I accepted invitations from my suite mates to get ice cream at 10 p.m. I empathized with friends who were navigating strained relationships, and I’d listen. Slowly, one penny at a time (combined with therapy and meds), I began to see outside myself. As I sought others out, moving pennies from one pocket to the other, I began to regain empathy and my sense of compassion. While this practice initially felt inauthentic, the pennies became a turning point. And every time I did so, I was to move one penny from my left pocket into my right pocket, until all five pennies had been moved. Dad challenged me to find ways-five times a day-to do something, say something, or pray for someone other than myself. Because those were the days of hip-hugger, low-rise jeans, the presence of those copper coins was palpable. My dad encouraged me to dig five pennies out of my purse and put them all in my left pocket. During one such phone conversation with my Dad, he sensed that while my pain was real, I had allowed it to paralyze me-so much so that I thought about very little outside myself.Įnter the pennies. In that season of intense depression, I often called home in a panic. I collapsed inward, isolating myself because I couldn’t see past my pain. The anxiety attacks became more frequent. I have very few high school memories that don’t include Grandpa: evening meals, my brother’s basketball games, decorating the Christmas tree. He had lived right next door to my childhood home-his house quite literally in our backyard. While death was not new to me-I’d had other family members pass away, Grandpa had been like a second father, the embodiment of quiet faithfulness and unconditional love. That November my Grandpa Bender had succumbed to cancer. Soon enough, the stress also ravaged me physically, my weight dropping to an unhealthy ninety-seven pounds.Īt first, I attributed my symptoms to grief. I began to disengage from almost everyone around me. While I had left home ready to soak in all that independence had to offer, I began to experience symptoms of severe depression toward the end of my first semester.
The year was 2002, and I was a freshman at a Midwestern Christian college. Anxiety and I had become so interwoven that I couldn’t distinguish one from the other.
They invaded even when I wasn’t conscious enough to let my ruminating thoughts take me there. The attacks had become more frequent and harder to control. I was having yet another anxiety attack-this time jolting me out of a dead sleep. My heart beat so rapidly that I could feel it on my fingertips, wildly thumping like a jackhammer. I sat straight up in bed, my hand instinctively covering my chest.
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