We can do nothing without God. Sometimes He'd let you get to that place where you realize, there is nothing left and you're just wondering if you want to live because it hurts and life is dark. When He let you get to that place and that's when He can break it to you and let you know He is there, and then He can work with you to bring beauty out of ashes and hope out of darkness.
My mom, when she was pregnant with me, was diagnosed with bipolar. The times when my mom would be struggling they might be trying her on different medications to help her with the mood swings, had a savior complex and had like a guilt complex that somehow that aren't my family's problems or my own fault or I'm one that was forced to try to help or fix it, which is impossible for any human to do, only Jesus can do that. But I believe stuffing all of those emotions and for so long, my world just started to crumble around me. I started having nervous breakdown.
I could not stuff any longer everything that I'd grown up with. I just slowly but surely just started to withdraw completely. It got to the extent where I was like a prisoner of my own house, of my own fears. If it wasn't my mom making me come out of the basement, and sometimes making me eat, I would just stay down in my room in the basement and I remember how awful that darkness was and how terrible it is to live without hope. I can still feel that in my throat, in my heart, I remember what that feels like.
I had been still contemplating suicide on and off several months and I knew that it was getting worse, and I was going to be successful unless something happened. Just trying to talk to yourself out of it every day, but still it just always being there, haunting me. I just went to bed feeling really really sick and just told myself-- in counseling, they'll tell you, "Don't make any impulsive decisions, it will always be brighter in the morning. Just see it through the night, sometimes the night are the longest darkest hours." I just went to sleep telling myself that.
When I woke in the morning there was no relief, it was worse than it was. It was just like I knew it was waiting for me when I woke up in the morning. Then I went to class and as soon as that class was getting going, I asked the teacher if I could go get a drink of water, and I went into the kitchen.
I started drinking some of the different cleaners, and as I was there drinking the cleaners choking on the cleaners just such an awful place to be in. A very kind chaplain he flipped on the kitchen lights and he comes in with his bright smile, and he's like, "Heather, how are you doing today?" I'm like, "I'm killing myself." I look at his face and I can not lie to him, such a kind man, and I just start sobbing. He doesn't make a big deal, he just kindly and sweetly helps pick me up off the floor and walks me to his office. He talked to me, I told him what I drunk, and he called the ambulance. After that hospital stay, everybody was so scared for me, because it was not expected at all.
But after that somehow I knew that suicide was not an option anymore, that I had closed that door. Even though I still had that same pain and fear and I had no idea how God was going to pick up the pieces, and I still had to be honest with God. I was like, "God, obviously you care, obviously, I know that you spared my life, and I don't have any idea how you're going to help me fix this mess of my life." But it was the beginning of me trusting Him again and just shutting that door to suicide. It's not ever being an option again.
God used Amazing Facts and Pastor Doug in a powerful way to make His love for me, His soon coming for me, and that He was calling me to share that with others real, and it was making it personal God's love for me, and that's a seed that I'll never forget. I'm so grateful that my family didn't have to go through the pain and the tragedy of me taking my life and that I have the joy of being able to encourage other people that there's always hope. Amazing Facts changed my life. I'm so grateful for their ministry. It's a precious blessing.