I’ve been there. It’s a surreal landscape. Terrifying. Disconcerting. Depression is a blinder against all hope. It blocks out all light and confuses the senses. You feel the confusion of weightlessness, nothingness, and at the same time feel as if your heart weighs a thousand pounds. It is to feel the full responsibility of the world tied to you like a ticking bomb, and to know you are powerless to escape it.
Depression—you want to leave, you want to stay
Depression lays like a heavy, inviting, itchy, smelly blanket. You may want to leave that smelly cocoon, but it is too heavy to move by yourself. At the same time, you want to stay in your blanket cave. You are fully aware that it’s a cold world out there, and so shedding the blanket sounds foolish. Plus, what if someone stole your familiar, what you already know, away? This is depression.
The lies of depression and anxiety
At its extreme, all the failures and faults of your life are laid out before you and the verdict is in. You mean nothing. You are nothing, and will not be missed. You have failed at what every other person you know has accomplished; just being a basic good human. The sick brain warps what is the ultimate selfish act into one of sacrifice and surrender. In the darkness there are no acceptable answers. No choice is good.
Depression is very often about the past, but anxiety is based in the future. Neither are hospitable places for us to spend our emotional currency. Anxiety and depression are thieves. They steal your present and your future by overwhelming the senses with loneliness, uselessness and futility.
Putting one foot in front of another matters
Putting one foot in front of another. Working towards a better today and tomorrow. Hopeful faith, believing in something bigger and more powerful than yourself. These are the only useful combatants in the fight against depression and anxiety.
Here’s to the living the day with hope for a brighter tomorrow.
Reflection:
Are you struggling with depression or anxiety? We know that it’s hard, and we aren’t here to offer pat answers. Jill’s story above shares the real experience of depression, and the real hope that faith can give in the middle of the darkness. You are not alone. Even when you feel as the man writing Psalm 88:18…“darkness is my closest friend.” We pray that you will reach out for help.
Next Steps:
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