The Big “D”

Today I wanted to write about something that affects around 16 million adult Americans every year:

Depression.

I’m sure many of you who are reading this have suffered from depression at some point in your lives, and I’m no exception. I’ve been very open about my mental illnesses on this blog. You’ve read that I’ve been diagnosed with anxiety, OCD, PTSD, and depression. But depression is really the one thing I haven’t talked about…mostly because I’ve been deluding myself.

I’ve known that it’s been a part of my life, but I’ve done my best to ignore it. I’ve always attributed my symptoms to other things – for instance, dissociation from the PTSD. At times, I just thought it was my personality. Perhaps I’m not meant to “feel” things deeply; perhaps I just am apathetic. Maybe I don’t really care about things… maybe I wasn’t meant to be happy.

This is going to be a really hard blog for me to write. My walls are so high that I haven’t even been able to let my husband see it all. But today, I want to be truly authentic. I want to be real about what I’m going through. All I can do is pray that my own experiences can help you feel as though you are not alone in your pain.

Last Friday night, I was sitting on the floor of my apartment with Ethan, and I just started sobbing. I’ve been unhappy for a really long time, but I didn’t know why. I spent most of the night until 4:00am crying…and it wasn’t until about 2:00am that I finally understood what was happening.

When Ethan and I first started dating, I was over the moon. I fell in love with him so quickly, and I felt that love so intensely. When he texted me, I would get butterflies in my stomach, and smile so brightly. At that time in my life, I felt like everything was going so well. My health was doing decent, I was able to work two jobs, I was acing my classes, and I had so many friends who loved me. I loved work, I loved school, and I loved all the people around me.

But all of a sudden, all of that love started fading away.

I started having to remind myself that I did love Ethan, I did love school, and I did love my family and friends…even though I couldn’t feel it. It grew harder to get out of bed. It grew harder to want to go to class. It grew harder to want to spend time with the people in my life.

What on earth was wrong with me? It had to be something I was doing.

After I graduated, I started doing a little better. When Ethan and I got engaged, I was really happy again. I started enjoying the little things, and it was a lot easier to get up and go out and do things. And then slowly, once again, that happiness started fading away.

Our wedding day was supposed to be the happiest day of my life, but I felt like it was for everyone else, and not for the two of us. I remember being so happy and in love walking down the aisle, but as soon as that was over, feeling like something was wrong with me. I didn’t feel like I was happy enough.

I was a wreck on our honeymoon. We couldn’t enjoy it because most of the things that could go wrong did go wrong. We had to leave early, and I was so upset with myself and taking it out on my husband. It wasn’t that I was just unhappy…I was dead inside. I couldn’t feel all of the things that I was supposed to feel. I quite literally couldn’t feel anything but sad.

What was wrong with me?

After the honeymoon, I interviewed for several jobs, and they all fell through. Literally days after my last interview, I landed in the hospital. I got sicker than I have ever been, and finally diagnosed with an autoimmune disease. In order to heal from the damage done to me, I’d have to rest. I couldn’t work, I couldn’t go out and exercise, and I could barely cook and clean. I was so unhappy. Being unable to complete even the simplest of tasks resulted in such hopelessness. I couldn’t feel anything, and I constantly took it out on Ethan. I was so embarrassed of the fact that I couldn’t feel my love for him, or my love for anyone or anything around me. I didn’t want to tell anyone. Everyone was telling me how happy I should be and how lucky I was, and I knew all of that. I knew that in my head, but I couldn’t feel it. Why was I so sad?

I didn’t tell Ethan what I was feeling. For months, instead, I blamed myself. I kept telling myself that I was a terrible wife. That I wasn’t doing enough or “being” enough. I downloaded plan after plan on YouVersion on how to be a better wife. I cried and I cried and I prayed and I prayed. I grew to despise myself and everything around me. The longer I went without being able to work, the more pain I was in, and the less I could see people, the more unhappy I became.

Last Friday night, I just finally broke. As I cried, I told Ethan everything that I was feeling. I told him that I hadn’t been happy in months. I told him that I felt like I had lost everything that mattered to me. So many friends left me once Ethan and I got engaged. I lost almost everyone from my college, and it felt just like what had happened when I left IWU. I felt like a burden, and that I was hated. I told Ethan,

“There’s something wrong with me that makes people leave, and I don’t know what it is.”

I couldn’t see the truth, and I refused to listen to my husband’s words of encouragement. I was so deceived. And through my pain and hopelessness, and as I continued to break down, all of a sudden, the answer was there: I was once again suffering from my depressive disorder.

I can’t begin to tell you the wave of relief that rushed over me. I wasn’t a terrible wife. I wasn’t a terrible friend. I wasn’t lazy, or apathetic, or a burden. There wasn’t anything wrong with me – at least in the way that I had been believing. I was depressed.

It sounds strange, but there was so much freedom in that realization. For months I had gone on hating myself because I believed there was something deeply and intrinsically wrong with me; that apathy was just a part of who I was. Now, here was an answer. It certainly isn’t a fun one, and it’s one that will require a lot of work and a whole lot more of Jesus, but it was an answer.

Satan had so greatly deceived me. He had fed me lies for so long, and I just ate them up. When I came crying to Ethan or to my mom about worrying that I was a terrible wife and person, I couldn’t believe what they were saying. I couldn’t believe that there was any other Truth. My eyes were clouded by evil lies straight from hell, and Satan continued to win, because I continued to believe him.

John records Jesus as saying, “Sanctify them by the Truth; your word is Truth” (John 17:17, NIV). God’s Truth is that I am valuable, I am loved, and I am worthy. The longer I listen to that Truth, the easier the depression will be to bear.

If you are a long-term sufferer of depression, you know that there is no “easy” fix. If you are new to depression, please don’t be discouraged by this. Continue to do what you are doing to get better. Go to your counseling session, even when it’s hard. Counseling is a gift from God; it doesn’t make you any “less.” Take your meds if you’re on them; they don’t make you any less of a Child of God. Open up to a friend, and don’t listen to the lie that you are alone and unloved. And above all, please go to Jesus. He so desperately wants to hear you and be with you.

My journey isn’t going to be an easy one. I have a lot I need to work through. But knowing that I’m suffering from depression is freeing, because it shows me that everything I’ve feared for months is a lie. I’m worthy, I’m loved, and I’m not alone. Neither are you.

If what I have said resonates with you, talk to a friend or a professional to see if you may be suffering from depression. As I said, it isn’t a “fun” answer, but it is a freeing answer…because regardless of what you may feel, there is hope. I’m starting to see that hope now that I’ve accepted what is happening. I have hope through my family and my wonderful husband, I have hope through my church and my amazing friends, and I have abundant and unending hope in Christ Jesus. That same freedom is available to you. It may be hard, and it probably won’t be an overnight fix, but I promise you that your life is worth so much more than any lie you are being sold. If you are suffering, please ruminate on this truth:

“For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38-39, NIV).

As always, I am here to walk with you. Feel free to contact me at the email address listed in the “about me” section to your left.