Depression – Darkness of Soul on the Brightest of Days

CHRISTMAS DAY, 2005, sitting poolside at my brother’s house. It was a dark day, yet fun was being had all around me, family understanding where I was at, of course.

Depression, I’ve found, is often imbued with darkness of soul — a feeling the soul cannot get out of — even on the brightest of days. It’s nonsensical and to that end maddening. But, of course, depression precludes us from the energy of being mad.

It’s not the day’s fault we are in the place we’re in. It’s not others’ fault, either.

And it’s not even our own fault. It is what it is. We should not be feeling under threat, but we do indeed feel that way. It proves impossible to shake.

Is it a dearth of encouragement? A lack of purpose? Relationships not going our way? It may be so hard to pinpoint where things have gone so far wrong.

We can assume there is a biochemical imbalance and the general practitioner is a depressed person’s very best friend. Recovery starts from the first appointment, and we must own our recovery. The climb up and out of this depression commences today.

When we are depressed we see truth never more starkly. And for that reason alone we are closer to recovery than ever. We recall that depression is actually the penultimate step of the grief cycle — and so many depressions emanate from grief.

No longer are we denying or fighting the factors of truth in our lives.

No longer are we resisting God in disobedient ways. But we are still not quite all the way to acceptance yet. There is still some work to do.

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The hope of depression is truthful sadness; a resignation that things are not the way we want them to be. To be depressed is to sit in that place. To be depressed is to acknowledge things the way they are: reality in all its truth.

Darkness of soul on the otherwise brightest of days, there we are. Unshifting, unmoving, still, and resigned.

But there is hope in this. One day soon our perspective will be different. That day we will accept the simple things for what they are. That day we will rather see those things as praiseworthy. That day we will have learned to be still and content with what we have.

That day we will have learned to let go of our thoughts, to allow feelings to occur, and to not judge either.

That day is closer today. That day is closer today than it was yesterday. Tomorrow is that day.

That day is not far away.

That day we will find, again, a moment’s happiness is a gift quite beyond compare.

That day we will forgive ourselves our past, seeing it was not our fault.

That day we will live in the acceptable present knowing that the past need not be changed.

That day present and future are helped by a past we can accept.

© 2015 Steve Wickham.