Courtney Smallbone shares her testimony about struggling with severe anxiety attacks without anyone knowing about them.
Her Story
Courtney felt terrible about not being strong enough. She didn’t talk about her condition because her family has a history of pastors, and her husband is a Christian artist.
“And so where do you have this conversation about anxiety and anxiety attacks and feeling overwhelmed by this doom and fear?” she said.
At age 18, she was diagnosed with Lemierre syndrome, a very rare disease.
“It’s an infection that starts in your artery and shoots off to all of your organs and starts killing them,” she said.
She was admitted to the ICU, and that was when she started experiencing PTSD. Courtney suffered from nightmares and panic attacks but didn’t tell anyone about it.
Life With Anxiety Attacks
“I had horrible morning sickness and so they gave me a prescription for it. And this prescription was interesting because when I took it I calmed down. So I would just keep taking it in high doses. My midwife was kind of questioning why I was still on it,” she said.
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She didn’t tell Luke or anyone else about her problem at that time. This medication sometimes disrupted her serotonin levels. Taking it made her feel better, so she continued doing so. One day, while Luke was at a show in Texas, she was at home and attempted to stop taking the pill but couldn’t. She began to shiver and shake, and suicidal thoughts crept in.
Frantically, she called Luke and asked him to come home.
Life Without Anxiety Attacks
“It was actually a fairly frantic phone call and up until that point, I’d never received that phone call before,” Luke recalled.
When he got home that night, he witnessed Courtney having another anxiety attack. The following day, they went to a mental health facility.
“I remember walking in and just silently praying, ‘Lord, You have to use this, You have to show up because I’m not okay.’ And it’s in this place of vulnerability that He undid my shame. My shame started unraveling,” Courtney said. “And I received grace in a whole new way. I really started digging into the Word of God. I thought that I could add to the cross or I could detract from the cross. Instead, I just understood in a whole new way that I can’t add to what Jesus has done for me and I can’t take it away by anything bad that I could do. I just received this grace.”
Watch the full video below:
Reference: 700 Club Interactive
Header image: Courtney Smallbone [700 Club Interactive]. YouTube, 4 September 2020, https://youtu.be/dEDbUuHl14g
Do you think you may suffer from Anxiety and live in Florida, California or New York?If so, please consider scheduling a proper virtual online ADHD and Anxiety diagnosis with one of our physicians. Although we have an online ADHD and Anxiety diagnosis tool, a proper diagnosis from a Board-Certified Medical Doctor will help you know for sure. If appropriate, a customized treatment program will be recommended at the conclusion of that initial visit. |