His Goodness.

When I decided to write this blog, I didn’t realize how hard it was going to be to actually post some of these stories. I am going to lay a lot bare here… but I have come to understand the most difficult moments in my life hold the greatest potential to help someone in their own story.

7 years ago (on April 19th), I overdosed.

I have been on and off different medications for my chronic migraines and nervous system disorder. As many migraine sufferers know, these medications tend to be anti depressants and anti seizure medications. The side effects for these medications can range from mood swings, lack of concentration, irritability, suicidal thoughts, etc. I spent years only feeling the side effects with no change in my pain. I began to question who I really was. My medication would sometimes dictate my emotions and my reactions. Damaging myself and relationships along the way. Years passed and I jumped from one pill to the next. I would write down my side effects and doctors would dismiss them and then write a new prescription.

After moving to Nashville, I began to see a new Neurologist. He diagnosed me with dysautonomia (basically my nervous system is always over reacting. drama queen) He prescribed me a combination of two medications put into one convenient little pill. I felt great! No more migraines… lots of energy! I had found my answer. A few weeks in, people began to ask me to stop taking the medication. I refused. This was the first time in 10 years that I had gone a whole month without a migraine. The only problem was at night… I would crash. Anger, sadness, rage rushed over me. By week six, in a state of rage, I emptied the bottle of pills into my hand and took every last one. A few minutes passed. The medicine started to kick in and I began to calm down… not knowing exactly what I had done until I saw the empty bottle lying on my bed. I was on the phone with my boyfriend and he told me I needed to hang up and call 911. He probably doesn’t realize… but he helped save my life. Had I not called for help when I did… the medicine would have made me very calm. I would have gone to sleep and I probably wouldn’t be here today.

My phone rang as I waited for the ambulance. It was my Mom. “Laurie, what did you do?” she asked. A paramedic told me I needed to hang up. “This medicine is very serious. I need to know how much you took” she said. When I told her… her face changed. I thought to myself “I didn’t want to die. I’m going to die. What did I do? What did I do?” I laid in the ambulance thinking… “That was it. The last phone call to my Mom. I’m never going to see her again. I’m never going to see anyone again.” One tear streamed down my face and that was it. The medicine calmed everything. The saddest and scariest moment of my life… and I felt numb. The man in the ambulance couldn’t find my vein so I heard him yell to the driver “Just go… we have to get her there RIGHT NOW!” I thought “This is going to hurt soon”

My sister, her husband and my boyfriend, best friend and their Mom were all at the hospital soon after I got there. People kept saying things to try to comfort me. I kept thinking “This does not apply to me. I never thought that. I never felt that.” I don’t know what happened but I knew I never wanted to die. There have been times in my life as a teenager or as a young adult on mood altering medications that I thought I didn’t want to go on living… but this night was not one of them. I was so confused.

I woke up the next day to my Dad hugging me with tears in his eyes. My parents had driven through the night to be there. I do not remember much from those days slipping in and out of sleep. People in white coats, a Grey’s Anatomy joke and a few rounds of Sudoku. Mainly I remember the faces of people I loved that I saw every time I opened my eyes. I wasn’t alone.

The doctors went on to explain that the medication I was taking made me manic. I would experience a high during the day and as the medication wore off, I would crash. The combination of drugs in women my age/weight were far more likely for this side effect to occur. That all sounded like a great explanation but blame and shame would follow for years to come when I thought of what I put the people I love through.

In the coming weeks I would learn about that night…the hallucinations, the staring off, the kicking, the screaming and talking in some form of… jibberish. Horror stories that seemed all so demonic. However, my most vivid memory was me sitting at the ocean. Staring toward a bright sun over the water and letting the sand sift through my fingertips. God was there. He had spared me… my life and my memories of what happened. But I woke up to such heartbreak.

My amazing sister wrote me a letter. She talked about Lazarus and how Jesus could have healed him before he died but chose to not go to him. Instead Lazarus had to die and his family had to mourn… for a period of time. She said I was like Lazarus. I still come back to that letter from time to time and I am so grateful God allowed me to endure the pain of my overdose.

I went on to turn my life upside down so I could find some reason I was still here. I broke up with my boyfriend and moved back home to Mississippi for a brief time so I could begin to heal and start over. While I was driving one day, I listened to Phil Wickham’s “You’re Beautiful.” There is a line that says “When we arrive at eternity’s shore where death is just a memory and tears are no more…” My mind escaped back to the memory of the ocean I sat at while my life was being saved. That was my eternity’s shore for a brief moment. To this day whenever I hear those words…I am overwhelmed with gratitude.

Fast forward to a few months ago, standing in church. A song came on during worship that spoke about how God is good and He never lets us down. I stood listening to each word but couldn’t seem to find it in me to sing. Deep down I believe that God is good… but there is an ache in my soul. And a part of me thought “This is bogus. All these people with hands raised high… bogus” See- I did… well DO feel God let me down this past year. From the pain and suffering I have watched someone I love go through... to finding out Jon and I will not be able to have biological children. There I was, in church and all I wanted to scream was “BOGUS!” But I didn’t. ha. I silently prayed.

There was a pause… and then “You’re Beautiful” began to play over the speakers. Tears streamed down my face as I made my way back to the memory of that ocean shore 7 years ago. God met me there, again. Not in the place I wasn’t ready for Him yet (like singing He never lets me down) but in the place I knew His grace. His redemption. His goodness.

I can’t say that my life changed overnight with some resounding revelation when I moved back to Mississippi those years ago. I sat in anger and misery for a solid year. I would go on to hurt people, burn bridges (some good, some bad) and take my anger out on anyone willing to care enough to sit with me. If you hurt me in some way, I would spew all the anger I had built up inside. Soon enough I changed that anger to the strength I needed to push through the people that doubted my ability to rise up from my past.

I heard once that not wanting to change is everyone’s tragic flaw. The pain was familiar so I was comforted by it. But slowly over time I started to change. Small changes. So small that no one would really notice unless they looked really close. But I knew. I was a world away from the girl I once was.

I had hoped this was the biggest change I would ever have to go through…at least for a while. I desperately wanted to stay that new person. I loved her, actually. But I am learning that something big changes in the hearts of people that adopt. Something very unexpected and different than the way you start out feeling when you find out the news. It’s happening inside of me now… I can feel it… but I’m not quite there yet. And that’s okay. I believe that when I hold my child for the first time, I will be the exact version of myself I am suppose to be for that moment (And I'll probably scream from the mountaintops that God never lets me down)…and then I will keep changing. I just have to be willing to.

I am beyond grateful I don't have to miss out on this part of my story!

LauraJane

p.s. I decided to write about my overdose first because it is the part of my story that has had the most impact. I will probably talk more about it and reference it in future posts. I am happy to answer anyone’s questions.