Chronicles: 5th Averet edition

The walls are white. I am cold. I sip my water slowly because I can only have one small Styrofoam cup of it at a time, and if I keep asking the guards for more, they get annoyed. I need my glasses. I have a headache. Damnit, why wasn’t I at least wearing my glasses? 

There is dried vomit on the side of my bed, hair on the floor. I won’t get describe the bathroom. I keep a close watch to make sure the blanket does not touch the vomit stain. I ask for a second blanket because I am freezing and wearing paper scrubs. I have to promise them I won’t hurt myself with it and sleep with the door open. A guard records what I do ever ten minutes. I ball up a portion of my blanket to use as a pillow. We can’t have pillows. My neck hurts.

I wait for my medication, that I take daily, and I wait. I ask, and they tell me they are getting it. They forgot to write an order for it though. I get sick and throw up because it’s a medication that has to be taken daily or else you get sick. It takes nearly 40 hours to get my medication, which, by the way, was in my purse.

I’m breastfeeding, and Eden’s not here, and I have no pump, and I’m in pain. What have I done? How could this happen? My precious baby girl! So confused!

I can’t have any of my belongings. I have to wait. Be patient. Tell the truth. It will be fine. That’s what I tell myself. Just listen, Megin. God is here. You know He must be.

So I did. I told the truth, the whole truth, and they asked one question at the end of it all, “What do you want us to do for you?” I thought, and I said the right answer. I didn’t say the first few answers that came to my mind. I knew those weren’t what I should focus on. 

“I want you to help me get better.” I said, “Please.” 

“We’ll be back in a little bit.” -doctor, leaving the room. I never saw that doctor again.

I waited, hours, and heard nothing. I couldn’t use the phone still, they kept saying hold on, it was charging, but they never gave it to me. I’m not sure what they were feeding us, but I struggle to call it food. I listened to men come in off the streets and get put into rooms and then released a few hours later. From what I could overhear, it seemed like they were addicts and med-seeking, or homeless and bed-seeking. I mourned. They keep me, the white privileged woman who threatened to kill herself because … well, that’s another story for another time, but the point is, they kept me, but these other men, that my heart broke for, they couldn’t keep. I didn’t understand this system. How did this help people? What is going on?

I told one of the guards at one point that I felt like I was in prison. 
“Oh, trust me. I’ve been in prison; this is MUCH nicer, but I know what you mean. You got no rights now. No freedom. You in the system.” -really nice guard.

“And one more piece of advice, if you want to get better AND get out of the system, you gotta calm down. I know you’re crying because this is a shock to your soul and you feel like so many people do not understand what’s REALLY going on, and you’re right, but hold on. Self-compose. You’ll be fine. Just remember, you have to stand up for you, but you have to do it properly. You can advocate for yourself. I know it. I learned how to do it for me.” -really, really nice guard. I don’t remember his name, but thank God for people who have been to prison, been through hell, and come out the other side. I met many people over the course of the next week with similar stories.

I was in the ER psychiatric ward… waiting for a bed upstairs on the regular floor, 5th Averet. “That’s it Megin. You let it go this far. Now you need the psych ward. That’s it. Oh what joy those who have dissented will take in this.” -WAIT “STOP, I say to myself. There is no condemnation for those who are in Christ. I will not be ashamed. I am brave. I am enduring this. I am strong. I know a few people who could use this type of reality check actually.” 

I found out later that day that I was waiting for an upstairs room because the doctor had admitted me, which basically meant I was not going to be allowed to leave until the team of doctors agreed that I was safe and a judge signed off on it. Talk about not prison, huh?

But, I had asked for help, and I was getting it. I just hadn’t expected I needed this much help. BUT that’s probably because I also had not ADMITTED to myself JUST HOW BAD life had gotten… and I don’t mean just ME making mistakes, I mean things I was enduring at the hand of others, even community.

Once upstairs, they gave it to me straight. You may have _____. We don’t know, but either way, we’d treat it the same way, as you have been doing, but you need to rest, and you gotta make some big decisions. It’s best for you to stay here, not to go home to your families house OR back to NYC with your husband. You want to get better, stay here for a bit.” I had my bible. Jesse was bringing my books. I could have books! Eli drew me a picture and wrote “look up,” something he always says when he wants to remind himself or one of us to look to God.

That was Thursday. I’d been there since Tuesday. My flight was leaving for New York on Friday. Second spoiler alert, I wouldn’t make that flight.

I was devastated, to say the least. I’d never been away from my kids that long before- and I was RIPPED away, literally, with Eli crying and hugging me. There was NO warning. It was like something you’d watch on TLC or one of those stations where they show the agony of real life people in real life situations. This was going down. I had always wanted a starring role in something; I guess my role was going to be playing ME in the reality show that would become my life inevitably due to the nature of our situation.

But this story, my friends, is actually not too uncommon. That’s what I’ve learned. That’s what I’ve heard, and honestly, that’s what I’ve observed. I post this stuff, and people come out of the woodwork to tell me their stories. The church needs to hear these stories. The church needs to preach about these stories. If we want less of these stories, we have to embrace the ones that are here currently. The church needs to look in the mirror. Christian pastors need to look in the mirror. Pastor’s wives (or husbands) need to look in the mirror. I know of some good mirrors on a pysch ward nearby.

What happened to me is what happens when one gives her life to things that do not give back to her in return, or to people who do not give back to her, and when she makes these things or people her idol, what she HAS to have, outside of God, these things happen. 

“This is what happens when you allow yourself to be trapped even though you know the truth, that the cage is an illusion and you can break it IF you can handle the fall-out and the fact that not everyone in the world is going to love you. Do you need everyone to love you, Megin? Or do you just need to be with God and to love your children. I think you know the answer.” I preached to myself, continually. I want to live. I’ve never wanted to die. But I couldn’t get the people around me, who were supposed to love me MORE than anyone else, to pay any dang attention to the fact that this life was killing me… and rightly so- Emotionally and mentally and spiritually, I was lacking SOME BASIC CORE HUMAN NEEDS. 

In our world, it’s too common, and people are too scared or ashamed to admit it. I get that. I would be too, if it weren’t for the hope I have in the Gospel and the worldview that Scripture gives me. Megin when she’s at her best and on top of her game and looking fly never feels any better about herself than if she were a homeless person on the street. Why? Because anything I have or do is because of grace in the first place. The difference between me (or you even) and a person sleeping on the street is typically about 2 or 3 decisions, and basically just distance. Because this I learned too, the people who are the most helpful to those of us in need are usually the ones who have been through their own dark night of the soul, or spent time in their own psychiatric wing.

I wrote this, the first night I was there, still in the ER, and on the back of coloring book page and with crayons, because that’s all we were allowed to write with. 

“Freedom is in our mind as much as it is in our hands. Our eyes will deceive us, even our hearts and our thoughts will be distorted in a broken world of fallen thing and men and women and systems. The earth groans and longs for redemption. We see things upside down, but we cannot see them inside out, only God sees that, knows that, and can redeem that. Do something with this Megin. It’s not wasted. Jesus is the savior and yet He hung on a tree and was ridiculed. When forced into silence, LISTEN. When forced to deny yourself for unjust purposes, commit your heart and ways to God, trusting He will exalt you in due time. Jesse was willing to let you go, willing even to let you die, albeit he probably didn’t think you had the courage to go through with it. But God. Jesus spoke to you hard truths. You didn’t want to believe them, but it all makes sense now. Jesus found you. Jesus can be trusted. People fail. People can’t be your god. People lie. You would know; you’re a person. God never fails. His love never ends, and He is always here with You.”

Seven days; that’s how long it would be before I got to see my kids again. Seven days for me to understand the truth about my circumstances. Seven days for me to realize that I was blessed to be there, and that I know quite a few people who would benefit from a stay in the psych ward, and that I wasn’t going to ignore unhealthy situations or behaviors anymore. Seven days, to change a life.

I wish I could say everything I learned was brand new information, but the truth is, most of what we went over in classes and groups were things that I knew already and maybe even had attempted to put in practice before. What WAS brand new information, however, is that I was allowed to trust myself. That my thoughts and feelings mattered, just as much as those who were in authority over me, whether they were parents, elders, pastors, or my husband. I mattered, and it was possible that I could be right and OTHERS be wrong. That’s what I learned. I met ME, and so long as I was following God and checking my heart, I could trust ME. Even my possible diagnosis that the doctor was wondering about was something I’d thought I had for a while and had studied and read books about. 

But trusting myself, that my perception of reality could be RIGHT and that I had the RIGHT to stand up for ME AND WHAT I BELIEVED WAS TRUTH. That was something new I learned, and it makes sense that I had to be in a hospital to learn out, outside of the patriarchy of the Christian church today which also has little understanding of mental illness, and outside of the tyranny of my own marriage, tyranny I contributed to by thinking my role was one thing and seeking to be a person that God actually never even intended me to be. I knew what I had to do. If I wanted freedom, I had to live authentically. I had to give all these things that I was trying to fix, and working my butt off to fix, to Jesus. If I wanted to live, I had to practice my faith, not just have it in my head.

So I did. And I was reborn, again. 

A few years ago, after Eden was born, I was wondering if I’d have a third child, and one day when I was praying about it, I felt God was saying to me that I was pregnant already. Now I knew he couldn’t mean ACTUALLY pregnant because I KNEW I was not actually pregnant. And spoiler, 9 months passed, and I didn’t have a baby. BUT, God was telling me that He was birthing something in me. I didn’t know what He was birthing. I tried to figure it out… but I couldn’t. I realize now, He was birthing me. I was birthing me. I was going to learn how to love me and see myself as Christ does, as His daughter, His incredibly capable and gifted daughter that does not have to have the approval of ANYONE in order to matter or have identity. God’s daughter, whose life is precious, whose life is PURPOSED, and whom God has literal incredible days planned for… that’s me, no matter HOW I am treated by others. Others are broken. I’m not the only one. 

The psych ward was the ring of fire, to use a Bradley method-labor analogy. I was being pressed and squeezed more than I thought I could take, but I was about to see the sun… I just needed to keep pressing, even when I thought I couldn’t. 

Eden’s birth was that type of birth. When she finally arrived, I literally could not believe it. I had joy, for 1.5 seconds, until she didn’t cry, and then I was terrified. It was a grueling two days. THAT’S ALL IT WAS, two days of her in the NICU, and I felt my world was ending. Perseverance Megin, trust in God. One of these days, it will be as natural to you as breathing… just not quite yet.

Currently, I feel like I’m in the hospital waiting for my baby to come out of the NICU, but we could be here for a while. Meaning, there is a lot to get sorted out and to work through in life right now, and there are a great many unknowns, and I certainly see things upside down and NOT inside out. So all I can do is surrender.

“Wreck my life, God. Wreck everything that needs to be wrecked, and purify it. Bring out only what is pure gold for your glory and can be used to point others to You. Do not bless me if I cannot be a blessing, but do bless me, as Your word tells me, so that I can bless others. I was a captive, God, in a myriad of ways for many years, but you’ve set me free from every chain I ever had… and you continue to do so. Thank You.”

And so I wait…I write…and I endure, for the glory of God, and in order to love well. 

For more information about how to support our family as we heal and as I spearhead some drastic changes, please visit the GoFundMe. Thank you for your prayers.