I have a little ball of chaos inside my heart.

It’s constantly there, but it changes weight and size, depending on the day. Sometimes the chaos is controllable, and I can release it in a way that doesn’t knock anyone off their feet. There are some days when I feel like I’m a firecracker exploding all over the place, uncontainable and relentless. Sometimes I can recognize it and I’m able to pull back or pull away into a place where I can breathe myself into calm. Other days, the chaos is too much, too big, and it’s too tiring to try and control it. At the end of those days, I am a limp rag on the floor with nothing else to give, wondering how to refill the gaping hole left behind by the explosion.

I often wonder if i’m the only one who feels this way, this specific way of chaotic. It’s so hard to explain to others; it just sounds really weird. Before I met my husband, I basically just masked myself into exhaustion. I was Fake It Til You Make It in human form. Whether I have made it or not—jury’s still out on that one. God bless my husband, the first person I took my masks off for. He has seen me at my absolute worst and loved me through it all. I asked him once why he loved me, and he shrugged his shoulder and said, “I just do.” Guess we’re both full of inexplicable feelings. Maybe some things just can’t be put into words, try as we might.

I always knew I had some form of anxiety, that a lot of the things that went on in my head were not normal. That being paralyzed into inaction daily was not normal. I struggled with suicidal ideation in the past, had a short dalliance with self-harm. I’ve spent a lot of time doing inner work to deal with these things, spiritual, physical, emotional work. But I think I’ve gotten to the point where professional help might be needed. Especially now, being in a leadership position in church. People come to us with some really heavy things. Things I’m not sure I’m equipped to carry.

Like a couple of weeks ago, when I was given the task of speaking to two young girls who shared a dark secret with me. The kind of secret that almost every girl has experienced in some form in their lives, if you know what I mean. This world is not a safe world for girls. I thought I could handle it, but the weight in my stomach got heavier and heavier the more they told me. At the end of our conversations, I felt like I was going to be sick. So I went to the mall afterwards, thinking I’d be able to shake it off there, distracted by all the lights and the noise. Usually that works, but not that time. As I walked through the throng of happy mall goers, I felt my chest tighten until I had to stop and face the wall and breathe my way through a panic attack. There I was, doing deep breathing exercises against Din Tai Fung, unable to control the chaos exploding out of my chest.

They tell you that your past pain can be really useful in counseling. And that’s true—things I have healed from has been used by God to encourage people. There has been purpose to a lot of my pain. What they didn’t tell me though, was that sometimes, other people’s experiences can bring up a lot of unhealed trauma in your own life. Things you’ve forgotten can be roused out of its slumber from the depths of your subconscious. That’s when you find yourself breathing in for 8 counts and breathing out for another 8 in front of a chinese restaurant in a crowded mall. Without warning. Ministry work is a lot of beautiful things, but sometimes, it really shows you the dark side of people. I didn’t know that. Maybe I should have, but I didn’t.

This isn’t a grim discouragement of church work, just a reality I find myself in currently. On the contrary, I want to know how to better equip myself for it. Not just in the spiritual sense, but in the practical sense as well. I know what it means to feel so alone with a giant ball of sadness, with seemingly no idea where to put it. I want to be the person I wish I had in my life when I was carrying that ball myself. I can’t be that if I don’t seek the help I need.

I don’t know if this ball of chaos in my heart is something that I need to get rid of, or if it’s a part of me I need to cultivate. Maybe it isn’t chaos after all. Maybe it’s just a deep desire to connect, an aching need to understand. Hopefully one day I figure out how to share it, without giving too much or too little. To use it as a light instead of an explosive device; a vulnerability that can help others feel a little less alone. This world could definitely use a lot more of that.