Depression… it is such an ugly word. No one wants to talk about it, yet it is all around us.  

I am talking about the “can’t get out of bed, do the dishes or the laundry, answer the phone, ignore the knocking at the door” days of depression.

It is like the emperor’s new clothes story.  Everyone sees you vulnerable and not one person feels like they can say anything to you, until that one person gathers the courage to tell you what you need to hear.  In my case, it was my amazing partner in life, George.  It was hard for him to sit down with me and have this conversation.  It was affecting him, now, and it needed to be addressed.

Depression leaves no room for light. Depression is a deep dark hole that you cannot climb out of. A pit so deep you cannot see an extended hand to help you. A hole so dark, you cannot find a way out, even if you wanted to; and let’s face it, sometimes we can’t put forth the effort even to want to see the light in the darkness we are in.

Depression has nothing to do with your surroundings; it is a battle from the inside. Your mind and emotions will not cooperate.

It is tough for me to hear someone feeling a little sad or having a bad day say, “I’m so depressed!” No, you are low, you are not happy in the moment, things are not going your way, but you are not in a dark pit with no way out. 

It is hard when you suffer from depression. It is hard to see someone you love suffering from depression, knowing that you cannot help them. You can encourage them to get help, but there is nothing a friend or family member can do to make things better. And quite frankly, they get tired of trying…they are exhausted from trying.

I have suffered from depression all my life. But it wasn’t until I was in my 30s that I realized that I needed help and what it was. Pair that with panic attacks and anxiety, and you have a total disaster of a person. My life was a mess.

• I always felt like ashamed of what I looked like and that I was the ugliest one in the room.  
• The fattest person (and most disgusting person) in a crowd of people.  
• I felt left out, but always declined when asked to do things.  Eventually they quit asking.
• I felt like everyone was talking about me, in the worst possible way. When really, they didn’t know me enough to talk about me.  I was not social.
• Paranoia was raging in my life for years, but I had no clue what it was.  

I did not know I needed help. I thought everyone lived with these thoughts and feelings.  

Depression keeps you alone and, often, angry or upset.

When I found out what I was dealing with was not normal life for others, I had to seek help. I prayed; I asked God to help me. What I didn’t think about was getting the help I needed through professionals that God has given knowledge to know how to deal with depression; was God helping me. I sought out Godly counseling. 

I have to be honest, when medication was prescribed, I held on to the prescription for weeks before I let myself open the bottle and take the prescribed medicine. It was agonizing for me to depend on medication – it made me feel weak and useless. What I know now is I should have been looking at it as someone needing medication for their heart, high blood pressure, diabetes, or any other ailment in their body.

I felt like I was letting God down, my parents that raised me to have faith, my friends, and most of all myself. Did I trust God, or didn’t I? Did I have faith in God or not?

My thoughts were not making sense – do I take medication and stay in counseling and let the process do what it needs to do; or do I keep going on the path of destruction I was on; all in the name of Christ?  

I was destroying every relationship; I was crushing every person around me that wanted to help and couldn’t. I would blame myself, other people for not trying hard enough to reach me, and God (if I am being honest) for not helping me, but He was, just not in the way I wanted or expected him to. He was helping me; the question was, “Am I going to help myself as much as I can and let God do what He does because He cares for me?”

After years of counseling and finding the proper medication (to produce what I couldn’t naturally produce on my own in my brain), I can look back and see what a disastrous life I was living. My faith in God grew strong, my confidence in myself began to spring up inside of me, something I had never felt before, and I started living a life that made sense. I began living life the way God intended me to live life – to the fullest. Experience Him; experience the beauty all around me that He created. I was missing so many of the little things – a rainbow, the smell of cut grass, the freshness of the air after a good spring rain, the flowers beginning to bloom, the fall leaves in WV that had perfect colors to light up the mountains with the pure excitement of the season. I missed so much that now I try not to take it for granted.

Do I still struggle at times with depression?  Yes!  I lost almost half of my life to this monster called depression. The difference is now I struggle with depression instead of suffering from depression.  Now, I have strong faith and the tools to wrestle against the enemy.  

Why am I telling you this? I feel like at least one person reading this will see themselves. See, the Kingdom of God suffers if the enemy can get you so focused on yourself. The mission God has for you on earth is compromised. Look up; there is LIGHT PEERING IN THE PIT directing you to Jesus, the light of the world!

It is the enemy’s job to keep you distracted, and depression is one of the things he uses. He wouldn’t be doing his job if he didn’t hit us hard and make us challenge our vulnerability. Depression keeps us away from people that we should be discipling and bringing into the Kingdom. It keeps us questioning God about His designed purpose for us. It keeps us questioning ourselves about who we are in God’s Kingdom and why we are here.

THAT IS THE ENEMY’S JOB to keep us distracted and inward focused. 

Have faith in God and shoot in both directions (to steal a quote from Pastor Jay). We cannot expect God to help us when we do not put forth an effort to help as much as we can ourselves. He gives us courage and strength to climb the mountain in front of us; He reduces it to an anthill. He puts the enemy in His place, pulls us on His lap as His child, and comforts us until we heal.

Who are you great mountain
That you should not bow low?
Jesus defeated the darkness.
He has never lost a battle