Courtney Smallbone, wife of For KING and COUNTRY singer, shares testimony of overcoming anxiety.
“I felt so much shame for not being strong and so I just didn’t talk about it. . . I come from generations of pastors. And my husband’s in Christian music and so where do you have this conversation about anxiety and anxiety attacks and feeling overwhelmed by this doom and fear?”
Courtney sat down with 700 Club Interactive to talk about this significant struggle she has faced in life.
Anxiety can be defined as fear of the future. People often reference anxiety as a feeling of uncertainty and unknown.
At the age of 18, Courtney was diagnosed with Lemierrr syndrome.
“Lemierre’s syndrome is really rare. They say 1 in a million. It’s an infection that starts in your artery and shoots off to all of your organs and starts killing them”
After a number of visits to the ICU, she started to face post-traumatic stress.
She had panic attacks, nightmares, but kept that information to herself. With time, doctors were able to get her disease to a manageable place, but her anxiety was always just below the surface. Without discussing this problem with others, there was no way she could find a solution.
Time went by and she became pregnant with her second child. And all the post-traumatic stress returned.
Medicine was prescribed to her, and the medicine had a surprising side effect, aside from her calming down. She began taking more of the drug and found herself addicted. She kept the feelings to herself despite the midwife becoming increasingly suspicious.
“There was this day that Luke was at a show in Texas and I was home. And I tried to get off of this pill and I couldn’t. I started shaking and shivering and having suicidal thoughts and um my heart was racing, and I just knew I couldn’t do it alone.”
Luke was unaware of her problem as was everyone, but this moment was her wake-up call.
“I had just shoved it down, shoved it down, pain ,trauma, anxiety