Our Stories
Healing Anxiety
By Mel Dearden
I was fortunate to grow up in a Christian home where I was taught about Christ's love for me from an early age. Around the age of 5 with my childlike understanding and faith, I accepted Christ to live in my heart. It wasn't until my late teens until I fully owned my own personal relationship with Christ. I would always attend Sunday School when we went to church (and when I started to outgrow the young classes, became an assistant to the teachers of those classes). I always enjoyed hearing about the stories from the Bible, but I always struggled to comprehend the kind of love that a Father would have to look down, see me, and know I needed to die for the sins I had committed and would yet commit, but look on me with so much love that He would send His only Son to die for me instead.
Growing up, I suffered from quite debilitating anxiety. I have struggled with it from as far back as my earliest memories as a small child. Play dates with friends, holidays with family, birthdays, Christmas, first dates, first days at new jobs, for as far back as I can remember, have all been tarnished with the brush strokes of panic attacks, clammy hands, nausea, and irrational terror. When I reached my teen years, my mum, who had always been there for me, started me on the journey of trying to find some help. Over my 30-year journey with chronic anxiety there were doctors, counsellors, psychologists, and medication which have all played a part in helping me achieve a sense of normalcy in my life. All these things, while helpful, were never able to provide me with a true sense of relief. Anxiety still seemed to be sitting there, just below the surface, ready to raise its ugly head whenever it could. It was during one of these flare ups that I began to understand where my true help was. I remember vividly being midway through one of the worst panic attacks I had ever had. I had made my way into my bedroom to wait it out. I ended up losing the strength to stand and fell to the floor on my hands and knees beside my bed. I reached up to where my Bible was sitting on my bedside table, dragged it onto the floor with me and opened it up randomly to the book of Psalms and just began reading what is now my favourite chapter - Psalm 27. As I was reading about how David was crying out to the Lord for help with pure anguish and begging for God to step in and rescue him, I knew - that's what I had to do. So, as I was growing weaker and weaker through my attack, barely able to hold myself up, tears starting to fall, I just looked up and cried out in a weak voice, "God, help me." As soon as the words had passed my lips, the panic attack stopped. I could breathe properly again, and I no longer felt like I was being pushed into the floor. It just vanished as if it had never happened. My strength came flooding back and an attack that would normally take me a week to recover from just vanished as if it had never been. I knew in that moment, that God was the only thing that could provide me the true healing that I was so desperately seeking. And so began my journey of truly taking possession of my faith for myself and exploring deeper what it means to have a relationship with God and the true healing that He brings.
Through ongoing deepening of my relationship with God and embarking on a personal, healing journey through surrounding myself with beautiful Christians and going through Freedom Session and other Christian courses, I have come to a place where my anxiety is just a faint whisper in my life; rarely seen or experienced which I am so incredibly grateful to God for. There will still be days where anxiety will come, and I don't know that we can ever be truly free from anxiety this side of heaven, but I take so much comfort in knowing that "...in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling" (Ps 27:5). He is there to walk through the darkest times right by our side and will never leave us to walk it alone.
"Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord." (Ps 27:14)
I was fortunate to grow up in a Christian home where I was taught about Christ's love for me from an early age. Around the age of 5 with my childlike understanding and faith, I accepted Christ to live in my heart. It wasn't until my late teens until I fully owned my own personal relationship with Christ. I would always attend Sunday School when we went to church (and when I started to outgrow the young classes, became an assistant to the teachers of those classes). I always enjoyed hearing about the stories from the Bible, but I always struggled to comprehend the kind of love that a Father would have to look down, see me, and know I needed to die for the sins I had committed and would yet commit, but look on me with so much love that He would send His only Son to die for me instead.
Growing up, I suffered from quite debilitating anxiety. I have struggled with it from as far back as my earliest memories as a small child. Play dates with friends, holidays with family, birthdays, Christmas, first dates, first days at new jobs, for as far back as I can remember, have all been tarnished with the brush strokes of panic attacks, clammy hands, nausea, and irrational terror. When I reached my teen years, my mum, who had always been there for me, started me on the journey of trying to find some help. Over my 30-year journey with chronic anxiety there were doctors, counsellors, psychologists, and medication which have all played a part in helping me achieve a sense of normalcy in my life. All these things, while helpful, were never able to provide me with a true sense of relief. Anxiety still seemed to be sitting there, just below the surface, ready to raise its ugly head whenever it could. It was during one of these flare ups that I began to understand where my true help was. I remember vividly being midway through one of the worst panic attacks I had ever had. I had made my way into my bedroom to wait it out. I ended up losing the strength to stand and fell to the floor on my hands and knees beside my bed. I reached up to where my Bible was sitting on my bedside table, dragged it onto the floor with me and opened it up randomly to the book of Psalms and just began reading what is now my favourite chapter - Psalm 27. As I was reading about how David was crying out to the Lord for help with pure anguish and begging for God to step in and rescue him, I knew - that's what I had to do. So, as I was growing weaker and weaker through my attack, barely able to hold myself up, tears starting to fall, I just looked up and cried out in a weak voice, "God, help me." As soon as the words had passed my lips, the panic attack stopped. I could breathe properly again, and I no longer felt like I was being pushed into the floor. It just vanished as if it had never happened. My strength came flooding back and an attack that would normally take me a week to recover from just vanished as if it had never been. I knew in that moment, that God was the only thing that could provide me the true healing that I was so desperately seeking. And so began my journey of truly taking possession of my faith for myself and exploring deeper what it means to have a relationship with God and the true healing that He brings.
Through ongoing deepening of my relationship with God and embarking on a personal, healing journey through surrounding myself with beautiful Christians and going through Freedom Session and other Christian courses, I have come to a place where my anxiety is just a faint whisper in my life; rarely seen or experienced which I am so incredibly grateful to God for. There will still be days where anxiety will come, and I don't know that we can ever be truly free from anxiety this side of heaven, but I take so much comfort in knowing that "...in the day of trouble he will keep me safe in his dwelling" (Ps 27:5). He is there to walk through the darkest times right by our side and will never leave us to walk it alone.
"Wait for the Lord; be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord." (Ps 27:14)