6 Reasons I Won't Tell You I'm Depressed

“I never would have guessed you were depressed. You always seem so happy.”

“Really, depression? I had no idea…”

These are common responses when I mention depression has been part of my life. I hear the same reactions when we lose someone to suicide:

“Can you believe it? I never even suspected he was struggling.”

When the truth emerges about people who struggle with mental illness, others are usually shocked. However, I’ve come to expect the disbelief and surprise. After all, as someone who hid depression and anxiety from the world for years, I know firsthand how hard we work hard to hide mental illness from others. We wipe away our tears before walking out the door of our homes, and we try to keep our heads lifted high in public. We wear superhero masks and put on Emmy-worthy performances day in and day out. Though every person has unique reasons for sharing or not sharing struggles with depression, here are the top six reasons I don’t tell others I’m depressed:

1. It’s awkward.

This is sad but true. I remember the first time someone shared with me her struggle with depression, and I bumbled through an awkward response of “I’m sorry…I um, I have to go.” At the time, I didn't understand depression and knew very little about it. I had no clue how to engage in a conversation in something I didn’t understand. It made me uncomfortable.

Since then I have gained plenty of firsthand experience about depression and have a much more caring, empathetic response. I’ve also experienced those bumbling, awkward responses from the other side of the conversation; I’ve been the one to witness others stammer and blush and suddenly forget how to talk when depression comes up. Though the awkwardness doesn’t bother me much anymore, I do think twice about how someone will respond before mentioning depression.

2. I don’t want to come across as needy.

Unfortunately, the stereotype “depressed” person is "weak," needy, and perhaps clingy. In an effort to avoid this stereotype at all costs, we keep our struggles to ourselves. We strive to keep up our reputations as strong, independent individuals. Isn’t this the American ideal?

Yet herein lies the misconception that strong means not needing others—and furthermore, that neediness is equal to needing help. For a long time, I avoided talking about depression because I believed needing help made me less-than and weak, in the end only to discover true courage is practicing vulnerability and asking for help.

Adobe stock photo

3. I’m afraid there’s something wrong with me.

Ashamed. Horrified. Scared. These are the emotions that plagued me in the pits of depression. Because depression is difficult to understand and has no cut-and-dry medical explanation with a formula to get better, it’s easy to fall into the lie that depression is an inherent flaw within me.

Depression carries the critical inner voice causing us to doubt our sense of value and our sense of belonging. "A freak. A failure. Of no value," it whispers in my head. With the pressure to conform and my natural aversion to vulnerability constantly weighing on me, of course I choose to keep my depression from others.

4. Some days I can’t even admit to myself I’m depressed.

Given the fears discussed above, it’s no wonder I try to convince myself I’m not depressed! On my best days in depression and on my worst, there is almost nothing I have wanted more desperately than for depression to be gone. I have wished for a magic cure, I have prayed and begged God to “take it away,” and I have spent hours on the internet looking for solutions to this mood disorder.

I have wished depression never existed, and I have wanted to forget about it altogether. I have tried to ignore it, to run from it, to numb myself to it—and on these days of denial, hiding depression from others simply comes as a byproduct of trying to keep it hidden from myself.

5. When I’m with you, I genuinely may be happy.

This may sound odd, but when I greet my friends and see coworkers in the hallway, I genuinely am happy in that moment—happy to see them, happy to know them, happy to spend time with them. In those moments, I am happy. I want to hear about their week and tell them about my day. I smile and crack jokes and do more than my share of laughing because I truly enjoy their company. It simply isn’t the right context to mention my depression, especially if I’m not feeling the full weight of it at the moment.

Because most interactions with others happen in these more superficial, thirty-second conversations, it makes sense that many would view me as a generally upbeat and happy person. The truth is, in the moments I interact with others I may be genuinely happy, but these moments do not necessarily represent my overall mental and emotional well-being.

6. I don’t want unsolicited advice on how to get better.

Well-meaning friends have suggested everything from antidepressants to praying and reading my Bible more. They have told me about their Aunt Milly and what cured her depression and the miraculous recovery of their friend Billy Bob. 

For obvious reasons, this can be very annoying to those with depression. Everyone’s experience of depression is different, and what helps one person will not necessarily help someone else. It can also be exasperating because it can unintentionally imply that we aren’t already trying everything we know to get better. We probably already googled that therapy or pill or herbal supplement you’re telling us about, and we probably read about five articles on it while we were busy avoiding people!

Ways to Make the Conversation Easier

Though I've learned to become comfortable talking about depression openly, there are still ways people can make the conversation easier:

• Create a nonjudgmental attitude/safe atmosphere
• A focus on listening, not telling
• Genuine desire to learn and understand
• Phrases like “Tell me more about that” or “I’d like to learn more about depression and would love to hear about your experience”
• An environment where others are vulnerable about their struggles as well (a "me too" culture)
• The ability to relate but not compare (ie, “I/someone close to me has walked through depression, and I know it can be really difficult” versus “My brother was depressed but it wasn’t that bad”)
• After listening, asking “How can I help?” or “What helps on the hard days?”
• A “thank you for sharing” or acknowledgment of how much courage it takes to talk about taboo topics like mental illness.

Perhaps you’re familiar with the road of depression, or perhaps you’re walking alongside someone with depression. Regardless, I hope this list provides some insight—and please know, we are thankful for you. We are thankful for the conversations about depression, even if they’re a little awkward at first! We are thankful for community because even though we don’t always like it, we cannot do this alone.

Thanks for letting me tell you I’m depressed.

On Rest(oration)—Part II

In Part I of this series, I wrote about the different aspects of rest and why it’s important. This post is focused on the practicals—simple tips and tools to rest and find restoration.

Take a Sabbath.

In my last post I mentioned The Mudhouse Sabbath by Lauren Winner as the inspiration for my experiment in taking a full 24-hour Sabbath from studying and working during nursing school. During this experiment, I discovered the Sabbath does not have to be the traditional midnight-to-midnight day; it could mean sundown-to-sundown in the traditional Jewish sense, or it could mean noon-to-noon or whatever other 24-hour period fit the natural flow of my days. Regardless of when I took a Sabbath, setting aside 24 consecutive hours allowed my mind to unwind. Generally, it took about 3-4 hours for my mind to wind down from breakneck college-schedule speed and begin enjoying the freedom of time specifically dedicated to rest.

Photo credit: Pixabay.com

Give yourself permission.

This is a tool I initially learned from Rocky Reentry in a post giving readers permission not to have everything figured out when moving back “home” from overseas. This spoke deeply to me, and I began consciously giving myself permission for other things, as well: permission to make mistakes, permission not to be productive, and permission for many other things. In fact, I created a general list of my “Permissions for Life” and later wrote another list of “Permissions for Reentry” after I moved back from Cambodia. Consciously granting myself permission for things has possibly been one of the most powerful tools I have found to unlock a mindset of productivity and embrace rest and restoration.

Start limiting social events.

Throughout life, our capacities for obligations, working, and social events will vary. In college, I could handle one (or more!) social event every day. In times of depression, I could handle one social event a week. However, when facilitating rest, the question is not “What is the maximum number of events/hours of work I can handle?” Rather, the focus is on health—for example, “Will going to this event leave me drained and exhausted, or will it restore me?” Redefining goals and success to target health and not productivity promotes balance and inherently encourages rest.

Plan to Rest.

I have a friend who schedules blocks of time to be at home, resting, throughout the week. If someone asks to meet during one of these blocks of time, she tells them she already has something scheduled—because she does. She just doesn’t tell them the meeting is with her pillow to sleep in for that one morning out of the week! Telling people “no” is difficult—even harder for me is telling work “no” when they ask me to come in, but when I dedicate days or blocks of time in advance to allow myself to rest and recuperate, it’s easier to politely decline requests for my time. Occasionally, I even tell people “I have plans already” because I do—plans to rest!

Ultimately, rest is something to be learned.

When I first started taking a Sabbath in college, my brain simply did not know how to stop racing, analyzing, and studying. In fact, initially it increased my stress level because I worried I was wasting time. It took time and witnessing firsthand how rest increased my productivity throughout the week and paid off in the emotional and spiritual realms before I learned to relax and allow myself to take a break from working and studying. Likewise, when I first moved back from Cambodia and was working part-time and had very few friends (and therefore social events), it was uncomfortable and felt lonely. Yet with time, I began to adjust, learning to be grateful for the extra time to process experiences and emotions and utilize it accordingly.

I am still learning about rest—how to rest, when to rest, what “rest” is. In the midst of all this learning, one thing remains the same: the more I experience rest, the more confident I am that rest is nothing less than essential and healing to my soul.

What are practical way you incorporate rest into your routine? Have you noticed a difference in your week when you set aside time to rest? 

On Rest(oration)—Part I

A few weeks ago, one of my all-time heroes, Shawn Shannon, sat at my kitchen table and talked about rest. She explained that her season of life was in flux, and she asked if I had any nuggets of wisdom on resting. I found it curious that she thought I had anything to offer when it came to this topic, as my nature is to stay on my hamster wheel of perfectionism and focus on productivity over everything else.

Shawn was patient as I thought. In my head I reviewed the past couple years, and I realized I had learned quite a bit on resting, though much of it was not of my own volition. In the time since our conversation, I have been mulling over how to rest, and here is what I have gathered.

Rest is unnatural—or is it?

Setting aside time to rest is unnatural. The business principles we cling to tell us the more we work or the more productive we are, the greater the profit. In college I began to learn about the benefits of rest when I read about the Jewish Sabbath in The Mudhouse Sabbath; I started taking a Sabbath from studying and working during nursing school and was astonished to find my grades actually improved! What started as a difficult discipline soon became one of my favorite, most refreshing parts of the week. Our first thought may not be to prioritize rest, but our bodies were created to need it. 

The amount of rest we need ebbs and flows along with seasons of life.

While I was in school, an entire 24 hours without studying was enough to fuel the rest of the week. However, last year after living in Cambodia for a few months and moving back to the United States, both my soul and my body were in desperate need of greater rest than a single day could offer. I dove into the first season of rest I had ever encountered.

When I returned to Waco, I found many of my friends had moved, so most of my free days were spent alone—and I had plenty of free days! I began working part-time hours as a nurse, but my applications for other jobs fell through. Though I never would have chosen an empty schedule and a season of rest immediately following my return to the States, it is exactly what I needed.

Living in Cambodia was taxing. I had struggled with depression, and I had poured massive amounts of energy into learning the language and culture of a new country. I had been in a state of “hyper-awareness” for months to avoid cultural faux-pas. I had been intentional about investing in my English students, and I had worked hard to learn how to teach effectively. I loved living in Cambodia—but it took more out of me than I realized! It was a season of high intensity learning and effort, and I needed a season of intense rest afterward.

Rest provides time for healing.

When we sleep, our brains categorize memories and thoughts, and our bodies start to repair the wear-and-tear damage from the day. Likewise, our souls and hearts need time to process events and integrate them into the delicate, unique network of experiences that makes us, us.

To make the most of this time, I have found tools such as reflection and journaling invaluable. Additionally, therapy, counseling, life coaching, and good ol’ coffee dates with friends can help us be intentional about making the most of a season of rest.

Rest is holistic.

Of course, sleeping in and taking naps are one form of rest (and one of my favorites)! Though this covers the physical aspect of rest, we also benefit from mental, emotional, and spiritual rest. I find mental rest when I read a good fiction book, watch television, or spend time drawing or painting. These activities require very little mental stimulation. Emotionally, I find rest during visits with my therapist as well as when I run or exercise. When I jog, I find I am more focused on the physical realm than the emotional—and since I have a tendency to get “stuck in my head,” exercise can be very helpful for me. Finally, spiritual rest can be found in a variety of ways. It can be found listening to music while I run, praying every morning, or meditating. Rest for everyone looks different, but it always involves more than physically sleeping.

These are just a few of my observations on rest! How do you experience holistic rest? What are the benefits of rest, and do you find it natural to incorporate rest into your lifestyle? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Leave a comment or send me an email—and stay tuned for Part II, where I’ll talk about the practical tips I’ve found that lead to restoration!

How the Cardiovascular System Helped Me Find My Purpose

Music played from my laptop next to the couch. I pulled my blanket up to my chin and listened and prayed. A friend came to mind, and I thought about how she was a conduit, a vessel for the Gospel. My mind turned over the word "vessel" and since my friend is also a nurse, wandered to thoughts of blood vessels and the body's vasculature.

All at once, something clicked inside me, and I sat straight up. When I thought of my friend—and myself, and everyone—as blood vessels, something suddenly made sense to me. Bear with me while I give some backstory.

It's been a year since I have moved back to the United States. A year full of struggles, depression, hope, and growth only reentry could bring (it was so crazy I even wrote an ebook on it). One of the things I struggled with during the transition from life overseas to life in Waco, Texas, was finding purpose in my location and vocation Stateside.

While in Cambodia, I learned the missionary lifestyle is not so different from—or more important than—the lifestyle of a believer back home. However, this knowledge didn't prevent guilt from creeping up on me when I moved to the States. I felt guilty for abandoning those I loved in Cambodia, and I questioned whether I was weak for not staying there. The attention and applause the American church gave to missionaries no longer applied to me. Without a clear-cut outline defining my goals and my purpose, I felt lost, out of place, and particularly unimportant. 

Though the Lord has since provided incredible community, a sense of purpose and contribution, and relentless reminders of His love, in the back of my mind I have still believed that what I am doing here in the United States is less important—less vital—to the Kingdom than what I was doing in Cambodia. We often call missionaries the people on the "front lines," but where does that leave the rest of us?

When I thought of people as blood vessels, as conduits supplying life to other body parts, I realized it didn't matter what my location was. I could be a capillary in the pinky toe all the way in Cambodia, where the vasculature isn't as dense, or I could be part of the aorta at the hub of the heart. I could be a coronary artery, feeding the heart itself and keeping it strong so it could continue sending out blood to the body. I could be a femoral artery, a little farther from the heart but not in the boonies of the fingertips. Regardless of where I was, I was neither less important nor "more" vital than any other vessel. "More" and "less" do not exist as long as I pulse with the heartbeat of the One who gives life.

The goal of the cardiovascular system is to keep the body alive—all parts of the body. The aorta has no purpose if no arteries supply the brain; likewise, capillaries in the brain have nothing to give if the carotid is not functioning. My purpose is the same in both places, though it may look different. It may involve giving more of my financial resources (now that I have a paying job again!) and less time traveling to remote villages that have no blood supply yet. It may look like resting and soaking up the extra access to life-giving friends and community, hearing the Gospel preached in my own language every week, and feeling the pulse of His heartbeat, strong and regular as it reshapes my attitude and habits and life to be more like His.

When I was in Cambodia, I thirsted for community and soaked up every bit I received. I treasured phone calls and found Jesus to be my closest companion as I sought Him on my knees (in front of the oscillating fan, of course). I desperately hungered for the encouragement and prayers sent to me through friends and family and strangers, all the way from the heart of God to mine. I could not have survived without this. I am forever grateful for those who served as vessels at every step of the way: from the aorta to the arcuate artery, allowing hope to flow to me in the pinky toe of Kratie, Cambodia.

Here in the States, I am deeply grateful for community, for the people who draw near to the heart of God and who urge me to do the same. My soul feasts on the abundance of spiritual resources, and I am refreshed and restored. And I hope I too am a conduit. I hope I too am a vessel allowing hope to flow through me straight to the one who needs it, or to trickle from me to another to another to another, eventually reaching a girl on the other side of the world who is on her knees seeking the One who fills our deepest needs. I hope I get to play a part in her experiencing community and purpose and forgiveness. I hope she would know there is One who loves her, and this One who loves her most is there with her, on the floor in front of the fan, ready to refresh her soul.

To those who have been and to those who are conduits and vessels, thank you. What an honor to serve Jesus alongside you.