The Very Worst Missionary: A Memoir or Whatever

by Jamie Wright

I wasn’t actually a tough girl with a quick wit and a dirty mouth; I was a lost girl with no language for the depression, anxiety, and general disorder that ruled my life.

My parents, bless their hearts, had too many kids, not enough money, and their own bubbling cauldron of undiagnosed mental illnesses between them. I believe they did their best with what they had, and I will always be grateful for their efforts, but my mom and dad were so busy fighting their own demons, I don’t really think they could even see mine.

One Saturday that spring, I took a five-hour test, which I passed, and I never set foot in a high school classroom again. I was fifteen. And completely untethered.

I’m annoyed with the girl who made a mess of her life and then pretended the only way out of the mess she’d created was exactly the way she wanted to go, as if it had been her plan all along. That girl? The one with so much “potential”?…Ugh. I just want to kick her. Probably because I still am her.

As much as I’d love to spin a tale that wraps up nicely with a great big bow, this one does not. For I still have depression and anxiety. I feel insecure. I am dysfunctional. (For the record, I do not sleep around.)

Basically, we were a walking marriage crisis. But we were also babies with a baby. We had a family, and bills, and chores, and sports, and friends, and work parties; busy lives that helped us to forget that just under the surface everything was not as it should be.

My public downfall began when the group’s ultraconservative alpha leader (every group has one) introduced a new book, which the ladies took on with zeal. It was a heavy-handed how-to guide for women learning to be godly mothers / submissive wives / generous lovers / daughters of the risen king / or whatever. Basically, it was a twenty-two-chapter guilt trip for women with husbands and children.

It might be important to note that before we became missionaries, we accidentally became the kind of people who could become accidental missionaries.

Besides, even if we had wanted to back out, it’s hard to argue with the Christian narrative that promises your only job is to raise your hand and show up, and then God will sprinkle pixie dust all over your life. And it’s still kind of embarrassing to admit this, but in the deep, dark recesses of my heart, I was holding on to a secret hope that if we obeyed God—like, if we made this great big dramatic sacrifice and became missionaries—God would fix us. We would serve God, and God would heal our hurts.

We had practically congratulated ourselves for being inexperienced and unqualified for the work ahead. But surrounded by a whole bunch of other unqualified/ill-equipped missionaries, I began to question this logic.

After the burglary, I could feel myself slipping into a depression I’d been able to stave off for years through medication, exercise, and counseling. Still, in the same way I thought God had blessed me with that fancy house, I secretly expected God to protect me from mental illness. I assumed that because I’d just showed up, God would grant me immunity, even from my own self.