This is the thing: I am doing "fine" on a certain level. It has been a busy and fun weekend. It's good to be involved with different activities and see people. Really, I enjoy it. I don't need to put on some great act of deception.
Still, this is coping. This is "getting along." Sometimes we do this to hide from ourselves the fact that we need help. That's not good. Often, however, we find ways to "get along" because this is the best we can do in a situation.
This is coping. It does not mean that Depression has gone away. It means we are living with it.
Still, this is coping. This is "getting along." Sometimes we do this to hide from ourselves the fact that we need help. That's not good. Often, however, we find ways to "get along" because this is the best we can do in a situation.
This is coping. It does not mean that Depression has gone away. It means we are living with it.
How strange it is to be a human being. We can stay on the surface of our own psychological awareness. We can even choose to do this, and sometimes we have to in order to survive... in order to live.
Living with Depression.
When you see us, we may be "fine," but we are "walking on the surface" and the surface is an eggshell already full of cracks and always in danger of breaking under our feet. We have developed our survival skills, however, so that we have our eyes on the nearest secure spots and we have learned how to jump to them before the next crack sucks us down.
When you see us, we may be "fine," but we are "walking on the surface" and the surface is an eggshell already full of cracks and always in danger of breaking under our feet. We have developed our survival skills, however, so that we have our eyes on the nearest secure spots and we have learned how to jump to them before the next crack sucks us down.
You don't see any of this.
Often we're not conscious of it ourselves, especially if we've gotten good at it from years of practice. We notice it only in the "in-between times" when the fatigue comes and we try to rest (or sleep) but we feel like ghosts in a world of ghosts. Everything we've been doing with so much exhausting effort shrinks and dissolves. All the words are just noise that fades.
We look at the present moment and our loved ones and the tasks of the day, and everything is evanescent, beyond our reach, lacking solidity. Or perhaps we are the ones who are fading? In my book I described it as "like watching a video of the place where I used to be alive."
Standing sharp, cutting us, however, are all the memories of the things we've screwed up. We fear that this is what defines us. But this is not the same thing as a temptation in the moral sphere. It is more like the overwhelming nature of physical pain. It doesn't present itself as an option of free choice, but as a suffering to be endured.
It is possible, in Depression, to know--objectively--that the distortion of perception and emotion do not represent reality. They are a suffering caused by a complex disease, exacerbated by factors that are beyond our control. It is a great benefit to know this. But it doesn't make Depression go away.
Depression is not a sin. It is not our fault. Let us be clear: Depression, in itself, does not belong to the category of ethics; or perhaps I should say it is essentially no more of an ethical problem than heart disease or kidney disease or Parkinson's.
It is a problem of suffering.
Suffering, of course, presents moral challenges. It is inevitably accompanied by various temptations to discouragement, self-pity, resentment, denial, envy, and despair.
Depression appears to provide a conducive environment to moral temptations to choose discouragement, to choose to give up. The tempter, as we know, takes advantage of available opportunities, as do the inclinations of our broken humanity. Our freedom, however diminished our responsibility may be, does not always do well in the midst of these storms. But freedom, especially through the mysterious working of grace, can choose well, or rise up through sorrow and try again. We can choose to live for truth, goodness, and beauty in reality, to trust in God, to move foward in our journey, even when we are suffering from Depression.
But we cannot cure Depression or make it go away through an act of free choice. Let me repeat that: We cannot cure Depression or make it go away through an act of free choice.
It is not a freely chosen condition, nor is it the consequence of evil choices. It is an affliction. It is an impairment that we have not chosen. That means that we can choose well, even in the darkness, even seemingly against the pain.
It is possible to endure this affliction of darkness and remember that we have value, that we matter. It is possible to grow with understanding and solidarity, to cope through medication and therapy, and even to find healing (or some measure of healing) and to thrive through a mysterious patience and an enlarged compassion.
There is hope. Never give up.
We look at the present moment and our loved ones and the tasks of the day, and everything is evanescent, beyond our reach, lacking solidity. Or perhaps we are the ones who are fading? In my book I described it as "like watching a video of the place where I used to be alive."
Standing sharp, cutting us, however, are all the memories of the things we've screwed up. We fear that this is what defines us. But this is not the same thing as a temptation in the moral sphere. It is more like the overwhelming nature of physical pain. It doesn't present itself as an option of free choice, but as a suffering to be endured.
It is possible, in Depression, to know--objectively--that the distortion of perception and emotion do not represent reality. They are a suffering caused by a complex disease, exacerbated by factors that are beyond our control. It is a great benefit to know this. But it doesn't make Depression go away.
Depression is not a sin. It is not our fault. Let us be clear: Depression, in itself, does not belong to the category of ethics; or perhaps I should say it is essentially no more of an ethical problem than heart disease or kidney disease or Parkinson's.
It is a problem of suffering.
Suffering, of course, presents moral challenges. It is inevitably accompanied by various temptations to discouragement, self-pity, resentment, denial, envy, and despair.
Depression appears to provide a conducive environment to moral temptations to choose discouragement, to choose to give up. The tempter, as we know, takes advantage of available opportunities, as do the inclinations of our broken humanity. Our freedom, however diminished our responsibility may be, does not always do well in the midst of these storms. But freedom, especially through the mysterious working of grace, can choose well, or rise up through sorrow and try again. We can choose to live for truth, goodness, and beauty in reality, to trust in God, to move foward in our journey, even when we are suffering from Depression.
But we cannot cure Depression or make it go away through an act of free choice. Let me repeat that: We cannot cure Depression or make it go away through an act of free choice.
It is not a freely chosen condition, nor is it the consequence of evil choices. It is an affliction. It is an impairment that we have not chosen. That means that we can choose well, even in the darkness, even seemingly against the pain.
It is possible to endure this affliction of darkness and remember that we have value, that we matter. It is possible to grow with understanding and solidarity, to cope through medication and therapy, and even to find healing (or some measure of healing) and to thrive through a mysterious patience and an enlarged compassion.
There is hope. Never give up.
