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!
