Round 3: Joyless, Beautiful Pain

Have you ever felt like you were living in a world of color, and everyone else was still living in gray?

That's how I felt after we got home from Singapore. Completely unsure of how to reconcile my time in Singapore with my return to a fast-paced, consumerist, and seemingly hollow American life. 

Of course, my life in America is not hollow. It is rich, full of fulfilling relationships and its own kind of growth and experiences. But it is hard for a 13-year-old brain to comprehend that.

I had been so excited to start public middle school, as I had only ever attended charter before. I had high hopes and dreams for how it would turn out.

It didn't turn out as I had hoped. 
For lack of a more mature word, it sucked. A lot. 

And the worst thing was, I had no idea why it was so hard. Nothing blatantly horrendous was happening to me. It was just hard. 

I remember crying in the bathroom at school, trying to muffle my sobs with my hands and closed mouth so no one in the surrounding stalls would hear me. 
I remember crying into my hands at lunch, pretending I was just yawning and rubbing my face.

I want to cry just thinking about it. 

To make a long story short (sort of), I left. I'm not usually a quitter, but I was just done. I literally could not handle it. 

And a few days later, to my great shame and embarrassment, I was diagnosed with clinical depression. Honestly, I'm still a little bit ashamed. 

"What is wrong with me? Why am I so screwed up? Medicate me? What will other people think?"

(To this day, even though I have often pondered how wrong the mental health stigma is in our society, I still allow myself to succumb to its unjust judgement.)

If you've ever been "depressed" (I hate that word), or just so at the end of yourself--broken and hurt--you know what I am talking about.

Hours and hours of crying. I can't stop. I don't know why. 
Weeping. Rocking back in forth, lying in fetal position, yearning for comfort that will stop the tears.
Not feeling. Not smiling. Not eating.
A cloud of sorrow.
Thoughts of death. Crying even more that I could even think that. 

"What is wrong with me? What is even happening?"

"He reached down from on high and took hold of me;

    he drew me out of deep waters.

17 

He rescued me from my powerful enemy,

    from my foes, who were too strong for me.

18 

They confronted me in the day of my disaster,

    but the Lord was my support.

19 

He brought me out into a spacious place;

    he rescued me because he delighted in me."

Psalm 18:16-19

I have a vivid memory of laying on my bed, sobbing. My mother, at her wits end, resorted to the one enduring truth that she knew--His words. I don't know how long she read those Psalms to me, but I remember them. I will always remember them. 

Joy comes in the morning. It does. 

And God redeems pain. 

He turns it into something beautiful. He did for me, despite how I didn't see or even anticipate it in the moment. As much as it hurt and tore at my soul, I am strangely thankful for my bout with joylessness. Because I am more able to feel others pain now. 

With redemption, my pain became so beautiful.