Depression and Decision Making Do Not Mix Well

From the title alone there are issues...

"Nicholas" you may be thinking, "What if you're depressed for years... akindalike you were.  Can you really live and not make decisions?"  

No.  No you can't.  As a matter of fact, depression is filled with choices that have to made.  Let me say that again.  Depression will present you with some of the hardest choices you will ever face.  Do I take meds?  Go to counseling?  Do I keep on believing there is a God, or abandon my faith?  Do I keep on believing there isn't one, that we are just an accident, or do I abandon my faith?  Do I keep living?

Decisions are everywhere, and they have to be met... but there should be special considerations for special times such as this.  

For one, decisions in depression should not be made alone.  Depression is a MENTAL illness.  It is an illness that affects your mind.  What happens when people's thinking is impaired?  When someone is drunk, should they be making decisions alone?  What about high?  They shouldn't, and neither should someone who is depressed.  If you have a depressed loved one, do everything in your power to gently be involved.  You can't force someone, but you can be there, be available, pour in wisdom when possible, provide a safe place for them to share and allow you to be involved.  

Depressed folks, I pray you'll have just enough of yourself left, enough of your will, your decision making power to recognize how much help you need.  Seek help.  Ask people you trust.  I'm not saying do everything others say, or relinquish yourself.  I am simply saying to take in good advice.  Have the wherewithal to recognize your state of mind and emotions, and let others help.  It could save your life, your marriage, your friendships, your job, your faith.  

It is wise to not make life altering decisions while depressed.  It just makes sense.  I would advise against deciding to marry someone while depressed.  You can't feel what you should, then don't put that onus on another person.  If married, don't decide to not be.  You aren't yourself.  That's okay.  Just keep breathing.  Others may not know just how hard deciding to keep breathing can be, but I do, and many others do too.  You are not alone.  Sometimes, just breathing and choosing not to leave can make you a heroic spouse.  Same goes with having children.  You should wait to pursue marriage and kids when you are not sick.  You don't sign up for a marathon when your leg is broken.   

There is no going back.  Sure you can quit on your marriage, but you can't unmarry someone.  You become divorced, not unmarried.  There's a difference.  Your decision will affect yourself and countless more for the rest of your lives.  You'll leave a wake of broken hearts, only to have your depression end, as it will, and you'll realize just how stupid what you did really was.  You can't unhave a kid.  You can't become unpregnant.  You can kill your unborn child, but not undo what you did.  

If you decide to get married or have kids you are still expected to be a spouse, be a parent.  I say it all the time, and I'll say it again.  Suffering from Depression does not give you a right to sin.  You are given some latitude in understanding from others, but not a free pass.  Depression, if anything, is an opportunity to rise, to overcome, to do what is right in the face of what feels to be insurmountable evil and torment.  You ARE capable of doing the right thing.  It is just way way way harder, but you can do it.  I believe in your victory.  

I was once depressed and tormented, nagged by the abyss, incessant, involuntary negativity that stole my life, and emotional paralysis.  I was amongst the dead, connected emotionally with zombie movies, and yet now live.  I hurt like a healthy heart does, love like a healthy heart does, and it is beautiful.  Fight on.  

HEBREWS 4:15-16

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin.   Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

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
    

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.

What It Means to Be Strong

Nicholas L. Laning

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

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

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

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

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




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


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

Break Over

Nicholas L. Laning

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

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

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

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

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

Does God Hate Me?

Nicholas L. Laning

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

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

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

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

Don't skip these!  Read them!

James 1:13-15

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

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

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

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

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

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


One more piece of scripture.  

Romans 8:1 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nicholas L. Laning

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

#2: 10 Things to Say (and 10 Not to Say) to Someone With Depression

Monk by the Sea

Caspar David Friedrich

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

What to say:
You are important to me.

What NOT to say:
No one ever said that life was fair.

This one is almost redundant form the first.  It is important to say both, "I'll be there for you," and "Your important to me," though.  The difference may seem small, but there is a difference, and it is found in the pronouns each sentence begins with.  Saying, "I am here for you," is about you and your actions.  You are making a claim in regard to how you are going to act toward the person suffering.  Saying, "You are important to me," is focused on their value to you.  You are verbalizing how they affect you, telling them that they mean something to you.  

Both need to be said.  You could be there for someone for all kinds of reasons.  Perhaps you just think it a good thing to do.  It could be about making yourself feel better.  Being there for someone doesn't mean someone is important.  

You can also say that someone is important to you, and then go about your life without being involved.  This was the case with most people in my life.  Lots of people have loved me, but very few were actually there for me.

Now, to the what not to say.  Just like the previous "Thing to Not Say," the mistake in uttering these words begins with the idea of fixing.  The only logical reason you would say this is in hopes of fixing someone, as saying this has never made anyone ever feel better about anything... ever.  Somehow we think we can rationalize people out of their depression.  Let me say it again, guys.  You do not need to fix people who are depressed.  Actually, let me say it this way... you cannot fix people who are depressed.  Forget about depression for a second.  I have never once seen this line of "encouragement" work on any type of suffering.  Ever.  I have never seen a single person respond to being to life isn't fair by smiling and going, "Really?  I didn't know.  I was crying because I thought, 'You know, life is fair, and this hurts, so something is wrong,' but now that I know life isn't fair, it all makes sense, and I can stop crying now.  Brilliant!  Thanks!"

Again, I am not trying to be snarky.  I am no better than anyone.  I know this stuff in my head, write about it, tell others, and yet... yeah, I still struggle not to employ the same techniques.  I still desire to whip out the ole emotional duck tape and try to Jedi people out of their pain.  So, that makes me worse than most.  So, as I read this, I am slapping my own face too.  You are not alone.  I'm working on getting better at it too.  

As someone who has people come to them about their depression, I have to remember the same thing... what they need most from me is for me to actually hear them, believe in their pain, tell them I care, and mourn with them.  Done.  The Obi Wan hand sweep need not be employed, the Spock hand grip can be pocketed. (Did I just manage to reference Star Wars and Star Trek in one sentence?  I think I did.  I can't tell, my glasses are broke.  Where's the tape?)

And even more than these... I can share with them how God has already said both "I am here for you," and "You are important to me," many many times.  Giving up what you love most to die in another person's place says it all.

John 3:16  

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."

Luke 12:24

24 "Consider the ravens: they neither sow nor reap, they have neither storehouse nor barn, and yet God feeds them. Of how much more value are you than the birds!"

My prayer is that you would read those words and believe them with all your heart today.  Amen.

Quitting Time

Nicholas L. Laning

I just turned thirty.  That is not old, but it is long enough for me to have learned some things.  One thing that I have learned is that you can never rest in this life.  God gives reprieve so that we can recharge for the next battle.  Death is when we get to stop, not before.  So it is that I tell you that I have struggled since early November.

What have I struggled with?  Many things, but what matters here is that I would say all of them are the remaining battle I have left with depression.  By and large, I am well.  I am so well in comparison to how I was just three years ago, that sometimes I forget that I am not whole yet.  Does that make sense?  That because it hurt so bad, that even though I still have some hurt left, it can seem like I am well because I am comparing it to the torture previously felt?  Call it "getting ahead of myself".

I have warred within myself, trying to fight my back to normal.  To simplify the issue, I have been fighting to be whole again, to struggle, but struggle with healthy problems, not ones stemming from the Abyss.  I want desperately to feel normal, this includes normal pain.  Don't think I am seeking perfection in this life.  I know that heaven is the only place I will find that.  No, I am seeking normal pain, normal sorrow, normal joy, normal whatever.

If you wonder what I mean by normal, I mean this... when something bad happens I want to feel sorrow.  When something good happens I want to feel joy.  It's not that simple.  There are shades, and sometimes you just don't feel right, but on the whole is what I am talking about. 

In this fight, as of late, I have found myself sinking into a pit of self pity.  I have been angry, angry at God for allowing it.  The whole time I am then angry at myself, for being angry at God is really really stupid.  I am wrong and I know it.  So, I have cried out to God, and He reminded me of myself during the midst of my depression.  It was like I could see myself back then, peering into me, seeing my current struggle and how I was reacting.  I could see that past me shake his head, for I was once a warrior.  I remember being in the midst of the Abyss. fighting off a seemingly endless waive of mental and emotional anguish, and in my mind, I made a resolve.  My resolve was this... that no matter how far I fell, I would never quit.  I could be at the bottom, I could STAY at the bottom, but I damn sure was going to fight, even it was in vain, even if it were forever.

And so it is, that I see myself again, now, and my resolve is renewed.  I will not quit.  I will fight for hope and faith and love and goodness for... however long it takes, period.  There is no point to which I can fall that I will stop.  I only hope you'll forgive me for taking so long, for sitting in my own you know what and pouting.   I don't know when I stopped seeing the battle.  I see it again.  By the power of Jesus' name, it ends here.

It is my sincere hope that you will join me, that you too will stop sitting, and regardless of where you are, no matter how far under the much you are, no matter how much you have messed up, fallen, been chewed up, beaten, tattered, whatever, that you would stand up, turn around, and start swinging like mad, and fight for all the good things.  

Love (Or the Lack Thereof) & Depression

The Shipps by Nicholas L. Laning

1 Corinthians 13 (English Standard Version)

1 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, 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;  

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.  

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it     will pass away.  

9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,  

10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.  

11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.  

12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.  

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Nicholas L. Laning

 "Love is a decision."  I cannot count the times I have heard this adage, a half thought out response, wrought from fear of losing a battle against the constant bombardment from movies, television, and music that, "Love is a feeling."  As with most fearfully wrought responses, the pendulum is not swung to find balance.  It is swung fully and completely, never bothering to ask if swinging completely in the opposite direction is any better? There is a decisive, devotional quality to love, and there is also a mysterious, emotional quality to love.  

To say that only one of those qualities of love is like being asked what an apple looks like, and responding, "Apples are round."  Okay, are they not also red, (or yellow or green, depending on the apple)?  Picking one quality to define the whole leads to a warped vision of the truth.  

Another analogy would be to say that a hand is a human.  No, the hand is a PART of the human body.  Without it, the body is not whole.  Yet, you cannot define the whole of the body by one part and come out with a real vision of the human body. 


The words found in the text above were not understood until my depression.  It is easy to say, "Love is a decision," in an attempt cut out or dampen the emotive qualities of love when you feel those emotions freely and easily.  When your struggle is to control your emotions, reign them in, it seems beneficial to grasp for the opposite, perhaps hoping to reach the middle, as it cannot be imagined to not emote.  


WELL YOU CAN!  Your ability to emote is not inevitable.  It can be stripped from you, and then you will see just how ridiculous the idea of love being solely a decision really is.  Without the emotions, without genuine affection, there is no reason to decide to love in the first place.  


This verse above completely blows up the notion of love being a decision.  If we were to look at the text before this one, we would see Paul talking about the different gifts, and their importance, then he says in 12:31 "But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way."  Then he starts above.  Love is essential, and it is not just a decision.   

If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

To give all you have away, or to deliver your body up to be burned both take the utmost devotion!  Do they not?  Think about how intense those acts are!  Then Paul tells us that we can do those amazing things, and if we have not love, that we gain nothing!  In that one sentence alone we see that the love he is talking about goes beyond mere devotion.  

This scares me too.  It also gets me excited!  

It scares me because I cannot simply do love.  I cannot simply obey commands and think that enough to be considered loving God, loving others.  My heart must affect.  It must flourish.  Nothing else will do.  I am going to be honest, and say that depression has left me scarred subconsciously.  It has been a battle to encourage my battered and tattered heart to ever be open to feeling ever again, for one cannot hurt if one does not love.  My affection for God and for others is lacking.  This has been the greatest target of my prayers, that the Holy Spirit would do what only He can... soften my stone of a heart.   


It gets me excited because, after seeing the truth, I don't want love to just be a decision!  I understand the devotional quality full well.  When there was not a mote of affection in my heart for anything, not my parents, wife, nature, my self, nor life, I decided to go on loving those I remember loving.  I devoted myself to a God my heart screamed had abandoned me.  Without devotion, my love would have been lost.  Yet, it was not full at all!  I now want my heart to soar again!  I want it to burn!  I want it to flourish in the beauty of God's creation!  I want it full!  I want to love others, yearning to serve them, encourage them!  I want my heart to again beat red and tender within my chest, and that is exactly what God wants!  He wants, no, commands my affection!  He tells us we are to soar!  Our hearts were made for beating!  


So, let us no longer be a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal!  Let us have faith, hope, and of course... love!

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.