I had recently left a good job, with long hours and a long commute as the motive for change. I also believed that I could “freelance” to help make ends meet. I’d spent weeks readying and distributing printed material to advertise talents that I had successfully marketed at earlier times: artwork, portraiture, children’s art classes. I’d surfed hours and hours online for freelance writing opportunities, and even looked for small paying “gigs” to play with my guitar-anything to fill that gap and pay the bills, until employment opened up. Though life had pitched me a few “curve balls,” (art market downturns, etc.) I knew my talents and knew that I enjoyed people, and they responded well to me. I was sure that with creativity, determination, and self-will, I could make anything happen. It always had before.
Well, it didn’t. Every road led to nowhere. Each new prospect fizzled. Suddenly, my get-up-and-go got up and left, and it was not pretty when it did. After two weeks of not seeing any doors open, my patience was fading fast. I began to experience a feeling which was not in the realm of my experience. Fear. Anxiety. Dread. Surely financial ruin was just around the corner. I was a total failure. All I had worked so hard to become good at for so many years was really for nothing. Though circumstances called for more income, they were never as dire as I imagined -and really, what if they were? My husband Ron and I were close, our family was doing well, etc. Even if they did suffer a financial setback or two, it wouldn’t be of lasting importance, but I just couldn’t be persuaded. The fear persisted. The dread was there, no matter what I did. Prayer, scripture reading, journaling, it just didn’t matter. It got worse by the day, and I didn’t know why. Something was wrong-really wrong, and I didn’t know what to do.
How could a Christian wife and mother, with a good reputation in her community and so much to be grateful for, be experiencing such a hellish thing? And whom could I trust to talk to? Would anyone understand this thing?
I had recently experienced many changes in a relatively short period of time, as is often the case with women of my age. In my story, it was a self-contracted homebuilding project and a major move, both children leaving the house soon after within a short time of each other, (one with a wedding to plan and host-joyful yet exhausting), the ongoing rigors of care for my mother in her five-year battle with cancer, full-time work with the 40-minute commute, then leaving that work with feelings of failing at the task. Finally, the great uncertainty of meeting oncoming financial needs (not to mention self-doubt when looking over my life’s career accomplishments, or seeming lack of them,) all in a short three-year period.
Daunting? Yes. But unusual? Not really. These events are characteristic of many lives today. And while it’s true for us that life was simpler when our kids were home, there are so many people suffering with similar emotions today who still have little ones to care for, and my heart goes out to them. The statistics are that up to 20 million American adults today battle depression/anxiety symptoms. And then there are the unreported cases. Then, there are those in chemical dependency treatment for self-medication of these symptoms. One could call depression an epidemic. Some health care providers have even labeled this as the decade of depression, a disease second only to heart disease in decreasing our life spans today. One US study states that 80 percent of people who visit physicians today will trace their ailments back to psychological depression in some form. Men and women today in all stages of life seem to be experiencing these challenges. Life today can be hectic. It can be hard-driven. Life today can, if we let it, be depressing. Especially if we don’t care for ourselves properly while caring for others (lack of rest, nutrition, refreshment, etc) But the operative words there are “if we let it.” In my journey from the wilderness of depression, I have determined to learn exactly what happened with me; what caused it, what drove it, and what to do to triumph over it.
“(The devil)… was a murderer from the beginning and does not stand in truth, because there is no truth in him. When he tells a lie, he speaks in character, because he is a liar and the father of lies.” -John 8:44
I believe that it’s safe to say that no one sets out to become depressed. No one awakens one morning and says, “Think I’ll turn my entire world upside down for several months, along with the lives of my closest loved ones. I feel like experimenting with excruciating pain and crippling confusion, with a complete uncertainty of the future.”
No-somehow, it just sneaks up on us. It doesn’t ask permission; it doesn’t wait for a convenient time or place. Suddenly one morning, it’s just there, and will not be ignored.
I can only speak from my own experience, but I believe that among the many reasons that people suffer symptoms of depression, anxiety, and even “breakdown,” (not a clinical term, but one that everyone seems to understand) there is one that is more sinister than those aforementioned: more cryptic than burnout, craftier than life’s changes. Its name is disappointment (aka ingratitude.) This is a quiet, unassuming little dark angel who spends his share of time in the corner, silent and out of the way, waiting for his chance to ask us to play. He’ll wait for years if necessary, through our triumphs and accomplishments, watching carefully for a hint of our feeling unappreciated. He doesn’t need much. And there is no human addiction more dangerous than taking his hand and spending even just a little time with him. Among his wooings and cooings: “No one understands you. Don’t they know what they have in you? Why, if you were gone tomorrow, what in the world would they do? Life isn’t what you’d expected it would be, is it? What are you going to do? Just what did they mean by that remark? You don’t get any respect. Life should be better to you than this.”
In disappointment (whether in others or in yourself) are the seeds of depression, and it takes less watering and cultivating than we think to see it come to become the full-grown (even overgrown,) monster that can choke out our joy, our hope, our very life. My observation, based on conversations with many others who are going through or have gone through this experience, is that it never seems to happen without the seeds of disappointment being sown.
Do you recognize any of these thoughts?
“Someone has hurt you. Someone will hurt you. You have failed. No one notices you. Your life has added up to nothing. You are without real accomplishment, and running out of time.”
Sometimes these thoughts are almost audible, other times they linger as mere impressions, never voicing words. They don’t have to. Your overall impressions of life are adequate to make of your life anything from Heaven on Earth to a living Hell. And optimists are not immune. Pessimism and disappointment linger out there everywhere. And they will wait. One day, even we optimists will lower our guard. And if you’re unaware of the danger, as I was, you’ll be taken advantage of. Please don’t be victimized-consider yourself warned. The war is won or lost in the corridors of the mind.
“…And the truth shall make you free.” –John 8:32
I stood in front of the mirror getting ready to go visit with my counselor. It had been four weeks since the beginning of my treatment. This was a particularly difficult morning. It was gray and chilly. Even as I sculpted my hairstyle and adjusted my makeup, I prepared for pain, something that I had thought inevitable on a day like this. I cried out quietly, “Father, I don’t want to do this again.” Suddenly I heard something deep inside. “You don’t have to. Are you ready?” (Read: Wilt thou be whole?)
“Yes. Yes, I’m so ready. What must I do to be saved?”
“Only believe.”
“All right, Lord. I’m ready.”
Instantly, the pain subsided, and power came instead. I’d broken through. I’d grasped something vital in my recovery: I can choose.
In the months to follow, the power of choice became my bodyguard. The impact of my own thoughts upon my mood and life became a wondrous obsession. If I caught myself indulging in two or three negative cognitions in a row, I noticed that it was like descending a stairway. If, however, I was able to stop negative thinking (even if unable yet to replace it with positive thoughts) I was spared self-injury and celebrated by congratulating myself for climbing one more stair. This mysterious stairway had a bottom: hurt, anger, and eventual death. It, however, had no top. Joy, anticipation, and gratitude will just take one higher and higher, with absolutely no limits. An acquaintance coined my intentional stopping of negative thoughts “taking thoughts captive,” straight out of 1 Cor.10:5.
Journals, scrapbooks and chalkboards full of things that I was thankful for, calendars full of things that I was looking forward to, prayers that turned from “Help me!” to “Thank You!” all added up to one determined individual’s total and complete healing and cessation of medication in less than four months. Pain, in time, made way for joy. With sadness and fear shrinking, anticipation and motivation grew. The war indeed is won or lost in the mind. And after a vicious battle, I survive to stand and tell you that you can win!
Righting the course of our thought life can seem impossible at first – it’s a task that requires determination, faith, and tolerance for our weakness and failures along the way. But the prescription for fear really is faith. The prescription for pessimism really is joy. Even if we must use medication for a time to restore precious physical balance, permanent and total healing depends upon our restoring cognitive balance to our own lives. No one can do it for us-no one can do it but we ourselves. We must want it. And God will be faithful to help. He truly is our Healer!!!!
ps Since the writing of this article, I've seen so many reasons why it may be in God's will (at least to His use)for us to go through things like this. My ministry has completely changed because now when I see someone desperate, I KNOW, and am practically desperate to help. My art, music, and writing has changed forever because life is now more beautiful than ever, having emerged from such darkness.(And by the way, I'm working full time at them again, and God is so beautifully meeting our needs!) And best of all my relationship with the Lord has been blown wide open because of the tenderness and amazing comfort than He showed me as we walked through this valley together. Hard to say this, but I bless the day it all started, and tho I wouldn't want to go back, I really am grateful for it. Now I'm going to take my own advice and rest well, eat well, recognize stress as sin and casting cares as the only way to live. Oh, and when I hear the voice of the spirit of offense, it just talks to the hand...
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