The greatest adversity I have ever experienced happened when I was seventeen. My father had been out of work for two and a half years, and it was driving his already fragile mental state over the edge. He was diagnosed as having borderline-narcissistic personality disorder shortly before the events that I am about to describe. One day, which had been a bad day, my father, myself and my little sister went shopping. As usual, my father’s mental state showed in the way he drove, and he was aggressively creeping on an older woman and her assistants as they crossed the road in front of us. One of the assistants became agitated and yelled and even banged our car before moving on, and my father yelled back, which my sister insisted was unnecessary and unjustifiable, which started an argument. By the time we were home, they could barely speak to each other for the rage, but my father managed to announce that my sister was not allowed into the house until she apologized, which all three of us knew wasn’t going to happen. I let her in through the window, and then we called our grandma to come pick us up so we could spend the night at her place. While we waited on the curb for her to come, my mother came home, got the full story, and went inside. By the time we returned home the next day, my father was the one kicked out.
Everything changed after that. My father moved to Seattle, my mother moved to Orland, my sister moved to L.A. and I moved to Nevada where I had some extended family. My father was certifiably insane, my mother was so emotionally wrecked that she could barely function, never mind care for her emotionally wrecked daughters. I had no friends, no church, no job, no school, no support, no direction, and no possessions other than what fit in my little car: Everything I had known, gone: Everything I had believed, falsified: Everything I had expected out of life, dead.
But I still had a few things, and I clung to these desperately. Through this time, I had learned that I was me, with or without my family, and I had passions that could lead me places if I reached for them. I knew I had a God who loved me and would never abandon me and who knew exactly what he was doing. And at the point when I was lowest, I realized that I still had people who cared about me and would go to great lengths to help me if I just asked.
So, I decided to pursue my dreams, ask for the help I needed and actively fight for healing and forgiveness and personal growth, and now I can look back on that mess and those dark time and be grateful that God lead me through that valley, because it really was the best thing that could have happened to me.
With grins,
Rayanne