At a recent visit with my parents in my childhood home, I stopped at the end of our hallway and looked around the TV console in the living room toward the dining room.
In that moment, I experienced a sense of great peace. I smiled and thanked Jesus and Mary for healing a memory that once haunted me. It is actually one of many memories they have healed thanks to my invitation to show me where they were while I experienced some painful times.
Memories of Anxiety and Depression Needing Healing
From my earliest childhood, I have memories of experiencing anxiety, depression, and mood swings. I was always afraid, nervous, and panicky about death and dying. Each night, I was afraid, would be my last.
In my preteen years, I developed symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). I told no one for a very long time … until I could no longer bear the weight of fear and dread that comes with obsessions and compulsions to repeatedly do certain tasks for what seems like an infinite number of times. I finally confided in my mother, and she connected me with our parish priest. Eventually, however, my mood swings didn’t respond to his counseling; I needed medication.
Due to stigma surrounding mental illness, it wasn’t until my sophomore year in high school that my parents brought me to a psychiatrist.
I spent my whole childhood anxious and depressed without understanding why, nor could I control my extreme moods. I knew something wasn’t right. This wasn’t the way a person should live. This wasn’t what God wanted. Yet this was my reality.
Because my family didn’t understand what I was going through, many things were said and done that left me feeling rejected, neglected, and abandoned by the people who were supposed to love me the most.
My experience in school wasn’t good either. It was all I could do to hold it together during the day, until I could come home and let it out by sobbing uncontrollably.
Sometimes I couldn’t make it through the day and would hide out in the bathroom at school, crying until there were no tears left.
In one painful memory from my childhood, I remember being alone in my bedroom and hearing the rest of my family laughing and chatting at the dining table as a loving family does. I slowly crept down the hallway. Hiding behind the TV console, I peeked around it and looked into the dining room at my family. I saw how happy and joyous they were.
I knew if I were to join them, the mood would change.
In that moment, like so many others, I wanted to no longer exist. I felt all I brought was pain and suffering to my family and that I was a burden. All I wanted was to be loved for who I am. I realized that was a lot to ask of my family, friends, and acquaintances. Slowly, the tears fell, and I quietly returned to my room.
How Jesus and Mary Healed My Memories
In my early thirties, I began to see a spiritual director who led me through what was the beginning of my emotional and spiritual healing process.
It was hard. It was painful. It was purifying. It continues to be to this day.
He suggested I invite Jesus and Mary into my painful memories, the ones where I felt most alone, rejected, and abandoned. He asked me to ask Jesus and Mary to show me where they were when painful things happened.
At first, I couldn’t imagine where they could have been and how those things could have happened if they were there.
But I acquiesced and invited Jesus and Mary into my painful memories when they came up.
Jesus and Mary showed me that they were there. Through all of it. In every moment.
When I was sobbing uncontrollably in my room and no one was physically there to hold me, Mary was sitting beside me, holding me close. When I was hiding behind the TV console looking at my family and wishing I wasn’t such a burden, Jesus was standing beside me, and Mary had her arm around me, giving me just enough comfort to continue on and have hope that one day I would experience the unconditional love I so desired. When I was sobbing in the bathroom stall at school, they kept others from entering so my tears could fall freely and I wouldn’t have to be conscious of another person coming in.
The Healing Continues
So on this recent day when I stopped at the end of the hallway in my parents’ house to look into the dining room, I smiled as I looked at the spot where I once hid in my sorrow and pain.
I felt the peace of knowing Jesus and Mary were there with me. They were always there. Even when I didn’t know it. And they are there now, as I write this blog and share my story with you. Then and now, their presence gives me peace that sustains me in the midst of any sorrow or anxiety I experience.
The same is true for you. All you have to do is invite Jesus and Mary to be with you in your painful moments of anxiety and depression and ask them to show you where they are. You will know you are loved unconditionally, are never alone, and have nothing to fear because Jesus and Mary are with you always.