Pain, Suffering, and Resilience In Withdrawal

Elissa and I wanted to talk more about something our culture doesn't like to talk about: suffering. Not in the abstract, but the long, confusing kind that comes with getting off psych meds. We wanted to share what that pain has taught us, and the hope that carried us through the darkest stretches of it. We hope you find something here that helps, wherever you are on your own road.

❤️‍🩹 Joanna

Joanna: So today I wanted to share with you all some of what Elissa and I have learned about suffering through our own journeys in psychiatric drug withdrawal. I'm Joanna. I have gone through a really hard psychiatric drug withdrawal experience. I've come out the other side, and now I'm so glad to be able to walk with so many of you through your own healing journeys, and to share with you about what I've learned along the way.

And so today I have Elissa here with me. We're gonna be talking specifically about suffering, and just how painful and confusing it can be to go through this for such an extended time. And some of the hope that we have had that has gotten us through those really dark periods that seem so uncertain and unending.

And for us, for both of us actually, that's very spiritual, and it comes from a Christian perspective, 'cause that's where we find our hope. So we're gonna be sharing from that, but we hope it's helpful to you wherever you are at, that you can take something away that would be helpful, hopeful, and life-giving for you in this season.

And Elissa, did you want to add to that?

Elissa: Sure. I know this is kind of a follow-up to our last spiritual video that we did. We got a lot of comments about that video, so we kinda wanted to follow it up with trying to be more resilient during... I mean, not resilient during the process, but gaining resilience through going through it. I was on psych meds for 28 years, multiple ones, and went through a protracted withdrawal just like Joanna did. So we're both here to have hope and help in this community. We come from a Christian perspective, but anyone can receive hope and help. If you wanna come and join our support groups or talk to us as coaches, we would be happy to be able to give you hope and encouragement through this process.

Joanna: Absolutely. Yes. And so, just to start us off, we would like to talk about the idea of suffering and pain. In our culture, something we've noticed is that pain seems to be considered, like, a terrible thing to have happen, something that should be avoided at all costs.

And so we wanted to share with you kind of what we've learned through our own suffering. What would you say, Elissa, you've learned that's different from that assumption that pain is bad?

Elissa: Well, pain can be a lot of different things, but I think for me, and I'm speaking from my perspective in this process, pain has been a teacher. Coming off of psychiatric medications was not easy, and it was a really hard journey, but it taught me a lot about what pain is and what pain is not, and to hold on to what I believed in, which I've been a Christian, you know, pretty much my whole life.

And so holding on to God was not easy during this process, as we talked about in our spiritual video. You do have a disconnect with your relationships with people, with God, and with, you know, all kinds of things in your life. So for me, holding on to God meant something different as I healed through this process, and this process was painful. And so pain taught me that you need to, you know, reach out for something. And so I just held on to God however I could this process. And as I healed, the pain taught me, you know, when you don't have anywhere to look, you look up. And in my personal journey, that's what that looked like.

I just looked up and reached up to God, and I learned through the pain that I need to hold on to Him as tightly as I can.

Joanna: Yeah. And it's like, the spiritual disconnect, I'm glad you brought that up, because that can actually be a part of the pain, is just feeling like God is not there at all.

Elissa: Yeah, even when He's absent and He feels absent, you know, your true self never goes away during this withdrawal journey. She or he is still there. And so I just kept believing as much as I could that this was going to end, and it has, and it did, and it got better. So the pain diminished, but that doesn't mean pain is gone from our lives, you know, forever.

We have to experience pain as we exist on this earth. And so through this journey, it just taught me a lot about pain and what it is and what it looks like and how it can be overcome.

Joanna: And I remember thinking, "Oh, this is gonna scar me in a way that will really damage me forever." Thinking, "This is really going to make... I'm becoming a tortured, more miserable person, and I'm gonna be very scarred and debilitated through this," was like a big fear, that it would have some kind of lasting, debilitating effect on me.

It was like a major fear. Did you deal with that fear too, Elissa?

Elissa: I did, and a lot of that was symptoms thinking, and being in a negative, pessimistic perspective from the injury. And a lot of that goes along with a lot of the ruminations and the obsessive thinking that stays...

Joanna: Looping thoughts.

Elissa: ...in this, you fear the worst possible outcome even when you picture yourself healed this, and distorted perspective, and that will come and go throughout this whole process.

You know, like, "Oh, well, maybe I won't feel this way the rest of my life," when I'm having a better day. But then when you're having a wave day, or a day where you're dipping down into the symptoms again, you're like, "Oh yeah, I am gonna feel like this." So your perspective about what it's gonna look like when you're healed is very unstable.

But as you go through it, and as you get closer to healing, you start thinking, "Maybe that's not true. Maybe there's a different way to think about it." And so I look back on it now as a teaching tool. It's unfortunate that it happened to everybody in this community. Don't get me wrong, it's unfortunate that it happened to you and me, and it's not really fair, but you can use your pain however you want to. You can allow it to transform you into something that is closer to God or closer to your ideal self, or you can use it to say, "I give up." So it's your choice, and we're here to help you focus on the hope, and the ways that you can use your pain to God's benefit and your benefit as well.

Joanna: Yeah. Yes, absolutely. And I found comfort, you know, in the perspective in the Bible that our pain can be used for good, and that just seemed so foreign to me when I was in it, 'cause my mindset was this is just gonna, you know, ruin me. I'm... this is taking so much from me. I'm not gonna be stronger through this. I'm getting flattened, you know?

And so then that perspective of the Bible is that those things can be used for good in our lives to transform us. And even Paul wrote somewhere in the New Testament... I should find the verse for this, but he said, "We..." It was some kind of a shipwreck situation he was in, but he said, "We despaired of life itself, but this happened so that we would put our hope in the God who raises the dead and not in ourselves." And I just loved that verse, because he was basically saying they were all depressed and suicidal.

They were just like, "Ugh, we wanna just give up." And he's saying even that happened so that they would put their hope in God who raises the dead, and that God would get them through. And He did get them through, and they went on to continue their lives and their work, and to have more strength. And so that perspective was so different than what my mindset was saying, which was, "Oh, this is gonna ruin you. You're gonna be worse off. You're gonna be separated from God, or doubting Him the rest of your life." And be like, "No, actually, you know, even these people in the Bible felt like giving up, and God used that, and they got strength from God. Maybe that can happen for me, too."

Elissa: Exactly. And then also, you know, when Paul talked about the thorn in the flesh, he kept asking God to remove it, and of course, we don't know exactly what he was going through, but I purpose so that we can relate to Paul and be like, "Yeah, this withdrawal is our thorn in the flesh," and I say, "God, please take this away. I don't know what you have to do, God, please take this away."

And God, you know, He was telling me what He told Paul, that "My strength is made perfect in your weakness." And in the withdrawal process, we feel weak, we feel helpless. You have to keep turning this over to God over and over again, because your mind will go into dark, negative places, like, "I'm never gonna heal," you know, "I'm being punished," or "What did I do? Why did I put that med in my body?" Or, you know, just any number of negative ruminations that I had with this.

So God's power is made perfect in our weakness, and this withdrawal is no exception to that. And so, as Joanna and I healed through this process, we started realizing, you know, our only strength was God. We just held onto Him, because sometimes these things happen, you reach out for someone, and they're... you know, people will be there to comfort you, but God is really the only one that's gonna give you the strength, His strength, to get through it. Because in my personal journey through this, I didn't have very much internal strength of my own. I borrowed it from God, and kept borrowing it from God, and kept going to Him and going to Him over and over and over again, because one and done didn't work. I'm like, "Oh, God, give me strength," and then, you know, a few months later... no, I just kept, like, every day, like, "God, just please, just please give me strength, give me strength." You know, I kept going over that again and again, just because the thoughts and the intrusive thoughts were so bombarding that I had to counter them with something, or I was just gonna feel worse and worse and worse. So I just kept praying and over again, just, "Give me strength through this, however it looks, just give me strength, give me strength, give me strength." And that... it didn't get rid of symptoms, right, because it was an injury to heal. But it kept my faith intact, even though I couldn't always feel closeness to God because of the symptoms.

Joanna: Is that you were turning to Him in the midst of it, even though it didn't feel like He was close, just turning again and again?

Elissa: You're almost turning to Him cognitively, and you're like, well, I can't feel that connection, but part of me...

Joanna: Trying.

Elissa: ...I always have to turn to Him over and over again, even though I didn't feel that connection. I just kept turning to Him, and kept looking at Bible verses, I kept praying, even though I didn't feel like my prayers were going anywhere. The part of me was still there that kept that faith, even though you can't feel it.

Joanna: Yeah. And I was surprised by, at times, seeing little evidences of it, you know? I would feel so separated and, like, exiled, like I just couldn't connect with anyone, and nobody could connect with this. And then there would be moments where I would be comforted, and it might be through a conversation with someone, or it might be through just the lessening of symptoms, or a verse that felt like it was just for me, that did stand out to me.

So there'd just be these little... and then I'd try to hold onto that. Like, "Okay, that's my little bit for today, to get through." It was like I had to just wait for that next little bit of hope, and that next little bit that He would give. But it wasn't like you said, "Oh, I'm good now, once and done, I got it." So it did really teach me dependence on God, even though I wasn't sure, well, how am I gonna get through it, what's gonna help me survive today? The whole day seemed like a mountain. How will I survive this whole day? How will I survive another week? How will I survive this for months? And your mind can go further out and just be like, I'm never gonna... how will I ever make it? And, you know, just shrinking that down to just today. I don't know what it's gonna be like later. I'm just responsible for this moment, and then just depending on God for that moment. "Okay, I need your help again. I don't know how I'm gonna get through this. What help are you gonna bring me?"

Elissa: And opening your mind to the possibility that, even with all the symptoms, this could look different one day. That going to those support groups helped me open my mind that way, and then talking to other healing buddies really helped open my mind to the possibility that this may look different, that God will change this. And sometimes I had that thought every single day, multiple times a day, because it was like, no, it's not gonna look any different, it doesn't matter what I do, it's not ever gonna, you know, I'm never gonna look any different. And that is part of this rumination, these intrusive thoughts that are hard, but they don't have to be true. Just because you have thoughts, it doesn't make them urgent or true, it just means they're thoughts.

Joanna: Right. And so learning to not be as alarmed by our alarming thoughts and sensations. It's kind of like a posture of acceptance, learning that posture of acceptance, and that this is part of the process. What about, have you had, and I know you have because we've talked about this before, the question, how can a loving God allow this much pain? Have you had that question yourself, and then also with other people that you've been working with through their own healing?

Elissa: I had that question myself, and Joanna and I both have had that question in this community. How could a loving God allow this brain injury to happen? Or how could a loving God, you know, seemingly punish people that love Him so much?

We talked about this in one of our support groups, that if you're a believer in the Bible, you know that a loving God will allow these things to happen, because He did allow them to happen to His Son. And so, as a Christian, as a Christ follower, you believe that Jesus lived a life here on this earth and had to go through lots of suffering as He lived on this earth as a human, and went through death on a cross. And that was for a very specific purpose, to save everyone on the planet, for all time. So that was more suffering than anybody has ever endured. And so when we think about that, how a loving God can actually allow His own Son, His only Son, to be punished for us, that puts it into a different perspective.

And not only through Christ, lots of holy people in the Bible suffer. You look back at the Old Testament, at Job. Job never knew why he was suffering like he did, but he was being tested for his faith, and he lost everything. He even lost his own health, family, his land, everything. He had nothing, and he never knew why. And so he ended up staying faithful. He was mad at God because he didn't understand, and so that's similar to what we go through in this process. We get angry because we don't understand. But as we heal and move through the stages of healing and get more windows under our belts, we start to see the pain of this process in a different light.

Especially as a Christian, you look at it and you're like, how can I use this? How does God want me to use this? How does He want me to be more compassionate to people who are suffering? Maybe that's one purpose of it, to allow us to see other people's pain written on their face, so we come alongside them and say, "What do you need? I'm gonna be here," because guess what, these people were here for me, and more than that, God was here for me. So there's many reasons why these things happen, and there's a lot of reasons why we can turn pain into purpose, for us and for everybody we come into contact with.

Oh, and a verse I wanted to read, it's a really short verse about that. It's Isaiah 53:3: "Christ was despised and rejected, a man of sorrows, acquainted with deepest grief." And also 2 Corinthians 1:5: "We share in the terrible sufferings of Christ, but also in the comfort He gives." So I wanted to read those verses because it talks about Christ's pain, and it talks about how He suffered.

And so when we go to God, to Christ in prayer, we don't have to think that He never had to deal with what we are dealing with. He dealt with more. So we have someone to come to and say, "God, do you know what this is like?" Well, yeah, He knows exactly what this is like. And so He knows the outcome of this, even though we can't see it when we're in it, and it's hard when you can't see it. You're just like, "This is just for no reason. I don't understand this."

Joanna: Yep, and I remember saying that. Well, I remember even saying that to one of my friends. I was like, "Don't you think this is just such a waste?" Here I am wasting years of my life, during my kids' childhood, during all of these important stages of my life.

And instead of just being happy or being involved with friends and healthy activities, I'm just stuck in my house suffering, sweating it out, wondering, holding on for dear life, wondering if I can make it another minute. It felt like such a waste, and so purposeless. But it wasn't, you know? It wasn't a waste. And that's kind of the idea, Christ's suffering wasn't a waste either. It was for a purpose. And He uses suffering for our good, and has a good purpose for it, you know? I think evil things happen in this world, 'cause it's a fallen world. It's an imperfect world. But God can use those things for good.

And He even had my good in mind when I was going through that, and it wasn't a waste at all. There was no wasted moment in our suffering. And I couldn't feel that at the time, you know? It felt like useless suffering, just useless. But it wasn't useless, and it wasn't punishment either. Yeah, like, maybe there's something I did wrong, or I should have just not listened to that doctor, or... your mind goes through every single other contingency that could have happened, that you could have avoided this. And that's part of grief, and that's part of the symptoms too, that ruminating and that looping.

But the truth is, like Elissa said, I could see it more as I healed, that there is purpose in it, and that it was changing me. In the process, I was being changed to be more steadfast, to be more compassionate, and to be more available for whatever God had for me to do. Not just, "Oh, my agenda, and I got it figured out, thank you," you know.

And so, now I value all those lessons, because I feel like I got a shortcut on some of the lessons that many people learn at the very end, when you're about to die. It makes you reconsider how you live in light of how weak we are, how much we don't have control, how much we sometimes chase after frivolous things with our time.

And at the very end of someone's life, you can come to these really big questions and have a really different perspective, one that makes you value your life and other people's life differently, and your relationship with God differently. And so I feel like I kind of got that lesson earlier in my life, and it's changing the way I live now.

And so for that, I actually think this was very worthwhile for me, and for others, because it changed how I value my life, my relationship with God, my relationships with others. It was like a transforming process.

Elissa: Transforming through the fire. You talk about gold, metal being transformed into gold, and that happens through fire. I kind of look at that process like this, as preparatory work, something God wants to use you for in the future, and He wants to make sure that you have a lot of your old habits burned off, so you can focus more fully on Him. That's just how I look at it. I look at it as a process of, well, what was I really paying attention to before in my life that didn't have too much to do with God? I was too busy focusing on this or too busy focusing on that. So this process kind of burns you down to your true character, and who or what you wanna put your focus on.

As a social worker, I thought, well, I'm focusing on other people, I'm helping them, but what were the reasons that I was really doing that? I mean, I've been a Christian my whole life, but this process has really brought my spirituality to a deeper level, because I look at people totally different now. Even being a social worker for years, I look at people in a totally different way now than I did before this process, like when I was on the meds, or even before I was on the meds, because I have a total appreciation for people who have a brain injury that I never knew about before. I have a passion for people just in my daily life, where it's just like I can tell what they're going through right now without them even saying a word, sometimes. A lot of times before, I was just kind of too busy to deal with that or to look at that, I just skipped over it. So it really brings you down to earth and makes you reprioritize what you're focusing your life on. And sometimes that only happens through pain, Joanna. Sometimes that only happens through the fire of pain.

Joanna: Yes, I think you're right, and I think there's ways that we wake up, in some ways that we were maybe asleep, you know? I learned about... I went to a nature park with my kids sometime last year, and the guide was telling us that they actually have to instigate fires sometimes in the forested area, so that the seeds drop from some of the plants that otherwise would never propagate.

And I was just like, "Oh, you'd never think a whole forest fire, just to keep propagation going." And apparently this would happen naturally in the past, but fires are protected now, for obvious reasons, there's lots of people around. But they still want those forests to reproduce, so they have to instigate the fires, so that those seeds do drop, and those plants keep propagating and stay alive.

And I was just amazed by this concept, that fire, something so bad, actually brought life, you know? Forests flourish more after a fire. Something about the charcoal and the burning brings nutrients and flourishing. And so that idea of, okay, this really hard, horrible thing in nature is actually part of growth, part of flourishing even, you know?

And so you go from what looks like devastation to flourishing. And if God made nature, and that's built into it, there may be something there for us about suffering, and how our bodies, our brains, our minds, can also flourish after going through something really, really hard.

Elissa: And this whole process, we have people in the community saying, "How can the brain heal itself? How can we be resilient?" But we've seen over and over again that your brain can heal and be resilient. And you just mentioned, like like at the beginning of this video, that through this process, you get this healing on the other side of this process.

So we've had a lot of people in the community say, "I don't think I'm ever gonna be over this. This is such a traumatic process that I'm never gonna forget it, and I'm always gonna keep ruminating and going back to it." And mine and Joanna's process, that is not true. We were just rso elieved that we were healed, we just wanted to move on. You do look back, and you can't forget the process, right? You can't forget things in your life, but I choose to look back on it and learn from it, and realize that is something that God got me through, and that is something I grew stronger by. And so, this is just my personal opinion, I have to thank the process of healing.

It was hard. It was protracted. It was long. It was painful. But I also have to thank the process, because it transformed me away from those medications that I had... let's just be honest, I was basically lied to, that they were really helping me, when they were not. They were actually making me very ill. And so the whole process of getting through that, and getting off that, I appreciate the process, even though it was so difficult and long and hard. I appreciate getting through all of that, and getting to this side of it, and being medication free, and just depending on God.

It was just a refining and a narrowing process, just like you mentioned with the fire and things like that, that God also talks about in the Bible, pruning us, like a vine, off of branches. You have to prune branches so that they will be more fruitful. That's how this whole process has happened, to get off the dependence on the meds, you have to go through the fire of withdrawal and protracted withdrawal, and then get on this side of it, where I've been pruned, and I can be more of a fruitful, blossoming tree to those around me and to myself.

So I think we've both learned that in this process, and are grateful for it on this side of it. I know it's hard to be grateful, people are watching this like, "How can they say they were grateful?" And a lot of times we couldn't say we were grateful when we were suffering with so many symptoms. We could not, we were like, "I just want out of this." But as you start getting closer to healing and you start getting more windows, you realize, "No, I'm gonna take something and I'm gonna learn from it, and I'm gonna use this as a purpose for my life, and as a purpose from God, instead of thinking it was a trauma I'm never gonna get over." And that's a choice that you can make.

And I know it's not easy for some people, but you do have to keep making that choice over and over and over again, sometimes, if you feel like it's a trauma. And you can work through that, maybe with a therapist or a counselor, as you heal through that. So there's multiple ways to try to reconcile going through this in your mind, and there's many avenues for healing in this. It's not just, oh, one and done, healed, gonna move on. There's lots of ways you can get help, as you're healing and when you've already healed. So it's not just one way, there's multiple avenues, so we just wanna give everybody hope for that.

Joanna: Absolutely. And I'm glad you brought that up, because when I went through this, I had already studied trauma before going through it, and then in the middle of it, none of those things I had learned were useful to me, because what I needed when I was going through it was coping. It wasn't a time for healing trauma, it was a time for coping.

And then coming out the other side, I actually got this book, I'll show it to you all because I just thought it was so fascinating and inspiring. It's called The End of Trauma.

Elissa: Who's the author?

Joanna: It's this guy, George A. Bonanno, and he's a trauma researcher, and he actually did a lot of research about 9/11, the trauma, the buildings going down, and how people came through that, and what kind of things they did for resilience.

So he did other studies as well. He distills in this what effective trauma healing can look like, and what are kind of the core components of that. And it was really inspiring for me, because it was in some ways simpler, and less, how would you say it, dependent on some sort of medical system, 'cause he looked at what ordinary people are doing to kind of work through things and get to the other side, and a lot of it was creative, and very human.

So there were creative solutions, there wasn't one solution, you know? And so I just thought that was very inspiring, and you could look it up and read it if you're in a place where you wanna figure out what do I do to get to the next phase of being more resilient. For me, that was, like, after the two year mark, when I wanted to ask those questions. It wasn't during the midst of it. But it was just very hopeful, as far as, you really don't need a professional to tell you how, you really can overcome your trauma, and creativity is part of it, and your outlook, and your mindset, and your willingness to try things. And I found that to be very true for healing through this process, because it did take creativity.

There wasn't a one shot, like you said, Elissa. There was, "Well, I'm gonna try this and see if that works for me, going to the grocery store. Well, that didn't work. Now I'm gonna try this." "Oh, maybe I need to wait longer." And there was very much an experimental phase of reintegrating into normal life, and recovering, and getting your footing back to being confident in normal life again.

And so I really appreciated that book for learning about reintegrating, and for building my confidence in, I can learn, I can learn how to reintegrate. And it was very much moving from a victim mindset to a survivor mindset. And that was really helpful to me during that period, because it can feel like when you're...

Elissa: You... I felt, I don't know if you felt this way, but I think the whole time I was on the meds, I felt like a victim. I felt like, I have this diagnosis, and there's nothing I can do about it. I'm just stuck...

Joanna: Helpless.

Elissa: ...I'm stuck with this diagnosis. I'm not like everyone around me. I have this brain illness. And so you do have, it is a victim mindset set upon you by the medical system, that... it keeps you in a box. And so you have to get out of this, you have to redefine who you are. I'm not a victim anymore, I don't have...

Joanna: Not a victim.

Elissa: ...or treatment resistant depression, or whatever your diagnosis was. Who are you without that? That does take some work. And I'm glad you brought up that book, because different, just like we just mentioned, there's different avenues of healing here, and redefining who you are without those labels.

Joanna: Exactly. And I think that's also part of where my faith came into play too, it helped me interpret my suffering through a different lens than, like you said, the medical system, which was more like, I'm a victim, I just have some kind of permanent lifelong condition that makes me in need of this label, this treatment, this medication, but I'm not in charge of it. This is the medical system kind of mapping that out for me, and riding whatever that meant for my body, from one med to the next, whatever that meant for my mind.

And so, even though this feels like such horrible suffering to be going through, that change of power is happening, from, "Oh, I just have to do whatever they say," to, "Oh, I am in charge of my body, and I'm the one coming through something hard." And it really does, in a way, build your confidence, because you realize, "I came through this hard thing, I did it," with God's help, or with the help of others. I came through this, and my body can survive, and my body can figure this out, and I can learn how to face hard things and overcome them, and I can learn skills and coping strategies and mindsets.

And so it's that change of power, and kind of taking ownership for yourself, and that's actually, you know, I look at now as hugely healing.

Elissa: Yeah, you get more from it than, "Oh, I just overcame a hard thing," you get so much more from it. You get independence, you get power, a lot of that just from going through a traumatic thing, and then still standing on the other side, you feel powerful. And, as a Christian, I feel powerful in God, that He gave me the strength to get through those things, and then also He gave me the strength to move forward, with however I need to move forward. And so you and God go together in that power, in how you're gonna live your life now. I do not live my life in that box anymore. I don't live my life under a label, I live in my own power and in the power that God has given me, and that is hugely transformative.

We have this interview between me and Joanna, but sometimes there's no words to describe the healing process, when you get to the other side. You try, but it is transformative. It will transform your life in many ways. It just does, you know? And you make better decisions. I'm making different decisions now than I did when I was on the meds, 'cause I was just kind of a zombie on the meds, and wasn't making decisions that were aligned with who I am as a person. I did that for many, many years. And so that's how this has kind of transformed me on the other side of it. It's like, "Oh, I wanna do this now, I wanna do this now." I would have never made those decisions when I was on the meds. I was just too out of it.

Joanna: Yes, absolutely. That's such a good way to put this, and you're right, it's hard to really put that into words.

Elissa: It is. I mean, we're doing the best we can.

Joanna: We're doing what we can.

Elissa: But it's almost like you just wanna lay your hands on somebody and go, "Here's what it feels like," you know?

Joanna: Feel it for a moment, yeah.

Elissa: Yeah, feel that healing power for a moment, and then take your hands back off... It's hard to fit it into words, but we do the best we can with the words that we have. Transformative, and perseverance, it's not only transformative, you just persevere through it, and perseverance leads to all kinds of wonderful things in your life. Character.

Joanna: Yes, character. And that kind of reminds me, I have a verse that brought me a lot of hope, even though I couldn't always feel it. It's from Romans 5:3 to 5. It says, "Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, endurance produces character, character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us."

And that's a promise to us. And so when my mindset was telling me, "This is leading nowhere, this is such a waste, and I don't know if I'll ever recover or be positive again," this verse is telling me the opposite. It's saying, "No, your suffering is producing endurance, it is producing character, it is producing hope." And that's so strange to me, 'cause it's like, how can I get more hopeful while I'm in the middle of this? But I did learn how to. I don't know what else to say, except that God helped me learn how to hope. And, like Elissa said, on the medication, I really struggled to be a hopeful, positive person. I was much more pessimistic, saw the glass half empty, let's say it the way it is, you know?

But I did see that change happening in me, of learning how to practice hope, and that hope growing. And it wasn't hope in myself, but hope that, hey, maybe God has good for me. Maybe. And it might be like that for you right now. You might be like, "Maybe," after listening to this video. "Maybe I'll say something good about this when I'm on the other side." But just hold onto that maybe, because that maybe is your hope, and that's gonna grow, and you're gonna get more sure of that as you heal.

And so it says, "That hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts." And so you're gonna feel that at some point. And I did feel that at some point, that hope and that assurance that God's love is right here with me, and I'm okay.

Elissa: We don't always... I know that verse says we rejoice in our sufferings, but we don't always... It's really hard to rejoice when you're suffering, and I don't think that's what it means, like, "Oh, I'm so glad," you know? No, what he means is trying to stay stable in your suffering, knowing that you will reap the benefits of it later on. It's trying to stay focused on God, and focused on the fact that you're not the only one doing this in your own strength. The rejoicing part, you know, it's not that suffering brings about rejoicing, but the fact that you're not the one that has the strength to do this, that God is within you, that has the strength to do this... that's where the rejoicing comes from. Because you're like, "Oh, I don't have to, I don't have to muster up my strength every single day to endure all these symptoms." It's the strength that comes from God that will see you from the beginning of this, all the way through to your last day of suffering in this. So that's the hope that we try to give, that's the hope that we've received and we try to give.

Joanna: That's right. And that rejoicing, like Elissa said, I was not like, "Yay, this is great now." No, it was awful. But something about it sort of is hopeful, because it's like, okay, you might not be rejoicing about this now, but consider it a good thing in the long run. This is gonna be a good thing. And that has been my experience, that it has become a good thing, even though when I was going through it, in the moment, it did not feel like a good thing. It's the bigger picture that became a good thing.

Elissa: Yeah.

Joanna: Yeah, the zooming out, exactly. Well, thank you everyone for just being with us today and listening to this video. We are so thankful that we get to share this with you and to connect with each one of you. If you wanna book with either Elissa or I, we would love to connect with you and support you through your own healing journey. And we'll be here cheering you on.

Elissa: Thank you so much, Joanna.

Joanna: Thank you, Elissa. Bye, everyone.