I spent the first twenty years of my life listening to other people’s life stories. [3 min read]

Drug addicts,

Abuse survivors,

A prostitute,

Alcoholics,

Gang members,

That one guy that claims to have killed people,

Rape victims,

Suicide survivors,

More drug addicts...

Most of these stories followed the same basic format:

“There was something very wrong in my life and then I found God and then everything was great, and here we are living happily ever after. Amen.”

These “life stories” were really “testimonies” of how god had improved each persons life.

Yeah, I was a church kid.

From a pretty young age I imagined that one day, I too would have a “testimony” to share. Sharing testimonies was always encouraged in the church. Everyone’s story, anyone’s story, no matter how young or how old. Once something was broken and god fixed it, let’s hear it.

But my life started at god and then all my fun issues came later.

It didn’t follow the format.

There was no “and then I met Jesus and we lived happily ever after”. I was diligently asking Jesus to save me from hell at four years old.

The end.

Right?

By church standards that story should be done. My life opened with the punchline. Jesus.

---

Conflict, climax, resolve.

That’s the format of good story telling.

Except that’s not life. Not really. Or at least, that’s not my life.

Most of my conflict exists in my head. That not to say it’s not real, it’s just literally my brain sucks sometimes.

The thing about depression and anxiety and the other antics that can go on in our brains is that they don’t follow neat tidy narratives.

There’s no clear cut beginning, middle and “happily ever afters”.

These types of stories don’t really happen in the past tense. Which is probably why so few people open up about mental health issues.

It’s much easier to talk about a past version of ourself. To distance ourselves from the brokenness. “I use to be like”… “I once struggled with”.

It’s much scarier to say, this happened, and I will always deal with that and carry these things on some level. Even if I’m doing much better right now, this is always a part of me. Today is today and then there’s tomorrow.

In those testimonies I’d hear in church as a kid there was a whole lot of “and then God took the bad things away”.

I spent years begging for that magical storyline.

Close your eyes tight, concentrate, I do believe in faeries. I Do Believe In Faeries. I DO BELIEVE IN FAERIES. Is it gone yet?

But that’s not real life.

Real life has been realizing some things are not “just a phase”.

Realizing you won’t “outgrow” it.

Learning how to be ok with not being ok.

Learning how to embrace being ok without holding your breath, waiting for the tide to turn.

Because it does.

And that’s ok.

It would be so much easier to tell stories in the past tense.