MY TESTIMONY – ————–

I grew up in a non- Christian home where love was not shown or discussed freely amongst us. My father, I believe, was an orphan, and did his best for us 3 children. However, he was very strict and abusive and very controlling in all aspects of our lives. My older sister and I were frequently punished with the ‘sjambuk’ and we led what I termed to be an unhappy childhood.

On the positive side, my father did provide all the materialistic things for us, which led me to believe that money was the “be all and end all in life”! My mother suffered at the hands of my father, serving as the ‘go between’, trying desperately to keep the peace in the family all the time. I don’t recall much of the younger times of my childhood, except the happy moments riding my horse, and excelling at running. My father, however managed to spoil that for me as well too, punishing me whenever I did not come first and slipped to 2nd place on one occasion, forever instilling in me the notion that “ I was not good enough”. I loved to run, that feeling of freedom, that feeling of freedom, of being one with myself, or one with “spirit” (what I called it in those days).

My dad was an alcoholic, I cannot remember when he started drinking, but I do remember the later years and how it affected me. I dabbled in alcohol a bit in teenage years but nothing serious In only looking backward now can I see how seriously I was affected by my childhood and how I longed to be ‘loved. I “pretended’ to be the good girl all my life and managed to pull it off or so I thought. Little did I know that God sees it all! I even pretended to my husband that I was a virgin when we married, that is how important it was for me to portray ‘the right image’ in life! The cracks started to show after I gave birth to my daughter in 1996 and I got depressed. I went to see a psychologist who diagnosed me with depression, and I started to find things out about myself that I was not quite ready or willing to face. I was in total denial. I was still desperately seeking for someone to ‘love’ me. My husband me for my perfect body and that was it. I wanted to be loved for who I was, so I continued to seek out the man who could do that. I went through man after man, not finding any satisfaction in the sex or finding the love I was looking for and still I was desperately lonely and very sad, becoming more withdrawn, and excising more and focussing on my perfect body
By 2001 my depression had worsened with anxiety, so I went to see a psychiatrist and was given sleeping tablets, anti-depressant tablets and tranquilisers and hence II started my road to addiction. During the first year or so, I would escape to hospital on my husband’s medical aid to ‘get away’ and would ‘sleep’ there to get my fix, but those get aways were limited, so it was not long before I was getting the doctor to increase the dosage of my sleeping tablets. I could not wait to get home after work every day to take my tablets to sleep, each day taking them a bit earlier, and would come downstairs and embarrass myself in front of my daughter and husband, and in the morning having no recollection of what I had done. And all this time remembering I was struggling to maintain the perfect image of the perfect wife and Mom and poject to everyone that everything was awesome all the time!

I started getting a second script from the GP and would take tablets during the day to “escape’ while my husband and daughter were at work and school respectively. The deterioration was rapid, the only thing controlling my addiction was my absolute inner craving to be ‘seen’ as “larni” and “okay”. That was my saving grace and the fact that I was working at the time. I hated myself and recall the first time, or at least I think it was the first time I decided to ‘leave the plante”. By now I had had our second child ( God’s mirace child – my son) but still this did not sto me taking my sleeping tablets, although I did not take them during my pregnancy. I used to run away to our timeshare in the mountains now every opportunity I got. I manged to get a script of 60 sleeping tablets and took all 60 one ngiht when up ther. No one knoew where I was. I never tole my husband where I was going and he never asked. Looking backward it was God’s grace that saved me as I woke up the next morning totally fine and surprised, but that did not stop me!

I must have tried to commit suicide at least another 7 more times until 2017. I remember the one time the overdose was so severe that I ended up being in ICU for 4 – 5 days but I still did not get it! God did not want me to leave!! My husband had left me by 2008 and taken the children with him. I was aone, and taking sleeping tablets during the day while working, still manging somehow to do my job. The one time I drove my car on the freeway, had a black out in the fast lane, veered off into the slow lane, flew over the side barriers, down the embankment, through the bushes and the car stopped at the edge of the cliff! I crawled out of the car, unhurt, and the paramedic, seeing that I was ‘out if it” and once again saved by Gods grace, told the policemen that I had experienced a medical blackout, took me by ambulance to the hospital. It all came crashing down in 2015 when I was retrenched in 2015. No money, no job, hectic IBS and I ended up staying in a friend’s spare room in a not so “larni area for 10 months , but somehow, with my Mom’s help, I still managed to get my sleeping pills and locked myself away, sleeping most days and all night. Money was now the only thing that kept my addiction under control and once again God’s grace (which I still could not see at that time)

In 2017, after being apdi out by a RA policy, I learnt at lat that money is the root of all evil. I spent R154 000on , every last cent of it on purpose as I had decided to finally make one last effort to ‘end it all’ and to try a different approach as tablets had not worked! I took my car to the garage to be fixed, updated my will, arranged everything in the house neatly, left the food and other things to charity (doing what is right once again) and decided to electrocute myself in the bath. I got the hairdryer, ran the both, got dressed in the appropriate clothing, took my final message (Psalm 46.10) with me, asked God to forgive me, stepped into the bath filled with water and switched the dryer on. I felt the electiricty current, but all it was was a minor shock ( and a major one for me). I could not believe it!! I climbed out, soaking wet, shaking, so worried now that my landlady would now see me, and walked through to my bedroom, and as I stood there, I finally got it. I realised that I cannot do this on my own anymore. I surrended my life to Jesus and asked Him to please take it over. I said I give up and please would He save me. I cannot remember much else except the peace that came over me that night. I was awake all night and my most vivid memory is of the Holy Spirit taking my arms and enfolding them around my neck. I finally felt loved! It had taken me all my life of searching and in this one moment – I had found it. What joy!

It has been 8 months since that memorable day. 8 months and 2 days to be exact. What an awesome journey. I strive every day to give God glory for what He has done for me and what He continues to do for me every single moment of every single day. Nothing can describe the joy and peace I feel and what an honour it is to be chosen to be one of God’s children. Do not hesitate to ask Jesus to save you. Itt far outweighs the darkness, emptiness and misery you face in the height of your addiction, Nothing can compare to it! And you definitely will be free!