Have you tried, just, not being sad?!
Yeah yeah. Six years since the last post and all. Let’s just acknowledge it and move on.
Heavy is about the only word I can think of to describe the way I feel about this post. It feels a little like pinning a scarlet letter upon myself, but instead of an ‘A’, it’s a big giant ‘defective’ sign on my forehead.
And that’s the way most of us view depression, even those of us who live in it and battle with it. Looking at it from the outside, it almost always feels like, “You have this and that, and these people care, and those people have it worse, and how could you be sad?” The answer is, “I don’t know, but I am.”
I’ve been trying to have a very clear picture of how I will present all of this, some roadmap to explaining what my purpose is and how I’m going to tug at heart strings to get the attention of those who read so that they will, hopefully, finally see their friends and family who suffer with depression in a new light, but the truth of it is, it’s so deeply interwoven into the story of my life and worldview that it’s hard to separate and I’m at the very earliest steps of a new journey into seeing my life, and my battles, with new clarity.
My friend Brad, who is a license counselor and hosts marriage retreats for parents of families with special needs (as well as a huge host of other services to his family, church, community, and even our nation and continent), often speaks of the stories we tell ourselves about our lives, both present and past, and how those stories influence the way we perceive the world as well as how we handle conflict. Let me tell you: I am a storyteller. I find such deep joy in watching the journey of emotions that can sweep across faces when they’re enthralled in a good story, and I’m not even that good at it. You can enjoy something without being good at it (which is a new lesson I’m beginning to learn in my life). I’ve come to realize that I enjoy telling stories so much, that even when telling stories about my own life and self, I’ve come to detach myself emotionally from them in order to ‘sell’ the experience better. When I tell a story about something I’m not emotionally invested in, but still need to capture my listener, I’ve learned to feign the emotions that would be associated with whatever part of the story we’re in. If it’s sad, I pause, I hesitate, I speak haltingly and softly. If it’s chaotic my voice will thunder and deepen with grander words and phrases. If it’s funny I laugh (even though I’ve told the story hundreds of times and no longer find it as amusing) because who doesn’t enjoy a hearty laugh? But in my quest to become a better storyteller, that disconnect has transitioned into the way I relate my own personal experiences in life and, I think I’m beginning to understand, has left me with some emotional immaturity that has stunted my growth as a man, husband, father, son, brother, friend, and primarily as a Christian.
When I was younger, I came to define, in my own way, what I called the four cords of intimacy. They were basically a way for me to perceive and hopefully understand the way relationships grew, both platonic and romantic. There are lots of other types of relationships out there, but I wanted to better understand the types of relationships where the expectations were mutual, and they existed with barely any other purpose other than the joy of one another’s company. In other words, non-transactional relationships. I distinguished the four cords of intimacy as: Physical – non-sexual and sexual touch and/or proximity; Emotional – the journey of sharing heartache, joy, peace, happiness, trauma together; Intellectual – learning more about one another, likes & dislikes, history, paradigms; and Spiritual – similar to emotional, but on a deeper level, incorporating the deepest system of beliefs into a shared journey of faith. I’ve spoken and counseled individuals and couples on building relationships intentionally in these four ways and the tension that comes into a relationship where there is an imbalance in the way these growths occur. I’ve worked towards keeping these ideas in the back of my mind as I sought to navigate the confusing set of paths and roads and obstacles that we call relationships. Because I made them such an essential part of my worldview in relationships, they also became, in some measure, the standards by which I measured my own personal growth. Physical – was I healthy? Putting into practice good steps to maintain a healthy lifestyle; my body is a temple, am I keeping it clean and in good repair? Emotional – do I manage my emotions well? Do I keep anger in check? Do I let joy have its day? When I’m sad does it rule my thoughts and decisions? Intellectual – am I keeping my mind sharp and growing in knowledge and wisdom? Do I set my mind on things above and seek to keep the thoughts that bring death at bay? Spiritual – Am I dedicating time, energy, thought and emotion to my journey of Faith? Am I growing to be more like Christ? Seeking to serve and love my neighbor as myself?
Now this all has a point I promise and hang with me just a little longer here. I remember when I was in high school and playing sports, there was a guy that was a year younger than me, we’ll call him Simon, who I wanted to despise. I wanted to despise him because no matter how hard I worked, no matter how many hours I put in training, lifting weights, watching film, no matter how many gallons of sweat and blood I poured out on the football field, Simon was always going to be better than me. Simon was just so naturally gifted in his athleticism that he, comparatively, never trained, barely even tried, and constantly outperformed us all, but namely me (because this is my story after all). I struggled deeply with anger towards him for several years and it wasn’t until later in my high school years when I was really investing in my journey of Faith when I was finally allowed to understand that we are all gifted differently, and that didn’t make Simon any less than me simply because he didn’t have to try as hard as I did on the football field. That also meant that I wasn’t any less than he was because I did have to try so hard.
I have always tested well in an academic setting (saying a lot from a guy who attended one semester of college at a Jr college we all affectionately referred to as 13th grade, I know). During my years of grade school, I genuinely believed that if all of my peers would simply work harder, that each of them was capable of achieving the same scores in school that I managed with barely any effort. When I finally made the parallel between Simon and myself on the football field, and my other peers and myself in the classroom, I began to have much greater understanding, appreciation, and compassion for my fellow man than I’d ever had before. No one was less than me for their gifting or lack thereof, and more importantly, I was no greater for any extra measure of effort that I put into any area of growth that I pursued. It was simply my journey at the time and it didn’t distinguish me as worthy of extra recognition.
As Hannah and I have journeyed through our lives together and encountered some of the stories you may or may not be aware of (some of which are shared in this blog) and as I grew in my journey of Faith to have deeper understandings of how God interacts with His people, I started to see and understand that even faith is given in measures to His people (Rom 12:3-8). The measures of faith even come in seasons for each individuals journey of Faith, so that we’re never given more than we can handle. More or less faith doesn’t mean more or less Spiritual, it doesn’t mean more or less loved, it doesn’t mean more or less valuable. It simply means that God apportions grace to us as we need, like mana in the desert. Each day has enough grace for itself and no other day. It’s like oxygen that we must breathe anew with every moment, and we must not rely on yesterday’s grace to carry us through today any more than we can rely on yesterday’s oxygen to give us life today.
So... now to the point: I’m beginning to realize, I think, that in the same way that I was granted a portion of mind (intellectual) that made academics an easy matter for me, and in the same way I was granted a portion of body (physical) that required extraordinary effort from me to perform and compete at a semi-competent level, and in the same way I was granted a portion of faith (spiritual) that has allowed me to stand through some extraordinary circumstances in life; I’m beginning to see that the portion of intuitiveness (emotional) that I was granted is, to put it bluntly, less than average.
I think that as I begin to delve into some of my past with counselors and friends and pastors who are helping me on this journey, that I will find some combination of experiences (things that happened to me) and choices (things I’ve done to myself) that have led me to be emotionally stunted in my growth and that has manifested itself in the form of sorrow, melancholia, depression, and fatalism. I’ve always been afraid to label myself as such for fear that it made me less. Even though I’d experienced the floods of revealed wisdom that came with acknowledging that easy academics didn’t make me more, difficult athleticism didn’t make me less, and steadfast faith didn’t set me above, somehow unmanageable emotions led me to believe that I was irredeemably broken and so I learned to stifle them and stuff them down deep where they couldn’t harm me. And I believed that I was mastering my emotions by pushing them away and trying to intellectualize everything that I felt. ------- But that was the thing. My inability to manage my emotions at a conscious, mature, and healthy level was driving me deeper down a road of sorrow that was affecting all other aspects of my life. I’ve been living an incomplete life, being made in the image of God and created to not only have, but to feel and experience a full range of human emotions but dedicating myself to the (seemingly) healthy pursuit of the other 3 aspects and neglecting the one. Not only has this been causing me harm and hinderance, but it has been an immense, unreasonable, and unfair burden on all others in my life who care for and love me.
I’ve spoken for years of my depression as my thorn in the flesh. The thing I’ve begged God to take away, but He’s chosen to leave so that I may boast in my weakness and believe when He says to me, “My grace is sufficient for you.” And there very well may have been seasons where that has been true, but at some stage, it became not the thorn in my flesh, but my thorn in the flesh. I came to identify so deeply with depression and a melancholy outlook on life that it became as the One ring was for Gollum in The Lord of the Rings. It was my precious, and I both hated and cherished it. It was my badge of honor and I ascribed far more spiritual and intellectual significance to it than was healthy; because by incorrectly labeling it within myself as a spiritual and intellectual matter I was neglecting the emotional part of my personal growth. I thought I could overcome my ineptitudes (which I didn’t actually acknowledge as such) in the emotional realm by working extra hard in the spiritual and intellectual realm. I even let the physical realm have its day in trying to overcome my shortcomings, both in high school through sports and weightlifting, and seasonally later in life, through weight loss, health binges, personal fitness goals, etc. That’s not to say that each of the other three realms (as I define them) are not actually essential in growing in the emotional realm, but none of them are a replacement for the hard work necessary to overcome what I’m now realizing is a major hole in my person and character.
So what now? Where do I go from here? Why share this? Part of my path during this season of exploration in pursuit of growth is being more open and vulnerable. I need to stop trying to maintain the façade to myself and others that I am a complete, whole, healthy person. I’m not. I need help if I would like to move and grow beyond the person who I’ve only seasonally been able to do little more than abhor. I’m submitting myself to the leadership of friends, family, pastors and counselors who can teach me the skills to grow in the areas I’m immature and childlike in. I’m talking regularly with trusted individuals who will ask me difficult questions and challenge me daily to hold me accountable. I’m delving into some of my deepest darkest secrets, literally stories that I’ve never told anyone until the past month, with professionals to help me unearth some deep wounds that I have long believed to be scars. I’m meeting with my pastor to help shine the light of the truth of the Gospel on some of my greatest misconceptions about myself, about Christ, and about His church. I’m writing a blog post to begin to own these shortcomings that I have, in hopes that in my weakness Christ can be strong. And now I’m starting to see, although it is but a smoldering ember on a candle wick battered by a hurricane gale, the small light of hope that I may (or may not) be destined to wrestle with sorrow, in some measure, for the whole of my days- I am not destined to be mastered by it. I do not have to be its slave, because my loyalty belongs to another master whos greatness knows no bounds.
I am not an expert. In anything. Even the thing I know the most about, and that’s me. Please do not take any of this rambling self-reflection as authoritative on the process of emotional growth, depression, mental illness or anything else. There are a wealth of resources for those who are struggling and although I do hope that my journey can play some small part in another’s path to freedom, I do not intend for it to bear more weight than it ought. Its naught but an account of my trepidatious, halting journey of self-discovery and is not meant to be a guide for relationships or emotional growth. It’s merely the ramblings of a fool who hopes to one day be more.
