I’m continuing to repost essays I wrote long ago about how God and friends and family brought me through a time of depression. If you’re struggling with depression right now I hope it helps you feel less alone, less ashamed and gives you some practical tools to use in your fight back to normal.
Here’s part three…
Remember those days when you learned something new about each other every time you talked? No one tells you this when you’re dating or at the reception after the wedding, but that ends – or it slows down as the years together accumulate. You may go months or even years without any new revelations about her, but then the routine changes and parts of her you never knew existed get exposed to the light. Most of the time it’s something good – a new job, a new city, a new child. Sometimes it’s not – an old wound, a failure, a disappointment, an illness.
Today I’ve been married to Becky for twelve years. I thought I knew everything about her until this month got started. Now there’s even more to love.
Two days into this darkness I had to substitute preach at church. It was too late to hand off to someone else, I thought. I got through that Sunday, but just barely. It took all my concentration just to keep it together and follow my outline. It sapped more strength than I’d expected. When we got home that afternoon I went upstairs to my office, locked the door, laid my head in Becky’s lap and cried. It was the first time since it all began that I’d let her see me fall apart.
She didn’t try to talk me out of it. She didn’t smile and offer easy answers. She just held me and every time embarrassment and shame moved me to mumble a snotty “I’m sorry” into her leg she just said, “It’s OK.”
Days later she had a party to attend. She called my brother-in-law Brian and asked him to bring his kids over and keep an eye on me until she got back. She gave me homework that night: verses I was supposed to look up. I spent most of that evening writing them out in pencil and reading them to myself over and over again. Psalm 42. 2 Corinthians 4:7-12. Philippians 4:6-9. And a few others. Verses about God’s comfort – I tried to believe them. Prayers by men who’d felt abandoned and grieved – I prayed them. Truth to replace the lies in my head.
I kept those verses folded up in my back pocket and pulled them out any time I had to be alone in the quiet. Those were the scariest times for me. I read them out loud in the bathroom over and over again. I read them first thing in the morning and last thing at night. And when things got so bad that I’d given up on God and stopped reading them entirely, she insisted I start again.
Becky was my faith and my brain when both were broken.
She decided what I would eat, where I would go, what I would do. She planned my days, made me get out of bed, get dressed and go through the motions. She made me keep living. I sliced potatoes, read books to the kids, pulled weeds from the garden, and stayed up to hear her plans for the next day. Every day.
And she even saved my life.
I’ve long judged people who commit suicide or even contemplate it, thinking it the most selfish act a person could commit. For days I reassured doctors, friends and family that I had no interest in ending my life. Not me. I’d never.
Then, one afternoon, alone in my office for only a minute, I was shocked to think She’d be better off without you. You’ll always be this way and she deserves better. It wasn’t something I was being asked by my thoughts to consider. It was something my thoughts had already decided.
Just then Becky walked in and I told her what I was thinking. She made me look her in the eyes, and very firmly, almost angrily, she said, “That’s a lie.” And she started filling my head up again with the truth. “I’d rather have you like this than not have you at all.”
There are some parts of a person you can’t have the joy of discovering until you’ve lost your joy. This month Becky has been God with skin on, literally keeping me alive and patiently lovingly – sometimes forcefully – piecing my faith and mind back together one long day at a time.
“Happy Anniversary” doesn’t seem like enough.
Aislynn Holt says:
I have suffered with depression, too. I feel everything you have said in this post. Lies are so very strong in that state. Every day is a battle to choose joy, life, and Him. I can feel when it is lingering to come out… many days go bu just fine, but when it peeks its’ head out my husband is so diligent to ask me if I am doing ok. It’s almost like a radar.
Many prayers my friend! Thank you for sharing this with us all.
Brad says:
It goes without saying at this point, but you are one blessed/fortunate man. Thanks for sharing about your struggles. It helps.
Kristin Taylor says:
Wherever someone is emotionally and spiritually, this is a beautiful picture marriage.
Kit says:
I re-read all these a little while ago, this summer? thanks for posting them again for folks who might’ve missed ’em. You have an interesting story and parts of it have been helpful/relate-able. I tried to share this part with my husband but he’s never “gotten it.”
Sandy says:
I don’t suffer depression exactly, although I have done. Mine is more of a Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, because I can have times when I’m fine and other times when I’m not. I fight battles with past emotions and extreme distress – and even current distress – pretty much every day. Seemingly innocuous things can set me off. It’s frustrating. Last night I slept about three hours because something set the anxiety off. Anxiety is always mixed with anger. But eventually, at 3am, I wrote down a ‘to do’ thing for the morning. It said ‘write out Philippians 4:6-9’.
In the first email I read this morning, you write about doing the same thing. So I knew full well God was there. What I am learning is that even if life is ****, and feels like a big pile of ****, God is right there with me. And that’s a different kind of peace, that sits right alongside the suffering. I don’t know how to explain it, other than, maybe, Jesus holds my hand and suffers too. For when I am weak, then I am strong(?).
Like you, I have a wonderful spouse, which often feels like the presence of God. Thank you for these posts. I think it is courageous and Christ-like to show oneself as vulnerable. God bless you.
Terri says:
Me too. I had PTSD for many many years. It doesn’t come up anymore. I have clinical depression now, related to other conditions I have.
Bruce Hennigan says:
I have dealt with depression since 1995 and developed tools called LifeFilters with a Bible verses for each day. My pastor came to me and we wrote a book, “Conquering Depression” 11 years ago with the “LifeFilters”. That is the one tool we hear about over and over — a daily dose of God’s words and encouraging thoughts. As to the suicide, my counselor saved my life by telling me when I have such thoughts to ask myself, “What is the lie?” It is ALWAYS a lie that leads to self destruction. And, Satan is the father of lies. Those lies are his tools to destroy us and those who love us. The truth lies in God’s unconditional love which is really, really hard to feel when you are saturated with darkness and shadows. But, asking the question, “What is the lie?” is like a spark in the darkness and if you follow that spark it can lead to the Truth that sets you free. Thanks for sharing this with the world. We are in the midst of an epidemic of depression thanks to our Godless culture and depression is now affecting more and more young adults.
Terri says:
Hi, Bruce! I met you at First Baptist Orlando last fall when you and Mark were signing your book. You gave me the free copy that a stranger felt led to buy for another.
I found this site as a weblink required reading for my M.S. Counseling Psychology course in Psychopathology (Palm Beach Atlantic-Orlando campus). I had just recommended your book in my reply to Part One!
Terri says:
“I’d rather have you like this than not have you at all.” Beautiful!