July 6, 2025 • 32 mins
In this powerful episode of Bleeding Daylight, host Rodney Olsen sits down with Tiffany L. Jones, author of "The Cursed Brain," a devotional helping young adults navigate mental health challenges through faith. Tiffany shares her deeply personal journey of battling depression and intrusive thoughts since childhood, growing up in a home where mental health struggles were normalized, and finding herself exhausted from trying to manage her pain alone.
After years of believing she wasn't a "good enough Christian" because prayer and scripture study didn't cure her depression, Tiffany reached a breaking point and finally asked for help. Through professional therapy, medication, physical wellness, and authentic Christian community, she discovered healing and learned to fight the right enemy. Now she's dedicated to helping others know they're not too broken to heal, sharing hope through her writing, speaking, and youth ministry work.
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Episode Transcript
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(00:08):
Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.
This is Bleeding Daylight with your host, Rodney Olsen.
Welcome and thanks for listening.
Bleeding Daylight is a place to encounter stories filled with hope and inspiration.
(00:30):
Dozens more episodes are waiting for you at BleedingDaylight.net.
Please share this and other episodes with others through your social media and word of mouth.
Today we'll walk through one woman's story which is giving hope to many.
We'll discover that even when there seems to be only darkness, the light is still able to break through.
(01:02):
I'm delighted to welcome Tiffany L.
Jones today.
Tiffany is the author of The Cursed Brain, a powerful devotional that's helping young adults navigate mental health challenges through faith.
After battling depression since childhood and finding little support in her Christian community, Tiffany discovered healing through professional help, physical wellness and authentic community.
(01:26):
Now she's on a mission to make sure others know they're not too broken to heal.
Tiffany, welcome to Bleeding Daylight.
Thank you.
I'm glad to be here.
I know that depression has been a battle for you since a very early age.
Did you know back then, even as a young child, that feeling that way was unusual or was it so much a part of your life that you just considered it to be normal?
(01:49):
Really on into adulthood, I did not really understand that the way I thought about things was not healthy, that it was abnormal.
My mother was a very anxious person and it was just kind of a way of life that I thought we were supposed to be prepared for any possible thing that could go wrong.
That was one part of healing for me that was really instrumental was really even knowing that something was wrong.
(02:16):
I remember hearing people talking about kind of some of the emotions I was feeling as negative things and being kind of confused by it, not really understanding what the opposite of that was, if you will.
Tell me about those earlier days, because I know that you recognized science at a young age.
When you look back, it's like, yeah, that was depression even at a young age.
(02:39):
What was some of the things that actually did display back then that should have been red flags for people around you to realize that things weren't as they should be?
One big one I would say is withdrawing from friends.
My family would go on these big camping trips with several other families.
We would go twice a year.
(03:00):
It was usually five core families.
Sometimes other friends would be involved.
There were multiple times throughout the years that I would rather be by myself.
I grew up with these kids.
They're almost like cousins to me.
I was often found off by myself somewhere, whether that was in my tent or just kind of hiding out by myself.
(03:23):
There was a lot of self-reflection, journaling and stuff that I looked back on as an older person and thought, wow, why is an eight-year-old wanting a different life?
Why would they even consider that, that they don't like their life and they're not sure what to do about that?
Kind of from the outside looking in, just a lot of taking on responsibilities as a young child.
(03:46):
That shouldn't be a young child's responsibility, being concerned about family's finances or long-term things that impact their family that should be on the parent's shoulders, if that makes sense.
And I know that we can, as parents, start to think, well, my child is just an introvert or they're shy and that's why they're wanting to spend time alone.
(04:11):
But for us as parents, what are some of the things that we should be watching out for that when that child is wanting time alone, that it's not just a part of their nature of being that kind of introverted child?
Oh, that's a great question.
I actually have a child that does need that time alone.
She definitely needs that kind of recharge, that time.
(04:34):
But she is hungry for time with friends.
If an opportunity comes up, she is on board.
She might want to cut it shorter if she knows her social battery, if you will, is kind of low.
That is one huge difference to me is that she craves spending time with her friends.
Whereas I would very often say no thank you to going out and doing things with people.
(04:58):
You raise a great question in that not all children are like that.
There are children that they might prefer to play alone or just have more solitude time.
I think as long as you're having open communication with that child, that you are talking with them about emotions and feelings that you are talking through.
(05:20):
Is there another friend that you want to hang out with?
Is it an issue of are you not wanting to hang out with a friend because you're tired?
Kind of getting to the root of why they might feel that way and be very open about it.
Not judgmental towards how they feel about spending time with friends.
Just being very curious and keeping communication open for my child that I mentioned, who is very introverted and needs that time to recharge.
(05:49):
I have to be very careful about asking a lot of questions at once.
They can be very overwhelming.
You just keep the conversation open.
One day you might ask, oh, I noticed you didn't really want to hang out with so and so.
Can I ask if you were just not feeling great and didn't want to?
And if they don't really answer or they don't answer that particular question, but you have more, maybe save them for another day.
(06:15):
Sometimes we can make communication with our children difficult for them if we overwhelm them with questions.
We don't want to bombard them.
I think it's important to kind of keep that in mind.
We don't have to find the solution today.
We can ask a couple probing questions and if they don't want to talk about it, then bring it up at another time.
(06:37):
Of course, most of the time we do have the opportunity to watch out for our child and to walk along that journey with them.
But in your case particularly, having a mother who was already anxious, I guess that made it all the more difficult because that's the behavior you saw modeled.
And I imagine that also means that your mom didn't have the keys to be able to see that in someone else because that was already her default position.
(07:04):
So that would have made it very tricky for you to have any of those conversations.
My mother was actually diagnosed with bipolar as I was an adult.
In many ways that was validating in a sense of just kind of understanding more of how that impacted me, having a little more compassion for her and what she was going through.
(07:25):
You raise a great point about our parents are human too and they might not have had things modeled well for them and they might have their own battles that they're fighting.
I believe that's one very interesting part about being a grown-up is kind of viewing your parents in a different light, learning to have compassion for the things they struggled with, learning how to overcome the things that impacted you as a child.
(07:53):
You've mentioned those flags that were there even as a young child, but how did it display in your growing up years as you continue to get older?
What were some of the markers in your life there that showed that battle with your mental health with depression?
As I got older I struggled with intrusive thoughts.
It was something that was always a part of the way my brain worked.
(08:16):
I remember being a very small child having intrusive thoughts.
The younger years were more about being concerned about my safety, whether it was thinking someone might come in and rob our house tonight so I have to think through our evacuation plan.
As I got older it was more suicidal.
I thought a lot about taking my own life and it was not something I wanted.
(08:38):
I did not choose to think about that.
It would just come into my head at random times throughout the day.
The longer I did not address that the worse it got.
The more frequent those thoughts came and really started to impact my quality of life.
I started having panic attacks at work, not often with friends.
(08:59):
Usually that was kind of a safer place for me, but it was definitely affecting my friendships and home life.
For those of us that have never really suffered from those sorts of intrusive thoughts, I guess we've all been in situations where we've been a little bit anxious about a particular thing that's coming up and we talk about things, oh that's been playing on my mind.
(09:19):
But what you're talking about here, intrusive thoughts, these are thoughts that you really can't escape, that pop into your mind for seemingly no reason and seem to be harmful.
So that would be something that would really stop you from living a full life, wouldn't it?
That's right, yeah.
So tell me a little bit more about that.
(09:39):
Are these just thoughts that continue to come to you various times throughout the day?
Is it the sort of thing that you would wake up in the night with?
How did it play out?
One of the worst times of day for me was the evening.
In my early 20s, I would intentionally exhaust myself.
(09:59):
I worked two full-time jobs and any free time I had, whether it was a half day off or even after work, I always had something scheduled.
I always needed something to do because if I was alone, then I knew those thoughts would creep in.
I did not like going to bed at night because I knew if I laid still in the quiet that those thoughts would come and I would listen to music.
(10:26):
I would pray and read scripture to try to meditate on something different.
Often that would help, but I still had moments of driving home alone.
That was usually the worst times.
Still, just throughout the day, I would often have them if I felt I failed in some way, made a little mistake at work, maybe I was a couple minutes late to work.
(10:52):
It was often impacted by my view of myself, whether I thought I was doing well in life or not.
They would be worse then, but I don't remember there being a time that everything was going great, I was doing well in life, and they weren't there.
There was always a part of my normal week to have them come in.
(11:14):
They were more difficult to battle when things were tough or, like I said, I had a poor view of who I was.
I thought I was a failure in some way.
We know that there has been a bit of a history within church communities of just saying, when these sorts of things arise, read the scriptures more and pray more and you'll be okay.
(11:36):
Was that the kind of feedback that you were getting from very well-meaning people, but people that didn't understand what you were facing?
What's interesting about my story is that nobody knew any of that was going on, so I wasn't necessarily getting specific advice, but it was definitely the culture, whether it was listening to a sermon in church or just hearing different people try to speak into my life, not necessarily directly to me, but as part of a community, that was very much the ideology.
(12:08):
If you're struggling with anxiety, if you're struggling with depression, that you need to trust God more, that you need to give that to God and that He will take that burden from you.
And so there was definitely a time in my life where I thought I am just not a good enough Christian.
I didn't read this Bible enough or I didn't pray hard enough.
(12:30):
That really perpetuated things for me.
I think things got a lot darker for me when I started really trying to search for God and really trying to search the scriptures more, and it didn't solve my problem.
That got really dark for me, thinking either I'm too broken for God to fix me or He doesn't care enough about me to fix me.
(12:53):
That was very difficult.
Where was the turning point for you when you decided, I do need to tell someone about this.
I do need to seek help.
It was actually 10 years ago.
I was at a point that I was just exhausted from fighting.
These intrusive thoughts were so strong that I really thought I was going to act on them.
(13:16):
It had been almost 15 years I've been battling these thoughts, but it never really occurred to me that it was going to happen.
And this one night in particular, I was very fearful that I would not stop myself.
I went to my husband, Jonathan, and just told him, I need help.
I don't even know what I need because I don't really know what different would look like, but I know I can't do this anymore.
(13:40):
That's when he got me professional help.
I talked with a therapist, and as you mentioned in the intro, I was able to start taking better care of my physical body and get into a good community of women that supported me during my journey that helped me in my walk with Jesus.
And that's the interesting thing.
We know that when we have habits, when we have practices that have built up over so many years, it's not going to be a quick journey towards healing.
(14:10):
So it, I'm sure, took quite a while.
What were the first steps when you started to talk to that person who was giving you the professional help?
What were some of the first steps that they outlined for you?
They really pushed medication on me, which I was initially against largely due to my mother's history with medication.
(14:30):
I believe she was misdiagnosed a few times, and she really struggled to take medication regularly for different reasons.
And so this kind of back and forth, quitting things cold turkey obviously wasn't healthy for her, and it impacted my family life.
The idea of medication, I was very opposed to it.
(14:51):
There was also a bit of a stigma still in our church culture, really around therapy too.
I think that was part of why I never sought help earlier.
But I ended up saying, I will try the lowest dose of something you can give me, and was very cautious about it.
I was every day checking in with my husband about it, because I wanted to make sure that my point of view was not skewed in some way.
(15:19):
And so I wanted to make sure I was getting feedback from other people.
It really did make a difference for me.
I only took it for a few months, and I know that's not the case for everyone.
I know that some people, one, they struggle to find something that does work.
So that's something I would really caution people if they're considering to make sure you're staying in close contact with someone about how you're feeling and what you're thinking.
(15:43):
I think that was a really helpful tool in my healing journey.
It definitely quieted some of the intrusive thoughts so that I could think clearly to process what I needed to.
In that processing, what impacted me the most was learning about the armor of God, learning about who our true enemy is.
(16:03):
The Bible says that we do not fight against flesh and blood, but against powers of darkness.
And I'd realized that my whole life I had been fighting myself.
As I read the scriptures, I thought of how I was supposed to make myself better.
I never read the scriptures thinking about who God was, about who He was to me.
(16:25):
It was always, okay, I have to read this so I can learn how to be a better person.
When I realized that I had spent so much time and energy fighting to make myself better, that I was fighting the wrong enemy.
And when I started to implement the armor of God laid out in Ephesians, that was such a turning point for me.
(16:47):
And it must have been such an amazing relief for you to find people within the Christian community who understood your story and were willing to walk with you towards healing.
Oh, yes.
I mentioned the church community I grew up in, there's a lot of stigma around mental health.
There's a lot of this ideology around that it was a sin or that it was a lack of faith in who God was.
(17:14):
And so it was so vital to my recovery at that time that I was able to find people that supported me through what I was going through without judgment and just with compassion.
Ultimately, that kept pointing me back to my relationship with God.
It was a really dark time for me when I felt like either I was too broken or God didn't care enough to fix me.
(17:38):
And so as much as I kept going to church and trying to stay connected to my faith, it was helpful for other people to kind of walk along that with me and keep pointing me back to God, reminding me of who he is, reminding me of what his word says about him.
We are whole people.
We are made up with the body and the spirit and the soul.
(18:01):
And so it makes sense that you needed to take better care of your own body health.
That's right.
Being able to look after yourself and treat yourself well.
Tell me a bit about that.
Yeah.
When I was a child, my mother, suffering from bipolar disorder, she often was not able to care for us well in terms of nutrition.
(18:25):
We did not have like regular times of going out and doing activities that kept us active.
As a teen, I was kind of active, mostly from working into my twenties, but I did not know very much at all about nutrition.
I had terrible sleep habits.
When I started therapy for my mind, my therapist could kind of see that I was really struggling from a physical standpoint.
(18:52):
And so she encouraged me to do some research on nutrition.
I just started kind of tracking things.
And initially I was just curious.
I wasn't trying to be really stringent with what I was eating, but just if this is what I ate in a day, what does that look like from a nutrition standpoint?
It was shocking to me.
(19:12):
Some things that I thought were terrible were not as bad as I thought.
And other things that I thought were good were not as great as I thought.
It was just a huge learning curve for me, which I think in and of itself is really healthy for your brain.
When you talk about neuroplasticity and how the brain can heal itself from trauma and tragedy, that just learning in general is great for your brain.
(19:38):
Also, of course, taking care of yourself, learning to properly care for what you have is crucial to your health in all aspects.
I believe it's all connected.
Having dealt with a lot of these issues as a young person obviously gave you a heart to help other young people who are facing difficulties.
(19:58):
When did the idea come around for you to write a book, a devotional for other young people who needed to know that they're not broken?
I started serving in youth ministry a year or two after I made really big improvements in my health.
I was eager to share about my journey and the things that impacted my healing.
(20:20):
There were several youth in the youth group I was serving in that struggled with mental disorders, that had really broken homes.
Initially was just kind of talking one-on-one with some of them, or in smaller groups really, and was not really teaching a ton at the time.
I was with mostly middle schoolers.
(20:40):
There weren't a lot of them.
We just kind of went through a devotional.
I was encouraged to start teaching.
As I was teaching, I did a few things with them, and then just asked them, like, what would you guys like to learn about?
One of them asked me to teach about what God's Word says about mental health.
That was something that I was excited to teach about, but also very overwhelmed to take on.
(21:05):
I had never really taught from my own experience or from what I have learned.
I usually used some sort of curriculum, and so I looked for some sort of curriculum that would fit this.
I really struggled to find something that I didn't feel put shame on those suffering with mental illness.
(21:28):
I think some of it is well-meaning, but from the viewpoint of someone who has suffered for years with mental illness, I could see how it could be perceived as putting shame on a person.
As someone who has healed from that, I can read these things and see them from a different perspective, but knowing how I would have reacted, it would have caused shame for me.
(21:57):
I really felt God calling me to write this book, but it felt way out of my ability, which I believe that's how He works.
I fought.
I wrestled with Him for a while.
A dear friend of mine came to me one day and shared her battle with alcoholism, and as I was sharing my journey with her and how I overcame some really dark things, it almost felt like a slap in the face that she told me I needed to go and tell the kids I was teaching these things I told her.
(22:33):
That day, I told God I will write this book for them.
I don't know what you're going to do with it after that.
My original intention was just to write it for them, to write and teach and to maybe put something together at the end that would be a gift to them to keep.
My first day teaching, someone asked me about publishing it, and I was like, oh, I'm just writing this for you guys.
(22:58):
The kid that asked me the question says, don't you think other people need this too?
I took that conviction for a few weeks, and finally, I just started researching options and very grateful that that young man said that to me.
It's interesting to hear how God speaks to us through various people and obviously spoke to you through that young man.
(23:22):
Tell me about the journey of that devotional since.
What's the sort of feedback that you've had from those who've had the opportunity to sit with it and go through that devotional?
The month or so after I published, I had several friends that were reading it that were kind of sharing it with other people.
(23:43):
The most exciting thing to me was to see Amazon reviews of moms with middle school or young teen daughters saying, I did this with my daughter, and it was so great to be able to talk through these things with her, give her some language for some of the things that she's struggling with or her friends might be struggling with.
(24:07):
That was so encouraging to me.
I think it was maybe four months or so after I published, I went to this conference for authors, and a speaker said, if you wrote your book with the idea of if this helps one person, which was me, that's what I thought, if this helps one person, it's worth it.
(24:29):
He said, if that's your thinking, then you don't believe in the power of your story.
If your story is powerful, which it is, then you should be wanting to share that with whoever will listen to you.
That really changed my thinking about this book, about what God's plans for me are, just the mindset of not maybe I'll help someone or it'd be really cool if one day someone was like, oh, thanks for doing this, but how many people can I reach and share the love of God with to share the hope that there's something better for you out there?
(25:07):
Since then, I've been able to share.
I've done the devotional with a few different groups, with some women's groups, with some teens.
I've been able to just kind of teach sharing from my own story.
My book, the devotional, is not necessarily has much of my own story in it.
It's more of the things I learned that impacted my journey.
(25:29):
It's been kind of a challenge to share some of my story publicly, but that has also been a blessing in many ways.
I think it's wonderful that you do share some of your story in that devotional, but it's more,
as you say, sharing the things that you've learned because what you have been trying to do,
what has been evident throughout our conversation so far, is that you're wanting to point people to
(25:53):
God, that there is help, there is professional help and there are things that you can do,
practical things, but really it's pointing to God and that must bring you such great joy
when you're able to point others towards God too.
Absolutely.
What is your hope for the future?
Are you looking at writing any other books or are you just looking at being able to get around and share your story in the hopes that more people will get hold of this book and be able to, as you say, with that mother and daughter, be able to go through it together?
(26:25):
What are your hopes for the future of it?
I am looking for more speaking opportunities.
I would like to eventually do some workshops that kind of focus on the different aspects of our health, bringing in some experts in physical health and mental health, some people that can speak into our spiritual health for our relationship with God.
(26:48):
I would like to do just kind of a series of workshops that would also support the holistic wellness industry.
That's kind of a long-term goal I'm working towards.
I am writing another book.
It is directly related to the book that I wrote, but it is a very different style, more of a historical fiction almost with a modern twist to it.
(27:11):
It is going to be a retelling of the story of Job from a future daughter's point of view.
In the book of Job, he loses everything.
He's absolutely devastating, but at the end, God gives him new children.
I thought it'd be interesting to kind of think through what that must have been like to be one of his new children.
(27:34):
Maybe hearing what people said about their father, what they thought maybe he had done to deserve all that, and possibly addressing some painful things people have experienced through church, not quite understanding some of God's word, maybe putting some shame on some people for things they didn't understand.
But like I said, it'll be more of like a fictional novel.
(27:57):
That will be a long process for me.
It's very much outside of my typical writing.
I know that there were times in your journey that you didn't really feel that there was going to be eventual healing, that there was going to be a way forward.
So for anyone listening at the moment who is in that place, who is feeling like, I don't know if I'm going to get through this.
(28:20):
I've heard stories of others, but I don't know if I'm going to get through this.
What would your words of hope be to that person?
A few years ago, I had a young girl in the youth group I was serving in.
I didn't have a lot of contact with her, but I just kind of knew of her story.
She had a personality disorder.
She really struggled with suicidal thoughts.
(28:43):
I believe she tried to take her own life a few times.
One day I walked up to her.
The Holy Spirit led me to just tell her, if someone had told me when I was your age that there's hope for your life to look much better, I would not have believed them or really even known what that meant.
As much as I want to say that to you, I'm not going to say that.
(29:06):
But I want you to know that I have hope that your story will change and it will be better.
And when you are ready to understand what that means, I'm here for you.
I cannot be here for every audience member, but I do want you to know that there are people in your life.
I believe there are people in your life that hope that your life will be better, that do love you and care for you.
(29:33):
And if you are willing to take a leap of faith, I do believe that there is healing for anybody that chooses to find it.
It is difficult to take that leap of faith to make a change in your life because if you have not experienced anything different, like me, if it was something that started in your childhood, it's scary not knowing if something would help or not, what different might even look like.
(30:05):
But I'll tell you it's worth it.
And I will tell you that the scariest moment that you think is going to be of just asking for help is such relief.
You will find so much healing in just finding community.
I believe one of the biggest things that keeps people stuck in depression or any mental disorder is shame, that you will stay stuck isolated in shame if you do not ask for help from someone.
(30:36):
And so I urge you to find someone you know that loves you and share with them that you've been struggling.
For those loved ones, that's powerful to be able to say to someone, I know that you don't have hope at the moment, but I'll hold that hope for you.
I know you don't see way forward at the moment, but I see a bright future for you and I'm willing to walk with you until that hope is yours.
(30:59):
That's a powerful thing to be able to come alongside someone, isn't it?
Yeah, absolutely.
Tiffany, I want to say thank you so much for what you're doing to help young people.
I want to thank you for sharing your story.
I really hope that people get hold of this devotional and start to use that as a way to move forward.
I will put links in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net so that people can find you and can find that devotional very easily.
(31:25):
It is called The Cursed Brain.
More of that in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net.
Tiffany, thank you so much for sharing some time with us today.
Thank you.
Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight.
Please help us to shine more light into the darkness by sharing this episode with others.
For further details and more episodes, please visit bleedingdaylight.net.
Wherever there are shadows, there are people ready to kick at the darkness until it bleeds daylight.
This is Bleeding Daylight with your host, Rodney Olsen.
Welcome and thanks for listening.
Bleeding Daylight is a place to encounter stories filled with hope and inspiration.
(00:30):
Dozens more episodes are waiting for you at BleedingDaylight.net.
Please share this and other episodes with others through your social media and word of mouth.
Today we'll walk through one woman's story which is giving hope to many.
We'll discover that even when there seems to be only darkness, the light is still able to break through.
(01:02):
I'm delighted to welcome Tiffany L.
Jones today.
Tiffany is the author of The Cursed Brain, a powerful devotional that's helping young adults navigate mental health challenges through faith.
After battling depression since childhood and finding little support in her Christian community, Tiffany discovered healing through professional help, physical wellness and authentic community.
(01:26):
Now she's on a mission to make sure others know they're not too broken to heal.
Tiffany, welcome to Bleeding Daylight.
Thank you.
I'm glad to be here.
I know that depression has been a battle for you since a very early age.
Did you know back then, even as a young child, that feeling that way was unusual or was it so much a part of your life that you just considered it to be normal?
(01:49):
Really on into adulthood, I did not really understand that the way I thought about things was not healthy, that it was abnormal.
My mother was a very anxious person and it was just kind of a way of life that I thought we were supposed to be prepared for any possible thing that could go wrong.
That was one part of healing for me that was really instrumental was really even knowing that something was wrong.
(02:16):
I remember hearing people talking about kind of some of the emotions I was feeling as negative things and being kind of confused by it, not really understanding what the opposite of that was, if you will.
Tell me about those earlier days, because I know that you recognized science at a young age.
When you look back, it's like, yeah, that was depression even at a young age.
(02:39):
What was some of the things that actually did display back then that should have been red flags for people around you to realize that things weren't as they should be?
One big one I would say is withdrawing from friends.
My family would go on these big camping trips with several other families.
We would go twice a year.
(03:00):
It was usually five core families.
Sometimes other friends would be involved.
There were multiple times throughout the years that I would rather be by myself.
I grew up with these kids.
They're almost like cousins to me.
I was often found off by myself somewhere, whether that was in my tent or just kind of hiding out by myself.
(03:23):
There was a lot of self-reflection, journaling and stuff that I looked back on as an older person and thought, wow, why is an eight-year-old wanting a different life?
Why would they even consider that, that they don't like their life and they're not sure what to do about that?
Kind of from the outside looking in, just a lot of taking on responsibilities as a young child.
(03:46):
That shouldn't be a young child's responsibility, being concerned about family's finances or long-term things that impact their family that should be on the parent's shoulders, if that makes sense.
And I know that we can, as parents, start to think, well, my child is just an introvert or they're shy and that's why they're wanting to spend time alone.
(04:11):
But for us as parents, what are some of the things that we should be watching out for that when that child is wanting time alone, that it's not just a part of their nature of being that kind of introverted child?
Oh, that's a great question.
I actually have a child that does need that time alone.
She definitely needs that kind of recharge, that time.
(04:34):
But she is hungry for time with friends.
If an opportunity comes up, she is on board.
She might want to cut it shorter if she knows her social battery, if you will, is kind of low.
That is one huge difference to me is that she craves spending time with her friends.
Whereas I would very often say no thank you to going out and doing things with people.
(04:58):
You raise a great question in that not all children are like that.
There are children that they might prefer to play alone or just have more solitude time.
I think as long as you're having open communication with that child, that you are talking with them about emotions and feelings that you are talking through.
(05:20):
Is there another friend that you want to hang out with?
Is it an issue of are you not wanting to hang out with a friend because you're tired?
Kind of getting to the root of why they might feel that way and be very open about it.
Not judgmental towards how they feel about spending time with friends.
Just being very curious and keeping communication open for my child that I mentioned, who is very introverted and needs that time to recharge.
(05:49):
I have to be very careful about asking a lot of questions at once.
They can be very overwhelming.
You just keep the conversation open.
One day you might ask, oh, I noticed you didn't really want to hang out with so and so.
Can I ask if you were just not feeling great and didn't want to?
And if they don't really answer or they don't answer that particular question, but you have more, maybe save them for another day.
(06:15):
Sometimes we can make communication with our children difficult for them if we overwhelm them with questions.
We don't want to bombard them.
I think it's important to kind of keep that in mind.
We don't have to find the solution today.
We can ask a couple probing questions and if they don't want to talk about it, then bring it up at another time.
(06:37):
Of course, most of the time we do have the opportunity to watch out for our child and to walk along that journey with them.
But in your case particularly, having a mother who was already anxious, I guess that made it all the more difficult because that's the behavior you saw modeled.
And I imagine that also means that your mom didn't have the keys to be able to see that in someone else because that was already her default position.
(07:04):
So that would have made it very tricky for you to have any of those conversations.
My mother was actually diagnosed with bipolar as I was an adult.
In many ways that was validating in a sense of just kind of understanding more of how that impacted me, having a little more compassion for her and what she was going through.
(07:25):
You raise a great point about our parents are human too and they might not have had things modeled well for them and they might have their own battles that they're fighting.
I believe that's one very interesting part about being a grown-up is kind of viewing your parents in a different light, learning to have compassion for the things they struggled with, learning how to overcome the things that impacted you as a child.
(07:53):
You've mentioned those flags that were there even as a young child, but how did it display in your growing up years as you continue to get older?
What were some of the markers in your life there that showed that battle with your mental health with depression?
As I got older I struggled with intrusive thoughts.
It was something that was always a part of the way my brain worked.
(08:16):
I remember being a very small child having intrusive thoughts.
The younger years were more about being concerned about my safety, whether it was thinking someone might come in and rob our house tonight so I have to think through our evacuation plan.
As I got older it was more suicidal.
I thought a lot about taking my own life and it was not something I wanted.
(08:38):
I did not choose to think about that.
It would just come into my head at random times throughout the day.
The longer I did not address that the worse it got.
The more frequent those thoughts came and really started to impact my quality of life.
I started having panic attacks at work, not often with friends.
(08:59):
Usually that was kind of a safer place for me, but it was definitely affecting my friendships and home life.
For those of us that have never really suffered from those sorts of intrusive thoughts, I guess we've all been in situations where we've been a little bit anxious about a particular thing that's coming up and we talk about things, oh that's been playing on my mind.
(09:19):
But what you're talking about here, intrusive thoughts, these are thoughts that you really can't escape, that pop into your mind for seemingly no reason and seem to be harmful.
So that would be something that would really stop you from living a full life, wouldn't it?
That's right, yeah.
So tell me a little bit more about that.
(09:39):
Are these just thoughts that continue to come to you various times throughout the day?
Is it the sort of thing that you would wake up in the night with?
How did it play out?
One of the worst times of day for me was the evening.
In my early 20s, I would intentionally exhaust myself.
(09:59):
I worked two full-time jobs and any free time I had, whether it was a half day off or even after work, I always had something scheduled.
I always needed something to do because if I was alone, then I knew those thoughts would creep in.
I did not like going to bed at night because I knew if I laid still in the quiet that those thoughts would come and I would listen to music.
(10:26):
I would pray and read scripture to try to meditate on something different.
Often that would help, but I still had moments of driving home alone.
That was usually the worst times.
Still, just throughout the day, I would often have them if I felt I failed in some way, made a little mistake at work, maybe I was a couple minutes late to work.
(10:52):
It was often impacted by my view of myself, whether I thought I was doing well in life or not.
They would be worse then, but I don't remember there being a time that everything was going great, I was doing well in life, and they weren't there.
There was always a part of my normal week to have them come in.
(11:14):
They were more difficult to battle when things were tough or, like I said, I had a poor view of who I was.
I thought I was a failure in some way.
We know that there has been a bit of a history within church communities of just saying, when these sorts of things arise, read the scriptures more and pray more and you'll be okay.
(11:36):
Was that the kind of feedback that you were getting from very well-meaning people, but people that didn't understand what you were facing?
What's interesting about my story is that nobody knew any of that was going on, so I wasn't necessarily getting specific advice, but it was definitely the culture, whether it was listening to a sermon in church or just hearing different people try to speak into my life, not necessarily directly to me, but as part of a community, that was very much the ideology.
(12:08):
If you're struggling with anxiety, if you're struggling with depression, that you need to trust God more, that you need to give that to God and that He will take that burden from you.
And so there was definitely a time in my life where I thought I am just not a good enough Christian.
I didn't read this Bible enough or I didn't pray hard enough.
(12:30):
That really perpetuated things for me.
I think things got a lot darker for me when I started really trying to search for God and really trying to search the scriptures more, and it didn't solve my problem.
That got really dark for me, thinking either I'm too broken for God to fix me or He doesn't care enough about me to fix me.
(12:53):
That was very difficult.
Where was the turning point for you when you decided, I do need to tell someone about this.
I do need to seek help.
It was actually 10 years ago.
I was at a point that I was just exhausted from fighting.
These intrusive thoughts were so strong that I really thought I was going to act on them.
(13:16):
It had been almost 15 years I've been battling these thoughts, but it never really occurred to me that it was going to happen.
And this one night in particular, I was very fearful that I would not stop myself.
I went to my husband, Jonathan, and just told him, I need help.
I don't even know what I need because I don't really know what different would look like, but I know I can't do this anymore.
(13:40):
That's when he got me professional help.
I talked with a therapist, and as you mentioned in the intro, I was able to start taking better care of my physical body and get into a good community of women that supported me during my journey that helped me in my walk with Jesus.
And that's the interesting thing.
We know that when we have habits, when we have practices that have built up over so many years, it's not going to be a quick journey towards healing.
(14:10):
So it, I'm sure, took quite a while.
What were the first steps when you started to talk to that person who was giving you the professional help?
What were some of the first steps that they outlined for you?
They really pushed medication on me, which I was initially against largely due to my mother's history with medication.
(14:30):
I believe she was misdiagnosed a few times, and she really struggled to take medication regularly for different reasons.
And so this kind of back and forth, quitting things cold turkey obviously wasn't healthy for her, and it impacted my family life.
The idea of medication, I was very opposed to it.
(14:51):
There was also a bit of a stigma still in our church culture, really around therapy too.
I think that was part of why I never sought help earlier.
But I ended up saying, I will try the lowest dose of something you can give me, and was very cautious about it.
I was every day checking in with my husband about it, because I wanted to make sure that my point of view was not skewed in some way.
(15:19):
And so I wanted to make sure I was getting feedback from other people.
It really did make a difference for me.
I only took it for a few months, and I know that's not the case for everyone.
I know that some people, one, they struggle to find something that does work.
So that's something I would really caution people if they're considering to make sure you're staying in close contact with someone about how you're feeling and what you're thinking.
(15:43):
I think that was a really helpful tool in my healing journey.
It definitely quieted some of the intrusive thoughts so that I could think clearly to process what I needed to.
In that processing, what impacted me the most was learning about the armor of God, learning about who our true enemy is.
(16:03):
The Bible says that we do not fight against flesh and blood, but against powers of darkness.
And I'd realized that my whole life I had been fighting myself.
As I read the scriptures, I thought of how I was supposed to make myself better.
I never read the scriptures thinking about who God was, about who He was to me.
(16:25):
It was always, okay, I have to read this so I can learn how to be a better person.
When I realized that I had spent so much time and energy fighting to make myself better, that I was fighting the wrong enemy.
And when I started to implement the armor of God laid out in Ephesians, that was such a turning point for me.
(16:47):
And it must have been such an amazing relief for you to find people within the Christian community who understood your story and were willing to walk with you towards healing.
Oh, yes.
I mentioned the church community I grew up in, there's a lot of stigma around mental health.
There's a lot of this ideology around that it was a sin or that it was a lack of faith in who God was.
(17:14):
And so it was so vital to my recovery at that time that I was able to find people that supported me through what I was going through without judgment and just with compassion.
Ultimately, that kept pointing me back to my relationship with God.
It was a really dark time for me when I felt like either I was too broken or God didn't care enough to fix me.
(17:38):
And so as much as I kept going to church and trying to stay connected to my faith, it was helpful for other people to kind of walk along that with me and keep pointing me back to God, reminding me of who he is, reminding me of what his word says about him.
We are whole people.
We are made up with the body and the spirit and the soul.
(18:01):
And so it makes sense that you needed to take better care of your own body health.
That's right.
Being able to look after yourself and treat yourself well.
Tell me a bit about that.
Yeah.
When I was a child, my mother, suffering from bipolar disorder, she often was not able to care for us well in terms of nutrition.
(18:25):
We did not have like regular times of going out and doing activities that kept us active.
As a teen, I was kind of active, mostly from working into my twenties, but I did not know very much at all about nutrition.
I had terrible sleep habits.
When I started therapy for my mind, my therapist could kind of see that I was really struggling from a physical standpoint.
(18:52):
And so she encouraged me to do some research on nutrition.
I just started kind of tracking things.
And initially I was just curious.
I wasn't trying to be really stringent with what I was eating, but just if this is what I ate in a day, what does that look like from a nutrition standpoint?
It was shocking to me.
(19:12):
Some things that I thought were terrible were not as bad as I thought.
And other things that I thought were good were not as great as I thought.
It was just a huge learning curve for me, which I think in and of itself is really healthy for your brain.
When you talk about neuroplasticity and how the brain can heal itself from trauma and tragedy, that just learning in general is great for your brain.
(19:38):
Also, of course, taking care of yourself, learning to properly care for what you have is crucial to your health in all aspects.
I believe it's all connected.
Having dealt with a lot of these issues as a young person obviously gave you a heart to help other young people who are facing difficulties.
(19:58):
When did the idea come around for you to write a book, a devotional for other young people who needed to know that they're not broken?
I started serving in youth ministry a year or two after I made really big improvements in my health.
I was eager to share about my journey and the things that impacted my healing.
(20:20):
There were several youth in the youth group I was serving in that struggled with mental disorders, that had really broken homes.
Initially was just kind of talking one-on-one with some of them, or in smaller groups really, and was not really teaching a ton at the time.
I was with mostly middle schoolers.
(20:40):
There weren't a lot of them.
We just kind of went through a devotional.
I was encouraged to start teaching.
As I was teaching, I did a few things with them, and then just asked them, like, what would you guys like to learn about?
One of them asked me to teach about what God's Word says about mental health.
That was something that I was excited to teach about, but also very overwhelmed to take on.
(21:05):
I had never really taught from my own experience or from what I have learned.
I usually used some sort of curriculum, and so I looked for some sort of curriculum that would fit this.
I really struggled to find something that I didn't feel put shame on those suffering with mental illness.
(21:28):
I think some of it is well-meaning, but from the viewpoint of someone who has suffered for years with mental illness, I could see how it could be perceived as putting shame on a person.
As someone who has healed from that, I can read these things and see them from a different perspective, but knowing how I would have reacted, it would have caused shame for me.
(21:57):
I really felt God calling me to write this book, but it felt way out of my ability, which I believe that's how He works.
I fought.
I wrestled with Him for a while.
A dear friend of mine came to me one day and shared her battle with alcoholism, and as I was sharing my journey with her and how I overcame some really dark things, it almost felt like a slap in the face that she told me I needed to go and tell the kids I was teaching these things I told her.
(22:33):
That day, I told God I will write this book for them.
I don't know what you're going to do with it after that.
My original intention was just to write it for them, to write and teach and to maybe put something together at the end that would be a gift to them to keep.
My first day teaching, someone asked me about publishing it, and I was like, oh, I'm just writing this for you guys.
(22:58):
The kid that asked me the question says, don't you think other people need this too?
I took that conviction for a few weeks, and finally, I just started researching options and very grateful that that young man said that to me.
It's interesting to hear how God speaks to us through various people and obviously spoke to you through that young man.
(23:22):
Tell me about the journey of that devotional since.
What's the sort of feedback that you've had from those who've had the opportunity to sit with it and go through that devotional?
The month or so after I published, I had several friends that were reading it that were kind of sharing it with other people.
(23:43):
The most exciting thing to me was to see Amazon reviews of moms with middle school or young teen daughters saying, I did this with my daughter, and it was so great to be able to talk through these things with her, give her some language for some of the things that she's struggling with or her friends might be struggling with.
(24:07):
That was so encouraging to me.
I think it was maybe four months or so after I published, I went to this conference for authors, and a speaker said, if you wrote your book with the idea of if this helps one person, which was me, that's what I thought, if this helps one person, it's worth it.
(24:29):
He said, if that's your thinking, then you don't believe in the power of your story.
If your story is powerful, which it is, then you should be wanting to share that with whoever will listen to you.
That really changed my thinking about this book, about what God's plans for me are, just the mindset of not maybe I'll help someone or it'd be really cool if one day someone was like, oh, thanks for doing this, but how many people can I reach and share the love of God with to share the hope that there's something better for you out there?
(25:07):
Since then, I've been able to share.
I've done the devotional with a few different groups, with some women's groups, with some teens.
I've been able to just kind of teach sharing from my own story.
My book, the devotional, is not necessarily has much of my own story in it.
It's more of the things I learned that impacted my journey.
(25:29):
It's been kind of a challenge to share some of my story publicly, but that has also been a blessing in many ways.
I think it's wonderful that you do share some of your story in that devotional, but it's more,
as you say, sharing the things that you've learned because what you have been trying to do,
what has been evident throughout our conversation so far, is that you're wanting to point people to
(25:53):
God, that there is help, there is professional help and there are things that you can do,
practical things, but really it's pointing to God and that must bring you such great joy
when you're able to point others towards God too.
Absolutely.
What is your hope for the future?
Are you looking at writing any other books or are you just looking at being able to get around and share your story in the hopes that more people will get hold of this book and be able to, as you say, with that mother and daughter, be able to go through it together?
(26:25):
What are your hopes for the future of it?
I am looking for more speaking opportunities.
I would like to eventually do some workshops that kind of focus on the different aspects of our health, bringing in some experts in physical health and mental health, some people that can speak into our spiritual health for our relationship with God.
(26:48):
I would like to do just kind of a series of workshops that would also support the holistic wellness industry.
That's kind of a long-term goal I'm working towards.
I am writing another book.
It is directly related to the book that I wrote, but it is a very different style, more of a historical fiction almost with a modern twist to it.
(27:11):
It is going to be a retelling of the story of Job from a future daughter's point of view.
In the book of Job, he loses everything.
He's absolutely devastating, but at the end, God gives him new children.
I thought it'd be interesting to kind of think through what that must have been like to be one of his new children.
(27:34):
Maybe hearing what people said about their father, what they thought maybe he had done to deserve all that, and possibly addressing some painful things people have experienced through church, not quite understanding some of God's word, maybe putting some shame on some people for things they didn't understand.
But like I said, it'll be more of like a fictional novel.
(27:57):
That will be a long process for me.
It's very much outside of my typical writing.
I know that there were times in your journey that you didn't really feel that there was going to be eventual healing, that there was going to be a way forward.
So for anyone listening at the moment who is in that place, who is feeling like, I don't know if I'm going to get through this.
(28:20):
I've heard stories of others, but I don't know if I'm going to get through this.
What would your words of hope be to that person?
A few years ago, I had a young girl in the youth group I was serving in.
I didn't have a lot of contact with her, but I just kind of knew of her story.
She had a personality disorder.
She really struggled with suicidal thoughts.
(28:43):
I believe she tried to take her own life a few times.
One day I walked up to her.
The Holy Spirit led me to just tell her, if someone had told me when I was your age that there's hope for your life to look much better, I would not have believed them or really even known what that meant.
As much as I want to say that to you, I'm not going to say that.
(29:06):
But I want you to know that I have hope that your story will change and it will be better.
And when you are ready to understand what that means, I'm here for you.
I cannot be here for every audience member, but I do want you to know that there are people in your life.
I believe there are people in your life that hope that your life will be better, that do love you and care for you.
(29:33):
And if you are willing to take a leap of faith, I do believe that there is healing for anybody that chooses to find it.
It is difficult to take that leap of faith to make a change in your life because if you have not experienced anything different, like me, if it was something that started in your childhood, it's scary not knowing if something would help or not, what different might even look like.
(30:05):
But I'll tell you it's worth it.
And I will tell you that the scariest moment that you think is going to be of just asking for help is such relief.
You will find so much healing in just finding community.
I believe one of the biggest things that keeps people stuck in depression or any mental disorder is shame, that you will stay stuck isolated in shame if you do not ask for help from someone.
(30:36):
And so I urge you to find someone you know that loves you and share with them that you've been struggling.
For those loved ones, that's powerful to be able to say to someone, I know that you don't have hope at the moment, but I'll hold that hope for you.
I know you don't see way forward at the moment, but I see a bright future for you and I'm willing to walk with you until that hope is yours.
(30:59):
That's a powerful thing to be able to come alongside someone, isn't it?
Yeah, absolutely.
Tiffany, I want to say thank you so much for what you're doing to help young people.
I want to thank you for sharing your story.
I really hope that people get hold of this devotional and start to use that as a way to move forward.
I will put links in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net so that people can find you and can find that devotional very easily.
(31:25):
It is called The Cursed Brain.
More of that in the show notes at bleedingdaylight.net.
Tiffany, thank you so much for sharing some time with us today.
Thank you.
Thank you for listening to Bleeding Daylight.
Please help us to shine more light into the darkness by sharing this episode with others.
For further details and more episodes, please visit bleedingdaylight.net.
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