Part Six

When I first married Ronnie I was working at the local hospital in our town. I was a clerk in the Radiology Dept but as my mental health declined my ability to manage stress declined as well. I eventually stopped working because of my mental health as well as my physical health. I need to backtrack just a little bit before moving forward. From the time I got saved at the age of 18 the Lord began speaking to me about using me to work through to heal people both emotionally and physically. I had no idea what that was going to look like and the worse I got the more I pushed that message to the side. However, when I stopped working at the hospital I felt like I was supposed to go to college so that I could provide mental health counseling. I am sure it sounds a little off to say I wanted to go to college to help people when I was so sick myself, but I really felt like it was the step I was supposed to take, and it was supposed to be at that exact timing in my life.

I signed up for classes at IU East which was a local community college. I decided to get a degree in Social Work because that would allow me to become a mental health therapist and it could also open many other doors. I planned from the beginning to go straight into the master’s program right after the bachelor’s program. I was so scared of college at first because I had struggled so much in school. I had a major fear of public speaking, so I prayed and told God that I was going to need His help if I was going to be able to make it through my classes. My program required a ton of public speaking and that terrified me, but God set me free from that fear and helped me every single step of the way. I actually ended up liking public speaking and sharing my ideas and thoughts.

College was good for me in many ways. It was healing to process through some of the projects, I made friends, and I was able to express myself for the first time in my life. I had to spend a ton of time studying, but I excelled. I maintained a 4.0, but it crossed the line into perfectionism. I was getting my identity and worth through my grades and my mood hinged on every single grade. I got a B on a test one time, and I literally was in tears. If I achieved A’s I was “good” and if I got anything other than that, even an A-, I was a failure in my mind.

I graduated with my bachelor’s degree in social work in four years and I applied for the advanced standing accelerated year long MSW Program (Masters in Social Work). I was accepted and that entire year is a blur. They smashed an entire master’s program, including an internship, into one year. I had zero life outside of school because a 4.0 didn’t come easy for me. I had to spend hours studying. As soon as I graduated I was hired as a child and family mental health therapist in a local community mental health agency. For a while it seemed that my mental health was a little better and I was really excited to start my new career.

The newness faded almost as soon as it began because I quickly saw how hard and triggering it was to listen to the trauma stories of my clients all day long. I didn’t have the personal coping skills to separate myself from their pain because I was still so broken at the time. I carried my burden and theirs as well. There were many days that I would come home from work and cut my body just to destress and make it through the evening. Cutting became my go to coping skill. Ronnie hated when I would cut, but the more he talked about me stopping the more obsessive and protective I got with it. I also turned to food and was steadily gaining weight. My physical health took many heavy hits. I had been diagnosed with Hashimoto’s autoimmune disease, hypothyroidism, allergies, chronic female issues, chronic sinus issues, Fibromyalgia, osteoarthritis, and I had numerous surgeries/medical procedures. Some of the surgeries and procedures include 2 sinus surgeries, a total hysterectomy, endometrial ablation, DNC, 2 abdominal exploratory surgeries, gallbladder removal, appendectomy, and tons and tons of test to find out what all was going on with my health. At this point in my life I was on about 15 different medications a day for chronic pain, depression, and other issues. I was basically a zombie. I really don’t even know how I was making it through life.

As I declined more and more I decided to find a therapist for myself. After seeing her for a while we made the decision that it was no longer ethical for me to practice as a therapist until I was more stable. I turned in my notice and thought I would take a small break to work on myself and then return to providing therapy. My personal therapy sessions were very difficult. I do not remember a lot about my sessions, but I do remember my diagnosis. I was diagnosed with Clinical Depression, PTSD, and Dissociative Identity Disorder. I was not surprised by the depression or PTSD, but the DID was a really hefty diagnosis. The idea behind DID is that when you suffer trauma, especially as a child, your personality can split into altars. In the simplest terms it means you can have several distinct people/personalities living in the same body.

The DID diagnosis made so much sense because it explained the voices I heard all the time in my head, the drastic mood changes, the strong influx of emotions, and so much more. I knew and could recognize which “alter” was speaking to me because of how it talked and the emotions I experienced when it was present. I will describe a few of them, but I am not going to give their names because that part is not important.

Sexually Aggressive: One of them was very sexually aggressive. It wanted to cause pain and experience pain. This was the complete opposite of me and nothing I would have ever wanted in my life, but when it was around I felt those emotions and desires. It was like watching a movie character from the outside. It was me, but it wasn’t me. I was not in total control of my body, and it was like being dragged into situations I wanted no part of, but I could not speak up and change it.

Protector: This one was especially damaging in my life because it pretended to really care about me and want to protect me. The problem was it hated everyone, including my own child and other family members. It would tell me that they wanted to hurt me, did not love me, could not love me, and that the only one who really loved me was it. It tried to put walls between me and everyone else in my life under the guise of protection. It even hated God and often told me that He did not love me and that He would never help me. It made me paranoid, and I felt like everyone was out to get me, that they all had an agenda, and that no one could like or love me for me. I fell for this lie for many years, and it kept me bound in a victimhood mentality and very isolated. This one was also full of rage. If I experienced even the slightest attack or even perceived attack I would easily slip into a blackout rage where I would yell, scream, through things, and get out of control.

Young Child: This one caused me to feel so much pain, abonnement, alone, and scared all the time. It was very needy. When this one was around it made me want to suck my thumb, have stuffed toys, hold Ronnie’s hand like a child would their parent’s hand, curl up in a ball, and rock to self soothe.

Goth: This one was drawn to very dark things such as movies, books, colors, décor, etc. It loved movies and books about witchcraft, zombies, ghost, demons, horror, Halloween, the occult, death, murder, fighting, paranormal activity, etc.

There were many more, but you get the idea. I was not living alone in my body. I heard constant voices and they often tried to get me to give them the “drivers seat”. They would tell me that life would be so much easier if I just took the back seat and let them take over. They said I could rest, and they would take care of me. I never consented to letting them fully take over, but I did give them a ton of control in my life. In therapy I was taught to integrate with them so that we could all live in harmony together. Part of the integration was allowing them to express themselves through giving them a voice, allowing them to write through me, and listening to their needs and wants. All those things allowed them a lot of control in my life, and I fully accepted them as part of me. I was protective of them, and I never once considered that they were anything other than the effects of severe trauma.

Part of my counseling involved REMD therapy. During those sessions I would often dissociate to the point I would feel myself leaving my body out of the top of my head. I could feel myself slipping away so the sessions would have to end. My therapist biggest goal for me was to keep me out of the hospital so we had to go very slowly with treatment. It finally got to the point it was just to traumatizing so I stopped going to the therapy sessions.

The PTSD continued to get worse. I had tons of triggers that included places, words, body type, clothes, shoes, smells, tv shows, geographical locations, seasons, dates, holidays, and so much more. Ronnie and I learned how to live our lives around my triggers, but I had times where I got triggered and I didn’t even know what was causing them. It was like something was constantly poking my emotions, body, and mind to cause torment.

The depression was so severe it was often physically painful. It felt like I was hanging on the side of a deep dark pit that I was in constant danger of falling into. I felt like I was losing my mind and that I might cross a line that I could never come back from. I can remember praying for God to not let me forget who I was because I was so afraid I would go to sleep at night and wake up not being me. I felt like I could just be gone and not have the power to come back.

My family and I also experienced a massive hurt in our lives. My parents started attending church when I was around 16 years old. When I was 18 I started attending the same church so we had been there together for years. Our church was much more than just where we went a few times a week. It was our family. We spent every Sunday morning, Sunday night, and Wednesday night with the same folks for years. My brother and son grew up with the other kids in the church. My son was only a few months old when I started going there. My dad was the kids pastor and associate pastor.

About five years before we left I started disengaging from the leadership and church because I noticed a lot of issues related to control and manipulation that crossed a line. However, I didn’t leave during those years because I didn’t feel God prompting me to leave yet. My dad started feeling like God was calling him to do something different, but he wasn’t sure what. He reached out to the lead pastor and told him what he was feeling. The lead pastor wanted him to take a church out of state and become the head pastor at it. He told him he would help him find one, but the problem was my dad did not feel led to do that. He wasn’t sure where God was leading him, but at that moment he did not feel led to become a lead pastor of a church. He wanted to take time to explore in prayer what God wanted to do in his life. Also, he could not just move out of state. His dad also lived on the same property as the house my dad had built so he could not sale the land and make his dad move out of the house he had on the same property. The lead pastor at the church did not like my dad’s idea and told him to just sale the property and make his dad move. My dad never felt right about that, so he refused. The pastor fired my dad and told him that he, my mom, and brother had to leave the church.

God told my dad to not say a word or even defend himself when we first left the church and so many lies were told about him. God did not give me that same directive or if He did I wasn’t listening back then so I became very vocal. People began to come out of the woodwork to tell me their horror stories of being hurt by the leadership of that church. I would be in the gas station getting a pop and someone would recognize me and tell me their story, or I would get messages online. It was crazy and the more I heard the angrier I got and the more offense I took on.

My dad went over a year with zero income because he could not find a job. We could not understand why he could not get hired anywhere because he had a very long history of working in factories and then in the church, but nothing was happening when he was applying for so many jobs. I watched my parents walk through what was probably the darkest time of their lives. Not only were they scrapping by to make it financially they were being lied about, people that had been their family for years turned their back on them, my brothers friends were not allowed to continue their friendship, and so much more. People were told to choose them, or the church and we could never understand why. We would run into people at the store who we had known for years, and they would not even speak to us. It was bad. We were basically shunned when we didn’t even do anything other than my dad feeling like he was called to do something different. We lost our church, our church family, and my parents were on the verge of losing so much more because my dad could not find a job. Not everyone treated us this way, but many did. There were a few that saw the same things we had seen and knew what was being said about us was not true.

One day I got the idea that maybe the lead pastor was giving my dad a bad report when potential employers called for a reference. I had a friend call the church and pretend to be a potential employer and ask for a reference for my dad. The lead pastor said awful things about my dad and lied about his work ethic and character. I recorded the phone call, and my dad was able to use it to get the lies stopped. He got a job immediately after that.

We got to the point where we were so done with church—not God, but the organized church. We were hurt and it took years to overcome that pain. We have healed, forgiven, and moved forward, but I do think it is an important part of my story, so I shared it. It added to the hurt and trauma I had already faced in my life and created a snowball effect that taught me I could not even trust those who said they were Christians. I now know that was a tactic of the enemy to turn me against the church and isolate me, but at the time it felt very much like truth and I accepted it as truth for many years.

I am not angry or even hurt anymore and I definitely do not want anyone to pick up an offense on our part. Many people face church hurt and if you have or are facing a situation like that just know you are not alone. My best advice is to be quick to forgive, separate God from the experience, just because someone says they are a representative of God doesn’t mean they are, and find a church home that is not toxic.

When we were going though the season of church hurt we just all got to the point that we wanted out of Indiana. We wanted to move and have a fresh start for us and our kids. My brother decided to apply to a college in Arizona. He was accepted so my parents decided to follow him, and Ronnie, Trenton, I decided to follow them. Ronnie had wanted to live in AZ from the first day I met him, and I was finally ready to leave Indiana. My parents moved to Tucson, AZ. Ronnie rode out with them to help them move and while he was out there he interviewed for a job. He got the job, and we moved 5 weeks later.  

We have two more parts to this series! In part seven I will discuss how I was set free from the torment in my life and in part eight I will discuss some of the lessons I have learned along the way.

Thank you for joining me on my journey to healing and deliverance!

Blessings,

Nichole Henson, Fullness of Joy Ministry