The Reality of Depression

There have been lots of challenging things I’ve faced in my life: friend problems, school problems, family problems, and problems I’ve had with myself. I have always been aware that life is not full of rainbows and butterflies. I consider myself to be a fairly strong person; I have been able to negotiate my way through many hard situations over the years. So when I found myself in the hospital on July 7^th, 2013 under psychiatric evaluation even I was shocked.

But to understand this part of my story we’re going to have to backtrack a bit. Earlier that year I had moved to university with a couple issues already weighing on my heart. After the series of relationships I had witnessed breaking at my former church, I felt a little bit abandoned. Living in a new place where I knew almost no one was difficult. And it wasn’t helping that I felt like I didn’t have much to go back to at home. I was in this weird state where the most comfortable place for me, the place I felt the most at home, was on the greyhound bus between my parents’ house and my new school. As the months passed, my feelings of loneliness and worthlessness increased steadily. I spent the majority of my time in my dorm room sleeping, watching movies, and eating cake. I started skipping my classes and I stopped talking to my family.

Eventually I was diagnosed with depression and I started treatment. By the end of the school term in April I had given up on the life I had imagined for myself. If you had asked me in grade 12 what my life would look like after first year, this was not what I would have told you. I was not interested in this life. Believe it or not, a life that is filled with doctor visits, medication, and counselling is not actually that fun. I remember getting my antidepressant prescription filled for the first time. I stared at the bottle of pills and laughed manically for about 5 minutes. I never imagined in my entire life that this is what would happen to me.

And people… yeah people don’t understand.

“Why are you depressed?” Yeah, because I definitely knew the answer to that. Being depressed isn’t being upset or sad. Being depressed is being done.  

I can’t decide whether depression felt more like I was burning alive or drowning. A little bit of both. I could feel the heat. And the lick of the flames as they got close. And as that’s happening I was gasping for air, unable to get any. And I was just sinking deeper and deeper, until the light was gone and all I saw was darkness.

I wasn’t sleeping for 15 hours because I was lazy, it’s because I was constantly exhausted. And no one in this world was more disappointed in me than myself. I couldn’t believe I had become so useless. There was so much I wanted to do and I had lost the capacity to do it.

When you get to that stage, nothing matters. Actually though. I’m not trying to be dramatic. When each step feels like you weigh a million pounds you really don’t want to do anything. Being able to get out of the house at all was a victory. How ridiculously sad is that. It’s sad. And that was my everyday life.

And then sometimes the thoughts come, the really bad ones, the ones you can’t control. It’s like thousands of pictures flashing before your eyes and you want to stop the emotionally painful slideshow but you can’t. It keeps going. And going. All the worst possible thoughts and feelings bombard you and you’re helpless to the abuse. All you can do is curl up on the floor and scream.

And that’s how I ended up in the hospital. You know you’re in trouble when the nurse says “If you try to leave, we’ll have to call the police”. Yay, thanks. I feel so great about life. Yippee.

But alas, here I am. Not in the hospital and actually able to do something with my life again.

Healing is a weird thing. Because, in my opinion, it is more painful than the initial wound. I have been dark places. Very dark places. And sometimes I still live in the shadow of that darkness, but it doesn’t engulf me the same way it used to. I can talk about this now because it’s not my whole life anymore.

Psalm 23 has always been one of favourite passages of the Bible. I used to find it comforting. 

“The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing. He makes me lie down in green pastures, he leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul.” 

It all sounds so lovely, so peaceful. And that is true. God does bless us with peace, he does take care of our needs. But, as you read the rest of that passage it says “Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for you are with me.” So yea, we will lie down and have rest in green pastures but we will also walk through the valley of the shadow of death. I never used to realize how intense that was. But look at those words. The valley of the shadow of death. That sounds like the least fun place possible. 

And it doesn’t stop there. It also says “You make a place for me at the table of my enemies” So God blesses you and lavishes love on you but he doesn’t keep us from problems or from danger. He doesn’t just put us beside evil. He puts us right in the middle of it all. He prepares a place for us right in the middle of our enemies.

Life is not easy. And receiving blessings from God doesn’t mean a house and a car and 2  kids and summer vacations and a good pension. It says that nowhere in the bible. The richest blessings we can receive are outlined in Galatians when Paul talks about the fruits of the spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Those are the best things in the whole world. That’s what life is about. If you have gained any of those things in your life, you have been richly blessed. Blessed beyond anything else you could have asked for.

But sometimes gaining those blessings isn't pleasant. Sometimes you have to be broken down to be built up correctly. 

So even though the last year has felt like a living hell, I wouldn't want to change it. There were some not-so-right things about past Laura that have been fixed. And there are some not-so-right things about present Laura that I'm sure will be fixed. It probably won't be pretty, but I'm sure it won't be for nothing.