Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. 2 Corinthians 10:5
The sun was just beginning to rise as I crawled into bed. I’ve never felt more alone, more distant and irrelevant. It was as if my life didn’t matter? It was all I could do to muster up the energy to pray “Lord, help me.” Thoughts of death raced through my mind. I buried my head in the goose down pillow, closed my eyes and drifted to sleep. Turmoil met me with a huge cup of discouragement upon waking, with only four hours of sleep behind me and a restless spirit, my eyes began to adjust to the dread surrounding me. My thoughts wrought with lies from the enemy. I recognize the house that I am standing in. It is familiar, because I have been there more times than I care to remember. Why am I standing here now? My life isn’t as heavy, there is nothing mundane or boring about it. .. and yet here I am staring at familiar walls.
These walls are yellow, stale cigarettes linger in the air, the ashtray is full. The noise is louder than I remember? Perpetually moving me from one dark room to another until I am standing in the middle of a long dark corridor. I don’t want to be here, but I don’t want help either. I can not show fear nor weakness at any point… lest I am looked at with pity or worse scolded “Snap out of it, everyone gets depressed, that’s life.” “Is it? Is it life to live like you are dead already?” I reason as I make my way to the mirror. My eyes are red, lips swollen, a bad hair day is an understatement. Suddenly I have the urge to burn myself and that thought produces another, this one however averse, seeks a quiet place to hide. I am reminded of the all the times I cut or burned myself to escape, rather control the pain that was controlling me.
There is never a day where I wake up without pain. Pain free days elude me. physical pain is one thing, emotional pain another, and then I find myself battling an unsettling spiritual pain. That method of pain I used to control pain, felt euphoric. I wanted to take over that part of me that felt grieved for no apparent reason. I had it planned like that of sticky notes one uses to create order. I could resort to self-inflicted cutting, burning, but I won’t, not this time. My old ways of dealing with imminent danger that lurked behind the doors of what I call the Misery Mansion might have been over but the depression wasn’t. My thoughts reasoned with questions that seem to riddle me with more confusion, while the door locked behind me as if to suggest the entrapment I feel is permanent. That question, was more of a statement posted on the door of the Master Suite “In this room, however dark and dreary… Your depression will be exacerbated by the problematic tyranny of a guilty verdict in the mind.” I realize there is an injury one cannot see until the symptoms manifest. Suggesting that I have been struggling for days, weeks maybe, if not years?
“What is wrong with me?” I reason as one thought leads to another. One intrusive, self-loathing thought after the next, both reminding and reprimanding me of my wrongs. Depression is built on wrongs. Be it something I have done or something I perceive has been done to me? I am no stranger to that jaded voice, after all, I’ve battled depression my entire life. However, this battle literally felt like it wasn’t mine. If not mine then whose?…and if mine was it natural or spiritual?
Even if I could figure that out I certainly did not want to. My life hurts. The pain gets real comfortable when you feel like it is all you’ve got. The emotional roller coaster is cruel, cast-down and filled with a darkness unlike any I’d ever known. I’ve tasted the pain of depression. I know what it looks like and right now she is staring back at me through a broken mirror. A mirror that distorts images rather than enhancing them.
Thoughts of suicide park near-by ever ready to consume even the strongest person. Everyone has their limits? How is it that amid all the good that God is doing through my life, in my life that this monster would rear its ugly head? “What is one more statistical tragedy, right?” “Wrong, I am stronger than this.” I thought as the day passed announcing the arrival of another early morning with the sun beaming through the window. A bird sings, mocking my despair. However, I was not getting up. I have been up. All I want is sleep. Sleep without being met with unrealistic expectations I seem to place upon myself. Followed by the disappointment that wraps around me like a blanket on a cool night. No, I will pray my way to sleep. As odd as this sounds, laying here in a drafty room looking up at the vaulted ceiling filled with cob webs. I look for the spider but the spider is not there.
I then have this thought out loud… “Is depression a prideful expression of self-love, and if it is why, why would pride operate that way?” Honestly, I don’t have the answers. The medical professional might raise the brow of their eye as they gaze up from the chart they have penned. Just one prescription away from prescribing medication to quite that disturbing train of thought, taking my being and personality with it. Ugh… I don’t have to do anything? I could stay here in the Misery Madison or I could pick myself up and prayerfully dust myself off and move through another day. One where I can cast down imaginations, and every high thought that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, and bring into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ. -2 Corinthians 10:5
I may not feel it right away
Depression is built on false hopes and devastating disappointments
False self perceptions
Temporal wants versus actual needs
Depression keeps you from living outside of your thoughts
I know this… In my weakness, the bible says, He is made strong.
Strong on my behalf
He loves me with an everlasting love
Roman’s chapter 8 tells me -Nothing can separate me from the love of God.
I know I am not alone. If you are struggling with depression, if you are hurting and can’t shake the feeling of emptiness, and you feel isolated and alone among people who love you? … please pray with me and for me as I pray for you. It is written “Pray ye, one for another, that you may be healed.”
Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank you for setting your love on me, on us, even though we feel we don’t deserve you. Teach us, oh Lord, that we don’t have to earn your love. Remind us to love ourselves despite our expectations, and all the futile attempts of perfectionism lead only to discouragement and despair, show us the root of our depression, as you pull those weeds… perfecting in us the things that concern us. Amid the transformation and renewing of our mind give us eyes to see the beauty in a new day that we may rejoice and be glad in it.
In Jesus name we pray amen.
