My Story.

So here lately with the beginning of my speech class, God has really been putting it onto my heart to share my testimony. I've never been a strong public speaker, and this speech class has really gotten me out of my comfort zone. Yet good Christian friends of mine have told me before that they saw me being a speaker. And I feel that my spiritual calling from God is to share the absolute Blessing of a testimony that He has given me. I planned to get my doctorate in psychology to help people that suffered in the same way that I did, because I felt that's how God wanted me to help people, but we'll get to that later in the story. Today, I'm happy, healthy, with a great family, job, amazing boyfriend and just about to graduate college. The story was not all that similar when I was 16. However, the story first began at the young age of 13. I had just started junior high school, and it was a new, scary thing. All my life, I'd had this weird phobia of throwing up. I absolutely hated it. Still do. But at the time it had gotten so bad that I developed this terrible anxiety of going to school and sitting in a classroom. I felt like I physically could not do it. It literally took my breath away. For whatever reason, being out in big groups of people with seemingly no way out absolutely terrified me and drove me into what I can only imagine as tearful, breathless panic attacks. To ease my mind I started taking a pill for nausea, so I wouldn't feel as scared. But by this time, it was no longer about throwing up at all. I had full-blown social anxiety, and that eventually led to severe depression. I felt that I was forced into growing up much earlier than I should have. Everyday I would come home and sleep just to escape the tormenting hell that was my head. I would sit in my dark room on my bed and just stare at the wall. It was the absolute emptiest feeling I had ever felt, and while it felt very numb, the pain would eventually overtake me and the tears would come. My friends always asked why I wasn't at school because I refused to go, because I was so scared. I didn't understand why, but I couldn't tell them I was a messed up freak. I constantly thought about ending my life because I could not stand to bear the feeling of living any longer. Though at the time I never gave any serious thought whatsoever to taking my own life. I felt like a complete and total burden to my family. My parents had no idea what to do with me and all I could do was cry because I could not do what they asked and I didn't understand why. They started talking about taking me to a therapist. I'm not sure if just the sheer thought of being mentally unstable enough to actually need a therapist snapped me out of my depression, or what happened, but I slowly started coming back to myself. By the end of seventh grade I could sit in school again like a normal kid and I was no longer depressed. I started gaining my weight back, because all that time I might have eaten one bite of food a day, because I was scared to eat. I had gotten to the point of anorexia, and I honestly don't know how I survived on what little I did eat during that period. But, somehow like magic, I was happy again. But I suppose that that dark time in my life was just a harbinger of much darker things to come. By my sophomore year of high school, I felt the same darkness slowly overtaking my life yet again. It felt as if I was slowly drowning. I could see land, but I just couldn't get close enough, and eventually, I lost all breath and hope of life. I had fallen back into all the same hellish feelings yet again. All I could ever do was cry, and if I wasn't crying I was sleeping, hoping to escape. At other times, it was even worse and I was so numb I could not even cry. I felt so utterly broken. I started taking pills again and missing school. I was truly spiraling out of control. By this time, I had reached an all time low, and was now being forced to go to a psychiatrist. I was placed on high dosages of many different antidepressants, to see if anything would relieve me of my pain. I told friends that I wanted to die, and they didn't understand why I'd be sobbing in the middle of class. How was I supposed to explain. I had gotten so bad that my suicidal thoughts had started becoming a lot more easily entertained in my mind. I constantly thought about how many pills I would have to take to be knocked out Nd never wake back up. I would literally pray to God that I would fall asleep at night and never wake back up. Little did I know at the time that He had a much better plan for me. By September 9, 2011, I had never felt lower in my life. That night, I was sitting in my bathroom floor bawling my eyes out. That was the first night I cut myself. I didn't do it for attention. I didn't do it for an escape, or to feel something. I did it because I was so truly scared of how I felt that even though I would hide the scars, I would secretly hope someone would see them and hopefully get me help. I cut various other times after that. That's when my best friend at the time informed me that I was too depressed to stay friends with, so that only sent me further spiraling into the living hell that was depression. They had finally prescribed me a very high dosage of Prozac, and after a while it actually did help. I was always against the idea of medicine, but it worked in its own way. I still hurt, but it was numbed some by the antidepressants. I would still have awful thoughts of ending my life and would listen to depressing music that I easily identified with. Lyrics I really identified with them went, "so cut my wrists and black my eyes, so I can fall asleep tonight or die." Those very lyrics got the school counselor and my parents involved, and made life seem so much worse. I wanted to drink, I thought about drugs, sex, any POSSIBLE thing to at least temporarily numb the pain. All praise to God above that I never gave into of that. But I was at an entirely new low. I was closer to death than ever before. Notebooks full of sad poems and lyrics. The very last night, I remember it specifically. I didn't want to live anymore. I was like, "God, if you hear me, if you care, please. Just help me. I can't do this without you, if you can't help me, I'm going to end it." I had hit rock bottom to truly discover that He was my rock at the bottom. I had been born and raised Christian, but until that very point in my life, I had never taken it so seriously. I had always been a good kid, never gotten in trouble or done anything wrong, but never prayed or read my Bible. I gave my life to Christ that night. I had never in my life felt so free. Jesus had made a way when there was NO way. He interceded, when I wanted to take my life He said, "At just the right time, on the day of salvation, I heard you." I fully attended school, with my Bible and a smile. I was taken of of my antidepressants and never felt so alive. All that time I had wondered what I had done to deserve when I went through but then it all became so clear. Without my struggle, I would have never been led to Salvation. I praise God every day for what I've been though and where I've come from to get to where I am. Going into college I planned to get my doctorate in psychology, to help people like myself with similar struggles. I felt it was my true calling. But after I started majoring in psychology, I had doubts. It wasn't for me. It wasn't my passion, it was not a love that Christ had placed in my heart. My doctors didn't change my life, Jesus Christ did on the Cross. Then the realization hit that being a psychologist would not help me change people's lives, but rather being a disciple of God and sharing the awesome story He has blessed me with. The past two years I've became severely depressed again and been put back on my meds, but HIS ways are higher than mine and I can only imagine that it's for such a greater purpose and beautiful plan He is slowly unveiling before my eyes. Today I'm juggling work, school, as well as housework and relationships. I'm about to graduate college and start my animal grooming career, something God has truly given me a passion for. I have a dog that's basically been my therapy dog and best friend through it all. We're gona conquer the world together. I have a family who, no matter how hard it got, never ONCE gave up on me or stopped loving me. I have friends that never left me and still to this day send me funny texts even when we're too busy with grown up responsibilities to meet up in person. I have an amazing boyfriend who has been there through all of the ups and downs, and not once done anything less than encourage me and love me. One day I plan to marry him and tell our children about Jesus and his beautiful saving grace, and tell them my story if ever they suffer as I did. I'm still trying to figure out exactly how God would have me to share my testimony to help others, because that's exactly why He gave it to me. I hope to write one day, maybe I'll write a book about it. All glory be to God the Father above for making me, carrying me and sustaining me through it all. For loving me at my most unlovable. Thank you, Jesus. So to any of my friends that have ever struggled with feelings of suicide anxiety or depression, there is hope. Once I was planning my funeral and now I'm planning my future. It gets better. But honestly I cannot say it gets better without the love and salvation of Jesus Christ. Life is certainly not always perfect. But I have Jesus to help me through it. I'm not always the happiest. But at the same time, I am. I know where I've been and from where I've come. At the time it was hell on earth. Many call it depression, but I call it a blessing. For without it, I would never have been Saved and have MY name in the LAMB'S BOOK OF LIFE. So dear friends, thank you for taking the time out of your day to read my story. I pray that I would always use my past to help change others futures with the help of Jesus Christ. God bless you all❤️

Xoxo; 

Brittany Leigh Dodd