When a Grip Becomes a Stranglehold
When a Grip Becomes a Stranglehold
Emily Bell
If everything is lost, thanks be to God If I must see it go, watch it go, Watch it fade away, die Thanks be to God that He is all I have And if I have Him not, I have nothing at all Nothing at all, only a farewell to the wind Farewell to the grey sky Goodbye, God be with you evening October sky. If all is lost, thanks be to God, For He is He, and I, I am only I. – Dom Julian Stead OSB (quoted from A Severe Mercy)
On a hazy January evening, I walked uphill after work to where my car was parked. "Walking is so great for your wellbeing", my psychologist had told me after a long conversation about new thought patterns that were beginning to lurk ominously. I enjoyed the feeling of slowing down, paying attention to the beauty of the old terrace houses, the golden Norfolk Island pines, the beat of each foot fall meeting the concrete. I give a wide berth to a blind man in a flat cap and immaculate leather shoes as he taps his cane on the path.
As I walked, there was a sharp twinge in my chest, high up, on the left side. It's okay; this happens often. My doctor had assured me many a time that it's nothing to worry about. But what if this hundredth time I've felt it, is the time I actually have a heart attack? I keep walking, a little faster now; keep breathing, perhaps more quickly than I need to. I put a hand to my neck and reflexively feel my pulse, almost without noticing. It's racing.
Ten minutes later, as always, I make it back to the car. I'm not left lying incapacitated on the footpath. My hands are shaking—that's normal now—but I'm alive.
*
Anxiety came to visit when I was very young, and quickly made a home in my heart. It was a while before I could put a label on my struggle. As a kid, it usually showed up as countless days off school, when I would feel unwell and confused yet unable to pinpoint why. Often, I wouldn't even realise I was in an anxious state—I'd just feel as though I needed to do something to make myself feel right again. I’d play real-life Tetris with my furniture in attempts to ease the discomfort. My room looked different every week. Not once did I think of myself as a perfectionist, or that there was something deeper at play. I'd cling to God in these recurring moments of fear (and far worse ones besides), reading His word and talking myself into believing His truths—but I was terrified. I had no real sense of a savior who could actually save me from this visceral thing consuming my life.
At sixteen, I experienced a blinding moment of light in which Jesus got hold of me for good. I knew in an instant that all my fears were completely wiped clean, and lived for a while in the blissful belief that anxiety wouldn't trouble me any longer. I was utterly changed, from the inside out. To reconcile my recent revelation of God with a conflicting reality, I threw myself wholly into the pursuit of excellence over the next seven years. I left school and moved into a fulltime workload as a graphic designer—at one point my projects extended across three different workplaces—on top of completing the final year of my design degree. I was tireless in my efforts to make everything the best it could possibly be. And I was seeing the fruit of it! I was progressing at an exponential rate, both personally and in my career, eventually stepping into a role managing media in my church. I savored the gift of being able to serve in an area I loved.
I felt that this was how I was made to live; and I knew the Spirit in me, propelling me on to ever greater things, imbuing the small details of my life with eternal significance. He was a closer companion to me than anxiety had been, drawing me near with a piercing sweetness that would often catch me off guard. I was working as hard as possible to love Jesus in every area of my life, packing in as many possible opportunities to serve—having, as Ed McCully once wrote, "... one desire now: to live a life of reckless abandon for the Lord." I was doing what I was made to do, and I was absolutely thriving. Or so I thought. Though blind to it at the time, I was slowly tightening my obsessive stranglehold on life as the months flew by. Anxiety began to vividly color my everyday with seemingly random panic attacks, and lurked in the shadows as subtly obsessive thought patterns: I must go for a run every two days; I must clock exactly as many productive hours as I'm being paid to work; I must make sure I never flake on something I've committed to.
As the stranglehold tightened, I was facing a looming career decision I'd been avoiding for some time. It was at this juncture that I started to become physically unwell. I was living in a constant state of exhaustion and agitation, experiencing frightening symptoms that only compounded my health-related obsessions. I couldn't get my head around it, and the numerous tests I took under my doctor's careful eye weren't proving anything conclusive. I was losing weight, losing my appetite, and slowly losing my ability to function in work and life. My brokenness was becoming painfully visible.
*
As part of my latest obsession—getting through as many books as possible in a year—I picked up A Severe Mercy by Sheldon Vanauken, or Van for short. Having cried twice at work that day, I curled up on the couch and dove into the story as a welcome distraction from my imminent unraveling. The memoir tells of Van's adventures with his wife Davy, their transformative friendship with C.S. Lewis and the Inklings, and their subsequent commitment to follow Jesus.
It was a book I'd first read in my late teens, enraptured by Vanauken's bright picture of a life in love with Jesus—a life experienced in community with others equally devoted to the pursuit of closeness with God. Their deep understanding of the beauty in nature and books had a scent of home about it, reinforcing my experiential knowledge of God as the ultimate source of all good things. Having freshly lived that first joyful realization that God had always been with her, Davy began to fall ill. Alone in the guest room of their Oxford flat one night, preceding a terminal diagnosis, Davy offered up her life completely to God in a moment of total surrender. She asked that He do whatever was necessary to draw Van—who had been lacking zeal in his faith —into fulfilment in God, even if it cost her life.
I sat alone in my living room, creeping towards the end of the story, feeling my tears fall with Van's as he wove the tale of Davy's untimely and painful death. Until the last, she refused to falter in her love for Jesus and the people around her. Van was left drowning in confusion in the wake of the "severe mercy" for which his memoir is named. I found myself relating to both Davy and Van, albeit in a much less grief-stricken way—earnestly following Jesus, yet deeply disoriented.
*
I was stuck, questioning why my efforts to create excellence in the name of the Kingdom only seemed to lead me further down the path of mental illness. My health continued to deteriorate in the month or two following. Smack in the middle of a particularly bad week, I started on antidepressants, after having stubbornly refused for some time. I was offered the perfect design position, meaning my career dilemma would finally be resolved—but I would no longer be able to work as an employee at church. Seeking God and asking my friends and mentors to do likewise, I reluctantly resigned from my ministry job. I took two weeks off work to rest and "come in out of the wind". Though I was deeply thankful for a chance to catch my breath and move forward again, I was facing the sobering reality of letting what you do define who you are. It was a grief, of sorts; the grief of losing the picture of the life I was working so hard to perfect. I was learning the hard way that fighting relentlessly for an ideal can lead very quickly to illness—not only mental, but physical, too.
I started listening again, feeling the burden of months of pent-up frustration fade away. Just as Van became slowly aware of the mercy in his grief, I began to see more clearly the comparatively small ways God was weaving His goodness into my life. He showed me the joys of cruising the coast barefoot with good friends, days spent dozing in the Autumn sun, and introducing my brothers to new music. He showed me Himself in my parents, as Mum and I sat in the front garden solving all the world's problems over cups of tea, and laughing with Dad about his recent decision that coffee wasn't repulsive after all. He showed up in the unexpected flower deliveries and times of prayer with old and new friends alike, the people around me giving me grace and space to heal—and laughing with me when I needed it. He taught me to feel the quiet peace of total security in Him, even as I lay curled in bed waiting out the volatile side effects of my new medication.
Months down the track, I find I'm still working through the whys and hows and what-ifs. Anxiety hasn't left me, and I'm still sitting with the fact that the person of Jesus transcends my frantic attempts to understand everything. Our confusion is often His way of asking us to drop the pursuit of knowledge and come back to simplicity with Him. These days, He meets me walking uphill to my car after days packed with laughter and meaningful work, bidding me calm as I watch the sun filter down through the pines to the ocean below. He meets me on the days I wake with my mind racing, feeling powerless to slow it down. He meets me when I feel the cold panic descend again without warning, and He meets me every time my thoughts threaten once again to take up residence in my identity. I've finally started let this pervasive weakness of mine chase me back to God. I'll surely face mercies more severe in the years to come; but the Jesus I know wastes no sting or scar as He lovingly makes us perfect.
Emily Bell
Writer & Designer
Emily is a graphic designer living and working on the coast of Newcastle, Australia. Her work focuses on the practical outworking of the inner life, exploring creative responses to struggle and joy through a living relationship with Jesus.
Photography by Sebastian Taylor