The Story of How A Friend Help Save My Life
(Trigger warning: descriptions of PTSD and anxiety.)
I kept pacing the room, nervous about leaving the house, but also feeling suffocated at the thought of staying in it. A barrage of questions tore into my anxious mind.
Will the baby be okay without me for a few hours?
Will I be troubling the in-laws who have to care for him while I’m gone?
What if this was a bad idea?
What if I was making a mistake?
What if—
The doorbell rang. I had to go. My friend and her husband were here to pick me up.
She said she’d take me to the doctor.
But before that, she had kept our chatbox open, checking in regularly, making sure that I was still alive and breathing.
And before that, she had sensed that something was wrong. Maybe it was in the way I strung my sentences together. Maybe it was in the way I spoke about the intrusive thoughts that had begun to crowd my mind.
But before all of that, there were ordinary messages like—
“Hi, how are you?”
“Hey, let me call you.”
I didn’t know it then, but somewhere between those casual messages, she was already reaching for the fragments of me that the darkness was trying to take.
Long before she offered to take me to the doctor, she was already trying to save my life.
I cried myself to sleep in her car.
They had whisked me away, driving tens of miles from the north and down to the south, carrying me far from the triggers that set fire to my memories.
They didn’t wake up me up until we arrived at the clinic. As we walked toward the doctor’s office, she said I didn’t have to worry about the fees.
“Your best friend took care of it,” she named our common friend, and my tears overflowed again.
The firm sofa felt cool against my leggings, even as the afternoon sun blazed outside of clinic’s glass doors. The warmth and cold mingled in the same space, just as my chest was both numb and anguished.
Inside the room, I told the doctor everything. All the events that led up to where I was. All the pressing thoughts in my head that made it difficult to eat and sleep.
I told her how my days where whittled down into this singular, all-consuming task: to survive till the next morning.
I told her how I numbed my heart, believing that if I could feel less, then maybe I’d find relief from the weight of pain.
“You’re so tired…” the doctor said, compassion in her eyes.
It felt good to be seen by someone who didn’t judge me but cared enough to really listen.
The doctor mentioned the working diagnosis, terms I already knew in my gut: postpartum depression and post-traumatic stress disorder.
It didn’t feel like a groundbreaking verdict though, nor did it sound like a seal of doom. Instead, naming the issue felt empowering somehow. I finally had a name to the monsters that were making it hard for me to sleep. I finally had a diagnosis to guide my roadmap to recovery.
And I could finally pray over my mind in a more specific way.
God knew that I needed someone. A friend. A person to talk to. A confidant who read between the lines of my candid messages. Someone who recognized the depression clouding my gaze, refusing to ignore it.
I probably wouldn’t have the courage to get help nor take my mental health seriously if it wasn’t for this person who booked my treatment and drove all the way to bring me to that clinic.
She had been in a similar situation. She knew what it was like. She could tell. She didn’t let go.
She wouldn’t let me go until I knew I wasn’t alone.
It’s been over a year since I visited that doctor. Healing has been happening in layers, but it has rarely happened in isolation.
In my brokenness, I didn’t need preachy lectures and another reminder to have faith, to be strong, or to pray harder. I needed a kind presence that didn’t rush my healing nor dress up my pain with toxic positivity and platitudes.
I needed love that showed up. Love that dared to stay and slowly melt the walls I built around my heart.
And in the safe space that love made, healing finally began.
If you have a loved one with mental health challenges, the best thing you could do is love them with your time and attention. Listen to the story they’re really saying behind their mask.
When you behold them without judgement, kindly sitting with them in their grief and confusion, you’re already helping them find their way back to life.
Sometimes, all they need to know first is that they’re not alone—that God is still here, loving them more than anyone could despite the darkness.
Who knows? Your simple “Hi, how are you?” might be the very thing that helps them hold on. It might just be the beginning of their story of being saved.
It was mine.
Ecclesiastes 4:9-10
Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.
