It’s been a long time since I’ve posted on this blog, and so much has happened in my life – I could write for days about it all, but I’ll spare you. I thought, to ease myself back in, I’d share something I recently posted on Facebook – a testimony of sorts. It’ll give you some insight into where I disappeared to and the kind of things that have been going on. So here you are… enjoy!

(This post includes topics of suicide, hospital and acute illness (both physical and mental) so please don’t read on if this might affect you negatively in any way!)

It’s been a little over three months since I was admitted to hospital, yet it feels like a lifetime ago since the police intervened and took me to the local Place of Safety.

It’s a weird one, being suicidal and wanting life to end, whilst also believing in truths from the Bible such as the familiar verse, Jeremiah 29:11 where we’re told “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” Those things are seemingly in contradiction with one another – because if I believe what God has to say, all of this is somehow part of his plan and I need to wait and see how it all slots into place. It’s just hard holding on to that when your mental health is at rock bottom as it feels like something that has to be so far removed from God’s plan for life. I know he doesn’t get pleasure out of it, that it breaks his heart when we are in situations like this – so why do we end up in them? It’s difficult to wrap your head around.

Just after Christmas I was transferred from the Psychiatric Hospital I was sectioned to, to the local general hospital. I was pretty physically unwell – depression has ruined my appetite lately and I’ve found it near on impossible to eat anything. When I was moved I had extremely low blood sugar and was ketoacidotic. And very soon the conversation turned to NG feeding. Most of you will know that I have a difficult history with tube feeding – I spent 6 months back in 2019 with an NG tube being fed against my will and it was the most traumatic, difficult 6 months of my life. When they bought it up I prayed ‘God, I can’t do this again. I need a sign that you’re here with me.’ Nothing. I carried on praying this over the next couple of days, even more so when the NG tube was placed. Still nothing.

On day three of NG feeding the doctors came round to see me and told me I had refeeding syndrome. This is when your body tries to metabolise nutrients again but there are severe shifts in body chemistry which are related to electrolyte deficiencies. It caused a whole host of problems for me including low phosphate levels, low magnesium levels, low potassium levels and caused symptoms including muscle weakness, nausea, abnormal heart rhythms, fatigue, muscle cramps and low blood pressure. Again, I prayed ‘why, God? I really can’t do this.’ Again, I got nothing.

But the icing on the cake for me, was on New Years Eve. All of a sudden I began to feel incredibly unwell, completely out of the blue. My temperature shot up to 40.3, my blood pressure dropped dangerously low and I felt like my heart was going to come out of my chest. Doctors came to see me and said that they suspected that I had Sepsis which, by that point, I think I thought as well. I was seen by the Intensive Care Outreach team multiple times a day and 2 days later my blood cultures came back showing that I did, in fact, have Sepsis again. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so unwell – I had the worst headache that radiated down to the bottom of my neck and for 3 days I couldn’t move at all. My blood pressure refused to come up and I was still spiking fevers. I continued to pray ‘God, I really need that sign because this just feels like one thing after another and I really need a break.’ Yet still there was nothing.

Then, as I was starting to feel a little more human I spoke to one of the hospital chaplains (and by spoke to, what I really mean is sobbed at). We had a really good chat and I explained that I’d spent the last 2 weeks asking God for a sign because it was the one thing I really needed. She asked me if I knew of the poem ‘Footprints in the Sand’ which I do. And all of a sudden things started to slot into place. She reminded me that the poem says “The times when you have seen only one set of footprints, my child, is when I carried you.” So, that set me off into a crying mess again. Because that was my sign. Later that day, as I lay in bed I prayed, only this time it was different as all I could say, over and over again, was ‘God, thank you for carrying me through.’

Things aren’t somehow better now, I’m still struggling and still sectioned in hospital but I remind myself every day that even though things are hard, God is carrying me and will continue to carry me. And my prayer is still ‘God, thank you for carrying me through.’

All my love,

Anna x