Student testimony: finding healing

Written by Vileka Fisher

I tried to commit suicide when I was eight years old.

It seems silly now. I tried to suffocate myself not knowing I would pass out and just start breathing again. But I tried.

I was sexually, physically, and emotionally abused for most of my life. My childhood was roughly truncated, and there comes a point when enough is enough. You get tired of it.

In 2007, I spiraled into a deep, dark depression. My family had just moved across several states. The economy crashed. We spent the subsequent winter cold and hungry. It was then I was at the breaking point. I was tired of being called ugly, evil, a witch. I was tired of hashing out the misery of our lives.

I had to question the point of it all. Why? What purpose did it serve? I was living in a pit feeling purposeless, unwanted, alone, and angry. I longed for death. It was peace and sleep and one less mouth to feed. I figured killing myself would make everyone happy.

That’s not a feeling you can shake. Once it’s in your head, there’s only one power in the universe that can drive it out.

That’s when God gave me a horse. A beautiful, rank, neglected, abused horse. She became the reason for me to live, and to make it to June of 2008 when God put a thought in my head.

You see, I grew up in a Christian home, went to private school, and attended church. But Jesus was never real to me. I never saw Him in anyone else.

Suffice to say, I would never have thought this on my own: God, being omniscient and omnipotent, would not have put me on earth for nothing. There is a reason and importance for my existence. I realized that Jesus, being fully God and fully man, knew what I was going through: and to destroy myself would be to destroy His creation. This is the day I realized that I was truly saved.

But putting your faith in Christ isn’t like hitting an easy button. I was still hurting and full of rage. My emotions were untamable—unless I cut. Addiction comes in many guises, and I needed to see blood to calm down. The battle lasted four years, and while the scars remain I know without a doubt what full submission to Christ really means. My frustrations and sorrows are His to bear; and when I try to control them, in that particular way, I am rebelling against His authority and desecrating my body, which is to be presented to Him as a holy and living sacrifice.

Still bitter and angry and hurt, I finally left home for college with one goal in mind: to heal. Part of that healing was learning how to love again. I can’t love God whole-heartedly and I certainly can’t love others if my heart is still broken. But that is what we are called to do.

I embarked on a journey of love by first addressing myself via counseling and an anti-depressant. Love takes some practice too. I confronted my past abusers because I want to love them again. I do love them.

I don’t regret anything that has ever happened to me. Nothing was without purpose. I’ve tasted all sorrows—I can reach out to others that are suffering like I did. I’ve realized God’s love has allowed me to turn and love others—like you.