Graduate.

By now everyone in the free world knows that I graduated from college. I started college in May 1993 at the under-ripe age of 15. I finished my first class (Conversational Spanish) on my 16th birthday and my professor rode with me in my car to the DMV where I met my mother and got my license. Then I drove my own car, following Mom in her Dodge Caravan, to a pizza place by our house where we celebrated my birthday and driver’s license. Then, mom gave me a blank check with her signature... and a grocery list. I had never been happier to go to the grocery store.

Almost 2 years later I experienced an emotional breakdown, dropped out of college, and mostly dropped out of life. I went back to college several times over the next decade, trying out classes and changing majors but never had the internal commitment to finish… until 4 years ago when I felt an intense calling from God to be a part of church ministry.

I shared this calling with my parents who were not not supportive, but were cautious. As parents they have an intense desire to see their children succeed. Mom wanted me to have health insurance and a back-up plan. Dad wanted me to stay safe. I went to a mentor, Monte, and asked for advice. He said if I finished my college degree that he, personally, would come tell my parents that ministry work would be good for me.

At that time I started going to a counselor who informed me that my life was spiraling out of control in some areas. She said that I lacked boundaries and that I needed to start learning to pay attention to what *I* wanted, to learn to say “no,” and to start putting myself first. Four years later and this is still a lesson I have to pay attention to every single day and one I still struggle with at times. But she, too, encouraged me to pay attention to what I wanted and to my calling and encouraged me to go back to college.

I decided to take 2 classes: one was physical education (a gimme that everyone has to take) and the second was an introductory psychology class. That class sparked an interest in me that I’d never felt before. My professor was amazing and knew more about human-interaction, anatomy, and brain functions than anyone I’d ever met and she was a wealth of knowledge. I knew, by the end of the second class, that psychology was the thing – the ministry, the job, the career, and the life – that I wanted to pursue.

I took the steps necessary to get loans (a terrifying ordeal!), and applied to one school. Just one. Psychology, I realized, is a godless pursuit where the self is the center of the universe – the opposite of what I’d learned from my religious and spiritual upbringing. I also knew, based on my own mental health history, that The Church was not properly equipped to deal with individuals suffering from serious mental health issues like major depression, post traumatic stress disorder, bipolar disorder, and anxiety disorders. I wanted to be a bridge between the clinical psychology world and the church world. I wanted to make a way for the Church to reach out into secular sciences to refer ill congregants to trustworthy and trained clinicians and where clinicians would have faith in The Church to refer those with spiritual needs. So, I attended a Christian college to strengthen my knowledge in God, the Church, and to be trained to be a psychologist.

I worked full-time the whole time I was in school and that was the challenge of a lifetime. I absorbed every single piece of information I could and I learned that I am capable of commitment. I learned that I have the fortitude to see something difficult through to the end. I learned that my life experiences can be used to enrich my practice of psychology and ministry and that the things I’ve endured are not hindrances to my success, they will help me along the way.

With about 1 year left of college and feeling of accomplishment and strength, I started another new venture: Zumba. For years I’d wanted to start dancing again but felt that my weight and lack of endurance would lead to failure and embarrassment. But, I’d been so successful in school and in my career that I decided to try it. The decision to try it was another huge accomplishment for me and it further solidified my internal “can do” attitude. Now, a year later, I am a certified Zumba instructor and in a few months I will start teaching classes.

I graduated from college the same day that I was flying back from my cousin’s funeral. In fact, I turned in my last paper on the plane ride home. I did not even begin to celebrate my accomplishment until a month later because Anita’s death was too devastating to allow room to celebrate. Her death was untimely, horrifying, and the single-most tragic thing I have ever known. Her death was a direct result of her own mental illness and that she never reached out for help. I don’t know if she didn’t know how to reach out, if she was too afraid to reach out, or if she just did not have the strength to do so. But she hid her fears and her illness so far inside herself that not even her closest friends and family members ever knew. No one knew until it was much, much too late.

Anita’s death began the next chapter of my life. Anita’s death will inspire me to continue with the calling on my life: to serve the body of Christ and minister healing and help to those who are suffering mental illness or experiencing despair. Only the first part of my training is done, but I have enough training, now, where I can ring a bell of warning to The Church: Mental Illness *is* an illness! Just as you would send someone with a broken leg to a doctor, so must you send someone with a mental illness to a clinician! There are medications and therapies that can help while you minister to the spirit of the broken man.

I am going to work to be that bridge between science and the church. I am going to work to build trust between the two communities so the stigma of mental health is not something to be ashamed of, but something that is treatable and show these two communities that only by working together can we save someone… someone like my 18 year old cousin, Anita.

I have been through the “valley of the shadow of death.” I have been in Anita’s shoes and understand the idea of taking my own life as a single-solution to unbearable pain. I know the anguish. I know the despair. I know what it is like to not be able to find joy in anything. I know the feeling of mockery that one can feel when they hear someone say, “You need to find the joy of the Lord,” or the intense anger and loathing you feel when someone tells you that the “joy of the Lord should be your strength.” Joy? How can I feel joy when I can feel nothing but pain, anxiety, fear, panic, despair?” I know these feelings intimately.

Experiencing mental illness is not a curse on life – although it certainly feels that way. It does not mean that you don’t love Jesus, that you are a bad person, or a bad Christian. It means that you are sick and that you need a doctor, just like anyone with Diabetes needs a doctor. I want to help bring awareness to The Church and to psychology clinicians to continue to make a way for these two assumedly opposite ways of thinking to come together to work for healing and restoration for those who are suffering.

For all of those like Anita, who suffer in silence and are afraid – there is help available and I will work to bring that help to you so you do not suffer alone. While you may not be able to feel joy, yet, you can have hope. Do not be afraid to reach out for help because it exists! And I will work to make that help more readily available without the stigma and without the fear of being cast out.

This is what my education and life experiences have equipped me to do. This is what my ministry will be.