What Happened

I wore my very classiest outfit on the first day of school - a black skirt, a beautiful white and green blouse, and a tightly-fitted button-down shirt. I wore my pearls and my shiniest shoes. Miraculously, my hair was styled and gorgeous. I was nervous, but very excited to get started.

My students wandered, slipped, and sauntered into my room. They looked like they had grown up on a planet completely different from my own. Their faces were pierced. Their hair stood out at strange angles, was shaved or dyed electric colors. Many were covered in tattoos, some reeked of smoke, and several showed signs of being parents-to-be. They used language that battered my ears, and from the way they were dressed I might as well have been at a rap concert.  But they were my students, and I was determined to accept them as they came.

At first they laughed at me, rolled their eyes and mocked my excitable demeanor. They made snide remarks and I flipped them on their heads with a witty retort, always optimistic. After a while they realized my chipper attitude and enthusiasm was genuine, and sooner than I expected, they softened to me. In some cases, they clung to me.

There was the girl who had just moved from California, who told me I was her favorite teacher and asked me what I'd like her to bring me on my birthday. There was the feisty diva who constantly swore in my class without realizing it, then covered her mouth in shock every time and said, "Sorry, Miss G!" There was the kid who ran into my classroom every time he passed by in the hall, reaching out for a high five before zooming back to class. There were the quiet ones who perked up when I noticed them, and found themselves migrating to my room during breaks or at lunch. There were kids who came by to play my guitar, to try to solve my Rubik's cube, to fumble with my juggling balls, or just to sit with me (sometimes they talked, sometimes they didn't).

I had quite a few students who didn't like me. Some shoved against me, some verbally assaulted me. I sent five students to the office in one day. I tried not to take it personally, but it was always a bad day when I had to send a student away. I was very blessed to not have bad days very often. For the most part, I found that deep down these were the same kind of hilarious, adventurous, soul-searching teenagers I'd ever known. I loved them. It was easy.

And things were going great! Despite the fact that I was at least 15 years younger than every other person on staff, I quickly made friends with the other teachers. They laughed at the way I danced around my classroom when I thought no one could see; they took me to lunch; they gave me books and handouts and lots of support. They really were my friends. On my bad days, they made things a little bit better.

After that first half week of lessons, I knew almost every student's name. I was pleased with my week's work, but I was exhausted, too. When I climbed up the stairs to my 3rd floor apartment, I fell onto my futon and just slept for hours. When I woke up at 7:30pm, I crawled onto my patio and slept in the warmth of the setting sun. When it got dark, I crawled back inside and finally dragged myself to my bed, and I didn't get up until Saturday.

When I woke on Saturday, a buzzing panic was coursing through me. I hadn't planned any lessons yesterday. What had I been thinking? I needed to plan lessons. Lessons, lessons, LESSONS! Why hadn't I planned anything? The panic was completely primal, short-circuiting my brain entirely. I shook my head, trying to dislodge the feeling. It was Saturday. I should get to take a break.

I turned on Netflix and watched a couple of movies, fighting to ignore the angry buzz in my head. But it felt like it was tearing my brain in half. After the second movie, I felt so awful that I knew I had moved beyond being able to plan a lesson. Something poisonous, corrosive was eating away at me. The movie ended, I closed my laptop, and quite suddenly I exploded.

Raking sobs tore from my throat. Tears coursed down my face without ceasing. I felt as if I were drowning, and I had no idea why.

I crawled to the futon, the sobs gushing from me, causing me to shake and moan in pain. I could hardly breathe. I was almost screaming.

What's wrong? I thought, frantically. What's wrong? I knew the first year of teaching was supposed to be monstrously difficult. And surely I was stressed - new job, new apartment, far from home - but everything was going fine so far. Nothing horrible had happened to me. Why was I writhing in agony?

On Sunday I went to my new ward for the second time. Here, I had made no friends as yet; but the Bishop gave me a big smile and renewed my temple recommend, so it should have been a good day. I thanked him, but instead of going to Linger Longer to socialize I fled to my car and went home to cry again. Again, raking sobs. Again, absolutely bewildered about why I sounded like I was being attacked.

The next day was Monday, so I had to go back to work. I cried the whole time I was getting ready - "Come on, all you have to do now is wash your hair. You can do that. Good; now just brush your teeth; it's not that hard." - and I didn't eat any breakfast. My stomach had hardened into a burning, iron core that twisted and yanked and made it impossible for me to eat. Unable to stand completely straight for more than a few minutes at a time, I went to work. I engaged with my students. I taught.

Then I came home and cried some more.

To my credit, I reached out for help. I sought the advice of other first year teachers and experienced teachers and I got lots of helpful tips and even some lesson plans I could use. I begged my mental-health guru mom for help on how to escape the thick cloud of poison that was filling my brain, and I took her advice to heart. I went outside more. I listened to calming music. I bought healthy food.

But things got worse. Every day I went to school, stomach gnawing, forcing me to always have an exit strategy in mind in case I needed to vomit in the middle of class. At lunch I ate a carrot stick, an apple, maybe a corner of wheat bread. I kept teaching, and I gave my students my full attention and effort, even on days when they said outright that my class was boring and that I was an f***ing cow. I wrote lesson plans through gritted teeth and red eyes. I prayed all the time, and I made it through each moment one by one. And sometimes my students worked hard and impressed me, and I felt like maybe I was doing all right.

My stomach was still disintegrating, though. Labor Day weekend was coming up, so I took the chance to go home and see my family. I was so happy to see them, I forgot my pain for a couple of hours. We went to a football game on Friday and had a blast, but by Saturday my stomach was hurting again, and the angry buzzing was back. I went to my old singles ward on Sunday, and as soon as someone hugged me I started crying my eyes out and didn't stop for an hour. I drove back to Ogden embarrassed and disappointed.

I wasn't getting better. Eating healthy meant very little when I only had half a meal a day. I couldn't exercise - I was too weak. Meditation was impossible with my mind spinning out of control. All I could do was turn to God.

I had already been praying - constantly - for strength to get through this. Now I poured my desperate soul into worship. I prayed without stopping. I searched the scriptures. I fasted. I sang hymns. I took the sacrament. I read my patriarchal blessing. I got a priesthood blessing from my new bishop. I read conference talks and watched Mormon Messages. I saturated myself with the words of God.

At first, these would provide moments of peace or calm. But eventually my buzzing panic and aching sobs drowned it all out, and I railed at the dark canvas that shrouded me from the light I knew lay just above.

By the grace of God I made it through another two weeks of school. I threw up while I was brushing my teeth, then put on my slacks and went to work anyway. I put all of the strength I had into teaching, working one on one with those who needed it, commanding an army when it came to full class instruction. I wondered if they could read the pain on my face, see the weakness behind my eyes. I wondered if I could trust any of the decisions I was making, if I was doing my students any good at all. But I survived another day.

I was consumed with misery, and I had only one thing left I knew to try - something my missionary sister had recommended to me in a letter: go to the temple. It had been a while, but I remembered the quiet peace and the atmosphere of love that filled the House of the Lord. I felt like a cripple and a filthy wreck, but I had tried absolutely everything else. And despite it all, I still had faith that God would heal me.

With urgency, I looked up the schedule for the Ogden temple (five minutes down the road from my apartment). It was closed for maintenance and wouldn't open for two weeks.

I could not wait two weeks.

I searched frantically and found the next closest temple: Brigham City. I checked to make sure it wasn't also getting maintenance done, then I drove the half-hour north, crying all the way, clinging to the relief I knew I would feel once I got inside. After getting lost a few times, I finally pulled into the parking lot of the temple. I dried my eyes, straightened my skirt, and walked up to the front gate.

It was locked.

I pulled on the gate twice, unbelieving. A sob gushed through me as I collapsed to the stone outside. All I wanted was to go to the temple. Didn't God want me to go to the temple? Why wouldn't He take me in?

I drove home in despair, but I was determined. Tomorrow was Saturday. If there was a single temple in the state of Utah that was open, I was going to go there. I felt I would die if I could not feel the light of Christ inside of me again, and I was going to fight for it until I had nothing left.

Saturday morning was just as hard as the rest - crawling on the floor and weeping, tears streaming down my face as I pulled on my nylons, my skirt, a blouse. I got in the car and drove for almost an hour before I found the Bountiful temple. Set high in the mountains, a monument of gleaming white pillars, it was spectacular. And it was open.

In fact it was crowded with people. I walked tentatively, afraid I might shatter if I bumped into anyone. I made my way down to the baptistry and stood still for a moment, waiting for the darkness inside me to evaporate.

It didn't.

Instead, I was bombarded with noise. There were dozens of people in the baptistry, Young Men and Young Women groups, wards and families and chaos as the temple workers tried to sort through it all. I moved forward, walking into a locker room buzzing with chatter and quietly changing into the white temple clothes. When I emerged, I was corralled into a confirmation room. Everyone was sitting quietly as the ordinances were done, and I relished the soft sound of the prayers. But after a moment, my eyes were filling with water again and it was all I could do to keep my tears silent, because I knew that the Spirit of the Lord was there, in that room, and I couldn't feel it.

After I finished doing confirmations they tried to rush me over to the font to do baptisms, but I wasn't ready. I knew that as soon as they got me wet, it'd be a matter of minutes before I'd be back in my street clothes and out of the temple. I hadn't gotten what I'd come for. I couldn't leave. I asked the worker if I could just sit for a minute, and he agreed, hurrying off to deal with someone else.

I grabbed a Book of Mormon from a bench and started reading, trying to pierce the smothering cloud around me with scripture. But every verse I read slammed against me with phrases like "slothful"and "put forth all your effort" and "His wrath is kindled." And I threw the scriptures away from me, because even as the guilt swam up my throat I knew it wasn't true. I had done everything I could. I knew I had been obedient in everything God had asked of me. I had no reason to fear Him. So WHY was He withholding Himself from me?

Sitting alone in a hidden hallway, I whispered the scripture like a mantra, "Draw near unto me, and I will draw near unto you. Draw near unto me, and I will draw near unto you." And then I broke, and all my reservations fell away as I began to weep loudly. I cried out to God, WHY WON'T YOU DRAW NEAR UNTO ME? YOU PROMISED!!!

I curled into a ball and wept openly for at least half an hour. Many people walked by; many more glanced nervously at me, an interruption in their nice little temple trip. After a while I had a crowd of temple workers around me, wondering if they should escort me out to a hospital or something. I was in agony, and I was humiliated. But I wanted to finish the work I came to do and perform my baptisms for the dead.

Hesitantly, they let me go into the font room, and something amazing happened. My brain filled with static. No thoughts; no anything. I didn't understand it; it wasn't peace, really. It wasn't even really quiet. But it made me stop crying, and I relaxed just a little bit. I made it through the baptisms without having to embarrass myself any more, and I was grateful.

I made it all the way home and lasted a few hours after that before the static popped. A hurricane tore through me, rattling my bones and tearing the air from my lungs. I drenched myself in sorrow almost at once, lurching to my bed and writhing in torture. I was empty, scraped completely bare. There was nothing left. I had tried everything. Everything.

I was lost.

Piecing together words from the rubble of my mind, I prayed once more to God and begged Him to send me someone who would know what to do. I was helpless. I had no more answers. I begged that He would send me someone who wouldn't ask me what I wanted to do, who wouldn't give me options, but who would make the decisions for me. I could not fix myself. I needed someone else.

My mom called.

I picked up the phone like a lifeline. She asked what was wrong. I gasped and sputtered what I could, but she quickly took over. "Either you drive home right now," she said, "or I'm sending Dad up there to get you."

I drove like my life depended on it. I wasn't so sure it didn't.

I slept in my mom's bed, trembling and whimpering all night. The next day, she and Dad took me to the InstaCare, where the nurse gave me a couple of shots to sedate me. My wailing turned to exhausted rivers of tears. The doctor told my parents a lot of stuff about drugs and treatments, and he diagnosed me with situational depression and anxiety. Then he sent me home.

I cried and I slept and I took whatever pills my mom handed me. I started to panic because the next day was Monday and I didn't have a sub or any lesson plans. Dad took care of everything, calling my principal and explaining that I was very sick and wasn't going to be able to come back for a few days. I loved my dad for making that call for me, but I felt like such a failure and a disappointment that I cried until I fell asleep.

On Monday, when I was still sobbing and convulsing - despite the drugs - Mom and Dad took me to the ER. I was severely dehydrated (because I still couldn't stomach anything) so they put an IV in my arm to get some fluids into me. Soon a hospital crisis worker came in to talk to me, asking questions to make sure I wasn't going to harm myself or anyone else. I told her I didn't want to kill myself; I just wanted to go to bed and never get up again. That was apparently good enough; she told me I needed to follow up with another doctor, and Mom said I'd be taking her appointment with her regular therapist in a couple days. They sent me home again.

Since we were already out of town, Mom and Dad decided this would be a good time to get some more of my things from my apartment (I only had one change of clothes). It broke my heart, knowing - from the things the doctors had been saying - that I might not get to come back here, and I left as quickly as possible.

On Tuesday we saw my regular doctor. He asked me all the same questions and gave me the same diagnosis. I had stopped crying as hysterically, instead just sitting morosely while the doctor discussed treatment regimens. When we left, the nurses all smiled and said, "Hang in there!" but I couldn't even manage a courtesy smile. I was in torment, thinking about how I was going to have to call my principal again and tell him I still wasn't ready to come back to work. And what was worse, when I shook and trembled at night, I had sobbed the confession, "I don't want to go back! I don't ever want to go back!"

Wednesday we saw my mom's therapist. He's worked with both of my parents for going on ten years, so I've secretly associated him with everything bad that's ever happened in my family. And even though I knew that wasn't fair, I always thought that I could be stronger than my parents; I thought that if I could sort my problems out without therapy, it meant I was okay. I understood that therapy was a good thing for other people. But for me, personally, to need therapy was to admit once and for all that I wasn't good enough.  I wasn't enough.

So it was with no small amount of trepidation and dread that I allowed my parents - one on either side of me, as I was tipsy from Valium - to usher me into the office. The therapist's smile was big and open, and I felt almost as if it would crush me. I was only a shadow, after all. I was ashes, a breath away from dissolving forever.

My mom handed the therapist a picture I'd drawn the day before, in my voiceless effort to explain what was happening inside of me. It was a picture of myself chained to a wall, my body taut with agony, covered in filth and wrapped with barbed wire. And I was screaming.

"Ouch," he said.

I half-grinned, trying to make a joke out of it. My mouth barely twitched.

"No, I mean, ouch," he said. "This looks like you're in a lot of pain. Is this how you feel, Jessica?"

My eyes overflowed. I nodded.

"Well, Jessica, that's not okay," he said simply. "What's happened?"

Mom put her hand on my knee as I told the story again. I couldn't remember how many times I had told the story. It never changed. It never got better or made sense. I felt so tired and so small.When I finished, the therapist said, "Jessica, something has happened with you and this job. And I don't know what it is, but this job is harming you. And staying there, trying to force yourself through it, is self-harm." I looked down at my feet. "Jessica," he started. He lowered his head, looking me in the eyes, and there was absolutely no judgment in his gaze. "Do you think you should keep this job?"

My heart burst. I let out a sob, and through my tears I whispered, "No."

"I don't think so either," he said. He looked at my parents. "Is there anyone in this room who thinks she should keep this job?"

Mom and Dad shook their heads.

"But - " I gasped.

"But what?"

"But I signed a contract," I whispered. "They need me. I said I'd be there for them."

"You signed a contract," the therapist agreed. "But, Jessica, your health is more important than that contract. They'll find someone else. You are your first priority."

I cried a little more.

"When you go home, you're going to call your principal, and you're going to quit that job," he said.

I sobbed. My dad - my knight in shining armor - stepped in, "I'll take care of it."

"Okay," the therapist said. "You make sure it happens, but Jessica, you have to quit. And you need to practice not feeling guilty about it. Now, I'm gonna set you up to see someone else tomorrow, and you'll talk some more about this, okay?

And so it was that Thursday I saw my fifth doctor, my own personal therapist. He was also very smiley, but he didn't seem to mind that I was whimpering and scared. He just talked as if everything was normal. He asked about what had brought me here, but he also asked more, going back to elementary school days and high school and college. And I was still feeling very dark, but I didn't mind talking to him. I liked him.

When we got to the topic of me quitting my job, I started to cry again. Dad had called the principal the day before, while I pretended to sleep. I could hear their muffled conversation, all the talk about how no one blamed me, how I was a strong kid, how there were no hard feelings. But every word was a slice in my skin. I couldn't believe that it was over. Ever since junior high, all I'd ever wanted to be was a teacher. I was good at it. It was the way I could make the world better, could influence people's lives. And now it turned out that I couldn't do it. There had been a ticking time bomb in my mind and now I'd destroyed my dream job. My beautiful classroom, my teacher friends, my students . . . I had lost it all. It hadn't even taken a full month.

"Jessica," my new therapist asked while I was crying, "do you feel guilty about quitting your job?

I nodded helplessly.

"Why do you feel guilty?" he asked, innocently.

The confession burst from me in wet, choking waves. "When I was looking for a job," I started, "I prayed and asked God to send me somewhere where I could help people, and where they could help me." I wept. "And when they offered me this job, I felt sure it was where God wanted me to be. God wanted me to be there."

I broke down completely. "But it was too hard. I wasn't strong enough. I tried everything I knew how. I put everything I had into it, but it still wasn't enough." I gasped for breath. "And I don't know why. I don't know what went wrong. Maybe I needed to try harder. Maybe I needed to do more." I gritted my teeth against the pain. "But instead I gave up. Because it hurt too much."

He let me cry for a minute. Then he said, "When you say, 'try harder,' do you mean you should have endured longer? Because how could you have tried harder?"

I nodded. Of course I should have endured longer. I didn't even last til midterm.

"Jessica," my therapist asked, leaning back. "Why are we here on earth?"

I sniffed. "To gain experiences."

"Bingo!" He snapped his fingers. "To gain experiences." He paused. "Well, you gained some experiences up there, didn't you?"

I nodded half-heartedly.

"Maybe you did some things up there you needed to. Maybe you had the experiences you needed to." He paused again, thoughtful. "Maybe God did send you up to Ogden. I don't know why He did. You don't know why He did. But, Jessica?"

Blinking shame, I looked up at him.

"Do you really think God wanted you to endure more?" he asked, gentle eyes on me. "Do you think He wanted you to suffer more?"

I knew there was an expected answer. But I started crying again in earnest. My heart was heaving as I answered honestly, "I don't know."

"Well," my therapist said, leaning back. "why don't you ask Him?"