13 Days of Hell. (1-3)

"May my flesh be so exhausted that it had no strength to hide my soul..."

I know this is not easy to read. It's not easy to write. This is a journey of walking through the valley of the shadow of death.

I know I know. It's been 900 years since my last post. BECAUSE A LOT WENT DOWN! Plus, I just finished my first year of grad school this week (PAAAARRRRTTTTAAAYYY) and the second half of the semester SERIOUSLY kicked my booty scholalstically and emotionally. So what the heck is going on am I right? It's like is this girl getting married? Did they break up? We get a "postponed" Facebook notice and no details? I get it, I get it. Truth be told, I've been pretty scared to actually write this post because what I'm about to share has truly been one of the scariest and hardest months of my life thus far. But I promise there is a light at the end of the tunnel. There is beauty, restoration, hope, and freedom. But we are starting at the beginning of the tunnel. The entry, where the only light was behind me.

Every morning I was waking up with extreme anxiety. I know I've used the word anxious all over this blog, but boy was that an understatement. I think before I was dealing with a lot of stress, a lot of worry, and a lot of fear. By anxiety I mean I would wake up every morning with my heart racing, my mind going 1000 miles an hour, and trembling. At this point, Patrick and I were fighting everyday about something. When I say fighting I mean someone getting their feelings hurt, misunderstandings, and just overall not enjoying one another. Plus, every second I'm wrestling with the questions, "do I want to spend the rest of my life with you? Is this a wise decision? Is this what God is calling me to do? Can I be the best version of myself with you? Can I do ministry well, be creative, alive and inspired in relationship with you? Is this a solid relationship? Can I trust you? Are you reliable? Would I literally lay down my life for you? Am I sure you're 'the one'? "So let's rewind to how these thoughts started and where this roller coaster went. So... here goes.

WEDNESDAY(April 26th): After a very fun morning Chapel at work, Patrick picked me up (lookin' FOINE) to take me to grab coffee before he went to his Paula Abdul rehearsal [I know, he fan-C]. We went to David's tea and were having such a cute and flirty morning. The mall was so dead because it was only 10am so we were just being silly and giggly and walking around literally hugging each other so full of joy. Patrick surprised me and shared with me that he wanted to take me to Tiffany's the next day to pick out my wedding band with him! He wanted to get me an eternity ring ( a ring with little diamonds all the way around it) and he knew I'd always dreamed as a little girl of having a Tiffany's ring as a Bride! I was so excited! I thought that he had forgot since my engagement ring wasn't a Tiffany's ring and thought maybe he thought the whole thing was silly. I felt so seen and loved! We walked into a jewler and got his ring sized as well and looked at some wedding bands for him so I could get an idea for what he liked! Then he dropped me back at work and went off to work himself.

I was so inspired and in love I got on the computer and literally planned our whole wedding in 5 hours. I booked a photographer, a florist, our honeymoon sweet, a videographer, a baker, our musicians, a DJ, and a wedding planner. I got all the different contracts emailed to me and was just waiting to see Patrick to go over them with him and we could sign them! I had youth group that night, which was also so fun! And then Patrick was meeting me back at the house that night for us to finish our guest list, wedding website, and registry! It had been such an amazing day and felt like finally a breath of fresh air from all the tension I had been feeling.

Patrick came over and shared that rehearsal was pretty stressful that day. He quickly changed the subject so I assumed it didn't really bother him too badly. We sit side by side and I start working on the guest list and he picks out fun things for our registry. He says a couple of snarky things but I just let them brush off and figure he's tired. With some tension in his voice he asks if we can do the registry together. I felt like we were doing it together, but just getting twice as much done at once, so now I'm trying to be more attentive to the things he's picking out and taking breaks from the guest list to look at what he's doing as well and try to connect with him in a more assertive way. I'm almost done, trying to work as fast as I can so we could just hang out and stop working on wedding stuff. I have maybe 10 more names to go when he get's an email saying that he has rehearsal pretty early. He get's really upset and says the he should've been asleep an hour ago and that he's just gonna go. I had been trying to go as fast as I could to try and spend time with him and was so hurt that he was so quick to want to leave when I had been at work myself since 7:45am and literally worked all day through lunch on our wedding, while trying to be understand he had to get up early and it wasn't personal. I just didn't feel super seen. He says he'll stay for a little so I go in my room to put some lotion on my face. He didn't hear me say I was putting potion on and come in my room thinking I was mad at him. I was so confused. "Why would I be mad at you"?

This conversation somehow turns into a whole fight about us not being able to fight well. We've been together for 10 months and not once have we had a fight and resolved it in the same day, ever. I was so upset about it because it was so important to me. We start talking it out and eventually Patrick invited my brother J. in the room to mediate because we are not getting any where. In the talk I learn that he's never resolved conflict within the same conversation ever in his life and has no idea what I mean when I say that with all my other relationships we end conflict resolution conversations happy, hugging, and often even laughing. I was SO MAD at him for sharing that because I had no idea. I shared with him when we first started dating how important communication is and resolving conflict. Had I known that he had no experience in that, I don't know that I would've started dating him. It was that important to me. J. Tyler makes some observations where I could be more forgiving and Patrick could be less intense in times of conflict. J continues to tap this out with us till 3am. We finally call it. I'm still mad, somehow Patrick isn't and we all go our separate ways. I go to bed very frustrated and I feel so deceived.

END OF DAY 1.

THURSDAY (April 27th): So we were supposed to go to Tiffany's that morning, but he found out that he actually had to be at work way earlier than he thought, so even if we went we could probably only be there for maybe 15 minutes. But we thought we could meet at Starbucks in Beverly Hills and hang there for an hour and make a morning of it. We drive separately, but talk on the phone. I'm more angry because here we are on our way to my child hood dream, picking a wedding ring at Tiffany's and we are in a fight, and we are always in a fight, because we can't fight well. This beautiful memory is already tainted with anger and I think it's stupid that we are still even going. As we are talking in the car we end up getting into ANOTHER huge fight. We agree that this isn't going anywhere and we should both get off the phone and pray and bring it all to God because it wasn't going to be resolved with us talking it out. I hear the spirit to tell me to put on Stephany Gretzinger and an album shows up on Spotify that I hadn't heard before. Every liyric wa say heart cry. My anger melted and I began to cry as my heart softened. I just cried and repented. At one point, I pulled over and went into someones years and just began smelling their roses, just to get back in touch with beauty.

I meet Patrick at Starbucks, we both hug after clearly getting resolve with God. There was still bit of tension there because we didn't work any of it out together, we essentially went to the Lord and just "let it go", but nothing was healed between us. We got Starbucks and were chatting about random things. It was 10:00 and I knew he had to leave around 10:15a but he never mentioned if we were still going to Tiffany's. I felt like okay why did we just drive an hour away to just go to Starbucks when we could have done that at home? He still never brought it up so finally I said, "hey, are we still going to go?" And he kinda scrambled up and was like oh-a yeah. I instantly regretted saying anything. The morning had already been so wrecked and somehow our "cute" morning was going to happen in 5 minutes? We rush into tiffany's and I look at the ring. It is so beautiful. I had never tried on one of their rings before. Then I look at the rings for men and ask Patrick if he wants to try them on to see if he likes these better than what we saw yesterday. After a few he puts this one ring on his hand and you could see it all over his face he just fell in love with it. You could tell it was "the one". I said, okay! If it's the one you love then I will get it, I mean we're here, right? He ends up having to rush off to rehearsal as I'm standing in line buying him a new tiffany's ring. I thought wait what? How did this terrible morning of us fighting tun into me buying him a ring from my favorite store while he leaves me in here to go to work? What the heck is happening? He doesn't even care about Tiffany's? Again, I was hurt, everything felt so backwards. How did his sweet surprise of taking me to my childhood dream turn into me sobbing for hours and then buying HIM a Tiffany's ring?

There had been so much tension and so much hurt, and clearly he wasn't helping to make it any better so I thought Okay what's something out of the ordinary we could do for fun? I didn't want to just watch a movie, and cook food like we always do. As I was driving home I saw a really hanky carnival and thought, oh that's hilarious and we both hate carnivals that will be silly- we could do that. So I get dressed up, do my hair and makeup and get myself excited for the night. He texts me if I wanted to watch a movie and I said, actually I have a surprise! He come over and I put a blindfold on him as we get in the car and blast some ridiculous music. We get to the carnival that is DEF. Janky AF. BUT when we go to buy tickets, we can't cause they're actually about to close. The website said they would still be open for another 2 hours but, I guess cause it was slow they were closing early. I was crushed and thought ugh why is nothing working?! We play some arcade games and he does a really great job of just being really silly and keeping a positive attitude but everything keeps making me upset.

This is so dumb and vain, but even little things of like wanting to take pictures together or doing silly Instagram stories are mostly me filming him, and me taking pictures of him. Not us of each other or him filming us, or me so I end up feeling like a weird fan girl of him where everything is just about him. Yes I know this sounds ridiculous. I know it IS ridiculous. But I think a lot of single girls do get excited for one day being with a boyfriend and getting to take cute pictures and doing silly film things, or videos, or art projects etc. Maybe it's more of an artist thing, but it was def. something I was excited about. But instead it's just me taking videos and pictures of him. I don't want to be his fan, I want to be his girlfriend. Anyway...that's where my brain goes while he is obviously clueless any of this is going in my head because my brain is WACK.

We end the night on a ride that a dude sneaks us on for free. It was a fun ride. Gave us some much needed laughter. We left the carnival after grabbing some churros and cotton candy. I still am feeling weird and want to "save" the night somehow, so I drive us to a rose garden by my house for us to walk around. But as we are walking, he's doing everything in his power just to make me laugh, or be silly, or to dance with me, but all of it is making me sadder and sadder as I realize everything he is doing makes me feel nothing. I feel numb. Too exhausted from all the tears and stupid things that were making me feel sad or in my head that I have nothing left in me to play along with pretending we are in love and everything is great.

So here we had this circumstantially fund day of buying wedding rings, gong to a carnival, and then dancing together in a rose garden. And I felt nothing but empty and broken. It was like all the tiny paper cuts that had been made on my heart over the past few weeks turned into a huge whole and all the blood had emptied out and I was just hollow.

The night ended with us sitting on the couch. I was silent. My muscles in my face couldn't even fake a smile. He chose not to notice. He spoke to me as If I was responding but I was catatonic. Eventually he left and I went into my bed and sobbed for hours. Crying out to God, "What is happening? Why do I feel this way? What is happening to me? I was filled with so much despair".

END OF DAY 2.

FRIDAY (April 28th): It was Date Night, or rather "date morning", a ministry Patrick and I started for couples and newly married folk. He picked me up for our hour drive to go meet everyone. As we were driving I started sharing how I was feeling. That I didn't feel in love. I wasn't happy. I was so sad. And I didn't think we should get married. I was depressed and felt so off. It was so hard for me to hear God's voice or operate with peace at all. I was so fully of anxiety. Patrick says that he doesn't think any of this is true and thinks it's because I'm out of tune with God and haven't been praying and I'm not myself. I felt like I was screaming " I DON'T LOVE YOU I WANT OUT" and he was saying "YOU DO LOVE ME YOU DON"T WANT OUT. YOU DON"T KNOW HOW YOU FEEL YOU'RE JUST SCARED". I felt trapped, but I also knew he was right. I wasn't feeling like myself. I hadn't been in prayer. I'd been in the chaos of my mind.

We go to our breakfast with all our friends. Everyone is sharing how they're doing in their relationships. When it's our turn, I'm vulnerable and I share with them that I don't feel in love and am very concerned. As I share one of our friends, so filled with the spirit, begins sharing that love is a choice and goes on defining what love is and what it's like. Everyone agree's and shares how much they love us together and really do believe we are in love but they would support us whatever we did. I know that's what they were saying and I believe them, but I left feeling like, no one's going to let me out. I felt like I was drowning saying, "help I can't swim, I've never had swimming lessons before I"m going to die", and everyone replied, YOU CAN SWIM YOU'RE DOING GREAT.

I go to see my therapist afterwards and she is terribly unhelpful. She fills me with so much despair and hopelessness about my relationship that I literally quit meeting with her the second our session is over and cancel all further sessions. She had been so unhelpful for the past 6 weeks and it was the last straw. Patrick and I are silent the whole drive home. I just felt like, ugh he don'ts see me, he doesn't see how miserable I am. Why is he saying with me why won't he let me out of this?

Once I get home I just lie face down on my couch. I sob, and sob, and sob. At some point my dad shows up. I don't even know how he knew I was there and tells me to get in the car and go on a drive with him. He starts talking to me and being a sweet dad. He's felt with depression his whole life and thinks what's going on is chemical. He listens, offers advice, and then shares different tools he uses to battle depression. After an hour or so we go to Whole Foods to get some natural anti anxiety medicine. I go home and take it. Apparently sometimes you can have a bad reaction to natural stuff so it does the opposite of what it's supposed to do and I have what someone who takes drugs might describe as a "bad trip". I start hysterically crying and pass out in my bed. I keep going in and out of sleep. My heart is racing like I just finished a sprint but my whole body is so drowsy that I can't move. Hours go by. Eventually my mom shows up and tells me to get up. I am so disoriented I have no idea what's happening and just say I can't I'm so tired. She says I know, but you have to get up, you can't stay in bed.

She takes me to my little brother's dance show and I slowly start coming alive again. I start sharing what I've been thinking and my concerns with Patrick. After the dance show I share with Jordan, my little brother and one of Patrick's best friends, and he's very confused. He says that I get this way every time he leaves. I decide that I don't love him and freak out. This was true. Patrick was leaving in 2 weeks for 3 months, to go on tour. The longest he'd ever been on a job while we've been dating. I have separation anxiety due to childhood trauma and so my brain and body act unreasonably whenever he leaves cause it's a trigger. It's very illogical but uncontrollable, it'd be like if you were genuinely surprised to not act surprised. It's a response that just happens. Anyway... he suggests this is all due to him leaving and that I should just wait it out. I really trust my brother Jordan, and I know he would support me whether we broke up or stayed together so I thought. "Okay, I'll wait it out." We drove home. I went to bed.

END OF DAY 3.

*** I know what you're thinking. This girl sounds miserable and absolutely should not marry this guy. During this time ( over a month ago) I would've totally been on your side. I was literally walking in the valley of fear and was so overwhelmed by my feelings. Typically my entries have so much hope in them but honestly at this time I had no hope. But I promise the end of the story only shows how Real God is. That even when we have no strength and are dry wells, Jesus is the great savior that can supernaturally save us. I was falling from a burning building and superman (jesus) flew down and caught me right before I hit the floor. So bare with me. It's get's better...