About depression.

One summer about fourteen years ago, I stopped eating. This was due to heartache and a creeping doubt regarding the future that manifested itself in my body as depression. I hurt all over, and my throat couldn’t physically swallow food. I had wrecked my car, dropped out of college, gotten engaged, and not in that order. My final attempt to make amends was to enroll in a quick, one year LPN school. I was terrified of needles (maybe some nurses get by without them?) but it turned out my phobia had no warrant. The school wanted a thousand dollars to hold my spot, and I had no money in the bank. Nursing school was out of the question. I had no more cards in my deck. I was a failure.

Life was unsure and hopeless. Eating seemed secondary to living, and finding the will to live was a challenge. My mom, both saint and sage, paid me a visit in my new-to-me basement apartment. She made a batch of cookie dough to “test out my oven”, a sneaky way of spying on me and working her magic to get me to eat. I did not taste a single cookie.

My dad showed up on my doorstep the next morning at 7am. We hiked through the woods, me still in my pajamas and contact lens-less. When we came back to the apartment he sat me down and said, “Mom and I think you need to move back home for awhile.”

I protested halfheartedly. I was too weak to argue–what was the point? I packed my bag and climbed into his car.

My parents, bless them, rescued me from the fire that day. It didn’t completely cure my depression–I marched right into marriage with it. But they saw the hole I was digging, and they took away my shovel for awhile. It forced me to breathe when I thought I couldn’t. I won’t ever forget it.

For several years after, my young husband couldn’t reach into the pit I was living in. It was deep, and no subsequent college degree, job, move, house, or new baby could pull me out. But nobody knew it was depression, not even him.

Emily Dickinson wrote, “I live in possibility,” but she was also a veritable hermit that never left her house or accepted visitors…Most likely she was depressed. She claimed that “hope is the thing with feathers,” but she obviously kept hers locked up in a bird cage. It is easier (and falsely satisfying) to write words on a page than to face the uncertainty of people in a volatile world. Anybody can say anything to your face when you are exposed and unprepared to answer. She knew this; she never left her house.

Hope dwells in possibility, and depression makes one believe nothing is possible. There is no hope, then, in the mind of the depressed. People with depression might wear happy, cool, successful, confident masks and the vibe that puts off waves of everything-is-under control. The mask is made with a sturdy layer of superglue, and it never slips in public. That ancient liar, Satan, whispers nasty things to the mask-wearer, like you can never take it off or everyone will know you are worthless garbage.

People struggling with depression aren’t “struggling with depression”. They are being manhandled by it, twisted and shoved into a dark hole with shovelfuls of the devil’s lies piling on top. This feels like being buried alive. It is no wonder suicide seems like a viable option. It would be the quickest way to lose the mask, to relieve our loved ones of the garbage we believe we are.

Depression thrives in the dark. Satan will do whatever he can to keep the lid on his jar of lies. He will convince you that

-you’ve made too many mistakes

-your value is in what you do

-there is no purpose in life

-you are all alone

-no one can know

-there is no way out

-the world would be better off without you

Some of these are half truths, but even a half truth is a lie. It seems counterintuitive, I know. The message of Christ is that we have indeed messed up, cursed God, and need someone to redeem our mistakes. But the message is also

-our worst sins are forgiven

-we are made a new creation, we have a clean slate

-in living, we bring glory to God

-we are called to community, not isolation

-we are known by the Father, He sees our struggle

-we are free

-our pain is not wasted

-We are loved. We are worthy. The mask is powerless, and we can chuck it in the trash.

I remember driving home one night from work (after we were married but before kids) with tears streaming down my face, the ever-present, too-large-to-swallow, aching lump in my throat. I turned on the radio and heard a conversation on the Christian radio station. I wish I could remember the channel or the names of the people talking. The woman was talking about depression and recovery. She mentioned two things a depressed person could do to begin climbing out of the pit: physical exercise and reading (memorizing) Scripture. It sound prescriptive now to say it, but I was in such a low place. I grabbed the Rx and stamped my name on it.

Right there in the car I asked God to help dig me out. I asked Jesus to forgive my unbelief. I asked the Wonderful Counselor to minister to me. I began jogging to clear my mind from negative thinking, and I began reading my Bible to fill it back up with words of life. I memorized Psalm 119 (well, the first eighty-six verses). Preserve my life according to your word…

Still, it has taken years, and every once in awhile I trip and almost fall back into depression. But I’ve armed myself with tools that, over time, have filled the pit. And Satan doesn’t hang out nearby with his shovel, taunting me. I have bulldozed the place. The landscape is different.

Depression is listening to Satan’s lies instead of believing God’s truth. Let’s not tiptoe around it. It isn’t a sacred, hush-hush, mind your own business disease of the soul. It deserves to be dragged, kicking and screaming, into the light. We counter Satan’s shovelfuls of lies by speaking truth and preaching God’s Word, his power, into the lives around us. We fight depression with great beating blows when we grab someone’s hand and pull them out of loneliness and into our home. We make people felt known. We leave our masks at home, encouraging others to drop theirs, too. We toss hope out like a lifeline. We reel them back on board with the truth of the Gospel, the promise that they are loved and that they belong, that they are not alone.

We bake cookies in their apartment to “test out the oven”. We help them pack their bags and move back home.