The antidote for depression? Discovering you are never alone

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.

I was a pretty selfish person, before all of this happened.  I wanted nothing more than to make MY life better. And then I realized, I was not alone. I was never really alone.