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.

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.

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.

#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."

Why Do Men Struggle So Greatly in Understanding Depression?

Picture of Douglas MacArthur from Shorpy.com

“He doesn’t understand.  He thinks it’s just… he thinks I should just get over it.  You know?  He doesn’t understand that it isn’t something I can just get over.  I can’t go to him when I feel like this, I just have to deal with it alone, ‘cause I know he won’t understand.  You know?”

Those are the words of a women explaining to me how her husband has dealt with her depression.

Men are just set up for struggle when it comes to understanding depression.  There are a lot of reasons for this.  Generally speaking, men are less empathetic than women.  We often find ourselves reverting back to football boot camp methods for every kind of motivation.  Someone is struggling?  Can’t seem to fix it?  Then you aren’t yelling and swearing loud enough!  To be fair, this is how we are motivated most frequently when we are segregated by sex.  The peer pressure plus the yelling turns out quite effective… if you are teaching someone how to overcome their fear of getting hit in football, or trying to get someone over the wall on an obstacle course.  I am chuckling thinking about someone employing this technique on someone in depression, simply because it is so awful and absurd, it is ridiculous.

The main reason men are handicapped compared to women in their understanding of depression is because they have never experienced anything like it.  Almost any other pain can be empathized with even if not experienced directly, because it still links in with pain already felt.  For example, I don’t have to have lived through the holocaust to empathize with those who went through it.  Can I know the full breadth of their specific pain?  No way.  But I CAN definitely imagine it.  I can easily picture the faces of my family getting thrown aboard one train as I am thrown aboard another.  I can picture their tattered faces lurch slowly away as the train pulls out of the station, taking them to their death, as I head to mine. 

Depression is not like that.  It is so unique, so different from anything felt previously, that if you haven’t felt it, then your brain will struggle mightily to comprehend it… at all. 

Confession, before I was depressed, I struggled to believe that depression was real.  Irony, I know.  It’s a gift though, as it humbles me to recognize the struggle of those on the outside looking in, particularly men. 

Women, on the other hand, are all familiar with the something happening to your hormones, to your brain chemicals, that changes the way you feel, turning you into a different person.  Women experience this once a month for a majority of their lives. 

Men don’t understand this really either, but here is the kicker… they accept that it is real, and they (if mature) react accordingly.  I’ve never heard a man tell a woman that her PMS isn’t real.  Cowardly men may hide, but that’s only because they know it will go away in a couple of days.

Depression, most likely, isn’t going away in a couple of days.  It needs the attention of every loved one that can be there.  Besides, if men are all about bravery, then this is a time to be brave, because you are being asked to wade into uncomfortable waters.  A piece of encouragement is this though.  You don’t really need to understand depression to help someone in it.  Many men have become incredibly adept at encouraging the women in their lives when they go through PMS.  Our patience grows.  We understand that things are going to be said that are not common, that may even fly in the face of what was said just days ago.  Such it is with depression.  You don’t have to understand depression.  However, you do have to believe it is real, and you have to learn how to encourage your loved one in the face of it. 

Another thing that deters men from being involved with a depressed loved one is that you can’t FIX depression.  My father almost lost his mind as he watched me, his beloved son spiral into the darkness for a decade, and he didn’t have a damn clue what to do about it.  It changed him, crushed him a bit.  I could see it in his face.  He would look at me and it was blank, as he was completely overwhelmed with his inability to duck tape my heart back into my chest, or drain the poison out of my mind.  All he could do was be there.

What he doesn’t know is that my depression would have been years longer if it weren’t for his acceptance of my depression as real.  Not one time did he tell me to get over it.  He did try to convince me I was more okay than I was, but that is what everybody does (makes me angry just thinking about how many times people tried to convince me I was depressed, but not THAT depressed), but when the rubber met the road, he was there with my mom looking up the next doctor, or buying the latest book, or whatever. 

In all of my dealing with those whom are depressed, fathers and husbands have been one of the greatest impediments to healing.  So many people have shared with their inability to move forward, because they are crippled by the doubt and harassment of their ignorant, prideful husband or father. 

I want to remind you that I am not bashing men.  I AM one.  Women are not better.  They didn’t earn their understanding.  It is simply a part of their biological make up.  The point is that the men of this world need to join this fight, now.  You can’t close your eyes on this one.  If your son, daughter or wife is hurting from depression and you’re playing the ostrich, then you are a prideful, hypocritical coward.  Don’t let your ignorance and pride stand in the way of you loving your child, spouse, friend, whomever it is.  It isn’t really that hard.  All you have to do is accept that depression is real even if you don’t understand it.  (statistical reminder, over 100 million people have been diagnosed worldwide.  Seeing as how most deal with depression alone in the shadows, that number is actually much higher.  Are a couple hundred million people all faking it?  Really?)  From there you can grow in patience.  You will strike idiotic phrases like, “just get over it,” out of your speech, and you will instead say things like, “I don’t fully understand it, but I am here for you.  You understand me?  We’re in this fight together.”  And you are, because the truth is it IS a battle, one like you can’t imagine.  You can either be a part of the biggest battle of your loved one’s life, or you can go AWOL and hide in the corner.  What’s it going to be?

The most horrifying part about this struggle that men have with depression is how it affects those men who become depressed.  All of that pride, that fix it attitude, that unbeatable attitude… they are concrete boots… and we’ve been thrown in the ocean.  Men in depression always seem to take the longest to deal with it, because they spend so much time and effort, years maybe, fighting their new reality.  For me, it took a year of feeling the hell of depression before I was worn down enough to admit that there was a problem.  A year!  Gone!  Why?  Because I could fix it.  I just had to push through, pull myself out of it.  Only I couldn’t.  Not only that, but the harder I tried to fight it by not accepting it, the worse it got, the more complex the knot in my mind became.  I truly believe that, had I accepted my depression sooner, I could have gotten help sooner, and I believe years would have been shaved off of my battle.  Years.  I am thirty.  A decade was lost to depression.  That’s a third of my life, and to be honest, a lot of that is my own dang fault.  Those concrete boots have laces.  They can be untied at any time.  I just couldn’t let go of my concrete boots.  I thought they made me a man.  In reality, they nearly drowned me.

Praise God the times are changing with regard to depression, and people are really starting to talk about it and address it.  Thank God that more and more people don’t have to grope around in the dark as I did.  It is a new day.  It is a new battle.  Our Earthly fathers are great, but like us, they are flawed.  Fortunately, we have a Father in heaven who is not flawed, and while He doesn't promise to wave away your pain, He does promise to give you courage while your in it.  He promises to give your pain meaning, something atheism takes away.  He promises that, if you'll just hold on to Him, one day, the pain will stop... in this life or the next.

Video Games and Depression

Nicholas L. Laning

Before I even write another sentence, I want to say that my opinion is one of balance, and that balance is going to be personal. 

Now, let me tell you what the heck I am even talking about.  I am talking about video games.  (All the girls stand up and walk out of the room).  Alright, guys, somewhere amidst the drubbing of depression, life changes.  It is no longer marked by events.  We don't look forward to things.  All is pain.  There are no highs.  Instead, life becomes about passing time.  That's it.  We want to make it through another day as painlessly as possible. 

Few things help the time pass with as quickly, with as little pain, as video games.  This is of course false if you are playing NCAA football on Heisman, and your players fumble ten times a game.  I remember my parents buying me a PS2 as a means of giving me something to pass the time.  It worked.  At the time, my game was Gran Turismo.  Man, I played that game so much I am surprised it didn't melt in the trey. 

At first I thought it a blessing.  Days passed without me thinking about wanting to die all the time.  Then, after a few weeks, it became apparent that what could be good in small doses was being outright abused.  I had no life, no friends that I was hanging out with.  (Back story, this was 2001, when I had come back home to New Braunfels, and attended Southwest Texas State University for a semester.)  Most of my friends were still up at DBU.  Every story about their lives killed me.  They went on trips, hung out, all of it.  Meanwhile, I went to class, talked to no one, came home, played video games until three am, then repeated.  By the end of the semester I knew that I had to go back to a real life.  My life had become a progression of screens.  Nothing was real.  Everything was a pixel. 

I have seen this time and again in others lives.  Fifteen hour Call of Duty binges, Elder Scroll Marathons.  Entire seasons of Madden played in a day.  This is not healthy. 

Video games can be a wonderful momentary escape to help calm down, to assuage.  Yet, in the end, exercise is needed.  Friends are needed.  Yes, those things are difficult.  You are going to have a hard time.  But, in the end, it is good for you.  In the short term you might think that all of life is too painful to endure whilst in depression, so you will be tempted to check yourself out of life.  After a while that will change.  You will ended up like I did.  You will end up alone, listening to your friends live life, and bitterness and regret will set in.  You will feel trapped.  Your past stolen from you, and your future too.  It may not be anywhere near perfect, but I say a messed up future spent bravely trying to live in spite of your current horror is much better than quitting, and just playing video games to pass the time until you die. 

Living in Spite of Your Feelings

Nicholas L. Laning

What do you do when all your feelings are terrible?

We love to think that we are rational beings.  Atheism has flourished, somewhat, not upon its actual strengths, but upon the lie that it is devoid of faith.  So many Christians have fallen for the lie that they have figured out how to remove faith from Christianity, despite the fact that this is what is counted to us as righteousness, and have convinced themselves that they it is solely reason that pushes them.  I have been amongst struggled with both of those lies myself.  We love to feel that we make our decisions based upon nothing but rational ideas, but no ones makes their decisions based upon thought alone.  If we are willing to be honest with ourselves, and were to search our thoughts, we would surely find that emotion plays a huge part in why we decide things.  So many times I have talked with people who have claimed to make a decision based upon thought alone.  Yet, after asking the tough questions, they have come to offer up that they decided to... whatever... because they just... insert an emotional response to whatever the issue is.  I have had this happen to me many times, especially in my youth.

Christians surely do this.  How often do we make a decision, not based on any rational thought, but because, "We FEEL called to... change jobs, do missions in a foreign land, whatever?"  If we are honest, then the answer is... very often.  We get a good feeling about something, and we take that be the blessing of the Holy Spirit.  We feel bad about something, and we feel the spirit telling us to avoid it.

Well, what do you do when all your feelings are terrible?

One of the most terrifying elements of depression is that our emotions no longer follow a normal path.  They no longer follow life.  In a normal heart, you go see your friends, you feel something good.  Someone dies, and you feel sad.  Well, in depression, you just feel pain, no matter what, and it drives you crazy.  Part of our decision making process has been stripped.

So, how do we move forward?

We move forward by doing something that takes courage, and is not natural.  We have to make decisions based upon faith and hope.  We have to believe that goodness is real, despite the fact that we don't feel that to be true.  We hope that love will return to our hearts, though we haven't felt its glow in years.  We move forward in faith and hope of things to come.  We keep breathing, and one day, God willing, we will, in this life, be restored.

Have hope.  Believe in good.  Believe in love.  Believe that this current pain is true, but only a momentary aberration.  The ultimate reality is that goodness and love and joy and happiness are real.  Keep fighting.  You are in my prayers.  My heart goes out to you.  Write me if you want.  Always remember that God loved you enough to allow His only Son to suffer worse than you have on your behalf.  He does love you.  He really does.

The S Word

Nicholas L. Laning

I never struggled with suicide.  That is one of the few lines I never crossed in my heart.  It never lingered in my mind for more than a second.  For one, I knew the effect it would have on everyone else in my life, that it would destroy so much.  I would have lived my entire life in that hell simply for their sakes.  Two, I didn't want to exit life like that.

Though I didn't think about killing myself, there were other dark thoughts.  I longed for death then in the same way I now long for a hug from a friend.  It was not feared at all, but craved for insatiably.  Again and again I prayed, for at least eight of my ten years of depression, for God to kill me or at least allow my death to be soon.

The peak of this came when I was at Dallas Baptist University.  I spent my first year there, and barely made it through.  The negativity in my brain was incessant and was driving me mad, helping me ruin the one true friendship I had at DBU at the time.  Everything loved was lost in seconds to the monster in my brain.  It felt like satan held my brain in his hand, and he was squeezing the living daylights out of it.

I would lay in my room for hours upon end, unable to sleep.  Finally, I would get up, exit the dorm, get in my truck, and just drive around in the dark.  I would drive for hours at a time, being very sure to drive as carefully as I could, as I would not be the reason I died.  Yet, the entire time I was praying, "God, if you love me you will end this.  Take me home, Father.  Take me home.  End it.  Please, if you love me..."  Each Mack truck that passed was hope.  When they finally whooshed by, shaking my car in their wake, my heart would sink in disappointment.  I did this for about two weeks before I realized that it was too expensive to continue, and that God was not going to give me my ridiculous request.

It is very difficult and embarrassing to share this, but I am willing to do it if it brings any of you hope, if lets you know that you are not alone.  I went through that.  I prayed for death for years upon end, and here I am, healthy, past depression, telling you that it can end.  Have hope.  I am the same person who drove around hoping to die, and I now love life as I did before.  My hope was founded.  God was faithful.  Yes, it was awful, but it is over, and yours can be too.  Hold on to the truth, past what you feel this moment.  Remember the good you felt before.  That was real, not an illusion.  Good is real.  Happiness is real.  Joy is real.  Love is real.  God is real.  Cling to hope.  Cling to Him.

James 5:13 ESV

[The Prayer of Faith] Is anyone among you suffering?  Let him pray.  Is anyone among you cheerful? Let him song praise.

Worthwhile Link: "Dealing with Depression" by Sarah Collins and Jayne Hayne.

Check out this review of "Dealing With Depression" by Sarah Collins and Jayne Hayne.I will be very interested to read this book.  It sounds like it could be really great.  We'll see.

Lingering Scars

My depression started in the fall of 1998, my junior year of high school.  The brunt of my depression faded in the fall of 2008, when I was doing mission work in Ireland.  Those stories will be expounded upon, but what I want to talk about is the lingering scars of depression.

If people were to ask me if I was still depressed, I feel like saying no, and perhaps I am right.  I no longer feel any of the overwhelming negativity that ruled and tortured my brain for a decade.  I no longer get the feeling that Satan has my brain in his hands, and is squeezing it at his leisure.  The darkness has been lifted off of me.

But, I don't feel whole either.  I don't know if there is perhaps just the slightest effect of depression still on me or not.  Or perhaps, it is the natural outcome of being tortured for far too long.  My heart has been mangled, my soul shredded, and now it must slowly be mended.  I knew it would take time, but just like those in the throws of depression, I struggle each day to believe that it will get better, that this isn't my life.  If it is, then I will be just fine.  Compared to what I came out of, this is paradise.  To finally have the pain of the negativity finally stopped.  It is bliss, and I am thankful.  The question is one of restoration.  It is one I have yet to ask others who have survived.  Can I be whole again?  Will my heart ever sore again?  There have been moments, teases, to let me know my heart still could do it, that it wasn't just some fluke of childhood.  It will return to itself, and I just weep in gratefulness.  Then it fades, and I am left feeling just ok.  Always okay.  Not up, not down, just okay.

I am going to believe it will end.  Why shouldn't I?  I would rather spend my life pursuing it, and even if it is never realized in this life, that doesn't mean it couldn't have been.  Yes, I will fight for it.  I will fight in hope.  I will fight.

My Resumé of Pain

When we are looking for answers, we look to those who are authorities on the subject.  At first glance, we don’t ask a brain surgeon how to rebuild the engine of our truck.  Nor do we ask a mechanic to excise a tumor from our brain.    Imagining both scenarios is pretty funny. 

“Nurse, I am going to need the 16mm crescent wrench.  Can somebody cauterize that leak over there?  We’re losing oil pressure fast.”  Or, on the other hand, “Frank.  Frank!  Hand me one them scalpels o’er there.  I said a scalpel you idiot.  Here.  Hold this ‘til I get back.  FRANK!” 

We go to the people who know what they are talking about.  We go the authorities.  Yet, when we think of an authority on something, we usually only think of one type of authority, when there are two. 

Let’s pick a subject, say, the jungles of the Congo on Africa.  One authority is going to be the Biologist, or Geologist, or whatever –ist or –ian there is that has devoted their studies to the Congo.  They will be able to tell you the species unique to the area, or their theory on why the land is shaped the way it is, or why they think the people of the region all wear what they wear.  Or, let’s take Joan of Arc.  The historian will be able to tell you the effects of Joan of Arc’s actions had on Gaul, and indeed the world.  They will be able to numb your brain with data.  This kind of authority is the authority most people think of.  This is the authority of study and academia.

Yet, there is a second kind of authority on a subject. The Zoologist may be able to tell you ever subspecies of scorpion in the jungle, but the man who survived walking through it can tell you what it was like to be stung by one.  The geologist can tell you how the mountains were formed, but the survivor can tell you about how he climbed over them.   He can tell you what the stones felt like against the grip of his hand, or what the sensation was of reaching the top and looking back over the canopy of trees below.  The historian can tell you where Joan of Arc was born, who is family was, ever town she lived in, and then some.  But the man who loved her can tell you what her voice sounded like, how soft her touch was, or the feeling given when listening to her laughter.  He can tell you this, because he didn’t just know about Joan of Arc, he experienced Joan of Arc.  This is the authority of experience.

I am not a Psychiatrist.  I am not a psychologist, or a counselor.  I cannot tell you exactly what causes depression (though neither can the doctors).  I don’t know what they know, and I don’t want to, frankly.  I will stick with writing and photography.  However, I know depression.  I do not have a vast academic knowledge of depression.  Yet, I have surely experienced it.  So intimate am I with the Abyss (my personal metaphor for depression) that, though I try with great vigor, I cannot seem to forget it’s touch. 

Just how well do I know it?  One time I was talking to a girl about her struggle with depression.  She was battling tooth and nail to press on, to just keep breathing.  Its grip upon her was crushing, though unsurprisingly she masked her pain with a beautiful smile.  Her friends were encouraging her to listen to me, to be encouraged, but they words fell deaf.  I had no understanding.  Did believe that I could possibly fathom her experience, her pain.  “No,” she would say, “You don’t understand.  Maybe you experienced some depression for a while, but I have been this way for over two years!”  Without thought, my hands flew out in front of my face and opened, fanning out all ten of my long, narrow fingers, and I just held them out for her to look at.  After a long silence, I focused past my fingers onto her face, knowing that my own reflected my deep sense of insult.  I dropped my right hand and three fingers on my left, leaving only my thumb and index fingers extended.  “You,” I said.  Then, I brought back my right hand and opened all my fingers again.  “Me.  I didn’t experience a single moment of happiness for over ten years, closer to twelve.  I understand your pain and then some.”  I wasn’t trying to be dramatic, but there was certainly a sensation of indignation.  I had enough people doubt my pain.  They doubted its endurance, its severity, even its very existence.  She would not doubt it.  From that point on, the walls went down.  Knew I understood.  Indeed, she then began to wonder how I survived ten straight years of such a hell. 

I will tell you about the rest of my struggle later.  The point of this first letter is to say that I understand depression.  I may not have experienced it exactly like you, as you have not experienced it like me.  Yet, in the end, there is a bond, a tie.  I know depression.  I have survived it.  I have spent over a decade in the trenches thinking about how to beat it, about how to survive it.  Unfortunately, I cannot tell you how to stop it, merely how to press on through it with hope and courage, to make much of God in light of such trial.