My Journey Towards Resiliency

I didn’t use to see myself as resilient. I remember a time in my early twenties when I thought that my life wasn’t even worth living. My childhood had been remarkably challenging. Many of those years were spent caring for my sister Casey who had unique special needs, the worst of which were uncontrollable behavior problems. On top of that, my father passed away when I was 20. We had watched him battle cancer for 8 years. My teenage years were rather traumatic. I didn’t have much of a social life at all. I graduated from college with honors and earned a teaching certificate in Elementary Education. I found a teaching job and thought that was a step in the right direction. Just three months into that job everything came crashing down. Being a new teacher was hard enough. But in order for me to create a future, I needed to face the realities of my past. I wasn’t able to take any steps forward without first taking a few steps back.

I froze up one morning as my students were coming down the hall. I couldn’t stop shaking and crying. Luckily my mentor walked in and grabbed me before the students came into the classroom. She realized immediately that I was having a panic attack, pulled me into her classroom, and then proceeded to walk me down to the principal’s office. I looked the principal in the eye and said my only option was to quit. God was telling me that I needed help. I started seeing a counselor and taking antidepressant medication.

At the time, I was convinced that I was an absolute failure. I had just put 4 years of effort into a college degree, and then I watched it all go down the tubes. I even had to pay the state of Maryland back several thousand dollars because they had given me an educational grant for agreeing to become a teacher. When I received that grant, I committed to teaching for 2 years. Little did I know that God had different plans for me.

I still was living at home at the time at the time. Thankfully, that meant that I didn’t have to worry about paying rent or any other bills. However, it also meant that I had to see Casey transition back and forth between a boarding school and home, which was so heartbreaking. And I also realized that so many memories of my Dad were tied to the house. I had been living at college for the four years prior to that. Looking back to my college years, I remember that I dreaded every single break away from school. All of my college friends were so excited to go home and see their families. Meanwhile, I had to go home and deal with real world problems.

By the grace of God, I came out of that depression after only a few months. I attribute much of that to the army of family and friends who were praying for me. And I attribute a small percentage to my own perseverance and determination. I knew that I needed to find a job and that was the only way I would ever move out. I started working for the local bank as a teller. As much as I was embarrassed to be working as a bank teller with a college degree, it was actually a very humbling experience. I knew that I had to start somewhere. I kept reminding myself that these were baby steps. God was telling me that this was all part of my journey. I found a bedroom to rent in someone’s house – which I was able to afford by serving tables part-time and also getting some extra cash from my future husband.

I stayed at the bank for a year and a half and then found a job working at my former high school as a Secretary. That job gave me a little more income and benefits. Through that job, God provided me with a roommate so I was able to move into a 2-bedroom apartment. After a year, I moved up to an Administrative Assistant position and then gained skills that eventually transferred over to a career in the Federal Government. Never before in my life had I imagined that I would work for the Federal Government. That was all part of God’s plan.

Today people say that I’m resilient and that I’m generally a positive person. But that wasn’t something that came easy. I had to build up resiliency after dealing with the trauma’s that life threw my way. It took hard work and determination. It took faith. It took me learning how to face my past and accept the pain that I had endured. It took me listening to my husband who taught me that it’s perfectly OK to cry. It took me finally grieving my father’s death. And it also took me grieving the childhood that was taken away from me way too young. It took my awareness that all of the cards that I had been dealt were out of my control, and more importantly out of my parents’ control. These circumstances were essentially out of anyone’s control. 

I had to learn that I was strong and that I wasn’t a failure. I had to prove to myself that I didn’t need antidepressants and that instead I just needed to dig down deep into the wounds of my childhood and face all of those emotions that I had buried for way too long. I had to prove to myself that it was perfectly acceptable to have good days and bad days, and more importantly that those bad days didn’t need to define me. I had to put my life into God’s hands and trust that he had a plan for me. That is how I built my resiliency.