Healing and Recovery
This has been probably the hardest season of my life. 4 ½ months ago I came off of a young horse I owned at a high speed. It put me in the hospital with a brain bleed, concussion, 4 broken ribs, a punctured lung and lacerated spleen. In the beginning, I thought that the hardest part for me to get over would be my ribs and lungs. They were what I could feel was wrong. What I didn’t understand, is that my brain sustained the worst injuries, and that my brain is also in charge of all of my healing. Nothing happens in the body without the brain being involved.
When I hit my head, (I had a helmet on) I sustained a second degree concussion. This damaged areas of processing in my brain. I injured the place that works with emotional regulation, body temperature control, digestion, balance, etc. I couldn’t walk a straight line well, dive a car, or walk much more than my kitchen and back. I couldn’t keep my heart rate down. It ran over 110 for 6 weeks straight. My brain was in trauma mode and all of me suffered from it. The worst part was I didn’t understand that it was happening. I felt like a mess but I figured it was something I was exaggerating.
Two months later I ended up going down to Stanford’s psychology department because I had gotten so depressed I didn’t want to be around anymore. Remember, up until I came off my horse, I was living a great life. My mental health had been in check for over 15 years, and I had helped hundreds of people who had been like me, get their life back. One fall changed everything for me.
The night before I went to Stanford, I was texting a friend who was going to the doctor with me and I was telling her where I was mentally. I said God needs to do something. I can’t keep living like this. Remember, I hit the emotional regulation part in my brain so my anxiety and depression were all over the place. We went to my local doctor and she sent me to Stanford.
The first day I spent at Stanford I could feel God in every interaction. They changed some of my medication, had me going to therapy, and I spent a week with people who were struggling like myself and built a great bond with them. The best part was that from that day forward, I’ve never had a day in deep depression again.
Some would say that I was looking outside God for help. I can tell you that God was the only reason I am here today. My doctor is shocked at how fast I am healing mentally, physically, and emotionally. I told God what I needed and God set up everything I needed and He still does. Here’s some things that I have learned in my healing process.
I cannot overlook what my body is telling me. This was difficult for me because in the past, one of the tools I use a lot for anxiety and depression is movement. I was trying to use that same tool but my body was in a lot of pain. What I found out was because of where I was at, every time I pushed myself physically, it was slowing down the healing process. I had to do simple things like wear sunglasses, stay off any screen, spend time with my eyes covered to give my brain a total break.
When I am tired, I have already done too much. I had to stop and rest. Tired was a way that my body says I pushed too much. If I lay down and rest until I am not worn out, I bounce back great. If I don’t listen, I end up with my body hurting more, headaches, starting to feel depressed, and I physically don’t make good strides. (My body is still healing. I have limits of amount of weight I can lift, how much movement I can do, and things like that. If I’m not careful it can cause a brain bleed or open up the laceration on my spleen again).
Stanford diagnosed me with Major Depressive Disorder. I was shocked. I thought my biggest issues have always been anxiety, not depression. I’m not a depressed person. What I found out is over my life, I know how to live with anxiety. If the anxiety builds to a point that I am overwhelmed with it daily, I start moving to depression. Major depression for me looks like a mental breakdown. It’s when I don’t want to live anymore. What I learned was that when I feel any type of depression, I need to stop then and there and change what I am doing. Depression is the red light that I refuse to ignore now.
In future blogs I will talk about red lights and what to do to stay out of them. What I want you to hear most today though is that God never leaves us. From the second I hit the ground, (I wasn’t breathing and my friend had to get me breathing again), to everything I’ve gone through physically, emotionally, and spiritually, He’s stayed close. He took a situation that could have ruined me, and instead, He’s used it to build me. I haven’t always enjoyed the process, but I am thankful that He took my mess and is creating beautiful things from it. I am better today than I have ever been in my life. I have to trust Him with me, every part of me, everything. It’s not my job to understand, it’s just my job to listen and to lean in to Him.