Not the only one

Have you ever felt like you’re the only one, alone in your misery? Like no one else has ever gone through what you’re going through? Last night a guest pastor was teaching through the story of Elijah in 1 Kings 19, and this is what it reminded me of.

Everybody has problems in life. I’ve heard it said that if we all threw our troubles in a big pile and saw everyone else’s, we would snatch our own back right away. It’s easy to think no one is suffering like I am, but it’s just not true. Life isn’t perfect for anyone, and for most, it’s full of difficulties of one kind or another. Jesus says in John 16:33 that “In the world ye shall have tribulation.” Trouble is a given in this life.

After my head-on car accident, I was overwhelmed by symptoms I couldn’t explain. I’d never suffered from any kind of anxiety or panic or anything that fell under the umbrella of mental health issues, so it was all new to me. 

After the wreck, I couldn’t drive without being afraid someone was going to hit me. I couldn’t be a passenger without hyperventilating and shaking and crying. I became terrified of spiders. What a random thing to happen to me, the girl who loves hiking and camping and being outdoors. I lost my ability to do simple math—me, the one with a degree in finance. I lost my once-great sense of direction. I had panic attacks watching Ben on the tractor, and I could no longer be in the pasture with our cattle. I had trouble sleeping and spent a lot of days churning with anxiety for no reason. I cried a lot and had more than my share of anger.

Just dealing with these things every day was so hard. 

Much worse was feeling like I was crazy because I didn’t understand what was happening to me. I felt completely out of control.

But the absolute worst part of it was feeling alone. I had never experienced anything like this before and didn’t know anyone else who had. I was sure I was the only one who’d ever felt these things. I just knew the rest of the world would think I was nuts if I said out loud what I was going through. Especially in the church, we just don’t talk about our mental state. I was afraid of how people would react if I voiced my experience. Would they shun me? Run away? Put me in a mental hospital? Would I be forever labeled as “the crazy one”? It was terrifying and exhausting. 

I didn’t know where to turn for help. My family doctor offered antidepressant medication and shrugged his “well-educated” shoulders. 

A few people recommended EMDR, but even the two trained therapists I went to for that in the first year couldn’t help. 

I gave up looking for help and resigned myself to live the rest of my life in this state of knowing something was very wrong with me but not knowing what it was or how to fix it. I fell in and out of depression, thinking this was my fate. I grieved the life I’d lost.

I did all the Christian things. I read my Bible looking for encouragement from the Lord. I prayed for help and answers. I knew God was aware of my situation, but I did not get better. My husband was very supportive, but I continued to struggle for several years.

I’d never felt more alone, and the aloneness contributed to my anxiety and panic and depression.

It wasn’t until I read The Body Keeps the Score that I began to understand my experience was not limited to me. The fear of being in a car? That was my brain’s natural reaction to the trauma of seeing a car coming at me and knowing I would be hit head-on. Panic attacks? That was my brain thinking the accident was still happening and trying to keep me safe. Sudden fear of spiders? That was hypervigilance—my brain stuck on high alert and thinking everything around me was a threat. Inability to do math and loss of my sense of direction? That was my left brain shutting down so my right brain could take over in a life-and-death situation, and then getting stuck that way. Near-constant anxiety? That was the result of a brain running on a steady stream of cortisol, never able to relax.

I remember more than once while reading that book, sitting up in bed and saying to Ben, “This is what I’ve been saying! This is what’s happening to me! It’s a real thing and it’s not just me!”

It was such a relief to know I wasn’t imagining these things, that I wasn’t making them up or just being a drama queen. It was the answer to the question I had asked literally hundreds of times: What is wrong with me?

It was hard evidence that I was not the only one. I was not alone.

Elijah’s experience in 1 Kings 19 is similar. His circumstances were different, but his overall, bottom-line thought was that he was alone, the only one. In the last few chapters he’d seen God do miracle after miracle and now he was on the run being chased by Jezebel, who wanted him dead. In verse 10 he cried to God, “I, even I only, am left.”

I’m alone. I’m the only one. No one understands what I’m going through and there’s no one to help me, no one to hold me up or give me a boost. I’m on my own and I’m just too mentally exhausted to go on. I am alone.

The feeling of being alone is debilitating. I know that firsthand.

This wasn’t the point of last night’s message, but it was where my mind parked.

God’s first help to Elijah was sleep, then food and drink, then more sleep.

That’s a great place to start, but it’s not enough. Elijah slept and ate and slept, but he was still hiding and discouraged when God showed up and asked what he was doing hiding there in that cave. Elijah repeated his complaint that he was the only one, alone. When you feel like this, it’s all you can think about. Your aloneness is consuming.

So God sent a strong wind, breaking apart the mountain where Elijah stood. But God wasn’t in the wind. Then he sent an earthquake, but he wasn’t in the earthquake. Then a fire, but God wasn’t there either. He was just getting Elijah’s attention.

Then came a still small voice asking Elijah once again, “What are you doing here?”

Elijah repeated his complaint to the Lord for the third time. I can imagine him getting quieter and meeker each time he says it. When you feel alone and discouraged, your energy dies and you sort of fall in on yourself, like a mental and physical collapse. This is how I picture Elijah at this point. I know exactly how it feels. All these things are wrong in my life and I’m just so done trying to deal with it. I’m exhausted. Mentally spent. I can’t go on.

Maybe you’ve experienced this too.

But God doesn’t leave us there.

God told Elijah that there were still 7,000 people in Israel who were not against him, who still loved the Lord and were on Elijah’s side. God assured Elijah he wasn’t alone. There were people to come alongside him and help him in the work. Elijah needed to know he wasn’t alone, that there was someone who was with him in the difficulty, someone who’d experienced the same thing.

If you are struggling—no matter what the issues are—know that you are not alone. There are others who have been through the same thing before you. They’ve walked through the valley and come out the other side and they want to help. You just need to find them.

Don’t give up. Keep looking and praying for answers. I say all the time, be your own advocate. Keep pressing.

One of the things God has pushed me to do with this experience of healing from trauma is to share it with others. We feel alone in our suffering because no one talks about it, and we need to change that. Mental and emotional struggles are part of the human experience and there is no shame in them. We all have them; we just don’t all admit it.

If, instead of highlight reels that make us look like we have a perfect life, we shared the real story of our lives, we could encourage thousands. Mental health issues are not a “me” problem, they are a “we” problem. We are called to bear one another’s burdens, but if no one knows our burdens, how can we share them?

If you are carrying a burden, find someone to share it with. If you are not the carrier of a burden, be the bearer of someone else’s. Be a safe, listening ear so no one in that situation feels alone.