My battle with depression- breaking the stigma

Anxiety breeds depression:
depression breeds despair:
and despair is living without hope.
Which is not worth living at all.

A little over a year ago, for the first time in my life, I came to know a feeling that I had never understood. I wasn't unhappy with my life. I loved my husband deeply, I loved my children beyond what words could describe but I found myself living without hope.

When you wake up every morning to the demands and joys of life but the deafining sound of despair in the prison of your own mind has you wondering if you can go on, thats hopeless, and its scary. It's somewhere just short of wanting to die but not really wanting to live either.

It's not a lack of faith because trust me when I say it took more faith to get through this year of my life than anything else I have ever dealt with.

You see, well meaning Christians, who have never experianced anxiety, depression, or despair will say things like: just have faith, God is in control, pray more worry less, depression is a choice, blah, blah, blah(I know because I used to be one of those people).

Does getting closer to God help, certainly, but let's drop the stigma that depression is a lack of faith or trust in the One who made it all. He wrote the story, he saw it all, he knows and he is in control; but he never said it would be easy and if you ever got depressed you were not faithful.

The faithful can become discouraged. We are all one tragedy from being without hope.

Holy Moly, David might be one of the best examples of anxiety and depression ever. He's the man after Gods own heart.

I had many many David moments in this battle. I yelled at God, I threw my bible, I asked a whole lot of questions. I struggled every Sunday to get up in front of a church full of people and lead them in praise to the God that I was mad at.

Why didn't he protect me? What good can come from This? Why did this deep deep scar from the past have to surface at this time in my life? How am I going to get through this crippling fear? How do I protect my kids? How can I avoid leaving my house?

Every minute of every day, my mind was racing. I was drowning in thoughts of despair. I wanted to fix it all but it was all too overwhelming. Trust me, there are still many overwhelming days, but I had to force myself to become shortsided(very hard for a type A, OCD personality). I had to stop trying to fix it and just become commited to get through the next minute, the next hour, the next day.

1 wobbly step at a time I walked myself back up into the light of hope. Thank God for my husband who was there to help me take baby steps, catch me when I fell, and say "try again, you can do this."

 I thought I was hiding this well, but looking back I can see I wasn't hiding it so much. If I had told everyone around me how I felt they may have had me committed or shown much more concern. My pride kept me for asking for help, and I fought that entire battle mostly alone. Everyone around me knew something was off but I painted on the Christian smile and pretended to be alive, when inside I was dead.

Now I am committed to saying it loud and saying it clear.

You are not less because your depressed!!

You don't want to do this alone. I know it's hard to trust but tell someone what your going through because the prison that your mind will trap you in is very hard to escape from.

Depression is not sad people, who hide in their house with the curtains drawn, and wear black.

Depression is your pastor who pours his heart out each Sunday and struggles to get up on Monday.

Depression is your child's teacher who always wears a smile on her face but her heart is breaking inside.

Depression is the mom who has it all together but hides in the shower to fall apart.

Depression wears the mask of a smile but lives without hope.

Even though I'll never understand why the Lord allowed terrible things to happen to me as an innocent child, or why he allowed the man who did them to walk into my church almost exactly 20 years later, causing me to have to dig up the pain and deal with every issue I've carried with me all these years; I am compelled to believe that he has a purpose.

 It took me a year to realize that I may never get the answers to my questions but that it isn't worth overlooking all of the wonderful things that God has done in my life. The good far outweighs the bad, and that doesn't keep the bad from hurting, but it does begin the process of healing. So this has become my prayer...

Lord , sustain me as you promised, that I may live! Do not let my hope be crushed.
Psalms 119:116

In this moment, this is what God has given me, so I am determined to use it for his Glory. It's not what I would have chosen but I WILL OVERCOME "by the power of his blood, and the word of this testimony." (Rev 12:11) May God use this testimony to bring him glory.

I can spend the rest of my life worrying about what others will think while being silent, or I can worry about what others will think while I speak and maybe help just 1 person reach out from the pit of despair and cling to hope.