The Deep End [karen]

My chin was itchy from the place where the tears had fallen from my face. Depression was nipping at my heels again, and I was afraid. At least it was a safe place to fall apart. After nagging and probably embarrassing him with my corrective whispers at a party, I had had the moment of realization that sucks so much: the real reason that I'm finding so many flaws in him is that I feel really, really crappy about myself. I pulled the car into a mostly empty parking lot and collapsed into tears and sobs. He somehow forgot about my lousy treatment of him and put his arms around me, understanding that the demons in my head were a lot bigger than the tiff we were having a few moments before.

I don't know if you've walked with depression before, but if you have you know it's not a pleasant journey. I discovered that depression had been following me around about 3 years ago. At first it was a relief, realizing that I wasn't going crazy. But it took awhile to admit it. I would say things like "The counsellor says I have depression." After awhile I was finally able to get the actual words "I am depressed" out. Since then, I've learned a few other things...

It's not what you think it is.
Depression is not merely being sad, or what I called being "depressed" when I went through an angsty breakup at the age of 14. For me it involved a lot of fear, anxiety, stress and of feeling very, very alone. I was sure that no one really understood how I was feeling. Most of all, there was this unsettling sense that I just wasn't myself.

More people deal with it than you know.
After opening up to people about what I was going through, I found a lot of people who had also gone through similar struggles. I told a friend that I was in counseling, and she said "Me too!" and had heard of 3 other people that week who were also getting counseling. Curiously, I've found that it is an amazing connecting point. When you open up about your brokenness, people are very compassionate. And it helped me so much when I realized I really wasn't alone, and that there were others who felt some of the same things I had been feeling and that they had survived.

People who love you can save your life.
A roommate walked with me through the whole scary process when I first discovered it was depression that I was dealing with. We talked about whether or not medication something I should try. We talked about whether the cause of my turmoil was my situation, character flaws or if it was my brain chemistry. Ultimately, she wasn't phased by me and my patheticness. She loved and accepted the parts of me that I couldn't love or accept. Two years later when I had a brutal relapse into depression, two other friends helped me through one of the toughest summers of my life. They let me stay at their house, mostly sitting on their couch watching TV, because I couldn't face anything else. They accepted me as I was and even genuinely seemed to want me there, which helped a whole heck of a lot. And then of course, there's my fiance, who gave me the space and time to figure things out when I needed to. He's also attentive when I tell him of the struggles in my mind and he encourages me to do things that help me feel better: being creative, exercising, and simply getting out of bed when I'd rather lay around and feel sorry for myself.

The ups are good, the downs are scary.
I go through seasons when I feel like myself again, when I'm comfortable with who I am and confident in my abilities. There are also seasons that are reminiscent of the bad times. I've been trying to teach myself to deal with negative emotions. It's difficult. When I get stressed, anxious, or down, I immediately relate it to a time when those negative emotions were the only ones I felt. I have to remind myself that feelings of stress, and sadness are normal, human emotions and that everyone deals with them, and that it can be normal and good for me to respond to my circumstances with those emotions.

I wish I could say I have it figured out, or completely under control. Mostly, it is under control. I hope that I won't have to be on antidepressants forever, but who knows. It's things like this that help me remember to keep seeking, to keep asking for help. I know that it's good to realize that "sometimes you can't make it on your own." For now, I'll try to be open enough with my broken parts so that others don't feel ashamed of theirs, and so that we can find strength in each other and in our God. And I'll keep dealing with the itchy chin moments as they come.