Facing Fears and Anxiety head on!

I’ve sat down so many times to write this post, for weeks I’ve entertained the thoughts as they have mulled around in my head, I written pieces, broken up memories and things that have happened not knowing how to formulate them into words that others may want to read. How do you write about a place where the concept of time is so warped? I have been here for 4 months but when I try to recount everything that has happened since my last post a little less than a month ago it seems as though years have gone by. Years filled with growth, pain, wrestling, very little understanding and a whole lot of love.So much has happened but I wanted to take the time to focus on fear and how for the first time in my life I have faced fear head on. 

It all started the day the Sole Hope staff was invited to go bungee jumping. I signed up, I was going to do it. Absolutely terrified of heights I knew I had to convince myself somehow to do it. I decided to make a promise with God. I said, “alright Lord, this is me, standing on the edge of my fears, on the edge of the unknown but I am going to jump. I am going to take a leap of faith and do whatever it is that you have called me to do. Even if it means facing my biggest fears.” Sure enough, I got up to the platform and my knees started shaking. I was so scared I felt like I was going to pass out. In fact, I actually did. At this point in my life stepping off that ledge was the most terrifying thing I had ever done. So surely, I could do whatever God wanted me to do from here on out.

Weeks passed and things were going as usual. Just trying to steward my time here the best I could. Then something happened that I will never forget. I took half a day off to help my friend shoot some photos around town for a portfolio she was trying to build. We walked all over town and then she offered to take some photos of me (which I usually hate having my photo taken but I thought sure, why not). I wanted to take photos in the park with these trees. We were coming to the end of our “photoshoot” and I wanted a photo of me jumping up in the air on a red dirt path, just for fun. So, we both put our bags on the ground and had fun trying to capture the moment. All of a sudden, these two men come out from nowhere and walk by us, I greeted them, said hello and they kept walking. Didn’t think anything of it. Just like I never have.

I grew up with a dad who was in the coast guard and then a parole officer and he instilled it in me to always be aware of my surroundings. I always thought he was crazy but I spent a good majority of my time growing up always having an exit plan, always knowing who was near me, always watching over my shoulder. Never suspecting anyone of anything unless they gave me reason to. Always watching everyone. My mom taught me to always listen to my gut, another thing I thought to be overrated and useless. And yet today would be the day that both these things proved their worth.

As the men walked further and farther from us they eventually stopped. They were pretty far away but close enough for me to see them staring at us. I kept my eye on them just thinking they probably thought we were funny or amusing taking photos. We had been getting odd looks and stares from Ugandans the entire morning in town so I didn’t think much of it. we continued doing what we were doing and when I went to look back the guys were gone. I assumed they had moved on and kept walking. Then all of a sudden out of the corner of my eye I see them walking back towards us. I knew that very second that something wasn’t right. I told my friend “We need to go”. She said she almost had the phot she wanted and to keep going. I grabbed my bag from the ground and I said, “we need to go now”. She looked in the direction the guys were coming from and with a half laugh she said “why, is it because of those guys?” But at this point they were now within ear shot of our conversation. I didn’t want them to think that I was afraid of them or suspecting anything because I still didn’t want to believe anything bad was going to happen but my gut was telling me something else. I told her “I just want to take photos over there”. We started walking towards the two men. Because walking the other way would be going further away from people and farther into this park. As we passed them they asked us to take their photo. I said “No, sorry I can’t we have to go.” Hoping that that was the reason they walked back to us we kept walking. I turned to look back after a few steps and noticed they had stopped walking and were once again staring at us. I still didn’t think anything of it, other than feeling sick to my stomach with fear.

Then, all of a sudden, I feel my bag being pulled on. One of the men had come up behind me and tried to rip my bag off my shoulder. He pulled so hard that I stumbled a few feet backwards. Looking back, I think he grabbed for my bag instead of my friends because he must have thought he could break the strap. I turned around and I yelled at him “GO! GET OUT OF HERE!” he still didn’t leave, he stood there staring at us, almost assessing if we would fight back. My friend raised her fist and screamed. You know the kind of crazy scream that freaks people out. Yet, he stood there just staring. I planted my feet firm and I shoved him as hard as I could. He stumbled back a few steps and then the rest is really a blur. My friend and I walked to a boda (motorcycle taxi) we saw close and asked him to take us into town. I was shaking. Surely, I have never been this afraid in my life.

I’m sure I’m not the only one who has thought “how will I react if _______ happens?” They say there are three responses, flight, fight or freeze. I always hoped I would be a fighter or even flight but I worried that when it came down to it I would freeze. And in some ways, I did and I hated myself for it. I froze in the moment. It wasn’t until my friend screamed that I shoved the guy. I didn’t sleep for over a week. Every time I closed my eyes I replayed the scenario over and over again. Why didn’t I run after I shoved the guy? Why didn’t I punch him in the face? My dad had taught me how to defend myself in case I was ever attacked and yet I didn’t use any of it. What would have happened if he had a weapon? What would have happened if the other man joined in? We would not have stood a chance. What would have happened if his intentions were more than just stealing from us? My mind wondered and raced. I became a victim of fear. A fear that would cling on and take over my life for the next several weeks.

It took me just over a week before I started to get a footing back over my sleep and my “always looking over my shoulder” fears. Then I got word of devastating news from back home. Homes were being burnt to the ground. The worst fire California has ever seen. Destroying the hillsides, I used to drive by. Making my friends evacuate their houses. Burning down homes of thousands and taking the lives many. I laid in my bed til 12 or 1am, sometimes even later trying to get the latest news. Finally, I would pass out from exhaustion only to wake up in a sweat 3-4 hours later to updates on my phone about how another family I knew was evacuating or another home was destroyed. Fear again took over my life. Anxiety became a threat. I felt so helpless, I wanted to leave Uganda and come home. I couldn’t bear to watch my home burn up from a far. I wanted to be there in the midst of it all. I lost sleep reading the news and Facebook updates. Dark circles started to form under my eyes as stayed awake tossing and turning all night.

Again, plagued by fear and anxiety that was so bad it was starting to consume me. I wasn’t sleeping, and I started to get sick. I even started to mildly hallucinate from sleep deprivation and anxiety that was so severe I felt like I was drowning. I had stopped wrestling with God and just started to become stagnant and too tired to press in. Someone would walk up behind me and it would scare me so bad I would drop to my knees completely weak from fear. I just wanted to come home. I wanted to sleep in a familiar bed where I didn’t hear gunshots, I wanted to walk down a familiar street where I wasn’t afraid of being attacked. I wanted to fade away into my bed.

Then I got sick. Everything had finally caught up to me. I thought I had malaria, or something else more severe but blood tests barely showed any sign of my body fighting off a virus or bacterial. Yet I laid in bed for 6 days with a fever, body aches that were so bad I could hardly move. My head felt like it was going to explode. I felt like I was dwindling away into nothing, shriveling up. As the days went on I just slept. I felt like I was under a sleeping curse. I would sleep for hours during the day and still be exhausted. I saw no way out. It felt like I was going to be like this for the remaining time I was here. I’ve been really sick while I’ve been here before but this time it felt different. My body felt like it was just shutting down and turning off.

I started to get my strength back around day 7, I finally got out of bed and tried doing some errands and things. During that time, I couldn’t help but to think that my body was physically shutting down because I had run it down so much that it had no other option but to turn off its switch. It needed rest. After coming out of what felt like a mini coma I felt lost. I felt like I had wasted so much time in bed that there was no point in going back to the life I had been living. Then a small whisper, “Be still, let go”. God wanted me to just give it all up. All my fears, all my worries, my stress and anxiety. Slowly but surely, He began to show me that when I try to wrestle with these things on my own I will always end up defeated. My body will eventually flip the switch and I will have to take a “time out”.

My first instinct is to always tackle things on my own first but He reminds me that if I am going to wrestle, I might as well wrestle with Him (read my previous post). God never leaves us on our own, but sometimes when we lose sight of Him we feel as though we are alone in the fight. So, I’m learning that the only way to win this match is to give it to God and let Him fight it with me. When you invite God into your darkest moments He brings the light. Without Him you fight alone in the dark, and you can’t beat an enemy you cannot see. Let Him come and shine a light in your darkness and help you through it. We all have our stubborn tendencies and many times I wish it didn’t take me so long to let Him in but when I do, the wind is always brought back into my sails. We just need to remember to reach out to God.