The diagnosis ~ testimony part 2

This overwhelming fear that I mentioned in the last post was due to an undiagnosed seizure disorder. When most hear seizures or epilepsy their mind pictures someone shaking and convulsing on the ground. If this was the kind of seizures I displayed back then, I suppose a diagnosis would have come years earlier. My best description of the phenominon I experienced at least several times a day, was a silent paralyzing panic attack enveloped in a night terror. If you can imagine being trapped in a re-occuring nightmare that you can't wake yourself out of and can not control anything happening around you. The seizure had permission to come upon me at a moments notice and I could not reach out for help because my new bad dream/reality took me away from the safety of where I had been and trapped me into the recesses of my mind. It is a place you can not leave until your brain stops the electrical storm and releases you from the nightmare. That is my best description of what each seizure was like. Before meds I could have quite few a day and night time was the most actively anxious time. The darkness of the bedroom alone would produce enough fear to trigger the nightmare.

I suppose this may be why I am so passionate about finding competant physicians for children who have seizures.  I could never watch horror movies as a child or even to this day.  Tried to read Piercing the Darkness by Frank Peretti and it was another reminder of the battle that I fought daily.  Quite honestly, I did not need to fill my head with more ammunition for the already present battle of my mind.

As a child, you are oblivious to the fact that NO ONE ELSE experiences this kind of fear. Nor could I attempt to explain how my mind would take me from reality in school or at home at one moment, and in a totally different/dangerous 'world' the next. I can imagine if I did try to explain these occurences as a small child, I may have been the first child to be diagnosed paranoid pschystophrenia? With limited understanding of what was happening to me, I made everyone who loved me, pay for these unexplained happenings through rage atypical of a small child. The nature verse nurture arguement was null and void. I was a child that came from a stable, middle class, Christian, loving, 2 parent home. No one could figure out why I was, the way that I was.

 My brother & I attended a very small Lutheran private school where I made very few friends a larger amount of enemies.  After school we would walk to my my Dad's mom & dad's house until my parents were off work.  They became our main caregivers growing up.  My grandma did not like me too much, but she LOVED my brother.  She only had sons and was really good at hovering and spoiling them over.  My grandpa, on the other hand, was harder on boys but was so tender with me.  He was the only person in the world that loved me in spite of myself. Although I am not sure if he knew the Lord, he was certainly the finest example of what unconditional love, in action, looked like. While I was not his first grand daughter, I was the one who lived closest and he made up for not having a girl of his own as he doted on me. He worked in his shop and let me hammer nails in 2X4's while he tinkered around fixing this or that. He even made me my own toolbox so that whatever he was doing I could do with him on my own scrap of wood. My dad tells me he was never very personable with his boys as much as he was taken with me.  At the age of 6 years old I was at their house to spend the night.  He fell asleep in his reclining chair much like most every evening.  My grandma was in the kitchen finishing up dishes.  When our show was over and it was time to get up and get to bed, I sat on his lap to wake him up but he would not wake up.  He passed right there in front of me and I did not even know it.  As I watched all the EMS try to help revive him, I began to realize that the only person that I experienced unconditional love from was slipping away.... To be continued.

Testimony time part 1

Ya know those people who don't have much of a testimony because they were raised in church? I used to think that was me. Most people assume that is who I am. Despite the fact that I was raised in the church and taught about the Lord from a very early age, I did not really 'get it' till much later into my teens.

To say the least, I was a no where near a 'good' Christian kid. Back then, the Christian community was lacking in any tools available for Christian parents who were newbies to the faith. Since my parent's friends were also newly saved among the people in the Jesus movement, there were not many established Christian folk willing to put up with that crowd. The ones who had not been given a legacy of knowing the Lord through their parents, seemed to stay put in thier own religious communities fearing the change to the body of Christ with all these odd new comers. Although my parents were never hippies, once they got saved they would provide transportation to the hippies that wanted to attend church.
 My parents longed to raise both my brother and I to have an intimate relationship with the Lord, however, in the abscence of Godly mentors to model or share Godly parenting principles, it was not easy. There were NO Godly parenting books at this time either. It is true that the Bible is the original instruction manual regarding parenting, yet when you are at the end of your rope in battling defiant behaviors, sometimes discernment goes out the window. When everything you are trying is not bearing fruit and most of the time you are at the end of your sanity, it is SO beneficial to have Godly mentors to come alongside. If mentors are unavailable, some sort of parenting manual with Godly wisdom/perspective to renew your focus is a lifeline of hope. While their desires were pure and determined to do right by my brother and I, there was an unknown and explainable turmoil in our household. I was the cause of said discord. When James Dosbson wrote The Strong Willed Child, it was the only clarity offered amongst the rebellion taking place in their home.

My mom had one prayer for me as I was growing up. (Besides the prayer of "Lord please help me NOT kill this child of mine") "I pray you never have a child like you," were words that I thought were so odd. Many moms, when they have are blessed with a child that tests the limits of their sanity, in turn, tells said child "I hope you have a child just like YOU so you know how it feels!" Well, my mom said the exact opposite (Possibly thinking I may kill a child that dared to be more strong willed than I was). I suppose either thought passes on the idea that your child is pretty much the devil incarnate, but even so I am alive to tell about it. You see, many kids are fairly well behaved throughout their elementary years, yet it is at the teens that they may possibly rebel. Since I am not anywhere near normal, most of my rebellion occured in my formative years from 2-10. There was no reasoning with me when I became angry. Walls became punching bags and doors were barriers to be broken down. My father became an expert at repairing holes in walls.

At a very early age I came to the knowledge of what the words 'spiritual battle' meant. It often played out in my awake hours before bedtime. Praying was the only weapon I had against the things that tormented me at night and fear became a constant barrier to a healthy amount of sleep.
If I were a child in this day and age, I MAY be labeled with the following diagnosises: Oppositional Defiant Disorder, ADHD, Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, possibly Bi-Polar and definately in need of Anger management. Being very angry, stubborn and self reliant, was an effort to grasp at control when so much of my life that was filled with what I could not possibly control.
I was not being abused nor was I in any imminent REAL danger.  Yet I had constant re-occurring day dreams that plagued me with a very real, yet intangible episodes of paralyzing fear.   To be continued.....