Hitting the Play Button in My Heart

Nicholas L. Laning

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

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

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

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

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

John 3:16-20

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

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

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

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

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

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

Post Abyssic Life

Nicholas L. Laning

Sometimes I have to remember.  Sometimes I just focus on where I am, or even where I have been the last two or three years inside, and I just don't recall.  When I look at my life, I have a tendency to struggle with frustration.  My longing for purpose and my desire for life can be manipulated a bit too easy I fear.

All I have to do is be told that I need to look around and compare myself.  If I am honest, I am on course, but there are some who are "ahead" of me.  Some of my peers have houses and kids and careers that I don't.  One look at them, and I begin to ask myself what I have done wrong, which, is a good thing. 

There are certainly many things that I have done wrong, and that I still struggle with that I need to overcome.  However, it has been shown to me that I need to have realistic expectations.  I am the one that always uses the metaphor, "you don't ask someone with a broken leg to run," when talking about the emotional capabilities of those who are depressed.  Yet, I have not given myself any room to allow that past into my current assessment. 

Using the leg metaphor some more, it is as if my leg has finally healed, I have gotten up to running speed, and yet I am somehow shocked to find that the group I started the race with is ahead of me.  It makes no sense for me, and it makes no sense for you.  If you are post depression, you need to allow for that time spent in struggle into your assessment of life.  You're right, you're not at the same place as a lot of your peers as far as physical stuff goes.  That's okay.  What's important is our relationship with God, and He certainly understands what has transpired.  Maybe your friends forget, or just never got it, but not God.  The rest of your fellow depression survivors understand too.  You are not alone.