A Still, Small Voice

Motherhood saved me. More accurately, God saved me through motherhood. Becoming “Mommy” opened a new pathway in my mind, a pathway to choosing life for myself, and I am forever changed by it.

In high school, I was a straight-A student—responsible, organized, and disciplined. I took part in many extracurriculars, including marching band, concert band, 4H, and church activities. My mind showed the first signs of fraying in 2009, between my freshman and sophomore years of college. Things slipped from my grasp, and I held tight to what remained, even as that also escaped me. I made bizarre decisions, reckless and irresponsible. At the end of that summer, psychosis set in. I did not recognize it for what it was until almost a decade later, but it bewildered and frightened me.

Going back to university my sophomore year brought back a semblance of discipline in the structure it provided. Even my deep-seated desire, my need, to appear put-together could not stand against my illness, however. By junior year, self-harm had set in, and my half-hearted attempts at suicide began. The university sent me home after an intent attempt, which prompted me to get back in touch with my now-husband. I confided in him as I tried to heal, and soon, he asked me to marry him. During our engagement, I recognized my façade of faith for the falsehood it was and discovered my need for a Savior. I gave my life to Christ on February 24, 2013, and just over four months later, my husband and I were married. Months later, we found out I was pregnant. All was well in my world.

Until it wasn’t. Depression set in hard as my second trimester of pregnancy began. Psychosis tagged along. Suicidal ideation plagued me, along with silence and a drive to withdraw when my new husband tried to comfort me. A figure in my head, my psychotic imagining, always provided the weapon for taking my life. The figure terrorized me with what I must do should I speak up, pray, or act to benefit myself, to save myself.

One day, however, I realized—should I take my life, I also would take the life of the child inside me. I began to fight. My son was helpless without me, and I contended for him, and therefore for myself. I fought to live.

Our son was born in early June 2014. An arduous and difficult birth process left me disoriented, but I discovered a love for him immediately, love that had existed beneath the surface since we had first seen his tiny form on the ultrasound screen. Now I could hold him, hug him close, and place little kisses on top of his head. Some mothers struggle with post-partum depression—I experienced the opposite, post-partum exhilaration and happiness.

Until I didn’t. Sometime around ten months after my son was born, the figure in my head returned, and with a vengeance. As before, it commanded and tried to compel me to attack myself, to take my life. I compromised by harming myself, attempting to buy myself some time. Medication, psychotherapy, reading the Bible more, praying harder—nothing had worked to change my instinct to escape the pain by taking my own life. I knew God was speaking to me to change my heart, but it seemed His voice wasn’t breaking through the barrier my sinful ways had constructed. I thought I had to struggle forever against this suicidal compulsion, always aware it might become too much for me.

Then I heard God’s voice. I had listened to the church songs, those blessed hymns and songs of the faith, but I didn’t hear His voice there. I listened to my friends and family, who encouraged me and pointed me back to Christ, but I didn’t hear His voice there. I listened in prayer, crying out my struggles and begging God to answer me, but I didn’t hear His voice there. Instead, I heard Him in a still, small voice, the tiny voice calling, “Mommy!”

My son would only ever have one mother, God’s voice told me. One Mommy, irreplaceable. It wasn’t that I’m only a mother or even that my most important role is motherhood, but God used my maternal love to get through to me—I am not replaceable. In taking my life, I would succumb to darkness and pass it to those who love me, and they would then have to contend with my suicide, my giving up and telling them they weren’t enough. Besides that, I had lost the drive and desire to grow myself (it was hard enough hanging on every day), but suddenly, I had hope in a child whose entire future was ahead of him. I could be part of it. I just needed to live.

From that day forward, something was different. My depression and psychosis remain, raising their heads from time to time, yet I refuse to fantasize death as an escape. I won’t do that to my son. As I firmed my stance toward living, I looked back, and in the church songs, loved ones’ voices, and prayers, I found echoes of God’s voice. The echoes were faint at first, but they swelled. They became shouts of praise, songs of joy. Suicide is not the answer. God showed me this through love for my son. God’s love and mercy and the joy and life I find in Him transcend my afflictions. Life is mine in Christ, and I will glorify His life in me. I will live.