-Warning: Sensitive Content-
Have you ever looked into personality types?
Mine is INFJ. INFJ’s tend to care what people think. Even as an eight year old kid, I was concerned if people thought I was too country or fat. Voices in the back of my head told me I would never be as pretty as the girl sitting beside me in class. They told me I wasn’t funny, that I did everything wrong. Or that I was so annoying that everyone hated me.
Every day was a fight against myself.
For those who don’t know, I struggled with depression for years. I trapped myself in a box with my voices and refused to let anyone in. No one ever told me this, though I have heard it said to other people, “It’s all in your head. You’re just looking for attention.” I didn’t realize I had it until I was fifteen maybe. Still didn’t know how long I had had it until someone said they noticed it beginning when I was around eight. Depression isn’t a made up thing. It is cruel and has a tight grip.
Some people know how bad it got, but most have no idea. Almost ten years later and the literal word “fat” still stares back at me. I lost thirty pounds the summer when I was fourteen from starving myself and working out non-stop. I remember straight up lying to my parents and telling them “I’m better now” when they found out what was going on with my mental health.
I was in so deep that there didn’t seem to be a rope long enough to pull me out.
When you are in a mentally good place, it’s easy to look at someone going through that and wonder how anyone could ever let themselves stay in that place or do that to themselves. We look around and see the world moving around us.
When you are depressed, you can’t see past the prison bars. Each bar has words written across them. Past. Weight. Looks. Family. Failure. You stare at these words every second of every day and you can’t escape.
Embarrassment is a natural response we as humans have. For example when you slip up and say something goofy. People may give you some weird looks, but you move on and probably forget about the incident. But when you’re depressed, it rolls through your head on replay reminding you of everything you did wrong.
Before I tell you the rest of the story, I want you to know how slowly it can creep out of the darkness. (That’s where it’s from. That’s what it feels like. Living in the dark.) When you have been depressed and feel a random thought pop in your head like the ones you had before, you run like a little kid to God. Begging for it not to get you because you are terrified that if it binds you again, that will be the end of the story.
I remember the night it broke. Not every single detail, but the most important ones. I was praying at my parent’s church and people started laying hands on me to pray with me. I can’t remember if it was Bishop Greg Wilbanks, Sis. Wilbanks, and Bro. Jeremy Wilbanks who all three got a hold of me or just a couple of them, but I felt them literally fighting in the spirit for me. It may have only been a few minutes, but it felt like hours.
I was broken, crying out for God to see me. Exhausted from feeling alone, I knew something had to change that night. With tears streaming down my face, all the pain and sadness I had felt for years seemed to bottle up in one spot in my chest. All of a sudden it released and I literally felt like I went from carrying a load of bricks to so light I could have floated. I couldn’t pray it away by myself, but with prayer warriors interceding for me, the bonds of depression broke.
As I was leaving after service, someone stopped me and said, “you look happy.” I tried to laugh it off, because who wants someone to know their ugly parts, and replied back, “I’m always happy.” She shook her head and told me something along the lines of, “No, you aren’t. This is different, you are really happy.”
You know what that really happy is? Joy.
John 16:22 says, “And ye now therefore have sorrow: but I will see you again, and your heart shall rejoice, and your joy no man taketh from you.” We can be happy on this earth. Laughing at funny jokes, smiling at strangers, little bursts of happiness from seeing someone or something you love. Without the joy of the Lord though, happiness can eventually fade away.
Having joy is being able to be happy even when your world falls apart. That is not to say that you will never have sadness or pain on this earth. You will simply have a hope and know you will make it through the storm with the Lord by your side.
Darkness can grip you tight and you still be able to have moments of happiness (real or fake.) But as Nehemiah 8:10b says, “for the joy of the LORD is your strength.” Darkness has no dominion where light is.
I love the metaphor of darkness and light.
You go into a cave and shine your flashlight. Everywhere the light touches the darkness flees. Just like Jesus and Satan. The devil tries to weasel his way into our lives, but when we draw close to Jesus, he has no dominion.
Today’s blog is only partly for those who have never experienced depression so they can catch a glimpse of what it is. I wrote this though for those who are currently in the midst of it or have dealt with it in the past.
When the voices are the only thing you can hear, when you feel like you are drowning, when the darkness seems to overwhelm you - hold on to Jesus. Study His Word, pray, do whatever it takes to draw close to Him. Our hope rests in Him. Find your joy in Jesus and He will give you strength.
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