About a year ago, my friend Annika posted a link on Facebook to this blog entry. It is, perhaps, one of the best explanations I have ever read of how it feels to live with depression, and I encourage everyone to read it. [Note: There is some profanity in the post, so consider yourself forewarned.] If your first response to my encouragement to read that blog post is “Why should I read it when I don’t deal with depression on a regular basis?” then I would suggest you read it for the people in your life who do deal with it on a regular basis. Or, just read it so you can better understand this blog post.
According to the National Institute of Mental Health, 16.5% of the adult population suffers from a “lifetime prevalence” of major depressive disorder. 6.7% of the adult population suffers from a “12 month prevalence” of major depressive disorder. Major depressive disorder is “characterized by a combination of symptoms that interfere with a person's ability to work, sleep, study, eat, and enjoy once-pleasurable activities. Major depression is disabling and prevents a person from functioning normally.” There is a difference between having a couple bad weeks and having major depressive disorder. Everyone has times that are harder than others, and often depression can accompany those difficult times. For most people, once those hard times get better, the feelings of depression diminish and, often, completely go away. However, a person who has major depressive disorder cannot always attribute their symptoms to any particular life situation. Life can be great and the feelings of depression can persist. There isn’t a known cause of depression (in terms of why some people struggle with it and others don’t), but the chemicals of the brain – particularly dopamine, serotonin, and norepinephrine – have a large effect on why a person is or isn’t able to “snap out” of feeling blue. In the same way that a person with diabetes cannot regulate his or her insulin, a person with major depressive disorder cannot regulate the chemicals in his or her brain, and this imbalance can lead to regular depression. [Please note: There are many other factors that can contribute to depression, as well. I don’t want to oversimplify a very complicated condition, but this is just one paragraph, so brain chemistry was my chosen focus.]
I’ve struggled with depression for…well…I don’t know how long. Let’s start that sentence again. I became aware of the fact that I was struggling with depression when I was twenty-two years old. I would guess that I have struggled with it for much of my life, but twenty-two was when I finally put a face with a name. Since then, I’ve tried many different options for how to manage my depression, and at thirty years old, I feel like I have a pretty good hold on it. “Having a good hold on it” doesn’t mean I don’t struggle with depression anymore. It just means the likelihood is very low that my depression will lead me to sleep the day away, drink to numb my feelings of sadness, cry for (what seems like) no reason, or believe my life is hopeless. When I know I’m having a bout of worse-than-normal depression, I try to work out more, make an effort to talk about it with friends and family who know how to support me, and stay busy so my days don’t have much downtime where I could over-focus on how I’m feeling.
You might be wondering why I’m attempting to write my own version of the blog post I mention above. "If it’s one of the best explanations of depression you’ve ever found," you say, "why re-invent the wheel?" Here’s why: Because struggling with depression as a Christian is different than struggling with depression as a non-Christian. I was re-reading that blog post the other day, and I was struck with the fact that at different points of her mostly-spot-on explanation, the blog writer suggests that life might not have any meaning, that everything is hopeless, and that there are no guarantees things will get better. She suggests that she finds meaning in the fact that there isn’t any meaning and that hope can be found in that same place. Each time I’ve read this post (before now), I’ve sort of passively dismissed that portion. I’ve read it, but I haven’t paid attention to it because I already knew I didn’t agree. But as I read it this time, I got thinking about how my own struggle with depression would change if I didn’t live in the hope that being a child of God provides. Here’s what I realized.
Being a Christian allows me to see that my depression is a result of sin. Not my personal sin. It’s not a punishment. But because of sin, our bodies aren’t perfect and parts of them don’t work correctly. For me, that’s my brain. I didn’t do anything to earn my depression and it’s not because of what’s happened in my life. It’s just the way it is. Someday, when Jesus comes back and I am in heaven, I will have a perfect body, and I won’t struggle with depression any longer. Hurray!
That leads nicely into my next point: when I struggle with feeling like life is hopeless, I know that I can cling to a couple major promises. The first promise is that I was made a child of God through my baptism, and the value of my life lies not in the things I do (or in the things I cannot do), but in the work that Christ did for me on the cross. Life is never hopeless because I have hope in Christ. I’m not responsible for creating hope. Christ already did that for me. Now, that might sound oversimplified to some who are reading this, and, honestly, I would have to agree. On days when things are really bad, it’s not easy to tell myself that and believe it. But my ability or inability to believe it does not make it any less true.
The second promise I believe is that this world is not my home. This is a pretty messed up place, and, depression or not, I think I would always feel a little down about the state of the world. Nothing in this world can provide me with the hope I need because nothing in this world has been untouched by sin. The promise of heaven and eternity with God does give me a hope for the future that never falters, no matter how I’m feeling.
A third promise is that I am never alone, even when I am in the depths of darkness and feel like I am on my own. Whenever that happens, I know that I can pray for God to make Himself known to me, and He does. Whether it’s a friend calling out of the blue, being able to get ahold of someone who will listen to me, Bible verses that pop into my head, or finding something to fill my time, God gives me a way to stand up underneath my feelings of being alone. I know that Satan uses my depression against me and tempts me to believe I have been abandoned by everyone, including God. But God has also promised that He will provide a way out of temptation if I ask Him, and I believe that promise. Furthermore, I know that Jesus understands loneliness and isolation. He was alone in the desert when the Devil tempted Him. He was alone in the Garden of Gethsemane. Most importantly, He was alone on the cross when He took all my sinfulness and brokenness upon Himself and made it possible for me to stand in front of God someday, free from sin and whole at last.
I will never be able to “conquer” my depression. I will deal with it my whole life, and I will always need help to deal with it. My depression is a daily reminder of the fact that I cannot do anything on my own. Just like my sin should point me to the cross of Christ and remind me of how helpless I am to do anything about it, the bodily effects of original sin have the same result. Because of my depression, I’ve been able to grow in my faith, knowing that I am dependent on Christ to provide me with what I need to get through every day. I am constantly reminded that my humanity makes me weak, but like Paul, “when I am weak, then I am strong” (2 Cor. 12:10). My weaknesses point me to the cross, and I remember that Jesus’ death and resurrection mean I will one day enjoy a life free from depression (among other things). Until then, I have to ask that God would send His Holy Spirit to walk with me on a daily basis and that He would keep me safe from the sometimes-scary effects of depression. I have confidence that He will remind me through the Word and people who love me that I am never alone in this fight.
In case you’re wondering, all of this is a lot of work. It’s easier to see all of these things now that I’ve read about, discussed, and lived with depression for a good chunk o’ years. I’m sure that I will continue to learn more and find new ways to regulate what goes on in my brain. However, that will be something I work at for the rest of my life. I recently said to a friend: “The difference between living without depression and with depression is sort of like the difference between running a mile on a track and running a mile in the pool.” Every day isn’t a run-through-water kind of day. Some days I don’t have to work hard to understand and manage my emotions or my brain. But many days are like running through water. In spite of that fact, I am able to wake up every morning with the knowledge that, by His grace, God will provide me with all I need to be able to “run with perseverance the race marked out for [me]” (Hebrews 12:1).
Best of all, I am never alone in that race.
