I have not written much on depression. I have preached about
it, and it is a large part of my spiritual story. I have told people how I felt
so very close to God, his Holy Spirit at one moment, then had absolutely no
idea where he had gone, the next. But because there is so much focus on it this
week, with the untimely death of Robin Williams, and because he was so closely
associated with joy and laughter, and depression seems miles away from that,
and because people are writing so much about depression and Christianity in the
past day or so, I thought I’d share some thoughts.
It is not a club you ever want to belong to. But once you
do, you can quickly relate to others who are going through it. Strangely
enough, this is in huge contrast to actually going through depression, in which
you feel utterly and completely alone.
My biggest, most vivid word picture to describe major
depression is feeling like a hollowed-out, chocolate Easter bunny. It felt like
nothing was inside. I felt… nothing. And I felt so much pain in my soul, all at
the same time. At times, I would walk or drive through the cemetery and be
jealous of the people who had peace and release from all the anguish I was
feeling. When I saw a dead tree one day that looked like a broom stuck in the ground,
upside down, I though, oh, that’s me. That’s exactly how I feel. I didn’t want
to die; I just wanted to not feel the way I was feeling, every moment of every
day.
If I had not felt so close to the Lord right before I was
catapulted into the darkness--like his Holy Spirit was breathing on my neck--it
would not have seemed like such a cruel thing. Because part of living in major
depression, at least for me, was that it felt like God had pulled up his tent
stakes and moved a thousand miles across the desert. There was, like,
absolutely no contact with him, whatsoever. For most of a complete decade.
That was what I longed to feel, most. His holy presence. Any
shred of feeling that he was near me. I thought I’d done something very wrong.
Why else would God pull the rug out from under me? But all I’d done, in fact,
was give birth to my second son. Just days, weeks, months before, he’d been
right there beside me. Then, because of, or alongside an unexpectedly early
birth (he was only three weeks early), an experience that was highly
anticipated because I’d almost lost hope of ever having another child, and
because this highly anticipated birth experience went nothing like I had
envisioned, it felt like the walls were tumbling down. (He was healthy, I was
healthy, but everything else had seemed so disappointing.) A huge part of this
was that I no longer felt as though I could trust the man I had married, the
father of my now two sons, to do the right things for my benefit (although I’m
pretty sure that he thought he was).
And the worst feeling, the most long-lasting feeling, was
the sense that I had been utterly, completely alone during the birth
experience. It was something like an out-of-body experience, except I was
there, and everyone in the room was not. I could see them, but somehow they
were so far away, they could not help me, would not respond to my cries for
help.
The feeling was compounded when I went home and could not
sleep. It went on for about four months. Later, I would learn that this is how
some military groups torture prisoners—forced wakefulness. By the time I picked
up the phone to call my caregiver, I was in quite a bit of trouble. And, for
the first time in my life, I had to take antidepressants. The stigma of this
was compounded by the fact that my paternal grandfather had been hospitalized
for the latter part of his life in a state mental institution, following what
had been called a nervous breakdown. All I knew was that I never knew the man,
and by all indications, he was rather sensitive. Which explained why my father,
for the most part, had been emotionally distant and out of touch with his own
feelings for most of the time I’d known him. I loved him, he loved me, and my
mother explained that, “he just didn’t know how to show it.”
So the meds helped, but there were side effects, and I worried
how this all would affect my new little baby boy. Somehow, we both survived. My
darkness continued. Talk therapy helped. Figuring out that most of the things
that happened to me in my younger life that seemed weird and strange were
pretty common to many people was extremely helpful—I wasn’t nearly as alone as
I thought! But perhaps the thing that was most comforting was a little brochure
I found one day, in the doctor’s office. It said that people who have
depression often say that they cannot feel the presence of God. Oh. My. Word. I
thought. I’m not the only one who feels this way? The two can be tied together?
Glory, hallelujah!! Thank you, Jesus!!! I so wanted to find the person wrote
those words, and give them a great big hug. And a million bucks, if I had it.
Just having that awareness was so freeing. No matter the
cause and effect—which came first, the chicken or the egg—if this Divine sense
of aloneness was tied to my depression, I could deal with that, somehow, for as
long as the darkness decided to hang around. (Later, I would take a seminar at
a women’s Benedictine seminary and find that this is one of the most
devastating places to be—wedged between major depression and what is called a
dark night of the soul. But once again, finding out I wasn’t the only one made
it all seem bearable. I wasn’t the strange freak I though I was, even though
the looks on most of my friends’ faces told me otherwise, when I tried to
explain what I was feeling, or not feeling.)
And then came this Humungous Epiphany, which felt like the
only place it could have come from, was outside myself. Which I like to explain
as the moment when God broke through. This voice, somewhere from inside my
soul. Someone speaking to me, telling me, “You know what, Kim? Your emotions
are important. After all, I have made them. They feel oh, so powerful to you, like
they can finally mow you down at any second, but let me tell you something: your
emotions are, and never will be, powerful enough to make Me go away. What I
mean is, I am a whole lot bigger and more powerful than anything you will ever
feel or not feel.” So, what I had been feeling was not true! God HAD NOT pulled
up tent stakes and moved on. It only felt that way! Perhaps he had turned his face
for a time, but he never really had left me.
When I heard this, when the words rattled around inside my
soul, let me tell you, I wanted to do a little happy dance. Lift up my hands
and shout. Because suddenly, I finally felt free. And I knew that if I just
kept going one more day, and another day, and another day, that finally I would
break free and come out from under the darkness. And you know what? I finally did.
Not all at once, but gradually. And the residual effect is that I now have oodles
of compassion for all those who have been, and are going through, the same
thing.
Depression doesn’t mean you’re not a Christian, that you
don’t pray enough, or believe strongly enough. Depression doesn’t mean you have
sinned and need forgiveness any more than anyone else. Depression is a medical
condition that affects your whole being—body, mind AND spirit. I’m pretty sure
that, if Job’s friends had come alongside me in my time of darkness and offered
their two cents, God would not have been happy with them at that point, either.
So pat answers are never a good thing. But coming alongside someone and sitting
next to them, and offering a caring heart? Sharing that other people have been
there, through no fault of their own, and have come out on the other side? Now,
that’s what I think the Lord had in mind. That’s what I think he intended for
us to say and do. Give people Hope.
No, I wouldn’t wish this on anyone. But I know I am a much
different person because of what I’ve been through. For one thing, if I hadn’t
felt such an absence of God, I wouldn’t have striven so strongly to find him
again. And I wouldn’t have met him again in such a life-changing way that
ultimately led me to give up one way of life, and devote my time to serving
him, and his people.
