Gabriella’s Story — whole minds

Listen to Matt speak about his mental health journey through anxiety and depression and the wonderful gift of Gabriella at the end of it.

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There were about 1001 reasons that I didn’t want a third child. Lack of space, the fact I was not getting any younger, the stretch on our finances and “why upset our comfortable life with two lovely boys”... I could go on and on. Joy had long wanted a family of three but I think had resigned herself to the fact that it wasn’t happening as – despite the fact I’d never say never - having a third was just not on my radar. Not at all.

Her prayer became one of peace for herself on this matter unless somehow – by a miracle – God could change my mind.

As with everyone, in the March of 2020, our lives completely changed with the pandemic sweeping and national lockdown. Joy – being the premier bread-winner in our home - worked in our bedroom upstairs somewhat out of the way. I worked my job as best I could in the living room while entertaining, feeding and overseeing our three and five-year-old boys. In hindsight I probably tried too hard to be a super-dad – making each day full of new games, adventure and excitement and not just to stick them in front of the television. Soon, the stress of this day to day and the lingering pandemic started to take its toll on my mental health... although at the time I didn’t really grasp this and just kept powering on.

The stress and anxiety hit me in a particularly strange way. Out of the blue I started to suffer from performance anxiety in the bedroom – something that in ten years of marriage I’d never remotely had any issues with. I started to develop almost a phobia around having sex. It became all-consuming and dominated my thoughts and thinking while carrying on my crazy day-to-day life in lockdown. This went on for months and was getting tougher and tougher to handle.

”During this time, I listened to a Woodlands Church sermon online - during their series on Fruitfulness – and I just really felt God speak to me saying that I should have a third child. WHAT? “

Going through what I was going through – on so many levels – this was the very last thing, I myself, would have thought was a good idea. (I mean on top of everything else trying for a baby is probably the last thing that’s recommended when suffering from performance anxiety in the bedroom). Yet I couldn’t shake what I sensed God nudging me to do. I told Joy and, as expected, she was very shocked at this revelation. As it was so out of left field, we agreed to pray about it for several weeks. About two weeks later I watched another online service – another in the fruitfulness series – and, again I clearly felt God saying to me that we should try for a third child. I kept this revelation to myself for a few days and prayed and thought it through. Although the idea of a having third child made no sense to me I found it very liberating to be like ‘okay God, I don’t understand this at all... but I’m going to trust you’.

So, I told Joy and we agreed to try for a third child. Her prayer to God was that she would fall pregnant quickly given all that I was going through. But with Joy being 40 now and that fact that our boys took about 11 months and six months to conceive... we were prepared for a long wait. However, some two weeks and a half weeks later Joy took a pregnancy test and it keep back positive. She was pregnant. We later traced the day of conception back and it was the very day we decided to try for a third. Talk about God’s perfect timing.

During this time – and despite the realisation of this miracle - my anxiety and stress were very much continuing and it started affecting my sleep. I endured a few nights where I got no sleep at all... and this really freaked me out. I’d be worrying throughout the day whether I’d be able to get to sleep or not. We’d booked a week-long camping trip to St Ives, in Cornwall and I was especially weary of my sleep during this time. So, I was prescribed some sleeping tablets. I’d never taken anything like this before and they made me feel incredibly low. Because of my anxieties at the time, I didn’t really correlate that it was the tablets making me feel so down.

That week in St Ives was easily the toughest of my life – I was fighting against dark, dark thoughts non-stop.

Looking back, I’m not quite sure how I got through that week. I remember praying and praying asking God not to let go of me. He didn’t and somehow, I was able to do all the holiday activity with my boys without them realising what was going on in my mind. It took several spates of taking these poisonous sleeping tablets over a month to finally realise that they were causing all of this mental turmoil. In addition, I’d also started taking valerian root tablets to ease my anxiety. Although they’re known as ‘Nature’s Valium’ being herbal I figured they were harmless. I took these in high doses for about three-and-a-half months. I decided to come off them and did so cold turkey.

Immediately I started getting horrible withdrawal symptoms. Feeling low – almost devoid of any joy – intrusive thoughts and de-personalization – where you become almost a detached observer of oneself. I remember times where I would go upstairs to my bedroom – with the rest of my family downstairs – and just cry and cry with all the mental torment. This withdrawal was very much protracted and it took a good 12 months for my brain to completely recover. From research online I discovered that coming off Valium can result in this type of withdrawal. Suffice to say it’s been the toughest two years of my life.

God has spoken and sustained me time and time again during my time in the valley in countless different ways. His audible voice, words from the scriptures, friends have placed in my path at just the needed time...I could go on.

One memorable time was with the valerian root tablets. For a while I’d felt that I should come off them but had put it off. I guess I was a little scared. I even thought of staying on them until our baby was born. Joy and I prayed that God would give us a sign as to whether I should come off or not. Then one Sunday, I bought an extra-large (glass) bottle from Boots. At home when I opened the outer cardboard box and all 80 tablets just dropped to the floor. The bottom of the glass bottle had just, somehow, come away and all the contents had emptied. Out of interest I returned the bottle to Boots and all the other bottles were fine. Crazy.

Throughout these two years of testing and trial I’ve really felt God pushing me to trust him – to hand over all control to him. He really wants me to depend on him. In literally everything. It’s been a long old journey but I feel that I’m slowly getting there on this!

I want to share this story because I feel it illustrates that no-one knows what each person is going through. On the face of it people that see me happy and laughing with my gorgeous wife and three children probably think ‘he’s got it together’ - but... you never know. Also, during my struggles I’ve opened up like never before to friends and through this they opened up to me in return and I’ve been amazed how many are going through tough times and I’d have never known. Depression, sexless marriages etc.

When Joy and I were thinking of baby names... ‘Gabriella’ immediately popped into my mind. It’s never really been a name we’ve spoken of before but I just felt strongly about the name. When Joy looked up its meaning ‘God Is My Strength’ I said “That’s it” as God has been my strength all along this most bizarre journey.

Contributor: Matt Hyde