As an adult she heard a preacher say, “When you feel like you want to kill yourself, something needs to die, but it’s not you”. She only wishes she had heard these words in her difficult teenage years because at the tender age of 17 she tried to commit suicide.
Excessive bullying, an emotionally abusive relationship (that ultimately led to a harsh breakup), an injury that ended her high school athletic career and alcohol addiction that ultimately led to chronic depression is what she endured at the age of 17. One may ask, how on earth does this happen to a 17 year old girl??? This is how.
She was a junior going into her senior year of high school with a high likelihood of receiving a full athletic scholarship for basketball. At the beginning of the year, she had received an abundance of letters of interest from some of the most competitive Universities in the US and a few international programs. The dream became less promising when she tragically tore her ACL and meniscus during a High school basketball game. From that day forward, her life instantly came crashing down as she began to put on a facade to hide her identity issues and signs of chronic depression. Everyone, including herself, wanted to believe that she was only the girl who loved Jesus (because she was in church like 3-4 days out of the week), performed great academically, and didn’t give her parents much trouble at home. They couldn’t know that she was hanging with who she and her peers thought were the ‘cool kids’, their friends. These ‘friends’ were fake thugs, excessive weed smokers and drinkers who liked to party and make anyone the object of ridicule until they broke down in tears. Mere heartless bullies…The thought of revealing the insecure, self-condemning, depressed, confused, and not so smart girl that she was, became unbearable.
A few days, post full reconstructive knee surgery, she was alone in her bedroom thinking she just needs to be put out of her misery. The life she is supposed to live after this just isn’t worth living. So she grabbed her bottle of Vicodin and stared at it for about 30 seconds thinking, “I wonder if this is enough to do the job”. She slowly opened the cap, turned the bottle up and dry swallowed half of contents. She was seconds from finishing the bottle when suddenly, her bedroom door was opened. Her parents showed up with her favorite fast food. She began to weep. That small thoughtful gesture of her parents essentially stopped her from committing suicide. The poor girl was high as a kite for a while, then sick a dog for a longer while, but she was indeed ALIVE. God’s amazing grace had saved her and she was reminded by the Holy Spirit that she was a child of God. He knew her heart and He loved her for who she was.
It still took a few years for her to accept who she was in Christ but she continued to persevere. Even through her trials and tribulations, she loved Jesus, strived to obey God’s word, and find her identity in Him. She successfully killed what needed to die, the facade.
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