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. 

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.

Homesick

Play the song, and read the lyrics.  I'll continue below.

 

I lose some sales

and my boss won't be happy

but I can't stop listening to the sound

of two soft voices blended in perfection

from the reels of this record that I found

every day there's a boy in the mirror

asking me

what are you doing here

finding all my previous motives

growing increasingly unclear

I travelled far and I burned all the bridges

I believed as soon as I hit land

all the other

options held before me

will wither in the light of my plan

so I lose some sales

and my boss won't be happy

but there's only one thing on my mind

searching boxes underneath the counter

on a chance that on a tape I'd find

a song for

someone who needs somewhere

to long for

homesick

cause I no longer know

where home is

Nicholas L. Laning

Those last few words, "homesick, cause I no longer know, where home is," are some of the greatest lyrics ever.  So simple, yet so powerful.  The idea of being homesick, not because home is out there and you are separated from it, but because it has been lost inside yourself.  It has broken my heart many times, but it flat out devastated me in the midst of my depression.  

One of the most powerfully terrible sensations was being around my parents and not feeling their "parentness" any longer.  No longer could I feel the essence of my mother or father.  I recall moments where I stared into their eyes as I spoke to them, searching for what was once there.  My soul had been lost to the abyss.  The idea of home was gone, not because home ceased to exist, but because I ceased to exist.  

Every morning, when I got ready for the day, I would find myself in front of the mirror and just stare.  My brow would furrow.  My focus would sharpen, going form pupil to pupil trying to see if that day, I could find anything in there.  It took eight years before little bits of me started showing up, before I started to show up.  

Every now and then, as I am cruising down the road, especially if I am driving over one of the many massive clover leaf overpasses that connect our main thoroughfares here in Dallas, I recall what it felt like to drive for the first time.  Something I now often loathe was once absolutely wonderful.  It is in that same vain that I now must stop, look in the mirror, and not take for granted that I can see myself, that I can feel the essence of my father and mother, that my heart might be thankful.  Even still, I am not home.  I am still homesick.  Read below to see where home is.

JOHN 14:1-7

1 "Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. 

2 In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? 

3 And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and WILL TAKE YOU TO MYSELF, THAT WHERE I AM YOU MAY BE ALSO. (emphasis mine)

4 And you know the way to where I am going."  

5 Thomas said to him, "Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?"  

6 Jesus said to him, "I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me.  

7 If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."

 I added that emphasis in verse three because I have heard this verse a ton throughout life, and the emphasis has always been on the house, on the rooms.  We still just want Jesus' stuff, God's stuff, but our home isn't that house, it is Him.  One day, if we are His, He will bring us home.  He will bring us to Himself.  Amen.

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.

Be Honest With Where You Are With God

Yesterday, I posted a pretty large chunk of scripture from the book of Job.  Posting scripture can seem preachy, at least I think it can.  We usually assume that whomever is posting it must already know it, and is lovingly, yet probably condescendingly throwing us a spiritual breadcrumb they already understand.  You know?  Well, that was not my reasoning.  That scripture was as much me preaching to myself as anyone else.  Yes, I thought, perhaps it could help others.  Yet, my heart has been in dire need of such a reminder.

Job complains to God about how he has been treated by God.  God does not strike Job with lightening, or have a bear eat him, or any other terrible thing.  He answers Job in person with a series of questions.  Where were you (Job, Nicholas, ________  (insert your name)) when I formed the Earth? 

I don't know how you feel about this, but in my heart, when I get frustrated at God, or my heart is no longer in lone with scripture, I don't want to take the problem to God.  Here's a funny thing, I feel righteous because I will go to His word, His church, His people with my frustration, but not Him.  There is mixture of pride and faithlessness that tells me to do it on my own.  "Go to the scriptures," I think.  "Submit to God's will."  This is a lovely thought, only, my way of getting to submission is still my own!

This all stems from my frustration with work.  The things I have been doing have fallen short in continuing to provide.  So, I am left to ponder what I am going to do for work.  I am going to continue to write, but that is a side job for now.  Until/if God decides to allow that to be what I do full time, I need to find something else to spend my days doing that will provide for my family.

I don't want to go off on a tangent about the issues surrounding that.  Simply, I want to stay focused on the fact that, as this frustration has indeed come up, I have not wanted to take it to God.  I have wanted to do it on my own.  Through much prayer and listening, it has come to my attention that this is because I don't trust the Holy Spirit to move.  I try to shift my thinking, change my own heart.  In the end, this just delays the frustration, because it is never wholly dealt with, as I have no power to change myself for the better.

So, today, I hope you will follow me in this.  I am going to take my frustration straight to God.  I am going to tell Him I know I am wrong, that my thinking is messed up, that I am missing something, that I have believed lies.  Then, I am going to ask Him to change me, and not just once, but again and again, with full hope and faith that He will do it.  I don't want to do it on my own.

One of the greatest moments in my fight against depression was when i finally told God just how angry I was at Him for the pain He had allowed to come to me.  On a beach in Ireland, the very one that there is a picture of in the art section of this site, I shouted out to God my frustration.  I asked Him where He was in all this pain.  I challenged Him in His proclamation of love for me.  Much like Job, He did not kill me, or any such thing.  Nor was His answer wholly easy to swallow, but He did answer me, and it helped me in my depression enormously.  I will share His response some other time, as that is not the point of this post.

The point is to be honest with God in your struggle.  Tell Him what you are thinking, especially if you know it is wrong, and ask Him to move.  I look forward to seeing Him move in both our hearts.  There is one hope, and it is in Him. 

God Responds to Job

Drops by Nicholas L. Laning

Job 41

1 And the LORDsaid to Job: 2 "Shall a faultfinder contend with the Almighty? He who argues with God, let him answer it."

Job Promises Silence

3 Then Job answered the LORD and said: 4 "Behold, I am of small account; what shall I answer you? I lay my hand on my mouth. 5 I have spoken once, and I will not answer; twice, but I will proceed no further."

The Lord Challenges Job

6 Then the LORDanswered Job out of the whirlwind and said: 7 "Dress for action like a man; I will question you, and you make it known to me. 8 Will you even put me in the wrong? Will you condemn me that you may be in the right? 9 Have you an arm like God, and can you thunder with a voice like his? 10 "Adorn yourself with majesty and dignity; clothe yourself with glory and splendor. 11 Pour out the overflowings of your anger, and look on everyone who is proud and abase him. 12 Look on everyone who is proud and bring him low and tread down the wicked where they stand. 13 Hide them all in the dust together; bind their faces in the world below. 14 Then will I also acknowledge to you that your own right hand can save you. 15 "Behold, Behemoth, which I made as I made you; he eats grass like an ox. 16 Behold, his strength in his loins, and his power in the muscles of his belly. 17 He makes his tail stiff like a cedar; the sinews of his thighs are knit together. 18 His bones are tubes of bronze, his limbs like bars of iron. 19 "He is the first of the works of God; let him who made him bring near his sword! 20 For the mountains yield food for him where all the wild beasts play. 21 Under the lotus plants he lies, in the shelter of the reeds and in the marsh. 22 For his shade the lotus trees cover him; the willows of the brook surround him. 23 Behold, if the river is turbulent he is not frightened; he is confident though Jordan rushes against his mouth. 24 Can one take him by his eyes, or pierce his nose with a snare? 

Job 42

1 "Can you draw out Leviathan with a fishhook or press down his tongue with a cord? 2 Can you put a rope in his nose or pierce his jaw with a hook? 3 Will he make many pleas to you? Will he speak to you soft words? 4 Will he make a covenant with you to take him for your servant forever? 5 Will you play with him as with a bird, or will you put him on a leash for your girls? 6 Will traders bargain over him? Will they divide him up among the merchants? 7 Can you fill his skin with harpoons or his head with fishing spears? 8 Lay your hands on him; remember the battle--you will not do it again! 9 Behold, the hope of a man is false; he is laid low even at the sight of him. 10 No one is so fierce that he dares to stir him up. Who then is he who can stand before me? 11 Who has first given to me, that I should repay him? Whatever is under the whole heaven is mine. 12 "I will not keep silence concerning his limbs, or his mighty strength, or his goodly frame. 13 Who can strip off his outer garment? Who would come near him with a bridle? 14 Who can open the doors of his face? Around his teeth is terror. 15 His back is made of rows of shields, shut up closely as with a seal. 16 One is so near to another that no air can come between them. 17 They are joined one to another; they clasp each other and cannot be separated. 18 His sneezings flash forth light, and his eyes are like the eyelids of the dawn. 19 Out of his mouth go flaming torches; sparks of fire leap forth. 20 Out of his nostrils comes forth smoke, as from a boiling pot and burning rushes. 21 His breath kindles coals, and a flame comes forth from his mouth. 22 In his neck abides strength, and terror dances before him. 23 The folds of his flesh stick together, firmly cast on him and immovable. 24 His heart is hard as a stone, hard as the lower millstone. 25 When he raises himself up the mighty are afraid; at the crashing they are beside themselves. 26 Though the sword reaches him, it does not avail, nor the spear, the dart, or the javelin. 27 He counts iron as straw, and bronze as rotten wood. 28 The arrow cannot make him flee; for him sling stones are turned to stubble. 29 Clubs are counted as stubble; he laughs at the rattle of javelins. 30 His underparts are like sharp potsherds; he spreads himself like a threshing sledge on the mire. 31 He makes the deep boil like a pot; he makes the sea like a pot of ointment. 32 Behind him he leaves a shining wake; one would think the deep to be white-haired. 33 On earth there is not his like, a creature without fear. 34 He sees everything that is high; he is king over all the sons of pride." 

Nanna's Funeral: A Testimony of Courage and Patience

We buried the body of my grandmother Doris Williams Laning this past Saturday.  It was a really beautiful weekend.  We stayed in their empty house, as Nanna had been living in an assisted care home.  She was ninety years old.  Her life was marked by enormous pain, as she came down with a very rare disease called Dystonia when she was in her thirties.  She spent the rest of her life twisted and mangled by the effects of the disease.  Yet, and I can say this earnest, without even a hint of hyperbole, that she never complained.

I am not a fan of the famous quote of St. Francis of Assisi, "Preach the Gospel at all times, and when necessary use words."  It really is a marvelous quote, but it all too often is used as an excuse to not actually share the Gospel using words, which is absolutely necessary.  Yet, in Nanna's case, the quote rings wholly true.  She could barely speak, she could barely write.  Over the years you learned how to decipher the wispy, broken speech that came from her mouth.  It was the ultimate test for your ability to piece together sentences using context clues, as you really only heard every fourth or fifth word.  Yet, so many people have been affected by her patience and courage.  She is a testimony to God given courage.  We can see a woman who suffered enormously, and without healing in this life, yet who faced each day with smiles and courage and hope.

Back in February, when my grandfather, Daddy Jake, died, I was racked with pain.  At the viewing I began to weep inconsolably at the sight of him.  I just couldn't stop.  Finally, I felt something bump into my leg.  It was the wheel of Nanna's wheelchair.  She was trying to get close to me.  She reached her frail, boney,  little hands, put them under my chin, lifted up my face, and said, "It's okay.  He's not pain anymore.  He's not in pain anymore.  It's okay."  I then held her up so that she could see him, to which she remarked how incredibly handsome of a man he was.

 We should all take notice and check ourselves when we complain, when we say it is too hard, too much to bear.  There was once a woman whose pain was greater than most, and yet it was praise for our Lord Jesus that came from her lips.  She is my grandmother, Doris "Nanna" Laning.

Philippians 4:13 "You can do all things through Christ that strengthens you." 

Empty

Saying goodbye to Daddy Jake & Nanna's house.  Daddy Jake built this house nearly fifty years ago.  Every tree you see was planted by Daddy Jake, my father, or my uncle.

My father's and uncle's hand prints in the walkway from when they were children.

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.