Just about every time I have a conversation with someone emerging from the depths of their depression, I am sharply reminded of the up-and-down journey that is the slow, gradual ascension, that at times feels like it will never finish.
This up-and-down journey in the sending out phase of depression is emblematic of what we face within depression, and it’s possible that coming out of it is even rockier than being most deeply in it.
Very truly, it’s the case that it’s the unpredictability of the forcefulness of depression that gets us down most. Just when we see a glimmer of hope, we find that hope smashed to smithereens against the floor. Just as we find our energy returning, we find that it ebbs away, disappearing, just as quickly. It can feel like quite the scam!
One good day, one poor day,
one okay day, followed by one of the worst.
And that’s as we emerge out of it.
one okay day, followed by one of the worst.
And that’s as we emerge out of it.
When we are deep in the chasm of depression there is no sight for light or land, as we bob hopelessly on the seas, forlorn for how to even perceive the chaos that surrounds us, let alone make some reasonable response to it.
Just knowing this, just bearing witness to this abject lack of agency, takes us further down the gulf of depression.
From where you’re at, perhaps you’d love one good day followed by one bad day.
Maybe you feel that is so far off in the distance it doesn’t bear contemplation. It could well be that you just want one more good day, to call back to the joy and peace and hope that you know you’ve experienced. What you might give for one hour of that bliss!
Somehow you know that it is possible to feel that way, and yet you somehow feel you are so far out of touch with the possibility that it could ever happen again.
This is the scariness of the dilemma of depression. It feels realer than real, and the sense of disempowerment takes over all sense of hope. You feel that if such death to hope is possible, what more could lie in its stead? It is the ultimate existential betrayal.
What is the purpose of me describing all this seeming hopelessness?
If you’ve ever felt this way, you could be forgiven for feeling you’d left the realm of human experience, because you feel so alone, afraid, and beyond help.
The first time I was cavernously depressed I couldn’t believe a suffering like it existed. It completely blew me away, sent me into the realms of anguish, taught me empathy, caused me to question my value in existing, and ultimately was the impetus to feeling called by God into ministry — all at the same time!
These swings and roundabouts of depression are to be survived. The repetitive one-up-one-down experience is frustrating looking back, just as it is gut-wrenchingly disconcerting when stuck in the middle of it. But it is a sign that you’re emerging out of it.
My purpose isn’t to “fix” you with some golden solution. My hope is you’ll feel encouraged to continue the journey all the way through.
Photo by Krists Luhaers on Unsplash
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