This year has brought laughter,tears, and many adventures. Here is a video of all the pictures I took throughout 2016!

2016 was the year of learning and adapting!

I wanted to write happy and positive things about the new year, but as I write I realize that I’m not telling the entire truth of what my experience in 2016 was...

The beginning of 2016 started out pretty bad. I was involved in a car accident on December 20th,2015 that should have taken my life, but instead I walked away with bruising and a fear to drive again.

Instead of being grateful that I was alive though, fear and panic started to take over. I was without a car, I lived 188 miles away from school and I didn’t have any money to purchase a new vehicle right away. I felt trapped, and I started to blame myself for everything that had happened. I started to live with the guilt of this accident for a while.

I wanted to forget that this accident that happened, and I constantly ran away from the responsibilities of this often. I wanted my life back to normal, but I knew it couldn't be that way anymore. I was emotionally too much to handle for my friends, and I felt myself spinning out of control emotionally. I never seemed to "have a grip" on myself for long, and when I did it was just a matter of time before I spun downwards again.

In March...

My mother was offered a new job and we moved to Kalamazoo, MI. This would make the second time moving since August, where we had moved from LaPorte County, IN to Kenosha, WI. This brought on new stress, since I wouldn’t be able to be there to move like I had been previously. I was still in the middle of dealing with my car accident, and now I was moving to a place I had never been before. I had barely settled into one place, and I missed my home back in LaPorte so much. I was holding onto my old life, and still trying to live a new one too. Emotionally, I was starting to do better. I started to get myself more into God's word and was starting to really grasp it.

In June...

I worked a factory job and was making decent money. Everything seemed okay, until one morning I was getting dressed for work. I had felt off that morning, and blamed it on having to be up so early most days (4 am). I clocked in, went to my morning meeting, and left to my machine. 3 hours into my shift, and I was starting to experience a major panic attack. I couldn’t breathe, my chest felt so heavy and tight like someone was sitting on my lungs and wouldn’t move. I was crying, but no noise could escape my mouth. I couldn’t tell anyone what was going on at first, because of the lack of breathing and not being able to make a sound. Finally, I talked myself down enough to ask to go to the bathroom, and I returned and I was eventually sent home. I had not experienced a panic attack that badly for quite some time, and I started to fear that depression and anxiety were creeping back into my life in a very unhealthy way.

In August/September...

When I got back to school, I was so excited to start new. I immediately got plugged into a church, I started at a new job right away, and I lived with a completely new set of people (aside from my roommate, who I had known from the previous year). I wanted change, and I got it. I set to work right away as classes started. There would be no slacking around this year, and I got myself so organized that I wouldn’t miss a beat. I would constantly stay ahead. I never foreseen myself having to drop a course because I couldn’t pass exams. I didn’t foresee myself feeling so low about having to drop the course. That’s exactly how I felt though. Really, really low. While back in June, I knew depression and anxiety were creeping in, I denied myself help. I denied that there was a problem. While dropping the course was not the source of my depression and anxiety, it surfaced it. I started back into old habits of treating my depression. I treated the anxiety by having panic attacks late at night, convincing myself that I wasn’t “good enough” or “smart enough”. I convinced myself that I was “too much” and yet “not enough” at the same time. I had competing thoughts of telling myself I was worthless, and then feeling so guilty for thinking those things about myself. I had started to live in this cycle again…

Currently...

I still battle depression and anxiety. I still have conflicting thoughts. I have decided to choose joy in the midst of confusion and hurt. I have to trust that Jesus has my back on this. He's not going to leave me on my own, though many nights it may feel that way. I must know that feelings are forever changing, but truth is constant.

I wouldn't be where I am today without every single person in the video. I've made it this far because all of those people have challenged my thinking, lead me to truth, loved me when I was impossible to deal with, and cried with me when I was hurting. They've laughed with me, went on adventures with me, and car rides when I needed to talk. These are my people. They are worth the heartaches of relationships. Wrapping 2016 up, I'm so thankful for my tribe. I love them more than I could ever convey in words. God sent each and everyone of them with a special purpose in my life. It's been a good year, considering all of the things that went wrong. All the stress, and hurts. I always had my people behind me, my God in front of me, and that made all the difference.