The Truth About Depression: 5 Observations from Someone Who’s Been There

I have a confession.

I’ve struggled with depression for years. I’ve struggled with anxiety, too. For a long time, I tried not to let the world see my struggle. I let shame seal my mouth shut. But today, I want to begin sharing this part of my story—a part that I’ve desperately wanted to erase from my past but remains there nonetheless. I want to write about mental health because it matters, and I don’t think people talk about it enough.

So here is some truth about depression. I’m not a clinical expert or mental health nurse or any kind of therapist. I simply have observations from experience, from a raw wrestling with this intangible mood-killer and productivity-killer and sometimes people-killer. It’s my hope to begin writing more about my personal journey toward mental health, but for now, here are some foundational observations.

Observation #1: Lots of people are fighting the dragon of depression.

In high school, my English teacher used to say that “everyone has their dragons,” meaning everyone has things in life they are fighting against. The dragon of depression is a lot more common than we believe.

When I was a freshman in college, we had a chapel speaker give a lecture on depression. Opening with a statistic, he stated, “One in seven people suffer from depression.” One of the guys in my group started counting how many people were sitting in our row and said, “Hey, that means at least one of us would be depressed!”

I tried to shrink in my seat. That one person would be me.

I don’t know if that statistic is true or not, but I do know that a lot of people experience depression. It isn’t always physically debilitating, and we can’t see it with our eyes, but it still exists, and it’s a lot more rampant than we would like to believe.

Photo credit: Kateland Pricer

Observation #2: Lots of people treat depression like a literal dragon—like a terrifying, mysterious myth.

Unless you’re a conspiracy theorist, you probably don’t spend much time talking about myths. You probably spend a lot more time on what you believe is true and relevant and affecting everyday life.

That makes complete sense—when it comes to actual myths. The problem is, depression isn’t a myth. In that way, it isn’t like a dragon at all.

However, just like a dragon, depression can seem terrifying and mysterious. As humans, we tend to shy away from the unknown, and our solution for the mysterious is to pretend like those things simply don’t exist. I don’t think anyone quite gets depression unless they’ve been there—and even those of us who've experienced it don’t completely understand it. We don't understand why it affects some people more than others, how it creeps up or vanishes or lingers, or why certain treatments or medications do or don’t work. 

Even though we can't explain it, we must acknowledge depression. We have massive educational efforts for diabetes and heart disease—we even have billboards talking about stroke symptoms—but for some reason we refuse to address depression on a wide scale publicly. Yet ignoring depression can be dangerous—perhaps just as dangerous and lethal as ignoring a dragon’s existence.

Observation #3: Stigma is a Silent Killer.

In nursing school we once had a slide dramatically titled, “Hypertension: the Silent Killer.” I chuckled at how dramatic the slide was, but I never forgot it. Later, I decided that in the mental health world, stigma deserves that title. “Stigma: the Silent Killer” is not an overstatement.

Over the past few years, many courageous people have been speaking up about mental illness and opening the floor for a nationwide conversation around it. I have been so encouraged by this! However, these speakers are still a rarity. We have a long way to go.

Stigma is why the people experiencing depression are the ones you would least suspect. Because of stigma, we hide it and try to compensate and sometimes overcompensate. We pretend we're okay, but inside we hate the mask we put on. Stigma leads to isolation and contributes to shame, which leads to self-hatred, which leads to increased depression, which leads to more shame. Ultimately, stigma leads to a startlingly high suicide rate in America and globally. 

If depression is a dragon, stigma is its right-hand dragon buddy. With stigma around, people believe experiencing depression is weak and shameful. The greater the stigma and shame, the less likely people are to seek help. (Trust me, I waited four long years due to stigma and pride before going to therapy and finding help.)

Observation #4: It can always be better.

One of the flaws of depressive thinking is the belief that “it can never be better.” It all seems pretty hopeless.

Sometimes, it takes a friend to hope for you—to believe that things can get better. I was blessed to know a great group of girls in college who also struggled with depression and were brave enough to talk about it in everyday conversations. We hoped for each other when we couldn’t hope for ourselves.

Several of those girls are some of my best friends today. What happened for us was an anomaly, but it doesn’t have to be. It can be better. For individuals, for myself, my friends, and for society. Sometimes "better" is a simple step of courage away, found in working on a project we enjoy or joining a Bible study. Sometimes it's scheduling a coffee date with a friend and holding onto the knowledge that in exactly two days we'll have a friend to sit across from—encouragement and hope in tangible form.  Sometimes "better" is found in a text saying someone's praying for us.

Whatever form it takes, I believe it can always be better. I believe we can create a culture where it isn’t shameful to talk about depression, a culture where we hope for each other, a culture where we know we were made to need each other.

Observation #5: A change in culture starts with individual conversations.

Practically, how do we effect change? I believe it starts with awareness and conversations.

When we talk about depression, stigma is dismantled, and the truth comes out: depression affects nearly everyone at some point in their lives, and it doesn’t mean we’re weak. In fact, those who experience depression are some of the strongest, most courageous people I know.

When we can talk about depression and hopelessness and pain, we gain opportunities to sit with others through the darkness, which perhaps is the greatest help of all. When we can talk about depression, we open the door wide for those who are struggling to find the courage, hope, and community that really is out there for them. For me. For us.

I believe it can be better. I believe it starts with you and me, carrying on this conversation about the uncomfortable topics of depression and mental illness, through blog posts and social media and real-life conversations in coffee shops and work cubicles and homes. It starts with stark transparency and healthy vulnerability and bold humility.

The truth about depression is…it can get better. And it starts with us.

Thank you to my friend Kateland Pricer for graciously letting me use her photo! Katie created a set of photos that captures feelings I could never explain with words. Her email is K.pricer@yahoo.com. She is incredibly talented in the creative realm and just an all-around awesome person!

Keeping the Power Lines and Losing the Edits: What Telephone Wires Taught Me about Owning my Story

I was standing on the balcony of our apartment building recently, looking down the street at the colorful roof tops and dusty road. I was thinking how I wished I could share what Cambodia is really like with those back in the States. So I leaned against the railing, trying to figure out how I could take a picture without all the power lines and wires in the way of the picture.

All of a sudden I realized how ridiculous I was being. To show what Cambodia is really like, I ought just to take a picture as-is, without finagling angles to cut out unsightly objects. If my goal is to show what it is really like, it should be unedited and unfiltered and uncropped.

Unedited and uncropped. Those words reminded me why the blog is named Beyond the Smiles—because of the huge portion of life that’s lived in that space beyond the smiles and social media posts and the “I’m fine” lies that slip from our lips unnoticed. I don’t want to be captive to masks and false fronts; I want to practice honesty and authenticity and talk about all parts of life, even the difficult and ugly and messy parts—what life is really like.

So I wondered, what if the power lines aren’t making the picture less scenic? What if they are making the picture complete?

When we physically look around, we have an amazing ability to look past the “ugly” things and appreciate the beauty around us. We look past telephone poles and wires and trash on the ground to enjoy a breathtaking sunset or a budding flower. If we waited for a beautiful view without any kind of distraction, we would rarely—if ever—find a suitable one.

Perhaps the power lines are simply part of the view.

Sometimes I edit the picture I paint for people about life here—and often people want the edited version. It’s tempting just to tell about the highlights in ministry and the fun cultural experiences and the delicious new foods I’m trying. Certainly that is part of life overseas! But that’s not all there is. There is also the homesickness and traveler’s diarrhea and culture stress. There’s still the anxiety and depression that comes and goes.

Really, it’s always tempting to edit the stories of our lives, overseas or not. Sometimes we encounter parts of our stories we wish weren’t there, and we want to cut those chapters out.  There are certainly parts of my story I've wanted to white-out or highlight and hit command+x or just take a pair of scissors to. Yet these unwanted chapters are still part of our stories, whether we own them or not. When we leave out the power lines in our stories, we aren’t making them more beautiful. We’re leaving them incomplete.

Each day we face a choice: will we spend the whole day searching for a perfect Kodak moment, or will we embrace life with all the messy (and sometimes ugly) power lines and trash and poor lighting? Will we choose to enjoy the beauty in life even when it comes alongside hard things?

In part, this is similar to giving myself permission to say things I’m not supposed to say, things that are humble and honest. Choosing to accept the less-than-perfect parts of life is much like admitting fears and weaknesses and letting people see the warts and wrinkles behind our masks and makeup. Just as we try to disown chapters or themes in our stories, sometimes we try to orphan unwanted parts of ourselves. Yet when we orphan our imperfections, we aren't making ourselves more attractive, and we're certainly not getting any closer to perfection. We're simply missing out on who we were made to be.

I used to think life was about avoiding pain. I thought the purpose of life was to enjoy the moments that were happy, when everything was going great. But now I see things differently. Now I’m learning to accept that no matter what I do or where I go, power lines will most likely stay in the picture. 

And that’s okay. 

The point of life isn’t avoiding pain and finding happiness. It’s about knowing Jesus. Sitting with Him and walking with Him and getting to know Him. That’s what makes life full and meaningful and worth it. With Jesus here, the power lines can stay.

Are there unwanted “power lines” in your life right now?

How do you usually respond to these less-than-perfect parts of life or situations?

Navigating the Bumps in Life

One of my favorite things in the whole world is to ride on the back of a motorbike down the red dirt roads to the villages of Cambodia, between rice patties and trees and children and cows, the wind against my face and my eyes feasting on the landscape. This is the stuff of poetry.

And then there are the bumps.

After all, they are dirt roads. The small bumps make me slide forward in the seat little by little, until it’s finally time to get readjusted. Then there are the bigger bumps, the ones that make your body weight shift upward (like when you accidentally hit a pothole and fly up off your seat…except not quite that big)—and those are the ones you can use strategically. You can use the jostle to pop right back into position. Or you can ignore it and just stay really uncomfortable. If you ignore it long enough, I'm sure you could probably lose your balance (but don't worry, I've never done that on a motor bike!).

I’ve been thinking lately how there are a lot of bumps in life, and how I’m in the middle of one right now. There are bumps when we move, when we change careers, when we begin or end relationships. Sometimes we expect them, and sometimes we don’t. But in either case, we have the choice to use them strategically or to ignore them.

The thing about these bumps is that they don’t really have much to do with the horizontal direction you’re heading. You can be on your way anywhere: you can be on a straight stretch of road, you can be on a blind curve, or you can be approaching an intersection. They have to do with your positioning vertically—how you’re sitting on the bike that’s beneath you. How you relate to the thing that is always with you, no matter where you go.

I’m in the middle of a bump. I have the chance to evaluate how I’m relating to what's always with me—myself and Jesus.

Am I where I want to be with Jesus? Am I engaged in the kind of relationship for which He has made me? Am I delighting in Him, and am I believing He is delighting in me? Am I seeking Him, listening to Him, loving Him, obeying Him? Am I overwhelmed by His presence, His love?

And am I where I want to be as a person—am I mentally and emotionally and physically healthy? Am I forgiving and showing grace to myself? Am I anxious or depressed or buying into perfectionism? Am I taking care of myself?

Here I am, with the choice to inventory and let go of the things that are weighing me down, to reposition and make sure I am in the place I want to be with regards to my God and myself. In her book Packing Light, Allison Vesterfelt (one of my favorite blogged) writes,

“You have wants, desires, needs, and ideas. These are all things you ‘pack’ with you for your journey. You might not even know you’re carrying them, but they’re in there. You’re walking around with a heavy suitcase” (p. 252).

I want to use this bump strategically. I want to toss unnecessary baggage off the back of the motorbike, focus on and enjoy the thrill of adventuring with Jesus, and make sure I’m in good shape internally.

And when this bump is over—well, perhaps the best thing about bumps in the road is that they remind us that we can reposition at any time, really. We don’t have wait for a huge unsettling event in our lives to check our internal well-being and our relationship with the Lord. All it takes is a little intentionality and we can slide right back to where we’re supposed to be—or a little closer, at least.

We may not always have the choice of avoiding bumps in the road, but we do have the choice in how we respond to them. Wherever you are in life, I pray your bumps afford you the joy of repositioning and enjoying a fresh perspective of yourself, of your surroundings, and most of all, of the Lord.

What are some bumps you're facing in life right now?

Are you anticipating bumps on the upcoming road, or have you just come through a bumpy stretch?

How do you usually handle bumps? 

Permissions for Life

Over the past couple years "permission" has become very meaningful word to me. It all started when I first came back from spending the summer in Cambodia a couple years ago. I was struggling with reentry to the States and was reading a wonderful blog post by Rocky Reentry that talked about the need to give yourself permission to grieve when you leave a culture.

Permission. In it I find grace and forgiveness. Through it I find freedom. In this season of life, rather than make a list of tasks or goals to complete this year, here are a few things I'm focusing on giving myself permission for.

1. Permission to say things you're not supposed to say

By that I don't mean I'm going to say things like, "That dress looks terrible with those shoes on you" (I'm not the one to consult for fashion advice anyway). I mean saying things like, "Truth be told, sometimes I get scared, and right in this moment I don't want to go to Cambodia." That doesn't mean I won't step on the plane tomorrow anyway (emotions are fickle, anyway, and in 5 minutes I could be pumped about going). It just means fear gets to me sometimes, and it's a very real battle to walk by faith and not by sight.

After growing up inchurch, it can seem un-Christian to be open about our struggles. It's incredibly difficult for me to be vulnerable about fear and faith when it comes to Cambodia—and any change. Yet perhaps admitting our weaknesses and clinging to His grace is the most Christlike thing we can do in these moments.

2. Permission to feel and own emotions

I'm not sure where the idea that emotions—particularly sadness and grief—are weaknesses came from originally. I believed that idea for a very, very long time, but the opposite is true. It takes far more courage to face fear and grief than to run from it.

I've learned the hard way that when we try to numb an uncomfortable emotion, we end up numbing all emotion. For years, I refused to let myself feel emotions because I didn't want to feel grief. A monumental moment for me last year was purchasing a box of tissues. (I know, kind of lame.) But it meant acknowledging tears and grief and in a way, welcoming them. Sometimes we all just need a reminder that it's okay not to be okay. Though it's difficult to sit with my emotions and feel my feelings (I'm not really an ushy gushy type of person), owning, feeling, and sharing emotions is an incredibly healthy practice.

3. Permission to love and take care of myself

This one can also seem downright un-Christian sometimes. What happened to "put others before yourself" and "God first, others second, and yourself last"?

I'm not sure I believe in that mantra anymore. If I'm not taking care of myself, how can I care for others? This is very obvious in the physical realm: if I have a diabetic patient who doesn't take care of his body's nutritional needs, he'll end up with life-threatening blood sugars, wounds that won't heal, hospital stays, etc that will prevent him from physically being able to help those around him. The same—maybe even to a greater extent—can be said for mental, emotional, and spiritual self care. The Lord commanded us to love others as we love ourselves. I think as we learn to love ourselves better, we will learn to love others better too.

4. Permission to ask for what I need

In a way, asking for what I need is part of learning to take care of myself. It's a way of setting boundaries. This is still new to me, so when I put it into practice it feels awkward and like I'm bumbling my way through.

This process is two-step: it requires me to know what I need (self awareness), and then it challenges me to follow through with the action of asking for it. One reason I'm drawn to this practice is that it helps prevent me from blaming others and playing the victim. It's easy to blame people for "not being more sensitive to my needs" or "walking all over me." But in the long run maybe it's better to muster up the courage to clarify boundaries and ask for what I need instead of assuming others will automatically know.

5. Permission to fail often and miserably

This is perhaps the hardest for me to write and accept. The perfectionistic side of me screams that this is heresy. Yet I have found failing often means more growth than success does, and my quality of life soars when I can accept my imperfections.

It's absolutely impossible to move forward in life without failing, without falling flat on my face. So I may as well make a break for it and stumble my way toward living a more full and joyful life.

Perhaps what makes failure so dreadful is not the falling itself or the pain or the slow process of getting back up or even the guarantee that it will all happen again soon. Perhaps the worst thing about it is the shame of knowing others will see me fall. They will see I am a fraud; I am not perfect. I am weak and scraped up and sometimes so broken I seek professional help to get back up. Yet I am encouraged by the wisdom Elizabeth Gilbert received long ago and now shares in her book Big Magic (p. 174):

"'We all spend our twenties and thirties trying so hard to be perfect, because we're so worried about what people will think of us. Then we get into our forties and fifties, and we finally start to be free, because we decide that we don't give a damn what anyone thinks of us. But you won't be completely free until you realize this liberating truth—nobody was thinking about you, anyhow.'" —Elizabeth Gilbert

I don't want to wait until I'm sixty to live from that truth.

6. Permission to forgive myself

With #5 comes, in all likelihood, the fact that I will make a fool of myself. And with making a fool of myself comes the challenge of forgiving myself.

A few months ago I was struggling with the concept of mercy, and a friend told me how one of the Hebrew words [checed] in the Bible that's translated "mercy" is also translated "steadfast love." I'm not a Hebrew scholar or anything, but this helped me grasp mercy. It made sense to me. In some cases, mercy and steadfast love are synonymous. This new perspective makes it easier to accept the Lord's mercy and understand how I can show mercy toward myself. To forgive myself, I must love myself. 

I'm still thinking through several other things I would like to give myself permission for, and I have a feeling it'll be a lifelong process to put these into practice. But keeping these in mind helps me keep my inner critic in check, and the liberating thing is there is no time limit—they are lifelong permissions, and they are permissions for a more abundant life.
 

How do you pursue living a more abundant life?

Are there things you would like to give yourself permission for or have learned to give yourself permission for in the past?