It's Time to Have Frank Talk about Mental Illness

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Nicholas L. Laning

I used to be a big fan of the show ”24”.  Like many, I watched to see just how far Jack Bauer would go to save the day, again, again, and again, all without leaving the city limits of Los Angeles.  The writers of the show knew exactly what they were doing.  An episode would end with Jack apprehending the guy that we all thought was the mastermind behind the terrorist attack at the beginning of the show.  Bloodied, bruised, and aching from not eating, sleeping, nor peeing for the last twelve hours, Jack finally has a look of reprieve on his face.  The famous clock ticking sound would start, letting us know the episode was almost over.  In those final five seconds, without fail, you’d find out that the guy Jack just apprehended wasn’t the actual mastermind. 

We’d see a shot of Jack’s grandmother talking on the phone.  “Everything’s set in motion,” she’d say, lisping through her dentures.  “Yes.  No.  Yes.  They took the bait.  They have no idea it was me, Grandma Bauer, who planned this whole thing.  Yes.  Jack will pay for not eating all of his vegetables when he was a kid, little ingrate! Bwahahaha!” 

Ding.  The screen goes black, and all of us watching yell, “Nooooooo!  Not Grandma Bauer!  I knew it! (No, we didn’t)” Then, over the next ten episodes, we cringe in frustration as Jack can’t piece it together.  At one point Jack comes to Grandma Bauer’s house to hide from the cops, who are looking for Jack now, as he has of course been framed for the attack.  They found his fingerprints on a piece of the bomb.  Jack knows that it had to be someone close to him who lifted his fingerprint to put it on the bomb.  But who could possibly betray him?  He bursts through Grandma Bauer’s screen door bleeding and bruised, still hasn’t peed, and scours the kitchen for a flashlight and a butter knife, all he needs to fend off the machine-gun toting terrorists.  Jack looks over at her table and thinks aloud, “Why are all of the ingredients for napalm strewn across Grandma Bauer’s kitchen table.”  We see him thinking for a second.  We hold our breath.  Surely he will finally get it!  “She must be cleaning the bathroom,” he concludes and goes on. 

Whap!  We slap ourselves in frustration and scream at the screen, “Come on!  He’s fluent in twenty languages, can disarm a bomb with a toothbrush, a fried egg, and the latest issue of GQ, can tell if everyone else on the planet is lying simply by smelling them, but he can’t seem to piece this one together?  Stupid show!  They’ve gone too far.  I can’t watch anymore.  When’s the next episode?” 

We’ve seen this concept play out hundreds of times throughout TV shows, movies, books, Comic Books, all of it.  No matter how many times we’ve seen this scenario play out, it still irks us.  We’re still talking to the screen.  Okay, maybe I’m the only one actually talking to the screen, though I doubt it.  Still, it frustrates us to no end.  Why?  Because we can’t seem to understand how someone can’t see what is right in front of his or her face. 

Why can’t Jack allow the information to reveal the obvious truth?  Why? 

The answer is because sometimes the truth is so awful that it is easier for us to choose to not believe it… until it hits us in the face.

We see it in real life all the time.  Teachers deal with this on a very frequent basis.  As a subtitute teacher for years, I can’t tell you how many times I have seen parents simply not accept the testimony of not just one, but several grown teachers that testify to the hideous acts of their child.  Instead of getting frustrated at the child, they get mad at the teacher.  Even if they believe the kid did the awful things the teacher's said the kid did, which they usually don’t, then by golly, somehow it’s the teacher’s fault they did it.  The truth that their kid isn’t perfect, that perhaps, though not necessarily, they are bad parents, is not acceptable.  It is easier it seems, to believe a lie instead.

Not only do we reject unpleasant truths as individuals, but we do it as a collective too. 

You probably don’t know the story of Witold Pitecki.  You should.  Absolutely incredible, true story.  In order to gather intelligence, he volunteered to enter the Nazi extermination camp of Auschwitz.  For almost three years he gathered intelligence and helped lead the underground resistance inside the camp.  He would send out reports of the horrors he discovered, that the Nazis were not simply interning, but exterminating the Jews by the hundreds of thousands in that camp alone.  Frustrated by a lack of appropriate response from the Allied forces, he escaped.  He went back to his superiors in London to try to convince them in person of their need to intervene.  He shared in great detail the devastating news, and gave some very simple solutions.  Bombing runs were already going on far past Auschwitz.  Just bombing a section of the wall, and it would give many a chance to escape.  Or better yet, bomb the crematorium, or the gas chamber.  It would have taken many months to rebuild them.  Yet, they rejected Witold’s testimony.  Why?  For the simple fact that it was too horrible to believe, evidence be damned.  Witold had to be exaggerating.  As a result, nothing was done to help, and hundreds of thousands of people, maybe more, were exterminated.

None of us is good at accepting the truth when it isn’t likeable, nevertheless full on detestable.  I know this first hand.

I don’t remember the exact date.  It was some time during the fall of my junior year in high school, in 1997.  The final bell rang.  I jogged my way out the side door of New Braunfels High School, waving and high-fiving (fist bumping hadn’t been invented yet) friends as I made my way to the parking lot.  It was one of those days where the air was cold, but the sun was bright and hot.  Whichever side of you faced the sun would eventually begin to roast, and whichever side of you faced away from the sun would freeze.  The leafless trees cast intricate, hauntingly beautiful shadows.  It was a beautiful, crisp, fall afternoon.  I hopped in my car, turned on a movie soundtrack, and headed home. 

Everything in the world was absolutely fine.  My life was good.

Not but a couple months earlier, I had spent the majority of the summer living one of the greatest adventures of my life helping my missionary uncle in Moscow, Russia.  I got to take in the immense beauty of Red Square.  I ate all sorts of new foods, both delectable and disgusting.  I got to ride the midnight train to St. Petersburg.  I got to experience “white nights,” where the sun never fully sets.  It was one of the best times of my life.  To cap it off, on the way back, I got to spend two weeks with my parents in Switzerland. 

The first night in Switzerland, I stared out of my hotel room across Lake Geneva.  The sight was so beautiful, and my heart was so full, I can remember thinking, “I could die right now, even though I am only sixteen years old, and I would have lived a full life.  Thank you, God, for the life you have given me.”

Yes, life was surely good.

Back to the day things changed.  When I got home form school that crisp, autumn day, the house was empty.  I had beaten everyone else home.  Swiftly, I walked to my room and slung my backpack onto my bed.  A little downtime was in order before everyone came home and the house got loud again.  Wanting to listen to some music, I began to walk around my bed to my stereo.  I never made it.

In a single instant, everything changed.  Something hit me.  This feeling.  It was like an invisible wire from hell had shot through space, latched onto my heart and brain, sucked out everything good, and swapped it out with pure, unadulterated emotional agony.  I dropped to the floor, and I stayed there for the next several hours, completely unable to move.  The only movements I could muster were to blink my eyes and breathe.

It wasn’t that my body wouldn’t physically respond.  It was that the emotional pain was so full, so evil, and so complete, that I couldn’t find a reason to ever do anything ever again. 

This is the part in the story where I would tell you that I discovered that something was indeed wrong, went to my parents, they told me I was depressed, and starting the process of healing.  I would tell you that… if that were true.  It isn’t.  Truth is I didn’t say a thing.  Truth is I spent the next year and a half telling myself nothing was wrong, despite the fact that all I could think about was how much I wished I were dead, that I'd never existed.

“How is that possible?” you ask? 

Easy.  Like most people, I didn’t believe depression was real. 

I couldn’t understand how a person could be fine one day, then for no apparent reason, not fine the next.  I couldn’t accept the reality of the Abyss’ persistence that you couldn’t pull yourself out of it like any other feeling.  Also, depression is a mental illness.  Mental illnesses are what crazy people have, and I wasn’t crazy.  I was completely sane.  I just couldn’t stop feeling like everything was awful. 

Just like Jack and his grandmother (wink), or the Allied commanders regarding Auschwitz, I made things worse because I couldn’t accept the awful truth.  These battles begin with acceptance.  You can’t fight a battle you don’t believe exists.  The longer you spend rejecting the truth, the more time you give you or your loved one free reign for the depression to wreak havoc on your or their brain.   

Here’s what did happen…

For the next year and a half after that terrible day, I looked for any other cause for my pain that wasn’t depression.  I was aware of depression, though vaguely.  I didn’t even research depression, because I just “knew” that it had an external, easy to explain cause.  Once the cause was found, I could deal with it and be ok.  Every inch of my memory was combed over again and again, to the point of obsession.  Each detail of life was dissected to the nth degree.  There had to be some outside cause.  Somewhere. 

Perhaps my faith was just too weak.  Maybe I was being punished for some great sin.  Maybe something really tragic happened to me as a child, and I had subconsciously forgotten it.  Only thing I could recall was that I got picked on as a kid, but that is pretty common. 

The confusion and mystery behind the pain drove me to the brink of my sanity.  No good reason for the pain’s existence could be found.  As so many people would later shove in my face… my life, on the outside, was pretty wonderful. 

My family isn’t perfect.  Yet, for humans, they are as good as they get.  I didn’t have to deal with the pain of divorce or abuse.  The only major death I had to deal with was that of my grandfather when I was ten.  That was very difficult for me, but I feel like everything felt and thought then was normal and healthy.  I missed him and was sad.  Pretty simple.  I wasn’t particularly popular or anything, but I had plenty of good friends.  I am tall, reasonably athletic, and have many talents.  On top of all that, I had the affection of the girl I loved.  I was, by all accounts, including my own, blessed.  And yet, the pain not only stayed, it grew in power.

I blamed and dismembered every piece of my life that could be blamed until only one thing was left.  The girl I loved was the last thing.  Up until that point, I wouldn’t allow her to be touched by it.  I knew she was a good thing.  She was everything I had wanted.  Having exhausted all other avenues of blame, I reluctantly concluded that it had to be my relationship with her that had caused it.  I broke up with her.  Not only did my pain not cease, it grew ten fold.  That decision haunted me for years. 

Only after that did I finally start to recognize that perhaps there was something unique at work; that maybe there was something wrong on the inside, something "uncommon".  Desperate, my mother took me to a psychiatrist who pretty much just looked at me and said, “Yep.  You’re depressed.”  It was nothing but obvious to a trained eye. 

I tell you all this because I want you to know that I understand the difficulty in accepting the awful truth of depression.  So forcefully did I reject it’s existence that I prolonged my stay in it.  There can be no condescension in me toward those who struggle to grasp the reality of depression, for that would be the pot calling the kettle black. 

I tell you all of this because I don’t want you to make the mistakes that I made, that those around me made.  I was so ignorant, so prejudiced, that I spent a year and half wasting my time in absolute hell.  All I had to do was recognize that depression was real.  That’s it.  Or, had my parents not been so ignorant as well, they could have started the process of healing too.  Heck, it took my brother years before he finally felt like what was going on was more than me just being weak, seeking attention.

Think of those Allied commanders.  Their inability to accept the hard truth kept them inert.  Here’s a scary thought.  Had Hitler not invaded other countries and started the war, it is entirely possible that he could have carried out his “Final Solution” to completion.  The war was fought to stop Hitler from trying to take over the world.  Stopping the exterminations was merely a side outcome of the war, not its objective. 

In that same vein, too many people have been lost to depression when it is possible to overcome, as I have, and so many others have.  So many people do as I did, and just keep on living in misery, because they are unable to accept the reality of depression. So many people miss out on getting to be the difference maker in what will likely be the greatest battle of their depressed loved one's life. 

Some don’t keep on living in misery.  Tens of thousand decide it is too much, and kill themselves.  Some of the mentally ill go a step further.  It's not enough to stop living.  They must make a statement, perhaps a last desperate cry, or a middle finger to a world of disappointment and pain.  Perhaps in this final act of absurdity something will change.  They rip away not only their own lives, but the lives of others in the process.  

Hear me now, in both cases of suicide and homicide, ultimately, only the one who does the act is responsible.  Over a hundred million people in the world today live with depression, and do neither of those sickeningly selfish acts.  We don't take the blame for other people's hideous acts.  What we do take the blame for is our own actions.  Did our pride get in the way of receiving the truth?  Our fear?  

Being an Ostrich doesn't work.  You may not see the lion chasing you down, but that doesn't mean the Lion is not there.  Depression is real whether you like it or not, believe it or not.  The difference will only be in your ability to respond, to love, to encourage yourself if you are depressed, or the loved one in your life who is depressed.  You can be the difference maker.  

Step one is the hardest, just believe.

Depression, Emotion, and Reason

There's much to talk about when talking about depression.  Sometimes it feels overwhelming.  I get to thinking that I might forget something.  Something important.  Something that'll make a difference.

Yet, in the end, though there's quite a bit to cover, most of it is just extra.  There are some things that are the core of the fight.  They're the things that make or break you.

Hear me now.  I'm going to share with you one thing that really can change the battle, and not just for depression.  The truth works for anyone any time.

Your feelings DO NOT always tell the truth.

That's it.  Sounds simple enough, but with that in mind I think you will start to see just how often it is you let your feelings, how often I let my feelings, dictate how we think.  That's why I don't even like to say the adage, "Well, you can't control other people, but you can only control yourself."

Nope.  I can even do that, at least not a hundred percent.  If so, I'd be the happiest man alive.  Truth is, feelings are bigger than we think in rational process.  Start talking to someone with an opposing worldview.  If you know your stuff well enough to decently defend your view, there will come a point where that other person will throw out the "I just" clause.  It's where all actual reasoning has played itself out, and taken you or them so far, but not to the end.  Faith is inevitable.  And that point, when reached, is when we all say, "Well, that may be so but I JUST cant believe that... or I just have to believe that... and the following is filled in with what was wrought from emotion, not pure reason.

Everybody struggles with this.  I do all the time.  Only, most of the time, feelings follow enough of a pattern that corresponds with the circumstances of life, that it is easier to trust them (and also to be deceived by them).

This is why depression is so dangerous.  Thing is, in depression, your feelings stop corresponding with life.  Your feelings don't corresponding, seemingly, with anything.  Feels like satan himself has your brain in his hands and he's squeezing the living daylights out of it.

It is here where we are really challenged to ask ourselves... just what are we to do with our emotions?  Because, it feels like all hope is lost, and not just for now, but forever.  It feels like happiness is a lie.  It's not that it will not come back.  It can't come back.  Your every emotion screams for your life to end, or at the least for you to curl up in a ball and cease to move, for what's the point of moving?

I'll tell you how I first responded to this challenge.  Like an idiot, that's how.  I took on the problem of my emotions of death and utter hopelessness clashing with the memories of life before depression , of joy and wonder and happiness, and the need to survive for those around me, by trying to simply deny the importance of emotions in general.

"Feelings don't matter," I'd say.  So many times did I say it that my soul started to change.  A numbness came that I am still trying to fend off these couple years removed from the brunt of it.  My heart still tries to shut down at every turn.  All pain causes the walls to go up, and to my own detriment.  Walls keep out good things as well as bad.

Healthy people do it too.  This is where we get sayings like, "Love is a decision."  Takes out those pesky, unpredictable feelings and gives us a sense of control.  Only, it's a lie.  Love has a decisive quality to it, but it is much more than just a decision, and everyone knows it.  Love is scary because it is somewhat out of our control.  That's just the way it is.

On the other hand, as I said, most people feel something and take it as book.  If something feels true, we are almost helpless to believe otherwise.  The compulsion to comply with our feelings is huge.  I think this is because of the good feelings, the ones we cling to.  When we feel them, we want them to be true so badly that we feel we need to believe all our feelings.  If this feeling led me to this wonderful place, then my feelings must be true, because I want this feeling to be real, not just a fluke.

Why can't feelings be like people?  Yes, this is a metaphor.  People are real.  Some lie, and some tell the truth.  Part of life is discerning between them.  To feel the need to trust all people, at the risk of denying the reality that some people do tell the truth, is just foolish.  You'll believe any lie that comes your way.  Well, feelings are the same way.  They are all real.  But some of them lie.

In depression, your feelings are very real.  Your feelings are valid.  I am not taking away the validity of your pain.  I am simply saying that what they pain is telling you, "that you'll never be happy again, that you're lost forever, so just end it," is not true.  It just isn't.  And if you really want to fight well, you need to start internalizing this and acting on it.

One of the biggest, if not the biggest turning point in my fight against depression was when I stopped denying the existence of my emotions, started validating the reality of my pain's existence, but then rejected the message it was sending me.  It's when i realized that admitting that a feeling is real does not mean that what it is saying to me is true, that things changed.  I just said, "Okay, you're there.  The pain is real.  I'm just not going to believe what it has to say any longer.  Life is good, no matter what my feelings say.  It will be good again.  It will."  And things did change, slowly.  For a long time I felt that sense of hopelessness and had to daily reject the message.  It was one of the hardest things I've ever done, and also one of the greatest.  Hope became real, because I didn't have to wait to feel something to be true for it to actually be true to me. My feelings no longer dictated reality.  They influenced, but no longer dictated.

And here I am, and I am no longer depressed.  I was right.  My hope was well founded.  What would have happend had I believed my feelings?  I'd be dead, that's what.

This is true for everyone.  Always know that what you feel is real, and is validated.  Then, have the wherewithal to discern whether or not your feelings are lying or telling you the truth.  Rejecting the lie of depression didn't make all other feelings lies.  That's impossible.  In order for love to be real, the feelings of depression had to be a lie.  Praise God they are.  Truth is you or your loved one can feel whole again.  Love is real.  Happiness is real.  Life is good.  People love you.  You are not a burden.  This will pass.  Whether you feel it or not, God is real, and He loves you, so much so that He didn't just stay above it all, but sent His only son to be a part of it.  He saved you and me.  That's the truth, feel it or not.

May God give you the strength to accept then rise above the emotions telling you that life isn't worth living.  May you press on toward the prize, and claim it.  Amen.

Hitting the Play Button in My Heart

Nicholas L. Laning

If you were to ask me when my depression ended, I would say a couple of years ago.  It is hard to give an exact moment, as there wasn't one.  My ascent out of depression was a long one.  It took years.

That said, I am still not untouched by my time in depression.  I find that I am still in this very long recovery process.  Slowly but surely I am becoming whole again.  By whole, I mean healthy.  I still have problems, and I still hurt, but there is healthy, normal hurting, then there is depression.

Something that has happened lately has been a reconnection with my past.  For those of you on the outside, I don't know if this will make sense.  To those of you who have or are battling depression, I think this will resonate.  It is as if my life got put on hold when my depression started.  The Nicholas that once existed almost stopped to be.  Perhaps a sliver remained, but only a sliver.  All in all I was gone.  I'd look in the mirror and see and feel nothing.  Just within the last couple of months I have been feeling the play button being hit on my heart again.  I look in pictures of me as a child and it finally hits me that really is me.  It is the same person.  Those pictures, sensations in my head weren't planted there, they were lived, experienced.  Again, to those of you who think this psychobabble, I am sorry.  It is not.  It is how my mind has dealt with such enormous pain.

It is something I never thought would happen ever again.  I never thought I'd ever connect with that kid in those pictures.  My childhood was lost.  Yes, we change in some ways.  However, I now see that I really am the same person as that kid.  I am not more me now than I was then, nor the other way around.  That was me then, and this is me now.  I am so excited to have those memories come back.  It is like a treasure chest that held me away during the storm is slowly opening up.  I wish it'd hurry up and just open, but it is taking time.  Slowly but surely.

I wanted to write this to encourage those who don't feel themselves, those of you who are staring in the mirror and feel and see nothing.  You feel dead inside.  You don't feel the warmth of your mother's touch, or the strength in your father's words, nor the kindness of a friend, nor beauty.  All are there, just not for you.  They can and will return.  I fought it for ten years straight, and thought I'd never come out the entire time.  I thought I was lost forever.  Yet, here I am writing you this.  It is coming back after a decade of hell and years of recovery.  So take heart!  Fight on!  Be brave, and remember that God is not lofty, far away.  He is here next to us, and came down and took part in all our pain that we might be saved.

John 3:16-20

16 "For God so loved the world,that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.  

17 For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him.  

18 Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe is condemned already, because he has not believed in the name of the only Son of God.  

19 And this is the judgment: the light has come into the world, and people loved the darkness rather than the light because their works were evil.  

20 For everyone who does wicked things hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his works should be exposed.  

21 But whoever does what is true comes to the light, so that it may be clearly seen that his works have been carried out in God."

What It Means to Be Strong

Nicholas L. Laning

Being strong is tough.  I know.  Duh.  The hardest part of the depression for those on the outside, is the same on the inside.  It isn't the intensity of the pain.  People handle so much for short bursts.  No.  For everybody involved, the hardest part is the relentlessness of the pain.  It does... not... stop.  For those suffering, the problem is obvious.  They hurt constantly.  For the loved ones trying to encourage, the problem is tricky, so tricky.

Ever since I came out of my depression, I have dealt with quite a few depressed people, and I have learned much about being on the other side.  What kills is that there is no equality in the relationship for that season.  What I mean by that is, when healthy, we expect our tone to be at least somewhat matched.  If someone acts off, says something awful, acts poorly, we get rightfully upset, and are hurt and let them know it.  However, with a depressed person you cannot do that.  You are not on equal footing.  It isn't fair that they get to be weak, to need you to be so strong for so long, to put up with so much.  Yet, it isn't fair that they are depressed and your not.  The shoe could have been, and may one day in fact be, on the other foot.  For this season, you will have to endure a lopsided relationship.  Not that you must let them be mean, but that in EVERY way you must be strong.  As frustrated and angry as you feel , you cannot lash out, or you will push them away.  If you must challenge, or rebuke, you must do this always with gentleness.  There is no leaning on this person.  No trade off moment where they carry you for a bit.  You'll have to let someone else who's healthy do that until the one depressed is redeemed.

I remember how my mother reacted at first to my depression.  Every time I talked about it she would cry and get angry.  She would be overwhelmed by my words, by my despair.  It drove me into seclusion for some time.  It was so dangerous to fight alone.  Over time, she learned the truth, that she had to be the strong one.  As unfair as it was, I was struggling too much for us to be equal.  She could either love me and be strong, or I would leave.  I had no strength to return.  It was not normal.  Even in the face of horrifying words from her beloved son, she was a rock.  Her and my father would put on the brave face, and find a way to encourage me, even when I lashed out in my pain.

Know that I am praying for you right now, both you whom are depressed, and those trying to encourage someone who is depressed.  

For the depressed, fight.  No one can carry you out.  You must fight, and fight hard!!!  Don't take advantage of those trying to help you.  Lean on them, but realize that your struggle, while it may give understanding to your actions, does NOT excuse them.  What you do in the midst of your struggle counts.  Relationships burned now will probably still be burned.  The consequences of life have not ceased for you.  I carry many scars from my actions in depression.  What I did mattered, and still is in effect.  




For all you loved ones, be strong.  As hard as it is, and it is hard, having been on both sides, it is not harder than what they are going through.  You have your whits about you.  You have your mind whole.  Use it, and be something transcendent in their lives.  Ultimately, none of this can be done apart from the grace of God.  He changes hearts and minds.


I am praying right now that God would grant us the wisdom to discern what is true, and the courage to fight for it once we see it, that we would never relent.  When we do, I pray that God would carry us.  He is the reason we live.  He is good.  To God be all glory.  In Jesus' name, amen.

Break Over

Nicholas L. Laning

I apologize for my absence from this blog.  It is not that I have forgotten this blog, and those I have been writing to, or intending to encourage.  My struggle is a human one, and I have needed to rest from the attack a bit.  Bit off more than I could chew for while, and got bitten in return. 

Not but a couple of months ago I set out to write book on encouraging people in depression.  My parents welcomed me at their house, a get away to focus on writing.  The plan was to hammer out the outline and a couple of chapters, enough to send out to a literary agent.  After one day, the truth hit me.  This is not a novel.  It is my life.  Talking about the concepts of depression is easy and painless enough.  For the most part, I can discuss it at great length with little or no relapse.  However, writing the book called upon me to do something I never do… not just recall and discuss the concepts, the ideas of depression and how to apply them, how to fight depression, but to recall my personal, actual, struggle with it.  Since I never do this, I was taken by surprise when, after just one day of inundating myself with recollection of the horrors of my stint in depression, I relapsed terribly. 

In the month or so since, a great many thoughts have arisen.  Can I do this?  Can I keep trying to fight this publicly?  There is surely a reason almost no one ever writes first hand stories of depression.  The battle has been left largely to outsiders, which is sadly, part of the reason why so many people struggle as I did to believe they are depressed.  I can’t put my finger on what it is exactly, but there is a certain language that only depressed people speak.  It isn’t our words, but the ideas behind them.  It is in the sharing of those ideas that the first trap of depression, that what we feel is completely unique, and thus to be fought alone, and without hope of recovery, continues on so strongly.  I read tons of books describing depression.  And while the words had some vague nearness to them, they rang hollow to me.  The person writing the description was writing because they had a PhD in psychology or counseling or bio-chemistry, or theology, or whatever.  What they couldn’t convey was that another person, chiefly themselves, had ever experienced, had shared my pain.  And so I went on, falling into that classic depression trap of thinking that my pain was SOOOOOO unique.  No one else had ever felt how I did.  It justified so many things.  I could mope, whine, be angry at God, whatever I wanted, because I had been given a burden no one else had.  Every person I have ever talked to who is depressed has thought this, and had to overcome it.  The number one way they were able to do so was through someone else connecting with them, revealing their shared bond through a pain that is not only not unique to one person, but shared by hundreds of millions across the globe.  The irony is that almost all of them are doing so in the shadows, trying to duke it out with the biggest foe they have ever faced, blindfolded, legs and arms tied, mouth covered, ears plugged.  They have nothing.

So, it is my desire to do what I can to return to the fight.  Pushing myself so hard in it that I relapse does no one good, as that doesn’t comfort anyone to know that I am not all that much better off than they are.  I am better off.  My depression subsided very quickly with a couple days of patient hope.  This is in stark contrast to the incessant hell millions face every day. 

Let us continue on in the fight.  We may not fight perfectly.  We may fall.  We may stumble.  Yet, we continue on in the fight.  We have hope in our redemption.  To God be all glory.  Amen.

Does God Hate Me?

Nicholas L. Laning

Does God hate me?  Most of us, if not all of us, have wondered this, usually when things are going rough, when things aren't going our way.  We see the signs of difficulty in our life as a form of rejection.  It is as if we are being smote for our lack of whatever it is we think we lack.  

Depression surely magnifies this.  When I was depressed, I struggled mightily with this notion, and those whom I have counseled most definitely did as well.  "So great is the pain, so vast is the torment, that either there is no God, or surely that God despises me wholly," is the thinking.  Unfortunately, outsiders reiterate this sentiment often.  "You're struggling because... (fill in with some sort of deficiency on your part to please God)."  

The question is... is this true?  Does God really hate me?  Is that why I am depressed?  

If we want to know the answer, we cannot answer it by simply checking our feelings.  If I want to know what Abraham Lincoln thought, I don't ask myself, "What do I feel like Lincoln would have said?"  I go read what Lincoln actually said.  So, let's not trust in our feelings overly much.  They are incredibly important, your feelings are, but they are also not always to be trusted.  Importance and trustworthiness are two different things.  Let is look to what God has told us, that we might find the truth about what God says.

Don't skip these!  Read them!

James 1:13-15

13 Let no one say when he is tempted, "I am being tempted by God," for God cannot be tempted with evil, and he himself tempts no one.  

14 But each person is tempted when he is lured and enticed by his own desire.

15 Then desire when it has conceived gives birth to sin, and sin when it is fully grown brings forth death.

Okay, let's see what God just said.  He says he isn't the one tempting, not EVER.  It says he CANNOT, not that He is physically weak, but that it is against His nature to do so.  

If you are unfamiliar with the story, you can read Job to this work out.  Job was considered blameless in God's sight when Satan asked God for permission to tempt Job.  God allowed it.  This may anger you.  Why would God allow a blameless man to be put through so much pain?  

I don't know, not fully.  I have theories, but they are just that.  What I know is that God is not some mean distant God who is up on high laughing and toying with us.  God became man, became a part of the pain, and lived a perfect life, then was tortured beyond what we can imagine.  Not only was Christ tortured by the whip and by crucifixion, but also by the outpouring of God's wrath.  So, you may hate that God allows pain, but you can't call Him distant.  You cannot think him a snob.  He went through hell (literally, not metaphorically) to show you how much he loves you.


One more piece of scripture.  

Romans 8:1 

1 There is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.

Read it!  There is what?  NOW no condemnation...  not then, not later, now.  If you are saved, then you are no longer condemned.  Your depression is not a punishment.  You are not being smote by God.  It has nothing to do with Him being angry at you.  For, if you are saved, then God, when asked about your sin, looks and sees Christ in your stead... right now.  

The hope of the gospel is for those who are depressed as well.  You are not being pushed away.  You are not being hated.  You are being tried, tested, yes, but not hated.  There is a difference.  When you want someone to grow, there is always trial to growth.  God wants you to be strong, for you to grow, and depression can sharpen you.  I am sure you hate hearing this.  You may want to feel you have an excuse to be mad at God, a right to be upset at Him, but you don't.  Sorry.  Being angry at God will accomplish nothing.  Instead, know the truth and don't trust your feelings all the time.  

God loves you NOW, right in the middle of your depression.  Know that the gospel of Christ is still yours.  God's saving grace doesn't stop at the feet of depression.  It gives your pain purpose and gives hope for healing in the future.  Cling to that hope.  That is my prayer for you this day.

#8: 10 Things to Say (and 10 Not to Say) to Someone With Depression

This is number eight on the list of things to say and not to say to someone with depression, as was posted by health.com.  Here's the link: 10 Things to Say (and 10 Not to Say) to Someone With Depression.  It's a super simple article.  It gives a good and bad example, that's it.  If you missed it, here was the Number Seven Thing to Say (and Not to Say) to Someone With Depression.  Here's number eight:

What to say:
I’m not going to leave you or abandon you.

What NOT to say:
I think your depression is a way of punishing us.

Nicholas L. Laning

Is this not a fear we have anyway?  Of being left or abandoned?  Add in the confusion, the stigma, the uncontrollable negativity that comes with depression, and you can just imagine how much this plagues the soul of your depressed loved one.  Chances are they have reached out to others, maybe not wholly, but in some way, and have been rejected.  

The hard part of this is that you can be near someone and abandon them.  We see it marriage, where the spouse is physically present, but no longer emotionally engaged.  This is true with depression.  It isn't enough to be simply be physically present.   You must also be emotionally engaged.  That doesn't mean feel what they feel.  You feel what you feel, which, if you love someone and they hurt, should include hurting for them. 

Also, there is this weird conundrum that follows loving someone.  When you love someone you trust them.  So, you can be tempted to leave things unspoken as a means to almost honor or cherish your closeness.  "We are so close, that we don't have to say it to know that we love each other."  This may be true to a degree, but love needs to be reiterated everyday.  We need to hear it.  Silence leaves room for struggle.  It is in that silence that temptation grows.  Doesn't it?  Am I wrong?  Is it not the mystery that usually drives the believing of lies?

Express your love and involvement, and do it often.  Don't leave room for lies to form in the mind of someone whose mind is being attacked by uncontrollable negativity.  

I'll never forget my brother sharing his process of coming to grips with the reality of depression.  Towards the end of my battle with depression, he shared with me that for the first year or so of my depression he didn't believe that I was in fact depressed.  Not only did he not sympathize with me, he resented me.  He was angry with me because he thought that my depression was an act.  In his mind, depression was fake, merely an emotional play, a grab for attention.  

In his mind, he had always been able to overcome his moods.  So, everyone else should be able to as well.  Therefore, if I was continuously acting depressed, then I was doing something to myself.  I was choosing to sit in a mood that I could in fact overcome.  If I was choosing to do this, and it was hurting our family to see me do it, then I was punishing them.  I was self-centered beyond belief.

Only, that's just not true.  I will continue with the same analogy I have been using all along to show how ridiculous this is.  Depression is a disease, and you don't choose it.  Can you imagine your loved one having cancer, and you saying, "John, just stop it!  Stop having cancer!  I feel like you're punishing us with this cancer!"

If you think it is different then you are wrong.  Depression is no more brought on personally than cancer is.  Perhaps someone smoked, and cancer resulted, but is that the same as choosing to have cancer?  No.  And you would never say that to someone.  It is so incredibly self centered it is unbelievable.  It is self-centered in about ten ways.  To think that someone's utter and complete misery is about YOU!?  Really?!  

I don't want to condescend.  I am the worst.  I have been guilty of this.  That is why I can say it with such fire, because I was extremely self-centered in my rejection of depression before I got slapped upside the head with it.  So, I am right there with you.  That doesn't make it any less stupid.  It just means I am stupid too.

Pray that your heart would be open.  Keep soft, and be willing to be wrong.  It's not only okay, but a fact, that we are all wrong about a lot.  We are human.  Fortunately, you can rest in the knowledge that a perfect God is there when you are not for your loved one.  That same God is there to strengthen you.  God changes hearts.  If you are struggling to believe, pray that he will change yours so that you can be what you need to for your loved one.  I am praying for you as I write this. 

#7: 10 Things to Say (and 10 Not to Say) to Someone With Depression

This is number seven on the list of things to say and not to say to someone with depression, as was posted by health.com.  Here's the link: 10 Things to Say (and 10 Not to Say) to Someone With Depression.  It's a super simple article.  It gives a good and bad example, that's it.  If you missed it, here was the Number Six Thing to Say (and Not to Say) to Someone With Depression.  Here's number seven:

What to say:
I can’t really understand what you are feeling, but I can offer my compassion.

What NOT to say:
Believe me, I know how you feel. I was depressed once for several days.

Nicholas L. Laning

This is great, because sometimes I think that we feel like we need to understand to sympathize.  We don't, not fully.  I don't have to experience cancer to hurt for someone who has cancer.  All I have to do is know they hurt, and that hurts me.  It's that simple.  The only way this gets complicated with depression is that people want to understand it so they can actually believe it.  Most people simply don't trust that depression is real.  It is very difficult to sympathize with someone when you feel they can stop the pain.  That doesn't move us toward sympathy.  It makes us angry.  We feel manipulated.  So, behind this is the very simple question... do you believe depression is real?  If so, then you understand that depression is not controllable.  The depressed person can't simply stop it.  They are being tormented against their will.  If you see that truth, then sympathy should be beyond easy.  

I also love this because, again, it does not attempt to fix.  It says that you believe them, and are there for them.  That is the bulk of what they need.  Done!  How easy is that?  Your job is to just believe and be there.  Simple.

Believe me, I know how you feel. I was depressed once for several days.  Sighs.  I understand the heart behind this.  At least, for most people, I think this is said in an attempt to help, to fix.  As I have already said a hundred times though, you can't fix people.  Heck, one of the lowest points of despair in my battle was when my psychiatrist of three years told me he had nothing left for me.  He had used the extent of his knowledge on me, and I wasn't better.  It was brave thing to admit, but it devastated me.  Each week I went in with hope that this next time we would find out what was wrong, that the answer would be found.  So when he said he had nothing for me, my hope faded.  

Point of that story is, if this genuinely talented psychiatrist couldn't fix me, you definitely weren't going to.  Trying to relate is incredibly human, and in a way, really touching.  So, I understand this.  However, it is folly.  You don't have to be depressed to know this.  This line of attack against sorrow comes up empty.  There is a reason people who are battling cancer go to cancer support groups, and that is to be around people who genuinely understand.  

Contrast the what TO say with the what NOT TO say.  One admits a lack of understanding, but is liberal with compassion.  The other falsely claims a knowledge not possessed.  If you wen through a couple of days of depression, I would say that you have a touch of understanding of what I went through.  You would have a clue.  But, if you were to think that a couple of days of depression is equivalent to ten years, then you are a fool.  That's like someone who spent two nights in jail telling someone who just got done doing ten years hard time in maximum security they understand.  No they don't. 

Be encouraged by all of this.  My hope is that as you have read through these responses you will see a pattern, and see just how simple your task is.  In reality, all you have to do as someone who is on the outside is be there.   You don't have to fix.  You don't have to reason away their pain.  You can't.  You can't reason away cancer, or the flu, or any other illness.  this is no different.  You can look up doctors if you feel led.  Buy books.  Admonish your loved one to get outside, to put the donut down and grab an apple, to push themselves to be as social as they realistically can.  Don't get mad when they can't do stuff healthy people do, because they aren't healthy.  Whatever.  Just be there.  Have compassion.  Have compassion.  Have compassion.

Meditate on these words from Romans 12:15...

"Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep."

#6: 10 Things to Say (and 10 Not to Say) to Someone With Depression

This is number six on the list of things to say and not to say to someone with depression, as was posted by health.com.  Here's the link: 10 Things to Say (and 10 Not to Say) to Someone With Depression.  It's a super simple article.  It gives a good and bad example, that's it.  If you missed it, here was the Number Five Thing to Say (and Not to Say) to Someone With Depression.  Here's number six:

What to say:
When all this is over, I’ll still be here and so will you.

What NOT to say:
It’s your own fault.

Nicholas L. Laning

I love this one.  "When this is all over, I'll be here and so will you."  I can't remember where it is that I read that the two main driving forces in life were the seeking of goodness, or aversion from pain, but it stuck with me.  When we hurt, what do we want?  To stop hurting.  This is true with any pain.  Let me tell you a secret though, it is even more powerful for depression.  

Recall that one of the facets of depression is an unrelenting, overwhelming, involuntary negativity.  Depressed people cannot help it.  Their brains have, for whatever reason, turned on them, so to speak.  Everything that comes to mind is automatically turned to the negative.  You can be as optimistic as you want.  You can tell yourself all is great.  You can exhaust yourself finding the silver lining mentally.  In the end, you still feel like it is all terrible, useless, awful, pointless, etc.  

Believing that it will end is one of the most powerful tools for overcoming depression.  One of the biggest turning points in my battle was when I finally decided that I was going to believe it was going to end, no matter how I felt, no matter how much the depression tried to make me feel hopeless and trapped.  Slowly but surely things started to change.  

"But Nicholas, I myself struggle to believe it will end."  

Then change your mind right now.  Hear me.  Your loved one needs you to believe they are going to get better.  My mom was completely unrelenting on this point.  She kept saying it, "You will get better.  Just be strong, and it will end."  I would argue, "You don't know that."  She would say, "No, but I believe it with all my heart.  I just know you'll be okay.  It is going to end."  The more she said this the better.  Take whatever skepticism you have and stuff it.  Don't leave it to a person who is depressed to be the only one trying to the belief that they will be okay.  Talk about a bad idea.

Quickly, I also just like the reiteration, "I'll be here and so will you."  It may sound redundant to say, "so will you," after you said, "when this is over," but that's okay.  They need to hear that they are going to be back, that they will be redeemed and restored.  Use those two words frequently, by the way.

Again, this can only be said with a complete ignorance of what depression is.  Would you tell a woman her period is her fault?  What about when someone gets the flu?  What about kidney stones.

"Lisa, you know what, I am tired of your attitude, and I am sick and tired of hearing about this period.  It's your own fault you are like this, now get it together."  

"Ugh, Mike, I am sorry, but I don't feel sorry for you.  Get your act together.  Those kidney stones are your own dang fault."

Anyone else cringe?  Anyone?  It's bad, right?  How dumb is this?  Truth is, maybe you did do something that was a part of why you got depressed, cancer, the flu, kidney stones, whatever.  However, it still isn't your fault.  People don't give themselves cancer.  Perhaps they smoked too much, or ate poorly, or whatever, but lots of people do that and don't get cancer.  Lots of people have casual sex.  Not everyone that does gets and STD.  Same with kidney stones.  There are certain things that my uncle cannot intake without getting kidney stones.  He gets them all the time.  I can intake those things that would give him kidney stones and be just fine.  

So it is with depression.  Lots of people drink too much.  Yet, only some get hit with depression.  Everybody deals with loss of loved ones.  No one is above it.  Yet, not everyone gets thrown into depression over it.  Just like any disease, it hits some and not others.

Nothing outside set mine off.  I was fine.  I loved life.  One day I came home from High School, plopped my backpack on my bed, and wham!  Just like that, everything changed.  Torment entered me like I had never known, and it stayed inside me for ten years.  I still have no clue as to why.  It just did.

I know it is hard to understand.  It is such a difficult thing to wrap your mind around.  If you are reading this, then you are trying, and that says something!  

We cannot change our own hearts.  But, the Holy Spirit can.  Pray for knowledge.  Pray for understanding, and I believe God will answer your prayer.  He will move you closer to the one you love who is struggling so.  I believe it!

Proverbs 2:2-6

2 making your ear attentive to wisdom and inclining your heart to understanding;  

3 yes, if you call out for insight and raise your voice for understanding,  

4 if you seek it like silver and search for it as for hidden treasures, 

5 then you will understand the fear of the LORD and find the knowledge of God.   

6 For the LORD gives wisdom; from his mouth come knowledge and understanding;

#5: 10 Things to Say (and 10 Not to Say) to Someone With Depression

This is number five on the list of things to say and not to say to someone with depression, as was posted by health.com.  Here's the link: 10 Things to Say (and 10 Not to Say) to Someone With Depression.  It's a super simple article.  It gives a good and bad example, that's it.  If you missed it, here was the Number Four Thing to Say (and Not to Say) to Someone With Depression.  Here's number five:

What to say:
We are not on this earth to see through one another, but to see one another through.

What NOT to say:
Try not to be so depressed.

Nicholas L. Laning

"We are not on this earth to see through one another, but to see one another through."  Honestly, not a fan of this.  I like the intent and idea behind it, but not the actual saying.  I am not going to even dissect this.  In the end, simply saying, " I am here for you" is far more powerful and clean than this.  Stick with that. 

"Try not to be so depressed."  Man, if you are saying this, I feel for you.  There is zero condescension in that statement.  It hurts because I didn't understand it either until I went through a very long, painful process of coming to grips with reality.  Hear this, those of you on the outside looking in.  

Depression is not a mood.  

It is called an illness for a reason.  A mood can be altered with attitude.  Illnesses cannot.  Illnesses can be handled better or not, but no one has smiled away cancer.  You would never go up to someone with leukemia and say, "stop having cancer," or "could you try to make your leg not broken?" to someone with a broken leg.  

That is exactly how ridiculous it is when you say, "Try not to be so depressed."  It is absolutely imperative that you understand that depression is an illness that affects the emotions directly.  Depressed people cannot control the way they feel.  Do your research.  It's an epidemic.  People just don't want to talk about it.  They aren't doing anything really that rare.  It is just new to you.  

Feel free to challenge how people who are depressed respond to the unrelenting, uncontrollable pain they are dealing with.  We do this with any sick person.  We give those suffering grace, but not a free pass.  Even if someone has the worst disease ever, we do not allow them to say anything they want, or do whatever they want.  We still hold them to their own dignity, to responsibility.  We call and challenge them to meet the strife with courage, with honor, with patience.  

You must do this with those whom are depressed.  They need gracious, patient, challenging daily.  They are going to mess it up, and they need grace to do so, but don't let them sit and wallow.  Don't let them devolve.  You are in their life for a reason.  You can be the difference maker.  God uses humans above anything else to exact His will.  How exciting is that?  You can literally change someone's life.  There are people whom God used to save my life, with their love, their time, even their flaws.  They gave of themselves, and I am sitting here typing to you instead of still being depressed or being six feet under.  

Proverbs 27:17 "Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another."

#4: 10 Things to Say (and 10 Not to Say) to Someone With Depression

This is number two on the list of things to say and not to say to someone with depression, as was posted by health.com.  Here's the link: 10 Things to Say (and 10 Not to Say) to Someone With Depression.  It's a super simple article.  It gives a good and bad example, that's it.  Number Three Thing to Say (and Not to Say) to Someone With Depression.  Here's number three:

What to say:
You are not going crazy.

What NOT to say:
So you’re depressed. Aren’t you always?

Nicholas L. Laning

"You are not going crazy."  This is huge.  Depression is a mental illness.  What most people fail to understand is that doesn't mean you are crazy.  All it means is that it is an illness that effects your emotions and thoughts.  In a way, every sickness does this.  I have witnessed multiple people express a desire for death in the midst of fighting the flu.  Not that they are suicidal, as they know it will end.  Point is, there is some part of them that would rather be dead at that moment than suffering as they are.  Headaches, colds, broken limbs, all of them effect our thoughts and emotions.  

Mental illnesses seem to do almost exclusively.  In other words, a depressed person may have physical issues such as stomach trouble or insomnia, but the main thing affected are the thoughts and emotions.
  

Depressed people's thoughts are surely warped by their pain, by the illness, but they are not crazy.  Their ability to rationalize is very strong.  They are simply being influenced heavily by a blinding emotional pain and numbness, and an overwhelming, uncontrollable negativity.  

I think a great way to imagine you are talking to someone who is being stretched across a rack, or having bamboo shoved under their finger nails. There is going to be no surprise when the person says things out of the ordinary, or their thoughts aren't healthy.  You don't think them crazy.  You simply recognize the influence of extreme pain on their rationale.  Right?

You must continue to let them know that what they are struggling with is common (they may hate this, as it pushes them to deal with it, and not get to wallow and quit fighting.  Tough.  it's the truth.  1 in 10 struggle with it.)  They are not whole, but they aren't crazy either.

"So you're depressed.  Aren't you always?"  You probably think I am going to again come down harsh on those on the outside.  I'm not.  It is a stupid thing to say.  It is.  But, it is a very, very human thing to say.  Something to remember is that those who love someone depressed are hurting like hell too.  They need help too.  

My mom was a champ.  She was a rock.  Does that mean she never got weak?  Yeah right.  There were times when she wasn't so strong.  The constant battle wore her out.  Even at the time, I understood it.  

You can't over do that, or you risk isolating the depressed person.  I have known depressed people who almost crumbled, almost caved into suicide, because they were fighting their depression alone.  At one point in time they shared their pain with a loved one who responded by being overwhelmed.  In order to not be a burden, the depressed person decided going to people was a no no.  

This is BAD.  Depressed people need as many people on their team as possible.  The more people involved, the easier it is to share the load.  Then, one person doesn't have the weight of the world on their shoulders.  They can go to the others helping and say, "Hey, I am feeling weak today.  I am struggling to be strong.  Can you hang out with ________?  I could use a break to get strong again."

Battling alongside someone who is depressed is absolutely exhausting emotionally.  It is AWFUL!!!  My heart breaks for any of you who are the loved one.  I know it is hard.  There are no breaks.  Depression is relentless.  It comes and comes and comes, and eventually you just want to scream, "ENOUGH!!! When does it stop, Lord?  I can't do this anymore!"  And it keeps on coming anyway.

Don't say it though.  Find ways to not need to say it.  Get help.  Get a group.  Do whatever it takes, because you do not want to say, "Oh, aren't you always depressed?"  The answer is, "Yeah, I am, and now I know that I have to deal with that hell without you.  Thanks for nothing."

Let us recall that perseverance is a virtue, something to be desired.  By God saying that we should be able to persevere, He is saying that hard times are going to come.  We wouldn't need perseverance without the existence of bad things, hard things.  I don't persevere through eating ice cream, or getting a back rub, or swimming at the beach.  I love those things.  They take no perseverance.  They are enjoyed.  So let's keep in mind that God is using all of this to His glory, that there is purpose in it.  Like it or not, He is building you for something more. 

Romans 5:2-5

Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.