Shaun,
At best I am horrible at communicating about myself
Especially when it is ‘unknown’.
So, it can be assumed that the more painful it is the worse the communication will be.
It would be okay to say ‘Okay she is a horrible communicator therefore I better sit tight for awhile and muster up some patience.’
This is not about us.
This is not about you.
This is something that I have fought for a long time.
Something that is coming to a head.
Something that is scaring me.
Something that is a deep thorn in my heart.
Something that is unbelievably painful.
It makes me doubt my faithfulness.
My trust.
My life.
My Christianity.
I have been taught that a person can not feel the things I feel and still be a Christian.
At least not a good God-fearing Christian.
Something that I have no answers for.
No alternatives.
No encouragement.
No relief from.
You are a good husband.
You are a good father.
You have done all that you can.
This is not about you.
Sit and read the lines.
The evidence.
Then tell me that I’m a mess.
That this is my issue.
And I will agree.
Then tell me that I am shitty at communicating.
And I will agree.
I scream for help.
I am a shitty communicator.
But this issue is more important right now
Than my communication issue
This is not about my friendships
I work hard at my friendships
This is about my life.
Learning how to live my life.
How to have life.
Shaun's response:
I was always one of those self empowered idealist who thought depression was for the weak minded, assuming that it was something acquired by some traumatic experience or an emotional default for feeling “the blues.” It would seem natural then that I thought anti-depressants were a way of escaping the past or avoiding real life, which is filled with disappointments and moments of genuine sadness. My experience with depression had been defined by a two hour kids in the hall movie called “Brain Candy.” In the movie everyone gets on the new happy pill called “glee-ming X” to wash, not their depression, but their depressing moments from life altogether. Similarly, I seemed to confuse depressing moments with a very real clinical depression. Two months of marriage quickly disillusioned all of these assumptions of something I knew absolutely nothing about. I was suddenly aware that my wife was battling something she couldn’t see, couldn’t control, and couldn’t understand objectively when it was her own mind she was fighting. It was a full year before I understood that her condition was not about something she did or didn’t do, or something the right answers could fix. I was always beating myself up for not having the right answers or not doing the right thing, and then I would lash out at her when she didn’t respond to my efforts. Finally, when she wrote me this letter I understood that it wasn’t about me! In fact it was hurtful and even insulting that I always made it about me. It was then that I realized she wasn’t fighting some metaphysical issue, but a biological one. It occurred to both of us that depression was like any other disability that ravages the human body. We finally understood that the fall touches everything, including our minds. Depression is a product of the fall, not a product of Sember’s fallen nature. In other words it wasn’t a result of her fallen actions but a result of a curse which touches all of us in different ways. Repentance wasn’t the solution, but treating it so that she could be faithful where God had put her was. I finally understood that anti-depressants were a God-send which enabled Sember to be faithful day to day. If it takes a lifetime of anti-depressants to give her that chance, then praise God!
I am processing. It is good.
It is very difficult for someone to live with real clinical depression without treatment - and sometimes even difficult with treatment. Not just the depression part, but sometimes family members - husbands, parents, etc., just don't understand, and they make it extremely difficult in all circumstances. I am sorry that your wife suffers through something that is so challenging, but I am glad that you have come to understand it more - that is a true blessing.
I admire your ability to be so exposed...This is not just to say something trite for the sake of encouragement but because I can identify with each word written. I feel trapped and have retreated into my own mind fighting this battle alone. It is good to be reminded that although one person cannot help me out of this I do know there are others that experience what I am going through....Thank you.
Leda: Think all you want and ask all you want. It IS good. I am praying for you and your other half.
Beth and Amber: Thank you for your honesty. I have so much to say that it is turning into an embarrassingly long comment. So perhaps I will place another post on the topic. Yes, it is lonely, but remember that God holds you in His hands.
Depression is one part of the brokenness of this sad world that is beyond words, though yours did a good job of expressing its reality. So many religious people imagine their faith is like a magic wand curing all ills when the fact of the matter is that their brain chemistry is simply different. And so they say things to be helpful and only make things worse, instead. And so the brokenness goes even deeper. As someone who knows the grace of anti-depressants, I also know that the grace that the two of you display in your relationship is one of those rare moments of wholeness in the brokenness. Good for you.
Oh, man. That was hard. And yet beautiful. Why is authenticity like that? And why are we prepared to find brokeness in our physical bodies, but not in our minds and emotions, or our chemistry? I am so thankful that Jesus has his powerful grip on me and not the other way around. For how would any of us hang on?
I think the two of you together portray a bit of the grace we all long for.
I'm certainly touched. Thank you! My friend's wife suffers from clinical depression too. That's a hard thing. God bless you all!
thank you.
"This is about my life.
Learning how to live my life.
How to have life."
i love these last words, and your husbands response.
Have hope. We are created in the image of God, and thus we are 3 in 1.... BODYMINDSPIRIT ... one cannot be affected without impacting the others, either for health or disability. Yes depression is physical, and the measurement of neurotransmitters is available to prove this to the skeptical (available from the most progressive physicians); but so too it is mental as our thoughts can transiently control our neurotransmitter levels ; but so too it is spiritual that the alienation we experience from God as a result of our fall (BODYMINDSPIRIT) and it's result and expresion as SIN will cause "our bones to dry up" causing habits ... carb loading... that exacerbate the symptoms and further imbalance and waste the neurotransmitters needed to be well of mind. No it is not simple, but it reminds us that Christ came to save the whole of us and that he came in body and suffered and desires to relieve us of that suffering. Biochemistry is cause and effect of a grand complexity... so much more so is the cause and effect of our spiritual rebellion and it's protean effects on our humanity. Sem, thank you for so beautifully demonstrating the interconnectedness of our created selves.