Spiral Downward

Everything seemed like a normal struggle, until it wasn't.

This is part of a series, sharing the self-authored book, “The Hard Way: Honest Conversations about mental health in our homes, churches and communities,” which is introduced in this free post as well as this one. The funds given by paid subscribers for this post will be donated to the 988 HelpLine.

I fell in love with someone who loves to help people. We bonded through our shared desire to help others.

I married an ambitious person. Jack has always had grand goals, some he has accomplished and others that have become hard lessons.

Jack has dreams to make a positive difference through his career. There were many paths he could take to get there, but he chose one which required great risk and high expectations.

When we moved to the East Coast, law school was the primary focus. It took a couple of years to get to that point, but in Fall of 2015, he had enrolled in a program he was excited to pursue.

But there was more to this journey than just a graduate degree. There was an opportunity to also pursue a post bachelor’s degree program and be in school full time so that he could progress to his career goals.

While my job as a church professional doesn’t leave a lot of extra money, we decided to take the risk of living on one income for the four years of schooling it would require for Jack to graduate and enter his career field. It was a sacrifice we were both willing to make, even though we knew the risk was great and the journey would be tough.

It took some time to adjust to that fall semester. We had to put in one hundred percent effort with sacrifice from both of us to keep moving forward. Jack was in school in the evenings, but he spent his days studying, sometimes at home, and sometimes at school.

In the middle of that semester, we decided to move to a new top floor apartment—a quieter place for him to dive into his studies. In January of 2016, Jack started his second degree at another university. Now he was in class at one school during the day and at the other one in the evenings.