Breaking the Silence

I've always been a big advocate of bringing scary and painful things out of the dark in order to help others. That's why I've never shied away from talking about the sexual abuse in my past in order to help others who are facing a similar struggle. Well, it's coming up on a year of fighting a battle in my life that I've only told a handful of people about. Like being abused, this issue carried a lot of shame for me at first and I only told the people I did because I knew I would need their support to get through it.

If you were keeping up with my blog at this time last year, you will remember that I was going through a time of feeling down and discouraged about life in general. I threw around the word 'depressed' a few times because it seemed to sum up what I was experiencing. My grandma encouraged me to see my doctor to see if there were any biological reasons for my feeling so down. My doctor is a Christian who knows me personally and I couldn't have asked God for anyone better than her. I will always remember that doctor's appointment.  The nurse made a comment after taking my blood pressure that it was a little high and asked if I knew what could be contributing to that.I honestly didn't except that I had been SO nervous all day and thought that was probably the reason. After the nurse left, I sat for the longest 40 minutes of my life while I waited for my doctor to come in. When she did, she immediately put me at ease with her cheerful personality and asked me what was up with my high blood pressure. I told her it was because I was so nervous and after telling me not to be, she asked why and I blurted out, "I think I might be depressed." Again, she gave me that reassuring smile of hers and asked me to explain. I had written out a list of things I was experiencing and she looked at it as we talked through each one. She was very, very thorough and asked a lot of questions. We talked about the issues relating to the abuse in my past and the dysfunctional relationship with my mom and also about the fact that there is a history of depression on my mom's side of the family. I told her I was fearful of admitting I was depressed because in my life's goal of not wanting to be anything like my mom, the depression was actually something I would have in common with her. She helped me to see all the ways I was different from my mom and how admitting I was depressed and actually doing something about it really was a good thing. At the end of my appointment, she officially diagnosed me with major depression and we began discussing medications.

So I went home that afternoon with a bandage covering the inside of my elbow where she took blood to rule out anything biological and a sample of a medication to start that day. I also carried home with me a mind full of questions and doubts about myself as a Christian. With Christ in my life, shouldn't I be strong enough to handle my issues without the help of medication? Did I just need to pray more? Spend more time in the Word? Repent of some sin that I was harboring deep inside? After overcoming the abuse in my past and managing to grow up without a mother figure, wasn't I strong enough to handle these seemingly little issues that kept bringing me down? It didn't help that I had friends who, with very good intentions, were telling me I just needed to 'move on' and 'enjoy life.' Those first few weeks of trying to come to terms with the diagnosis were extremely difficult.

Now I'm here, almost a year later, having taken the medication daily since that appointment last April and I really believe I am in a different place than I was then - a better place. I've experienced some low times over this past year, but I can that the medication has helped to mute those low times. I still have dark days but they're not as dark and that in itself has been a blessing as I experienced some very dark days in the weeks and months before I went to the doctor. Over this past years, I've come to see that my admitting that I was depressed had nothing to do with what kind of Christian I was. There are biological reasons for depression, genetic components and even trauma early on in life can cause changes to a person's brain that may make them more susceptible to being depressed.

So why am I telling the world this now? Good question. I could have continued to stay quiet and just lived my life without ever breaking my silence. But in recent months, I sat in a Sunday School class and listened as others discussed among themselves the question of whether a person who is really a Christian and living for Christ can be depressed or even suicidal. I wanted so badly to answer yes to both of those questions, out loud, but I just sat there and prayed for God to help me handle it the way He would want. While His response seemed to be for me to remain silent that morning at church, He's burdened my heart over the past couple of weeks to write this blog and shed light on what it means to live with a diagnosis of depression. Just like with any situation in life, it is more than possible with God.