May is Mental Health Awareness Month! 💚
On 5/22/22, I was honored by the Step-by-Step 4 Help Foundation for my contributions to mental health in Jacksonville. I stood alongside everyday change agents who, like myself, work with the intention of seeing people be the best they can be. At the end of the day, it’ll never be okay with me for people in my life and sphere of influence to struggle if God has graced me with the ability to love them into a better place in their life. To be recognized for something that I literally stumbled into while trying to heal from the wounds of my life, is absolutely humbling. I am the embodiment and living testament of God’s promise to give us beauty for ashes.
I was sharing with a group at a conference I co-facilitated the day before that I cried nearly everyday of 2018 from the hurt and pain of trauma. I cried because I didn’t know what was wrong with my life before beginning counseling. I cried after my therapist diagnosed me with PTSD, manic depression, and encouraged me to start psychotropic medication. I cried as the landscape of my life changed beyond my control (which is extremely painful for someone who’s used to having it all together). I cried at the realization of having to trust God with my broken pieces because I couldn’t identify love in anything He’d done up to that point. I cried because I felt helpless and hopeless. But I also cried myself forward as I journeyed into my healing. I think the sum of the tears that fell reflected the years I refused to cry because I thought invulnerability equated to strength. Today, I cry because I know what it means to struggle but I also know what it means to be healed.
All of this made me consider how the Father will give you a gift that makes room for you although it may not look much like a gift when bestowed. For me, my newly received gift of supporting others in trauma-informed and trauma-responsive care was a horribly ugly gift, which came shrouded in me coming face to face with my own trauma-laden life. I was forced to open up my backpack (history) and grapple with issues that I thought I’d dealt with, issues that I thought weren’t issues at all, issues that I had suppressed for so long that I forgot they were there, and issues that arose because I made a decision to deal with the first set of issues I identified. I labored with myself and wrestled with my faith, my emotions, my mind, my feelings, and my abilities for three and a half years in active counseling, but the beautiful part of that tedious, laborious work is that I broke through trauma and now stand poised to help others realize they can do the same. The packaging was ugly, but the gift inside was perfect. I encourage you to keep grappling with life, even when it’s tough…there’s something so perfect wrapped inside your struggle.
-Nikki
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