“To come to the pleasure you have not you must go by a way in which you enjoy not.” St. John of the Cross
*First, a word. This post is not what you’ll typically read here. I’m known for being brutally honest, not only to others but about myself and my struggles and I don’t want to limit that here, even tho this is incredibly nerve wracking. The truth is I feel an obligation to share part of my painful journey for no other reason than to light a candle in the darkness and extend it’s light to anyone who needs it. I’ve decided to split the posts up into parts for easier reading and also so I can gauge how much is appropriate to share at one time. Please say what you must, but be gentle in your words.*
So I mentioned in a post last week about how I’ve been having a rough time battling my depression, yet again. For those of you who have never struggled with this, one thing to know is it’s cyclical nature, coming on for months or even years at a time, vanishing briefly only to return again. You never come out of it thinking you’re glad that’s over because you’ll find yourself there again very quickly. For someone who knows what it’s like, you can nod your head in agreement as I describe it as torture. And not like bamboo shoots under your fingernails torture, fast and excruciatingly painful, but more like chinese water torture - it starts out manageable, but then before you know it each little droplet, each little part of life becomes too painful to bear. I think the worst part is not when you’re plummeting to it’s depths or stuck right smack dab in the middle of it, but at the beginning when you feel it coming like the helpless victim tied to the train track in one of those silent movies. And as the train comes rushing forth you squirm and you scream and you try with every ounce of life in you to make it stop but it just keeps coming and inevitably strikes and brings complete destruction.
Last January I was graduated from counseling. That was such a huge moment for me since it was the first time in my adult life I felt confident enough that not only had I dealt with a majority of my problems, but I could face them head-on if they decided to return. In addition to counseling the Lord had also done some extensive healing in my life. It blows my mind when I look back at how he took the pieces of my broken existence and made them not only whole again, but functional. He removed my chains and led me out of my Egypt, never to be enslaved to that darkness anymore. I was walking in God’s redemptive freedom and I can not remember when I had ever felt that happy. For eight months I lived in this euphoric mindset and drank in every second. When you finally realize you have been released of a burden you were never intended to bear, the effects are profound. Maybe I should put some testimonials on here of those who were in the trenches with me to attest to how the Lord radically changed my life.
Then around September that nagging feeling began. I felt…off. Something too familiar, something I knew all too well was getting too comfortable in my everyday life. Having tasted freedom and feeling that security slipping from my hands I got so scared and began to run from it. And when I couldn’t run I began to dig and bury and push it down. I would shake my head and mutter in my soul, “No, not again, this can’t be it. It just can’t be. He took it. He told me he did. No. It just can’t be.” With each new day that lost it’s color a little more than the day before I was slipping into that dark abyss that I thought I would never see again.
This time it felt the same and yet so different. There were no feelings of self-deprecation, that was good. There was no self-medicating, no coping mechanism that would cause more destruction than the depression itself, so that was nice. The only word that I can use to describe it in it’s entirety is aloneness. Complete aloneness and desertion. No one knew what I was going through. No one understood. Each person that offered a “hang in there,” or “it’s the wintertime - it’s tough this time of year,” would receive a sympathy nod from me but I would emotionally take a step back because there was yet another person who just couldn’t understand. And then there’s the issue of all of the prayers I cried out to God: “Where are you? Why have you led me back here? I don’t get it! What have I done? ANSWER ME!!!” I felt so alone. It’s one of the most ugly, horrifying feelings. Feeling that no one could hear my words and truly understand the desperation and pain in them. So I pushed it down some more, didn’t give it a voice. Crying out only meant those wails would echo around an empty cavern only to come right back to my mouth to be cried out again and again.
This feeling of being silenced & receiving silence continued for months until two weeks ago I found myself crumpled on my living room floor, alone, crying so heavy I was dry heaving, an ache that went from my gaping and wounded heart to the center of my gut. I couldn’t silence it any longer and I was faced with the painful realization just how deep I am in this.
Here’s the crazy thing tho. After I got it out, after I cried so hard my eyes were so swollen you could only see slits of them, after I called a dear friend just so someone could talk me down from the ledge, I felt like the Lord was satisfied. Not at my neediness. Not at my desperation. Not at the fact that I was out of options and had no where to look but to him. But he was completely and utterly satisfied with my brokenness. And it is not as sadistic as it’s sounds since in that moment for the first time in five long, agonizing and spiritually silent months I felt his peace. Peace. Something I wasn’t sure would ever return to the fullness I had grown so accustomed to. But I welcomed it. I breathed it in. I savored every ounce of it since I didn’t know how long it would last. It would be days later before he spoke to me, very quickly but very profoundly and then close the veil so I would be left alone in my spiritual desert again.
