Learning to Wait in the Depths of Depression, Part 3 of 4

“You’re married to the pastor, what do you have to be depressed about?” Nobody has ever said this to me but I can imagine it happening. “You’ve got a happy family, a nice home, a steady job, why are you complaining?” The voice in my head goes on and on and doesn’t contain an ounce of grace or compassion.

I get depressed. Sometimes I get really depressed, especially in the cold, winter months. I know what the dark, snowy days of winter do to me and I dread it. I start to feel like I’m sinking inside myself and I can’t get out. No matter how hard I try, I sink inward, down deep inside myself. I stop feeling much of anything and I watch life swirl on around me without fully engaging in it. I go through the motions of course, but I feel personally disconnected from family, friends, and life itself. It is extremely isolating.

I would prefer to feel something, anything really, but I don’t. When I am at this point in my journey with depression, I feel like a fraud because, all the while I am battling to claw my way back out of the depths of my mind, I am still smiling, still going through the motions of my life. Nobody knows that on the inside I am isolated and untouched by all the turmoil of life that swirls around me.

Sometimes I wonder why nobody can see what I am experiencing. Am I really that good of an actor? “If no one can see I’m struggling, maybe I’m not. Maybe I’m just crazy. That’s probably true. I just need to get on with it.” That’s what I start hearing inside my head. Maybe it’s good advice, except, I can’t get on with it. I’m lost somewhere inside myself and finding my own way out is not an option.

When I get depressed I can commiserate with David calling out to God in the Psalms. I know God is listening, hearing my cries, seeing my despair, but I am still lost and calling on Him to show me the way out. “Save me, O God! For the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in deep mire, where there is no foothold; I have come into deep waters, and the flood sweeps over me. I am weary with my crying out; my throat is parched. My eyes grow dim with waiting for my God.” (Psalm 69:1-3)

Even though no one can see how I’m feeling, I know that my depression impacts my family, my relationships, and my involvement in the two churches where my husband pastors. This is where things tend to get even worse. I start to heap guilt on top of depression. I feel like I’m letting everyone down, including my husband, my daughter, the people we serve in our churches, and the students that I teach at my job.  None of these people gets the whole of me when I feel depressed, because I don’t have it to share.

The more I think about the impacts of my depression, the more guilt I feel. It is a vicious cycle out of which I cannot pull myself. Depression causes guilt and guilt causes me to feel more depressed. I try so hard to dig myself out because I like to be in charge. I don’t want to admit that I can’t do one solitary thing to help myself, but it is here, when I reach my lowest point, that I realize the one thing, the best thing, I can do is to hand everything over to God.

It is so easy for me to forget that it is only when I let go and wait on the Lord that I am renewed. I can never do it myself. Isaiah 40:31 says, “but they who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles, they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.” I have learned how important it is to wait. God in his goodness will lift me out of my despair, but I must wait on him rather than relying on my own strength.

It is only through God’s amazing and unchanging grace that I am able to rise up out of the depths of darkness. In the second part of my story, I will focus on some things that have helped me in my battle against depression. Yes, the battle is hard, but as the psalmist says, “Weeping may tarry for the night but joy comes with the morning.” (Psalm 30:5b)