an overnight success that was years in the making." My battle, in particular, is with obsessive-compulsive disorder, and a period of depression I went through.

It's hard to explain the effects that mental illness has on your everyday life, simply because of its permanence and endlessness. It's a part of life, something one views as their normal. My realization and confrontation of these issues began in middle school. At this time, my character was fundamentally changed in negative ways that I didn't even begin to realize until I had started the healing process. I was uncharacteristically oblivious to the toxicity that surrounded me in my life. It came from everything around me: my schoolwork, teammates, and even my friends. From this, I developed severe anxiety problems and became depressed. Eventually, things became so severe that I was pulled out of school to be homeschooled in my eighth-grade year. Only when I began to heal, I began to see the damage that was done. I had to face my issues head-on to heal, rather than turning to escapism and ignoring the issue.

Mental illness is not pretty. Depression isn't just a vague sadness. Depression is about existing but not living, moving autonomously and numbly through life. It is pain, something hurting deep down inside of you, and feeling hollowed out. It is grasping for anything that makes you feel something, in an attempt to fill the void. Anxiety is ugly. It is constantly being paranoid and plagued by an ongoing apprehensive approach to the world around you. It is having unprovoked attacks of violent shaking, hyperventilating, and losing your grip on the world around you. Overcoming depression is taking time to learn how to feel again and how to live. Overcoming anxiety is learning how to cope with everyday life, and how to take the edge off in a healthy and sustainable way.

My recovery took a long time, and only recently have I felt truly free from depression. While I wasn’t in pain anymore, some fundamental part of my person was still subdued, and I can pinpoint the exact moment when I realized that I felt normal again. I was around a campfire with my friends, with the music playing. It was a simple moment, like many ones that I've had before, but something felt different. I was sitting in peace, content and actually feeling a deep sense of satisfaction, completely aware of everything going on at that moment. I just felt this indescribable change in me, as if I was finally, truly feeling again. Like I had been shifting towards recovery all this time, but I finally crossed the finish line. I hadn't felt that way in years, and as a stereotypically dramatic this sounds, something in that moment was so emotionally charged that I began to cry tears of joy. This feeling makes all the difference in the world. Because it is breathing fresh air, feeling every sensation that touches you. Deprival makes the small details noticeable.

Since then, I've made my best attempt at embracing life. I have found my passion, and have become truly grateful for living once again. Curiosity has rekindled in me, as I've rediscovered a desire to read, learn, and develop new skills. More importantly, I'm grateful for what I've gone through because my experiences have made me stronger. They have also allowed me to rebuild myself into the person I've always wanted to become, and rediscover myself.

I've taken initiative, and have taken steps to move forward. A part of this is prioritizing my mental health, which has allowed me to seek treatment. OCD is a chronic illness. This is because those with it simply have a brain that works differently than other people’s. While it cannot be cured, it can be treated. And, sometimes, that is enough. I still struggle and fall, but I always get back up. It may be a fact of life for me, but it will not stop me.

On a closing note, I would like to accredit the key to my success, which is faith. Faith that every day I will get better, and that I am going in the right direction. Faith that I am becoming who I was designed to be. Because, to me, faith combined with willpower and heart is the core of who I am. Traits which have been given to me by God, who equipped me with the tools I needed. He put the right things in my life at the right time. Some things had to be taken away to place better things in my life.

While, at times, I became impatient, angry, and resistant, he knew what I had to go through to make me come out as the person that I am becoming. And she is strong, fearless, confident, bold, kind, empathetic, brilliant, clever, and so much more. And I love her because I have fought to become her. God gave me the resources that I needed to become something more than I ever could've become on my own. He allowed me to discover my passions, my freedom, my independence, and my wonderful friends who are so supportive, and whom I am blessed to have.

Once one accepts change in their life, something shifts. Instead of resisting what you cannot control, you let it flow through you. You let it change you because you will grow from it if you have the right mindset. Life is painful, but it is also beautiful. If you embrace both ends of the spectrum, the high and the low, life becomes more meaningful. Even at times when it feels like everything is shaking, I still choose to rise. Persevering through these struggles is what gives meaning to our lives, and we have to believe that things will be okay in the end. It's about having faith in both the good and the bad times.

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