“Maybe we need to handle this more practically.” I said, sitting up in bed. This day, was the first time I Googled, “Foods that help depression.” At the time, we still had no idea what I was sick with. I didn’t have the language to even know what to Google. The only thing we knew was I was having very severe mental health issues and they were not going away on their own. That single Google search set me off on a path that has directed my life and my day to day decisions ever since. When I was actively (desperately) trying to find help to guide me through this process of using food as mental health medicine, there wasn’t anyone to help me. This is the story of how it all started, and how I got here– talking to you about this.
My husband and I joke that each of our children stole an element of my health- and while it is a joke- it also is very true. The illness that really took hold of me was a sudden onset of Obsessive Compulsive Disorder.
Read more on my story here: The Devil’s voice: OCD recovery
Let’s back up a bit more. The year before this started, we had begun realizing that there must be more to life than this.
Is this all we are supposed to amount to?
We’re from good quality families, we have capable minds and bodies. Are we really being used to our potential?
We began praying both individually and together that we could be used by God. I didn’t know at the time, that God was about to break us down to nothing in order to be used by him. We learned first-hand how ugly mental illness really is.
I like to say that OCD is the thing that fell out of the sky and shattered me. As if someone had taken my life and lit it suddenly on fire. And sometimes, I am still in disbelief that I have OCD at all. Because for me, everything changed in 1 day.
In 1 day, triggered by 1 thought- my life went from easy and normal – to painful and tragic. I’ve never been the same.
My brain broke. I began experiencing my own personal nightmare on repeat, all day, every day. True OCD takes your core fear and gives you the authentic experience in graphic gory detail. The fear, the pain, the loss, the guilt- all of it- and it consumes you. While you react in futile attempts to ease your suffering- and then it happens again.
I never had anxiety before this- it wasn’t even a word I used. I would tell my husband, “I feel scared all the time.” He told me my eyes didn’t look right- and I knew what he meant, because I wasn’t there. It’s having the devil’s voice in an earbud that you can’t take out.
Related: Living with OCD: Best resources to get you to recovery
I’m so thankful that God protected our children from witnessing it, while they were too young to understand what was going on behind all the locked doors. Yet, while I was the only one experiencing OCD, my husband was witnessing the love of his life disappear under an illness we didn’t understand
We were both isolated in very different experiences.
I would stare at photos on the wall feeling so angry, and not understanding how I was ever happy before. OCD ruined so many things for me. It sucked the peacefulness out of my happy home and left a ghost of me. My life was owned and operated by my replacement- and she was doing a bad job.
Related: My life existed, but I wasn’t in it
Because of the relentless painful content, I ended up with a very severe depression. It stole me. I knew who I was, what I would say, how I would act. But there wasn’t anything in me. I was an actor in a movie; I knew my role- but I had no connection to the other characters. I knew my home, my clothes, my routine- but I couldn’t get me back. My children didn’t feel like mine. I knew the memories- but they felt like stories I had heard- not experiences I lived.
Related: Self care for depression: 10 things you need to try
For the first year, I could count on my hand the times when the fog lifted and I could see outside of my obsessions. Split seconds of clarity that I clung to for my life- Later I would learn that derealization is the brain’s way of coping with the trauma.
This is why I call my business Selah.
To me, Selah represents peace in the midst of chaos. A pause- a quiet break. The Psalms I clung to desperately.
Psalms 40:2 He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings.
I know God had a purpose for me. I knew if I could just help 1 other person by my personal experience- that could be a purpose. Never before had I or since then felt as close to God, as I did in those worst years. But also, there is the realization of knowing He could heal me and it felt like He was just watching me suffer.
In my journal, I have written often with the tone of, “Why have you left me here? Where is the peace and protection you’ve promised my family? My body is living in but I’m not in it.”
But, He was there and He was waiting. And that was very very hard.
You may be familiar with the story of the man lost at sea praying for God to save him. However, he consistently dismisses opportunities for rescue, believing God will save him in a different way. Ultimately, his refusal to take action leads to his demise.
What started with a desperate Google search, led me through years of personal and (later) clinical practice in the field of nutritional psychology. I see these practical aspects of our human body and life as things we can control. That alone was very powerful for me when my life felt like it was spiraling without my permission. God has given us as tools for nourishment, for rest… and instead we ignore them!
We’re left with these broken down, exhausted versions of ourselves. This is not our purpose.
How can we expect to be greatly used by God when we’re burnt out by just doing the bare minimum??
I don’t see things the way I used to. I used to love a busy day, background noise of the TV, loud music, or a podcast in my ears at all times. Instead after spending a few years with my brain on fire by way of OCD- Now, I love silence.
The time I am now able to spend without distraction and not be terrified of my own thoughts—this is symbolic to me of the drastic effects of recovery and how far I’ve come. These moments I can’t take for granted any longer. The art of doing nothing.
All of this experience has left me with a personal bias towards some decisions in life.
I will regularly encourage my clients to slow down, step back, and simplify when I see them being pushed to their edge. My life was set on full speed at all times- and I believed I liked it that way. I didn’t realize it was setting me up for such a drastic health change by not taking time to care for my body and nourishing it well with rest and recovery after having multiple children.
There are specific pivotal moment in my story that helped me to recover through OCD and depression.
- When I surrounded our house in verses of God’s promises. 1 Corinthian 14:33, For God is not the author of confusion but of peace. I would repeat this to myself again and again trying to drown out all the chaos in my brain.
- When I Googled “Foods that help depression”
- When I started working with a functional practitioner and started supplements
- When my husband figured out I had OCD
- When I finally saw an OCD therapist, was officially diagnosed and got proper treatment
- When I healed my gut
- When I graduated out of ERP therapy. WOOHOO!
And here we are, on the other side.
As the years have gone by, I’ve become less connected to the girl, sick with OCD and sobbing on the floor. It’s begun to be easier to talk about candidly- yet there are some parts I’m not completely comfortable with- and I don’t have to be.
“And when God opens the next door you’re going to understand why the enemy fought you so hard…”
When I’m able to talk with clients or friends of their anxiety or depression, I feel so honored that I can join them in that moment and know all of the raw emotions behind their words. It changed me, more than any other thing, But there’s also another part of me that doesn’t want my whole life built reflecting on the worst years of my life. I’m so much more than my OCD. God broke me down and molded me into something different. I’m thankful for the opportunity I have to share what I’ve learned using food as mental health medicine, but even more so- I’m grateful to have my life back.
Life a beautiful gift, and you see it so differently when you previously believed you would never be able to survive it.
I hope you’re able to benefit from hearing bits of my OCD recovery story. It’s also my wish, that you can benefit from me sharing any tips through these writing and find your way back to your beautiful life- restored.
More resources to come 🙂
*This post may contain affiliate links which means I may make a small commission at no extra cost to you. I do not recommend any products that I have not personally vetted.*
