Yesterday, I had the unfortunate event of running over some kind of massive screw in my parents’ driveway. I didn’t realize it at the time. I assumed it had run over a rock. As I was driving, I could tell something was off with my tire. When I made it to my final destination, I not only found the screw, but was also greeted by a fun sound of the air draining out of my tire. Within 30 minutes, my tires was completely flat. There seems to be a theme, I get new tires, and within 4 months, something causes one of my tires to go flat. I went through the check list of things to do. I called my insurance company and then began the process of waiting for a tow truck to get me to take me where I bought my tires. Praise the Lord for both road aside assistance with my car insurance and that I have my tires covered from road hazards for the first year. The last sentence was definitely an after thought to the whole situation.
The tow truck was estimated to take anywhere from one to two hours to make it to me. He arrived at about the one hour mark. As I was sitting and waiting, I had all sorts of the negative emotions flowing through my body. Annoyance. Frustration. Anger. I was trying desperately not to channel my inner hulk. I’ve already not had the best of weeks, and now this?! It was not a good time for me.
As I sat at the tire and oil express shop, and watched Elf for like the 10th time in the last 24 hours, I tried to shift my emotions and thoughts towards gratitude and thankfulness. I’m grateful that I’m alive. The Lord continues to sustain me and wake me up every morning. I’m thankful that my car got a flat in the middle of the day when businesses were open, and I was in a relatively safe part of town. As I started shifting my thoughts, my inner hulk went away, and I was able to be okay mentally and emotionally with the events from the day. You would think, in my fight with depression, I would already be more proactive in being grateful and looking for things to be thankful for, but I guess I’m still learning.
Back in the day, there was this trend on Facebook every November where everyone and their cousin would post something they were thankful for leading up to Thanksgiving. Younger me also would partake in this trend. As they pop up on my memories now, sometimes my posts make me cringe. My poor grammar. My lack of appreciation and or understanding of how to properly write a status. I’m telling you, it’s not pretty. Thankfully, I’ve learned from the ways of high school me, and instead of posting daily what I’m thankful for, I have a running list on my phone. I’ve tried the whole gratitude/thankfulness journal, but it’s never stuck. Using my phone has worked thus far and it has helped with the fight against depression that always gets worse around the holidays.
November marked three years since I realized I had depression. I was about a month into my move to North Carolina, and I was STRUGGLING. It’s only by God’s grace I made it the four months and was able to successfully teach 8th graders math everyday. My routine was something along the lines of get up stupid early, eat breakfast while driving to work, teach, go home, lay on my couch until 8-9 pm ish until I’d convince myself to eat dinner and then I’d eventually go to bed only to do the same exact thing the next day. Saturdays I would get up, start my laundry, run to the grocery store, and then you guessed it, lay on the couch until who knows when. What a life I was living, right?
Somewhere along the line, I knew something was wrong, but I just couldn’t place it. Could it be grief? My brother hadn’t been gone that long. I had no appetite. I had no energy for anything and just wanted to stay in my bed and stare into the abyss. Things that I enjoyed doing couldn’t even hold my attention. Dark thoughts about self harm and thoughts about how I was a failure and did nothing but disappoint people flooded my daily thoughts. I wouldn’t say I was sad as much as I would say I felt hopeless. If you have no hope, what’s the point? As a side note, I did have hope because my hope is in Christ, but I was in such a dark space mentally, emotionally, and even spiritually, I couldn’t remind myself of that truth. Praise God for those friends who reminded me of truth even when I didn’t want to hear and wasn’t sure that it was truth.
I eventually started searching google for what was wrong with me. Dr. Google is never wrong, and I needed to know what was going on. Every which way I tried searching my issues, the answer was always the same- depression. I was in disbelief. It gave me a link for a PHQ-9 screener to see where I ranked on the “depression scale”. I scored a 19 out of 27. Apparently it’s not like a normal assessment or screener where the higher the score the better it is. This screener works like golf, you want a low score. The result of 19 placed me with a level of moderately severe depression. I didn’t understand depression at the time and had the false belief that depression was just basically sadness… like severe sadness. I didn’t realize how it encompasses so much more.
By the time I started therapy and eventually started medication, my depression was absolutely worse. I could/would go 24 hours or longer without eating. Not because I wasn’t hungry, but because I didn’t want to eat and didn’t see the point. When I went into my appointment to see about medication, I was given the PHQ-9 screener again. I don’t remember my exact score, but it was somewhere in the ballpark of 22. My medical provider told me at the end of the appointment, “You sound like an extremely depressed person”. She then gave me the number for the crisis hotline should I need it. I immediately got in my car, said a profanity, and then cried, because I was starting to lose hope I would get better. I was clearly doing worse than I realized at the time.
On my journey with depression, I’ve had comments made to me along the lines of:
- You just need to pray more.
- You should just trust the Lord more.
- Did you really try everything before medication?
- You don’t seem depressed… are you sure you’re depressed?
- You’re just in the depressed stage of grief.
- If you get overseas, it’ll cure your depression.
I could keep going, but I’m sure you catch my drift of what’s been said. While, I’m sure the comments were well meant, they were discouraging in an already discouraging and hard season.
I got overseas, and it did in fact not cure my depression. Shocker, I know. If anything the whole changing countries, cultures, and all the things made some of my symptoms worse. Somewhere along the lines, a older and wiser woman in my life suggested I read “When the Darkness Will Not Lift” by John Piper. It was a hard read. Piper asked a lot of questions about depression and what could be causing it. But when I was finished with it, I had read partial accounts of people who had depression, and the Lord used that season for good in their life. I felt encouraged by it. The Lord would use this season for my good and His glory. If this season of depression would never end, He and He alone would continue to sustain me.
I don’t know that I ever had a true day where depression wasn’t present in some capacity in my life while I was overseas. I absolutely had good parts of days. I had several days like that. But there was still this dark cloud of depression lingering around. The Lord sustained me through it, but a part of me wondered, if the rest of my life had the dark cloud of depression… would He always be faithful to sustain me?
Returning to the states in the spring of this year, once again saw an uptick in my depression. I whole heartedly blame some of it on reverse culture shock and the fact I wasn’t ready to be home. Through some therapy and medication changes, I once again started to see some improvement. I began genuinely laughing. I started feeling like me again- whatever that really means. And then November 16th, I woke up, and there wasn’t this sense of impending doom. There wasn’t this need to tell myself that today would be a good day even though I didn’t believe it. There wasn’t a need for the necessary pep talk to get myself out of the bed. It was the first day, in at least 3 years that the dark cloud of depression didn’t exist. I was hopeful but also skeptical. Could this season really be over? Is the depression gone? I woke up the 17th, and the same dang thing happened again. There was joy. Genuine joy. No dark cloud of depression. The 18th, it all returned… I needed that pep talk. I needed to tell myself it would be a good day. I had to force myself out of the bed to face the day.
It would be easy to get angry and frustrated or even sad that the presence of depression came back. It would be easy to be angry and frustrated that I only had the two “good” days. But I’m thankful for those two “good” days, just as I’m thankful for all of the days before and after those days. The Lord allowed me to see that life without depression affecting my every day is possible, but He will be the one to sustain me both with and without depression. There is no doubt for me anymore about whether He will always sustain me or not. God is perfect and holy. He is incapable of sinning which makes Him incapable of lying. He is faithful. If He says He is going to do it, He’s going to do it, period.
I am grateful for this depression riddled life that the Lord has given me. I’m thankful for how He is at work in my life. I’m thankful for the salvation and relationship I can have with God because of His son’s life, death and resurrection. I’m thankful for the hope I have because of Jesus. If you are reading this, and you too struggle with depression. You aren’t alone. I know there are days that seem like all hope is gone… like nothing matters anymore, so what’s the point? I know there are days where getting out of bed is quiet possibly the hardest thing you’ll have to do… but don’t give up. Don’t let the depression rule and ruin your life. If you believe in God, and have made Jesus your savior and Lord, your life… it has purpose. Your life has meaning. You were made in the IMAGE of the One who made you. Scripture is full of promises that God won’t leave us hanging. He will be walking with us in every situation. He is always at work. Nothing and no one can separate you from the love of God. Run this race before you. Run it well with your eyes on the author and perfector of your faith. Cling to the truth and promises of the inerrant and infallible word of God, and take it one day at a time. It’s going to be hard, but God will not leave or forsake you. Cling to and trust Him.
Grief. Going. Healing. 
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