My Mind: From Prison to Playground

My mind has always had wanderlust.  No matter where I was… I wasn’t.  My report cards all read the same thing.  They all spoke of how I was respectful, obedient, a great kid, yet one that could not stop daydreaming.  My poor teachers just couldn’t compete with the playground in my mind.  My narrative and visual capabilities have always been off the charts.  That vividness of imagination gave me so much freedom.  I would fly like Peter Pan, score the winning touchdown, save the day, create fantastic worlds all at my whim.  Every night I would love going to sleep, as it gave me the freedom to visit that playground in my mind unabated.  It was bliss.  My mind was my constant escape, my favorite place to go…

…until it wasn’t.

In the blink of an eye that playground got turned into a torture chamber.  Depression ravaged my mind, heart, and soul.  If you haven’t experienced it, I’d like you to try to imagine your thoughts not really being your own, nor your emotions.  Imagine the sensation that someone else is picking your thoughts and feelings, and they are choosing only the worst ones you could have imagined.  That mind that gave you freedom now was a prison you could not escape.  You took your torment with you everywhere you went.  Everywhere you were… you weren’t.  You were never able to feel the emotion of the moment.  The best thing in the world could happen to you, but all you don’t care.  You are screaming inside the prison in your mind.  No one sees it.  Most don’t care.  Worst yet is that you come to believe the prison is inescapable, that it is your fault, that you built it, only adding to your torment.  If you built it then you should be able to tear it down, right?  I hated my mind, for it had believed it had betrayed me in the worst of ways.  How I wished to be able to go anywhere else.  It was my least favorite place in the world…

…until it wasn’t.

Some years ago things changed.  The slow slog back to health began.  To this day I am still unlearning things taught to me in my pain.  This last year has seen the resurgence of myself in a way I once thought completely impossible. My mind is once again a playground, and I am struggling to even know how to use it.  I feel like I had my legs cut off, and they’ve been reattached.  It is hard to fathom that this mind of mine was once a place of torture.  The pain is not forgotten.  I have to sometimes remind myself that it is safe to go, that I no longer have to fear my mind, have to try and constantly distract myself.  The bonus is that, unlike before, I cannot take for granted what I have.  The scar inside me will never let me forget.  If memories are wrinkles in the brain then that memory is a canyon.  It is my belief that pain is necessary for the highest good, for it is in the face of true pain that true joy is felt, and do I ever feel it.  Oh how I feel it.  My mind is once again a place of awe and wonder, love and life.  Praise be to God.

God is a God of redemption.  He has brought me out of the abyss.  He has restored my mind when I thought that it was impossible.  May you find some hope and peace in my story, and may God show you the joy felt on the other side of tragedy. 

A Beautiful Mind by: Laning Photography

Nicholas L. Laning

Being Clinically Depressed Doesn't Give You The Right to Sin

1 CORINTHIANS 10:13 

"No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.  God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it."

This verse is truly a double-edged sword.  It cuts both ways.  It gives us so much hope that we have the ability to have victory.   On the other hand, it let's us no there is no getting off the hook.  There is no excuse for our sin.  

"Temptation" by Nicholas L. Laning

As I read this verse to put in here, it really sank in to me that this is a constant truth.  God doesn't say sometimes I'll provide an escape, or occasionally you'll have the ability.  It is a simple statement.  You, I, have the ability to overcome temptation.  God will ALWAYS provide an escape. 

That includes the temptations met during depression. 

I spend most of my time on this blog trying to crack through the walls of ignorance and stigma that surround being clinically depressed.  It is not the same as normal depression.  It is not an emotional phase.  It is a physical unbalancing of the chemicals in the brain and the hormones of the body that greatly affect the emotions.  When emotions shift, if one is not very strong, so does the thinking.  I pound away at those on the outside, the loved ones, not out of anger but a loving desire to help, that they might have grace and understanding, to be sympathetic.

And yet, I don't want to come across saying something I'm not.  I am not one of those people that believes that depression is the only hurt.  It is simply the hurt I was given, and the one I am qualified to thus speak on.  I am also not in any way trying to encourage anyone to think that depressed people should be coddled to or given everything they want.  Hear me, people on the outside, depression is awful.  It is beyond awful.  Yet, it is not so awful that those who are fighting it have an excuse to sin.

Hear it, depressed people.  Hear it from the word of God above, not from me.  I am just reiterating.  Being depressed does not give you an excuse to treat people poorly, to be mean, to manipulate.  We all struggle extra hard when we hurt, and there should be grace and understanding.  When you lash out, when the pain causes you to do or say something mean or hurtful, to do something awful, those around you should not leave you.  They should have grace for you.  Then, if they really love you, they will calmly remind you what I am now, that your pain, while enormous, while we are proud of you for fighting so hard, does not give you an excuse to sin.  Period.  Yes, it is going to be extra extra hard.  

"Nicholas," you say, "No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man.  That's what it says, but this is not common."

Everyone who struggles with depression thinks that.  I don't know what it is about depression.  I did it too.  I fought my mother tooth and nail for YEARS on this.  She would tell me I was depressed, that other people were too, but noooooo my pain was different.  It wasn't.  The pattern was there.  I just didn't want to believe it.  Even once I accepted that I was depressed I thought depression to be this super rare thing, and thus there was different standard.  Nope.  Depression is super common.  As a matter of fact, it is the third most common disease in the world, according to the World Health Organization, and as it is the fastest growing, will soon be THE most common disease on planet Earth.  That does not lessen the magnitude of its awfulness one iota.  That doesn't lessen your struggle, but it does mean you are not alone at all.  The temptation you feel when depressed, whatever that may be, to be angry, to lash out, to manipulate, to use others, say through sex, to try and feel better, they are all common to man.  This verse absolutely includes the clinically depressed.   

Obeying is hard enough when well, when whole.  You have been given an extra hard task.  We all take our turn bearing heavy loads.  You're not alone.  You are not unique in that.  We all do it in our own time.  We don't have excuse either.  Consider it pure joy that you have such an immense victory ahead of you.  Rejoice that you have a God that is with you every step of the way.  Keep fighting.  Keep obeying.  Don't quit.

As always, remember that God loves you deeply.  I am praying right now for the end to this dreaded disease, that it would be finished off like polio.  In the mean time, I pray that all of you, whether on the outside or in, would be given understanding, courage, hope, peace, and love.  May love abound between you.  May people be amazed at the love you show and share in the midst of such horror.  Amen.  Feel free to write me if you need to talk or have a question you want me to try to answer.

Nicholas L. Laning
    

Are You a Bloodletter?

There is still some dispute over the exact cause of George Washington’s death.  Some believe it was pneumonia.  Most now believe it was a severe throat infection of some kind.  

Washington's Death

There is no dispute, however, over the ignorance of the treatment given to Washington in an attempt to save his life.  Many of you are familiar with the fact that the main treatment given to Washington was to bleed him.  They drew out 3.75 liters of blood, a very large amount.  He may well have survived had they not bled him so.  As it stands, they may have inadvertently killed him. 

That’s what they did do.  Something they didn’t do was perform a tracheostomy, a simple surgery where the throat is cut open so that breathing would be restored, and so that any secretions might be removed.  Two of the younger doctors attempted to convince the elder, trusted physicians to try this (at the time) very new and controversial surgery.  The elder physicians went with what was trusted, and elected to forego the tracheostomy.

Had they not performed the bloodletting and/or performed the tracheostomy, Washington almost certainly would have survived. 

Thing is, the physicians were acting out of ignorance.  It is easy to judge them, but they were doing the best they could.  They were acting on what was at the time, cutting edge knowledge.  They were acting on what they thought they knew to be best.  Sadly, it doesn’t change the outcome of Washington’s fate, nor many others who suffered from a needless, harmful treatment.  Many suffered and died at the hands of ignorance.

Were it not for a desire to learn, a desire to discover the truth, we might still be using this treatment today.  People asked questions, challenged the status quo.  At every turn, the new is challenged and the accepted truth defended.  Fortunately, through the boldness of a few, the truth usually eventually wins out. 

It is such a change that is needed now with depression.  Depression is the third most common disease in the world, and as is the fastest growing.  It is predicted to become the most common disease by 2030.  Yet, unlike many less common illnesses, most people don’t even want to recognize the truth of it’s existence.

My challenge to you is to consider the fact that depression is going to touch your life whether you want it to or not.  There are depressed people all around you.  Yet, so harsh is the stigma, so ignorant are the reactions to depression, that they are not only probably going to hide it from you, and everyone else, but they are going to do everything they can to deny the truth themselves.  Because of ignorance, an inability to change and grow, millions of people are suffering needlessly, they are not getting the help they need.  Just like with George Washington, the problem is treatable.  Depression is a beatable disease.  Yet, again, just like with Washington, we are treating those with the disease poorly, and we are not giving them the help they actually need to overcome. 

You may think this is someone else’s problem.  It is not.  Your father, mother, friend, son, daughter, brother, someone is going to suffer through this.  Do you really want to be like those doctors who drew Washington’s blood?  Thirty years from now depression will be known for what it is.  Do you really want to be the person that allows their own prejudice, fear, and ignorance to hurt those around them?  Don’t you want to be the man or woman who actually helps those they love?  I know you do.  We all do.

Mental Illness is a very misunderstood concept.  People think it is vastly more mysterious than other illnesses.  Most see it as wholly different from being a real medical illness, something closer to voodoo, best to be treated with tricks of the mind or some other weird treatment, or better yet, to roll your eyes at, because it’s a all just weakness from weak people. 

Most mental illnesses don’t START in the mind.  They aren’t floating in the land of thoughts.  They are physical in nature and AFFECT the mind.  Take dementia.  Another illness once not understood.  We used to just think people’s minds got old.  We called it senility.  Now we know that the brain actually deteriorates, and there is a growth of compassion and treatment with that understanding.  Clinical Depression is physical in nature.  As of now, what we understand it to be is an unbalancing of the hormones of the body and chemicals in the brain.  Those shifting hormones and chemicals mess with our minds.  Everyone on Earth experiences this in some way.  We all experience puberty.  Women endure PMS and later menopause.  All of us are at the behest of these chemicals and hormones, and have a limited ability to control how we actually feel.  With depression, what little ability to control is stripped. 

So, telling someone to simply get over their clinical depression won’t help any more than telling someone with cancer to stop having cancer.  If you want to help, understand the truth of the problem and fight it.  You wouldn’t fight cancer by telling people to get over it, so stop doing so with depression.  You fight cancer with the means we have.  You do chemo, leaches, whatever.  Do the same with depression.  Go get help for you or your loved one.  Go to the doctor, see a psychiatrist, a counselor, a pastor.   Let go of the archaic knowledge that is prevalent about depression, and embrace the truth, lest you be like those doctors who let out Washington’s blood, and resisted giving him the surgery that would have saved his life.  Your loved one’s life is worth the difficult task of accepting a hard truth that can save it.

As always, remember that God is with you and loves you.  Depression is beatable.  It is going to be okay, as long as you don’t quit.  Keep fighting.  If you have any questions or thoughts, please write me.  I’d be happy to talk to you.

Post Depression Life: Feeling Good Will Make Life So Easy... NOT!

There was this myth that rolled around in my formerly depression-riddled mind.  It went something like this... once I am no longer depressed, am healthy, and feel good again, everything will be easy.  In some ways this is very true.  Days come and go without much a of a fuss relatively.  They are a million times more pleasant, and I do mean a million times.

However, it turns out that feeling pain is not the only thing thing that makes life hard.  There is something else that makes life hard that I did not see coming.  It is that feeling awesome can make life hard!  

What, Nicholas?  How is this possible?  Feeling good is always good! 

Is it?  Because, if so, then we need to be making drugs legal and get on that ASAP.

Nicholas, you have to understand that, yes, that feels good NOW, but will destroy you later!

(Funny how smart you sound whenever you are having a conversation with yourself via print.  You always win.)

Exactly!  And this principle applies to everyone.  A person's desire to have sex outside of marriage will collide with their desire to not get someone or themselves pregnant, or get an STD, or hurt someone else's feelings, or sin.  A person's desire to be a good friend will collide with their desire to be first, be right, get the last piece of cake, be lazy, not go the extra mile, be entitled.  A person's desire to eat the whole cake collides with the desire to not get diabetes, fat, a sugar rush followed by a massive crash ending with them drooling on their keyboard at work.  A person's yearning for truth will collide with other people's same desire.  

In the end, desire is not a singular track.  It is not do I do what I want or not do what I want, but what do I want the most?  Our desires are not only conflicting with what we hate, but with our OTHER DESIRES.  That conflict of desire has been one of the biggest surprises of being healthy again.  I had forgotten how many times I wished I didn't feel a certain good feeling because it took me away from another desire.  I forgot what it felt like to have those many desires all tugging on you and you want them all at once, and you have to choose which one you want most.  I want to be a good friend and serve others.  I also want to do whatever I want whenever I want.  I want to eat all of the sugar and meat on planet Earth.  I also want to be in shape, not have colon cancer, and keep my teeth.  I want to be obedient to God and remain sexually pure, yet I also don't.  I want to serve God above all else, and yet I want to serve my self above all else.  Everyone struggled with this, no matter who you are. 

Moral being, prepare yourself for the fact that having desires again, while completely wonderful, and being the way it should be, and being a million times better than being in depression, isn't the end of your struggles.  It is just a different battle altogether.  

ROMANS 7:15

15 For I do not understand my own actions.  For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. 

This verse is Paul, toward the end of his life, talking about his struggle with this concept.  Paul, one of the greatest men who ever lived, still struggled to with the conflicting desires in his heart.  At least we can take comfort in knowing we are in good company.

Post-Depression Life: Returning from Nam

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Photo by: Alfred Eisenstaedt

When World War II ended the country went nuts with euphoria.  Almost everyone associated with the war was revered.  Heck, to this day we are still saying thank you and still revere those men who fought in WWII. 

Then there is Vietnam.  The soldiers returning from Nam were not only not met with parades and congratulations, but disdain.  People didn’t understand the war they fought.  It wasn’t as clear cut in their minds as WWII, which had a Lord of the Rings like quality, with dark lord taking over the world and all.  People doubted the battle taking place in Nam.  The mission was murky.  Where as the vision of those who fought in WWII was of this sparkling American hero, clean-shaven, articulate, and ready to help an old lady cross the street, those who fought in Nam were seen as hobos with machine guns. 

The effect of this perception cut deep both ways.  Where it was a boon for many who served in WWII, it crippled many who fought in Nam.  There are countless movies and books chronicling this.  

I hate to say it, but “coming home” from depression is like coming home from Nam, not WWII.  I used to look at how people treated those who survived other dreaded diseases and I would envy.  Almost any other disease that is battled and survived is met with sympathy and congratulations.  Not so with depression.  You will get more sympathy and congratulations defeating a cold than you will depression, even though depression a trillion times more awful.  

You see, just like with Nam, people don’t understand the battle.  Heck, many don’t even believe it is a real battle.  You just need to get over it.  Even those who do believe it is real on some level, struggle to comprehend it (and rightly so).  Thus, sympathy is difficult.  They cannot relate.  They don’t really see the danger.  On some level, they are going to wonder why you can’t just stop being that way, even though they never once would think such a thing about you if you had the flu or cancer.  No one looks at someone with the flu, gets upset, and says, “Stop it!  Just stop it!  Get it together!  Pull yourself out of this!”  They will with depression, underlying their ignorance of what depression is.  (Reminder: do not judge people for being ignorant on this.  I can say that I would probably be the exact same way had I not been forced to see it first hand, and I would bet you would too.  So, be understanding.)  

The effect that this can have on you once you are out is just like that of those returning to battle.  It can be incredibly deflating to have just won the greatest victory of your life, to win the battle of a lifetime, and to have no one care.  They will never know how much you have done for them, how many times you wanted to end it but didn’t, not for your sake, but theirs.  They will never grasp your affection for them.  They will not see it as a sacrifice.  They will see you return to health, and they won’t feel pride of what you have achieved.  They will probably, in fact, tell you to hide your victory, and never tell anyone for fear of the stigma that will follow.  AND, sadly, there is wisdom in that.  What they will feel is just relief that you are no longer acting as you once were, that you are healthy again. 

What you have to do is let it go that your victory is not going to be seen for what it really is.  No parties.  Just relief.  You cannot let this keep you down.  And here is why.  I know of your victory.  Your brothers and sisters who have struggled with depression know it.  Most of all, God knows.  

1 Samuel 16:7 (ESV)

But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the Lord sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

Hebrews 4:13 (ESV)

And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.

Your victory will be remembered by God, and His memory is flawless and eternal.  

So, prepare yourself for what is to come, and don’t let it get you down, at least not for long.  Don’t let other people’s perception weigh on you.  Remember, they just don’t know, and that’s okay.  Depression is hard to understand even when you have gone through it.  I don’t blame those who haven’t for not getting it.  I know my victory.  I know what God has accomplished in me.  I know that God knows what I’ve been through, and smiles on me for the things I did well, for keeping on fighting.  Life is good.  The victory is won.  Your day is coming too.

Post-Depression Life: An Introduction

 

Job 42:12-17

12 The LORD blessed the latter part of Job's life more than the first. He had fourteen thousand sheep, six thousand camels, a thousand yoke of oxen and a thousand donkeys.  

13 And he also had seven sons and three daughters.  

14 The first daughter he named Jemimah, the second Keziah and the third Keren-Happuch.  

15 Nowhere in all the land were there found women as beautiful as Job's daughters, and their father granted them an inheritance along with their brothers.  

16 After this, Job lived a hundred and forty years; he saw his children and their children to the fourth generation. 

17 And so he died, old and full of years.

 

Again and again, the same scenario played itself out in my life whilst depressed.  Some song, such as Coldplay’s Fix You perhaps, would be blaring through the speakers of my car, sparking my recurring fantasy.  Though the means always changed, whether it be a hidden tumor, some rare disease, some pill, being struck by lighting, or simply just hitting my head, the end result of my fantasy was the same… healing.  I would go from my state of horrific, torturous emotional paralysis and involuntary negativity, and would return again to a normal heart.  The lightning would strike, BAM, and somehow, as if by magic, the hell would be over.  I would be alive again.  I would look in the mirror and see myself.  Not just the physical body, but me.  I would feel me, and everyone around me.  I would be normal, whole again.  

Some five years have gone since my depression subsided.  It has been absolutely wonderful to no longer be under the thumb of such torment.  My heart is overwhelmed with gratitude, joy, and excitement over no longer “living” as I once was forced to.  However, it has looked little like my fantasy. 

One of my best friends just had half of his liver taken out after they found a cancerous mass in it.  As of right now, it looks like he is going to survive completely.  There is great hope that the surgery was the last of it, that the cancer is gone.  Praise God!

However, things will never ever be the same for him.  The surgery may have saved his life, but it also left him with an enormous scar.  He will carry it for the rest of his life.  Not only that, but that surgery was painful, and so is the recovery process.  Think about that for a moment.   Even the process by which healing came hurt, still hurts, and will leave it’s mark on him, both in body and in spirit.  His life will never be as it was.  Every doctor’s visit will be met with a hint of fear of recurrence.  Every decision made form here on out will be made through a lens of cancer.  Can I eat this?  Should I do that?  Can I drink this?  The doctors have given him a list of new guidelines by which he will have to follow in order to ensure he continues.  He will live every single day with the fear of recurrence in his mind.  Over time that fear will be assuaged, but at each occurrence of his body acting up, the fear of recurrence will jump straight to mind.  He may live to be ninety, and never have cancer ever again.  He will still live with the residual scars of it until the day he dies.

Guys and girls, so it is with depression.  In my fantasy, the catalyst would come and wake me up.  Life would go back to the way it was.  The truth is that there is no going back.  I know what they may make you feel.  I know that hurts you.  That is not my intent.  There is life, love, hope, and goodness on the other side.  It is just going to be different than your life was before.  Life is still good for my friend, but it has changed.  My desire is to give you so much hope, but a hope based on what is real.  I want you to thrive in your post-depression life, and that means not being set up for disappointment by not being told what is true. 

Like my friend with his cancer, you will have to change things in order to live fully, things others may not.   You will have scars, big ones.  There will be an enormous healing process that goes on long after you are depression free.  Your mind and heart has been twisted by pain.  That doesn’t come undone overnight.  It takes faith, hope, love, courage, patience and much more.  You will live the rest of your life with a fear of recurrence.  Over time it will get better, but it will always be there. 

Now, go back up and read that passage on Job again.  Feel the hope in those words.  One of the most famous sufferers of all time.  So famous is his suffering we are speaking of it thousands of years later!  After his suffering, Job was given back what was taken.  Now, at first look we just get excited.  With further thought it hits us that what was taken from him was people.  His children died.  Are those people replaceable?  You know they aren't.  Nobody is replaceable.  You can refill an emptied roll, but you cannot replace a person.  Job was blessed.  His life was good!  However, it was not the same ever again.  He was given new life.

So will you be given new life. It's not that what was disappears completely.  There will always be links to who you were.  Our lives are a whole, not just of the moment.  You are no more you now than you were in the past.  You will simply grow and change.  It is only logical.  Let’s start looking at what is ahead, after you are healed.  Let's let go of the parts of the fantasy that are not real... the instant healing, the return to your old life one hundred percent, the miracle pill, and replace it with the truth.  You are in the fight for your life, and even after depression is defeated, your healing will take a long time.  In some ways (some bad, but some GOOD) you will be forever changed.  You will have new insights into the world.  You will have experienced and survived a torture and torment that is daunting.  In many ways I struggle with feeling like a failure, as most of us do.  I have not achieved much of what I wanted.  However, when I reflect genuinely upon what I have come through, when I remember the true depth of the hell I survived, I know that I have already achieved something great.  Every breath, every wondrous emotion, every time I feel love, sadness, wholeness, it is a victory I once thought impossible.  Most people will never know it, and that's okay.  God knows.  He knows my pain, my struggle.  It has not been lost, nor forgotten.  Nor has yours.  Nor has yours.

Life Without Love

1 Corinthians 13

English Standard Version (ESV)

The Way of Love

13 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. ³ If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned,^[a] but have not love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;^{[b] 6} it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

There is something transcendent about this passage.  You don't have to believe in Jesus to be moved by it.  The idea that life without love is nothing is universal.  It speaks to everyone.  Love is our greatest motivator.  Some might say happiness, but love is greater than happiness.  Happiness is whimsy, it comes and goes.  It has no purpose.  Love is eternal.  It informs us of who we are.  We define our selves by what we love.  

 

This is the greatest unspoken pain of depression.  If you can, imagine not being able to feel love.  You can act it out, your love, but not feel it.  Some people would argue love is an action, and not a feeling.  Now, I understand the desire behind that statement.  Most healthy people struggle with their emotions greatly.  They are desperate for some measure of control, as emotions are scary.  Sorry to say it is still a lie.  The depressed person knows this all too well.  They are forced to live everyday acting opposite of what they feel.  Everything screams for an end, yet they keep on.  They act love they do not feel, and it a special kind of hell.  To not be able to truly affect is the greatest pain there is.  It is worse than losing a loved one, worse than being left by a loved one.  

 

To those on the outside, remember this when you look at the depressed person.  Imagine waking up and looking at those you know you love, but you cannot feel the love you know is in there.  Imagine trying to get out of bed with that.  Without love, life is so pointless.  You wake up and think, "Who cares."  You just want to make another day.  You push on because you remember a time when you once felt love, and deep down, buried beneath the mountain of pain, you hope you will feel it once again.   Keep that perspective when you speak to them.  This isn't to say you should coddle.  Sometimes depressed people need a good nudge, and they don't have a free pass to act poorly.  However, it should give your heart an enormous amount of grace for them.  It should break your heart for them.  It should give you, as one who does feel love, and feels it for them, the desire to encourage often.  It should give you the ability to understand them a little better what they are experiencing, that you might act wisely.

 

To those in the thick of it, all you need to know is that love will come back if you have the courage to persist.  It will.  I lived without being able to feel love for over ten years.  It was a certain type of living hell.  Like you, I thought it would never end.  I was stuck, broken, not fixable.  The power of the darkness was too strong, unbeatable.  I am living proof that is not true.  My heart beats, it bleeds love, and it does so for you.  My affection for you, though you are a stranger, is what drives me to write these articles, as there is surely no glory nor benefit to be had otherwise.  This heart that once felt so dead I used to think, "If they only knew how dead I was, they would have a funeral for me right now.  Nicholas Laning died years ago, and they don't even know it.  All that is left is this brain sitting atop this body.  My soul is somewhere else."  That same heart now beats with love.  It weeps.  I am moved to tears even as I write this thinking about you.  If I feel love after what I went through, you can too.  You can love again.  You can.  Hear it.  You can love again.  Your heart can love again.  Beauty can return.  You will one day again look up at the stars and be moved, see your mother's face and remember her presence, even see yourself in the mirror and like your own life again.  You will.  Just keep on fighting.  Keep having hope beyond hope.  Don't quit.  I am proud of you for your fight.  So proud.  Just keep fighting.  I am praying for you right now. 

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.