Growing good things
It doesn’t matter what season of life we find ourselves in, the years we live are for growing. We may be growing a business or a family. Perhaps we’re taking care of elderly parents or sick relatives. We show up for our communities and workplaces. We launch a nonprofit project, fund-raise or invest in relationships with those closest to us. We plant seeds, trusting that our love and care will return a harvest.
Our lives are meant to be purpose-filled and fulfilling, but let’s talk about how this is not the reality for so many people in the world. Depression steals lives. It’s demoralizing, demotivating and destructive to our core identities. It’s an obstacle to becoming our best selves and it threatens our capacity to be in community and to find joy in living.
I know because I’ve been there. I’ve been there with every dish I own dirty on the countertops, dishes consuming every inch of counter space. I’ve been there with laundry piled high into little sorted mountains on the kitchen floor for days at a time while those dirty dishes hung. I’ve been there with the dust and the cat hair (incidentally my two biggest allergens) draping the back room I didn’t have the time or the energy to unpack and clean — for 3 years.
If you’ve known me for a while, you know that I’ve wrestled with depression and a flight of mental illnesses that have added friction to my every day life for years. I have been on and off of medications. I have had seasons where depression goes into remission for a few years and comes back later in full force. I know what it is to feel despair and grief so deep in my spirit that I cannot name it with words.
Depression is an illness, and no matter how it manifests in your life, feeling apathetic and being unable to find joy in everyday circumstances doesn’t have to be your reality. And I say this delicately — it is not the norm. You are made to feel alive and free, not hollow and swallowed by darkness. If you feel consumed by life, like you can’t wake up from this nightmare, friends, there is light at the end of the tunnel. Your birthright is total wholeness, total restoration, and complete healing in the power of Jesus Christ (John 10:10) — and possibly some medication.
God is all-powerful and as the creator of life, he is big enough to heal my depression. Yet it seems that the depression that adds so much extra friction and fatigue to my life is also a part of my identity: Just as for so many people with depression, it is corollary to a fierce creativity that I am gifted with. So, after praying 1,000 times and asking God to heal my mental illnesses, I trust that he has a plan in this, too.
God does not always choose to heal, and sometimes, he uses medicine instead.
With the right mix of medications and an expert psychiatrist, persistence, courage and faith, you can beat depression and get back to thriving.
I think what many people don’t understand about depression is that it is both a mental and a physical impairment and the fact that we even make a distinction between the two is complicated. The brain is a part of our physical anatomy despite its abundant complexity. Mental illnesses require different treatments than physical injuries, but that doesn’t make them any less real. You didn’t cause your accident that broke a bone anymore than someone else caused mental illness. Are there compounding factors? Sure. But people don’t judge you for getting a broken bone.
Unfortunately and all too often, there is such a stigma around mental illness that it can take a tremendous amount of courage to speak up and to get help. Some people who haven’t experienced depression can wrongly deem that you are well because you look normal, happy, and healthy. They might assume you are faking it, or that your willpower is weaker than theirs because you can’t pull it together. This couldn’t be further from the truth.
Depression is an invisible illness — the illness is treatable, it just so happens that most people can only see the tip of the iceberg unless they’ve been under the water with us.
Some ways to heal
Here’s the hard part. Too many people in the world don’t have access to the right or even adequate healthcare, and I want to stress so much that your mental health is worth everything. It is not cheap to get help, and the best psychiatrists are often out of network, but treatment is worth every cent you pay.
The sicker you are the more money you have to pay to get well, and it shouldn’t be that way. We won’t get into how unfair that is today. But since this is the system we are in, it’s so important to be proactive and to take charge of our health. In that spirit, here are a few things that have helped me to prioritize my mental health and to thrive through depression.
Read the Bible —
– It is physiologically impossible to be fearful at the same you are thankful, and a daily discipline of reading the Bible, a simple devotion or a few minutes writing in a gratitude journal can be powerful enough to shift the tone of each day
– We are spiritual beings, and tending to what our spirits and intuitions tell us is a huge part of healing
– Reading the Bible can help you to know God and his character, and when the days are dark and lonely, he is the rock you can stand on. He will never leave you or forsake you, and nothing can separate you from the love of God (Romans 8:28, 38-39)
Pray and center yourself in a global context — I’m not suggesting you minimize your mental illness in any way, but focusing on the blessings you have including running water, food to eat, and a roof over your head can help you to feel more connected to the world and to being the change you want to see in the world. Define what good you’d like to grow and which things you would like to stop* and find inspiration in doing the work of change-making
Cultivate everything friendships — Invest time in everything friendships. Define the 4 qualities you value most in a friend. Look at each friendship to see where your relationship with them intersects in those 4 spheres, then invest more time into cultivating the everything friendships right in the center. These are your people and the friends who challenge you to grow and fill you up; spending time with them is fluid and refreshing rather than energy-draining
Prioritize treatment — Keep going to appointments until you find the psychiatrist you feel comfortable with who will collaborate with you on a treatment plan. Do research, read books, get informed. Review your budget and ask God for help making room in your cash flows for the cost of care. It will not be cheap, but it is possible to eat out less, to buy fewer things, to make fewer trips to Target and Starbucks, and to negotiate lower monthly credit card payments. You can ever defer your student loan payments under a medical deferment which will allow you to shift that cash flow towards treatment
It’s hard enough to accept our mental illnesses in the first place, let alone to find affordable care. That needs to change in this country, but until then, if you have to buy fewer groceries and eke out cash from other places in your budget, do it. Please know that I have been there and I understand how hard it is to pay for care. I struggle with you and beside you. I write these words as someone who simply would not be okay without medication, and I may be in this battle for a lifetime, but I can confidently say I am happy and thriving, and you can thrive, too.
As his unique creation, you matter so much to God and your mental health matters to Him greatly, too (Psalm 139:11-16): even if it feels like God is remote and distant, he is with you in this trial and he wants you to be well and thriving (1 Pet. 1:6-9).
Let’s be bold and brave friends. The more we speak up and share about our own experiences, the more we shift the stigma that mental illness is mental weakness and reframe it as a treatable medical condition. Above all, be strong and courageous and don’t give up hope, because God is surely with you (Deut. 31:6).
Dear God, Many of us struggle with depression and we wonder why you choose not to heal when you can heal. Help us to see and to accept our unique identities as your perfectly and wonderfully made sons and daughters and to be vigilant in seeking help when it seems that the very system of healthcare is rigged against us as we struggle with resources to care for our mental health. Give us the courage to seek support and the determination to find a way through this tunnel towards your light. Help us to see that you allow no struggle without growth, and that even in the darkness of depression, you never leave us or forsake us.
Amen.
*The two questions, What good am I meant to grow? and What good am I meant to stop? are from Dan Allender’s book To Be Told
Verses for study:
John 10:10
The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy; I have come that they may have life, and have it to the full.
Romans 8:28
And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.
Romans 8:38-39
I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
Psalm 139:11-16
If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.
For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
1 Peter 1:6-9
In all this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that the proven genuineness of your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the end result of your faith, the salvation of your souls.
Deuteronomy 31:6
“Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”
