My Testimony

[RaydonRaven]

I originally posted this years ago...but in the time since then a number of highly significant things have come to light. So I'm going to try and re-do this whole thing. If it seems kind of disjointed or skips around bear in mind that I have ADHD, my mind skips around a lot.


I'm going to start when I was six years old. We went to church every week, I attended Awanas, I looked at our church pastor like a grandpa. I accepted Christ one night at Awanas with him. Early the next summer, while on a church trip, I was sexually abused/assaulted. By that same pastor. I didn't tell anyone until just about three years ago.

I ended up going into 2nd grade that year with ADHD nad PTSD. And my teacher that year took it upon herself to do things like reccomend me for special ed, keep me out of the school district's Gifted program (because a gifted child is a perfectly behaved child), and stand me in front of the entire class and humiliate me anytime I did anything she didn't like. And all my classmates latched on to this, so I was picked on, insulted, humiliated, basically treated with contempt most of the time from then until I dropped out of school eight years later. This treatment was not only at school, it was where ever, when ever any of them saw me.

With my ADHD and PTSD raging out of control, the years ticked by, my grades got worse, my behavior got worse, my self-worth and self-confidence virtually disappeared entirely. I started escaping in books and music, and became very, VERY angry. I tried to kill myself for the first time when I was twelve years old. I swerved my bicycle out in front of an oncoming car. They missed me by a few inches, and I had never been so angry before. Angry that they missed me.

School dragged on. It got to the point that I had to force myself to go to school, after getting sick every morning thinking about it. There were a few good teachers, even more that questioned why I was never moved ahead a few grades, and a few friends here and there. I questioned my identity, had episodes of dissociation pretty often, and, between my abuse and preferential treatment of my sisters, started to question my sexuality. My PTSD was choking the life out of me. Classmates started to respect me for my intelligence and creativity, and I didn't notice. I was SO angry, but forced myself to act like the good little Christian and like everything was fine. My grandpa died, a few months later my grandma and grandpa died less than a week apart. That summer a friend of mine hung himself. A few months after that another friend of mine killed himself. I had fewer problems with other kids at school, but had FAR more problems with teachers. My anger was so bad that I almost beat one of them with a text book after he yelled at and berrated and called me stupid to my face.

I dropped out of school after that. Stopped going to church, pretty much stopped leaving the house, and discovered internet porn. After a few months, I tried suicide again. I spent an hour desperately looking for something to make me feel better, I had some music playing, and just gave up. I got out one of my knives, put it to my wrist, and nothing happened. Not even a scratch. I threw it across the room in anger and went searching for another one. I had several in my room and I couldn't find them anywhere. Couldn't find any in the kitchen or with Dad's tools. I went back to my room in a daze and sat down. The song Scarecrow by Skillet came on. And so did the power of God. I completely broke down listening to that song, God telling me he wanted me back the whole time.

To me, that moment is when I came to Christ. That was when everything started changing. I started going to church again, somewhat. But mostly I read and read my Bible. Looking back from that moment, I could, and can, see God stepping in. Foiling my suicide attempts, providing just the right influence at the right time to keep me going, providing me with one great friend that stuck with me no matter what, etc.

So much more has happened since then, but I think that's a good start...

 

[ysl_75]

Praise the LORD! glad to hear that you have accept Christ. A good testimony!

 

[Silent Enigma]

I'm glad for you. Keep your eyes on Jesus.

 

[bfly]

Oh biy, my testimony. This could take a while, so bear with me please.

I guess I should start with where it would seem things started to go awry for me. Which would have been in second grade, when my principal refused to let me into the school districts program for gifted kids. He said I had behavior problems. My problems stemmed from the fact that I found the schoolwork incredibly easy (I got straight A's without really trying, and I was finishing my work up to an hour ahead of everyone else) and the fact that I couldn't sit still and got bored very easily. So what if I'd make up things to do? Anyway, that year my teacher would stand me up in front of the class and embarass me (no, she would do it on purpose) just about everyday at least once. She was also convinced that I belonged in special ed. *insert eye rolling smiley* So after the kids in school saw that, I guess they figured it was ok to make fun of me. Because they started doing it constantly. Year after year it was the same, not matter what I did I got made fun of ALL THE TIME. Not fun. I managed as best I could till Jr. High, when things got worse. All the years had worn on me and warped into this very quiet, angry, bitter little 12 year old; where as when I started school I was very outgoing and I was like THE class clown, could make anyone laugh (including the teachers ). When I got into Jr. High and people started making fun of me for my reading books constantly and for the people I was hanging out with, I started doing stuff like ignoring students, teachers, even the principals. If they tried to talk to me, I wouldn't do anything, I'd just continue what I was doing. I also stopped doing homework I thought was easy, so I pretty much stopped doing ALL homework. That just put more stress and stuff on me, cause I got made fun of for that too. At this time I started going to my churches youth group. I should say that at this point, I was not saved, I just went through the motions, put up a facade to make people think I was. People in the youth group made fun of me as well, but I kept going cause my Mom wanted me to. This continued on into High School. Then things got much worse. I stopped all participation in class, I always ended up with these horrible teachers who thought I was a huge idiot, and I started looking for comfort from the world in places I shouldn't have been looking. I got caught up in my own self pity, despair and anger. I ended up a very bitter, angry teenager deep in the throws of deprsession. One of the places I looked for "comfort" was the internet, and I ended up being addicted to porn for several years. So that added a bunch of guilt on top of everything else. My sophomore year in High School was the worst year of my life. I was doing HORRIBLE in school and I got bad news after bad news. One day at home we got a phone call, it was the parents of my oldest and best friend (whom I hadn't seen in two years because we moved). They had called to tell us that, Nick my friend, had killed himself a few days ago. I was more devastated than my parents ever knew. Well, the previous year a guy had started coming to youth group. I ended up good friends with him because he didn't make fun of me, and he didn't have any friends in town either. Well, a month after Nick, while I was still in the midst of my grief, I went to youth group one night and Steve (the youth leader) had a very grim look on his face. Uh-oh I thought to myself. And with good reason, my other friend, Jesse, had hung himself in his basement the night before. And well, everyone there was saying stuff like that "that's horrible" and "he will be surely missed" and blah blah blah. What happened the next week? It was like they had never known him, it seemed that no one cared at all. This just made me even more angry and depressed. It got to the point where I was seriously considering going after a few people, then taking my own life. About that time, that first school shooting in Columbine happened. That was a big shock to me. All I could think was THAT was what I was considering?! How could I have ever considered doing that! So then I just though about suicide, used to imagine doing it. Then, during the last week of school, me and worst teacher I have EVER had, came to a head. It was pre-enrollment week for the next year and he came to me demanding to know if I was gonna take physics or chemisrty next year. When I asked him why he wanted to know, he said something about "because I don't want you to blow up the school or something you idiot!" He said it maliciously and practically yelled it at me. I wouldn't have wanted to be in his shows right then, cause I'm sure the expression (or lack there of) on my face scared the heck out of him. I came dangerously close to standing up from my desk, with my text book in both hands, and swing it across his face. I had my hands on my textbook, the thought was running rampant in my head, I could see it in my head. I thank God quite often that I didn't do it. Well, that night I went home and told my mom that I didn't care if she wanted me in public school next year, I was not going back. She asked why, so I told her what the teacher had said. She said ok, you can homeschool next year. So I did, I got a job, it was a horrible job with incompentent managers to be sure but it was a job, and it seemed that things were looking up. Oh, in case you're wondering, yes I did have a friend in all this; a very good friend, but sadly he couldn't help much. He was just to sheltered at the time to understand. Anyway where was I? Job, that's right. I got treated like garbage at that job, but I put up with it cause it paid. Well, a few months after starting that job, my Grandma went into the hospital. She had been suffering from Alzhiemer's for years and she wasn't expected to last the week. She didn't. When I tried to get time off to go to the funeral in California, my boss pretty told me to "**** off". I was extremely mad, but I did nothing about it. The same week my Grandma was in the hospital, my Grandpa (who had chronic emphazyma(sp?)) developed a cse of pnuemonia and went into the hospital also. Less than a week and a half after my Grandma passed, my Grandpa passed. Now I loved my grandparents a lot, and when I wasn't able to go to that funeral either, I refused to go work one day and got fired. At that point, I seriously considered suicide again, I actually ran a dull knife blade across my wrists mulitple times one day to see if I could do it if I decided to do so. I had hit the bottom. That night, I was struck with the urge to listen to (at the time) one of my very neglected CD's, Hey You I Love Your Soul by Skillet. So I lay in bed, trying to sleep and listening to Skillet. Eventually the CD got to the last song, Scarecrow. And that song just floored me, literally. I was on laying on the floor sobbing. That was when it first hit me, the fact that that comfort, that redemption I'd been looking for was right there, staring me in the face. Later that week, I bought a ticket for this youth rally thing at the high school that my church was sponsoring. They had a nationally known Christian Radio show host as the speaker. And everything he said hit me, I realized that night that I needed God. When he invited people to come foward to accept Christ as their savior, I went. I turned everything over to God that night and have never looked back. Well, that's pretty much it. After that night things started to look better. I kicked my addiction to porn, I kissed my (most of) my bitterness, anger, and despair goodbye. I am no longer any where near that depressed, although some days I get close. Well, there you have it, my story in a nut shell.

God bless you.............