Depression: an attack on my soul

Depression is a silent drain on the soul. How do I fight an enemy that attacks me from my soul outward?

​Something my husband discovered after we got married and started living together is that when I get sleepy, I am incredibly clumsy. I literally start to walk into walls and trip over my own feet. I remember one night, I dropped my cup three times in a row just trying to take it out of the cupboard.  When I’m struggling with depression, I feel like that’s how my life operates. Throughout my day there are a lot of mental bumps and crashes that slow me down. I find it so much harder to do simple things. When it used to take 20 minutes to meal plan for the week, I now sit staring at the paper for 45 minutes. Something as routine as getting my kids ready to run an errand, requires me to emotionally hype myself up and often ends with frustration and snapping at my kids.  

To be completely transparent, depression is an odd conversation for me. On the one hand, I no longer feel awkward about owning that it’s part of my struggle. I understand that I didn’t cause it and I think it’s important for Christians to start breaking stereotypes about mental health. However, the part of depression that I’m not as open about, the part that I still wrestle with guilt over is the lethargy that affects every part of my life. So many days, I literally have nothing to show for my time. It makes me self-conscious, ashamed, guilty. I feel like I was wasteful and a huge disappointment to my family. I didn’t do anything of value. In a world that runs on to-do lists and checklists, how do I measure up when nothing is checked off beyond the daily requirements of caring for my children?

The fatigue is not limited to my physical world. My spiritual walk slows to a crawl, and in some seasons, if I’m being brutally honest, it slows to a standstill. I struggle with having quiet times regularly. I wrestle with focusing on the Scripture I’m reading, with staying awake while I am praying, with praying for anyone else but myself. Depression truly dampens my ability to think at the same level as when I’m well- even when I’m thinking about the Lord. I loathe anxiety, but in reality, depression in some areas is a harder force for me to fight because at least my anxiety has driven me to the Lord. With depression, I feel farther away from the Lord and have less of a desire to get back.  It’s not as if I’m unaware of what’s happening. As my guilt reminds me so often, I know what I should be doing, but fail at following through so many times.

Knowing the truth in my head doesn’t solve the depression in my DNA.
 
Depression is a silent drain on the soul.
How do I fight an enemy that attacks me from my soul outward?
 
In 2019 with the added layer of anxiety, it’s been too much for me to pretend that I can do everything I used to. I simply can’t do all the things I normally can when my brain is healthy. For the first time, I’m finally seeing in myself the disconnect between what I know is true and what I practice. What I mean is this- I wouldn’t expect myself to do all the tasks while fighting pneumonia. I would pace myself. Rest when I needed to. Take my medicine. I would trust that God is not vindictive, and He will be with me in the rest rather than judging me for the rest. Yet, why when I’m dealing with a mental struggle, do I expect to perform at the same level as when I’m healthy? For the first time, I’m finally starting to personally apply the truth that I’ve told so many others. It’s a real struggle and a slow healing.
 
So, in this fourth round of depression in my life, I’m letting myself take the nap. I’m finally being honest with my husband and saying “That sounds like a lot today. I don’t think I can do it.” I’m lowering the expectations for myself- even in my quiet times. In this season, I’m learning that God isn’t silently judging me for my humanity, weakness, and frailty. He’s with me now as He always is. This season of almost necessary “stillness” isn’t angering Him. He’s being still with me.
 
Tonight as I was writing this, I’m sitting under a lap quilt I made for my grandmother when I was just a kid, and it struck me that this quilt represents a time of stillness.   It was my first time trying to quilt and I wanted to give it to my favorite person- my grandma, because she spent much of her days in bed due to pain in her back and legs. I always considered it a special treat to be the grandchild that was invited back to her room to sit with her because I had all of her attention.  As I reflect back, I now recognize how hard it must have been for her to be isolated from so much of the family so many times. She certainly would have preferred to bake her infamous Christmas cookies, go to Christmas Eve services, and take her grandkids on a walk in the snow, but she couldn’t. She was in bed.
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 Despite being still for so many of her days, however, she was at peace with it. Her eyes still twinkled from her place in bed. She was content because she knew that no matter who came in and out of that room, One was always there. Always beside her. Always keeping her company. Many times while I laid on the bed across from her, she would grow excited, start to smile, and she would tell me about Jesus, how much she loved Him, and how excited she was to be with Him in heaven. I remember being surprised at how much she genuinely looked forward to heaven! Now I know why. Immanuel was her reality. Her Present. God was with her here, on this earth, in her stillness, and she cherished that more than anything.  She couldn’t wait to experience His presence in her forever home for eternity.
 
May I learn to be that kid across from my Grandma again, laying under the same blanket all these years later. May I learn to embrace Him in my stillness, just like she did. When I’m laying down because of the emotional pain or the physical exhaustion, let me be at peace because I know Christ is there. Laying across from me. Knowing my heart. Knowing my pain. Knowing my exhaustion. Not asking me to “do” but accepting my stillness. Let me then be able to accept it myself.