My Wall

It started with Pap. October 8, 2008, Donald Warnick died, unknown cause. That's my Pap, Donald, no one was really sure what happened. He had been sick for a long time and that day he wasn't feeling good, he was on his way to the car to go to the hospital when he collapsed. I found out on my way home from school.

I grew up without a father with my mom and my two sisters, who were put in foster care when I was nine. My pap was my mom's father—the closest thing I had to a father. He and my grandma supported my mom happily with no complaints knowing that, as a single mom, she was doing the best she could. Throughout my life I watched other kids my age have the things I wanted and sometimes needed. I always had food and clothes but sometimes struggled in school without the graphing calculator for math or the summer reading books needed for the following school year. Things were tough but we always made it through with the help of grandma and pappy.

When I found out that he had died, I felt as if the floor fell from beneath my feet. It felt like I was falling for ten months. After the funeral I found it very hard to talk about what I was going through; I wasn't even sure about what I was going though so how could I talk about it? I wanted to find a way to keep my mind straight; off Pappy, off everything that was happening around me and on something easier. My wall started there, the part that goes in the ground to keep the enemy from digging under.

I started doing something I promised myself I would never do, making myself throw up. I had always been tough about self-injury and knew it was wrong, but at that point in my life, it was the only thing that seemed right. It was the thing I needed to get my mind clear. When I started I told myself that I would only do it if I thought of Pappy, but then it gradually got to the point I would do it whenever I thought of anything sad. It gave me a new feeling of pain that was easier than to deal with then the emotional stuff, the deeper stuff. That was the second part of my wall, the part that goes above ground to keep the enemy from looking in.

I had been doing it for four months when I met a boy. He was the new kid at school, a grade younger, and the nicest guy I'd ever met. We started dating and things felt better, a lot better. I gradually decreased my disappearances to the bathroom, I only threw up when I was really down about something. I didn't tell the boy that I was throwing up til the end of the school year and I was just too stressed about getting things ready for graduation, that I started doing it again, but he was very compassionate and helped me through it. He asked me all the time if I needed to talk about anything just in case. Things began to get better again, not great but good. When I realized the enemy was not really the enemy at all, but it was actually God trying to reach me, my wall began to fall, a little bit at a time.

In July, I went to youth camp which I had also attended the previous two years and loved; it was my escape from the real world. I went to camp wanting desperately to give everything to God, but was not sure if I could really give up my addiction, my security blanket. The second night the speaker spoke about things that were holding us down as Christians and keeping us from letting God take full control. It was then that I realize that what I though was a good thing was actually controlling me and keeping me from my walk with God. At that moment I decided to stop throwing up, to stop the thing the made me feel so secure—stop hurting myself. God wiped out the rest of my wall and instead of falling into depression, I fell into the arms of Christ.

That day was about a year and a half ago and it hasn't been easy. I can fit in my old jeans and eat a whole meal and seconds and desert without running to the bathroom. My red, puffy throat is now clear and healthy. I still struggle and I'm sure I will for a while but that is what will remind me that I have overcome something that not a lot of people can overcome. I really think that if it wouldn't have been for the speaker that night at youth camp I would still be throwing up every time I get stressed. I now know that when I do get stressed I can go to God or talk to a fellow believer about what I'm going through, I don't have to keep it inside. I thank everyone who knew I what I was going through and stood by me the whole time. All of them have lead me to where I am now, all have contributed to my coming out, admitting, and changing into the person I am now not the person I was then. Now God and I walk hand in hand and look at the invisible line which at one point was my wall.