How did I come out of depression

 May 29

People have asked me how I got out of the deep pit I was in. What changed for me? How did I live through it and get beyond that place? 

Today our pastor said something that summed it up so well for me…

“New life requires a new direction”. 

I had to step into new ways of living even though I wasn’t yet there, in order to get out of the mess I was in. 

As Marc put it… “I needed to move in a new direction to create space from where I was and where I needed to be”. 

The biggest savior for me was my Savior Himself. He somehow kept me alive until I was able to walk forward in His grace. 

He used lots of avenues,  mainly my people to love on me during that time, but it also took me deciding (with God’s and close family/friend’s help) to step forward even when all I could see around me was darkness. 

Eventually, the more I stepped forward, the more the darkness moved behind me instead of all around me. 

It's so hard to explain to someone who's in the dark.. that they have to step forward into a place they can't yet see... it's so hard to do. It was a big step for me though and things seemed to start to change from there.

Where is Jesus during depression?

What happens when the darkness closes in on you and doesn’t go away?

What do you do when your prayers seem unanswered and needs go unmet? 

What if when we pray it doesn’t seem to help at all? 

What if we call out to Jesus and hear nothing and wonder if He even remembers our name? 

How do you go on when you’ve lost your will to live?  

Who do you turn when it seems the God you knew seems to no longer exist within? 

Where do we find Jesus when the light hides its face and darkness seems to stay? 

What do we do when we think Love Himself has turned His face away? 

What if the life we knew seems to not exist anymore and we no longer think it can be saved? 

Can we cope when hopelessness has moved in and seems to stay? 

Sometimes nothing helps and it all seems too much to bear. 

Sometimes the only voice we have is the one that groans in pain. 

Does that mean we’ve lost our faith and we’ll never be the same?

 

What do you do when death is closing in?

You cry.

You whale,

You scream.

You curse. 

You breath. 

You exist.

You live. 

Sometimes that’s all you’ve got to give.  

And what if by some miracle the darkness starts to lift and truth starts to light the way?  

Does that mean we have to start over? No. 

Do we have to find our way back home?  No. 

Do we have to crawl back to Jesus? No. 

Should we feel broken and ashamed? No. 

No. 

It means we’re stating to get better.

It means we might be ok. 

It means what was always true is still true:

That He was always there.

That He never left us. 

That We never left Him. 

That things are going to be ok. 

He is right there walking the lonely path with us.

There’s nothing we have to do to earn our way back.

He loves us just the same. 

Eventually the light will come out again and slowly you’ll find yourself living again. 

One day you’ll wake up in the morning and look back and see that He was faithful. That He IS faithful. 

You’ll see that He’s still the same God who sees us and loves us. 

He was always right inside us.

We will feel the light start to rise within us and we will watch and marvel at how the sun rises over the horizon.

We will start to see Jesus again and we will eventually heal enough to realize He never left us. 

We’ll look back and see Him and realize it was He that sustained. 

He was there helping, holding, carrying. 

Eventually we will start to believe again…

He’s still loving.

He’s still faithful.

He’s still good. 

Even when we can’t see it.

Even when we can’t feel it.

Even when we’ve forgotten.

He’s still the same.

The Hope Giver. 

The Way Maker. 

The Wounded Healer. 

Jesus knows trauma

Trauma has a way of keeping record of our suffering and tallying them in our hearts for easy access later. It’s not a good thing that our bodies do that.  It’s more like survival. 

These tallies keeps us captive to hard memories and at any point they can be activated and drug right out in the open before we even suspect a thing. 

We usually can’t see the darkness closing in until it’s unraveled all around us and we are left stuck in its shadow.  

Trauma creates fear and anxiety that can be a lifelong battle. It changes peoples brains and activates survival mode in just a moment. A word, a feeling, a memory and it all comes back to us. 

Life often has twists and turns we are not prepared to navigate. We often find ourselves in distressing circumstances that can leave us feeling turned upside down. 

For this I don’t have an answer. 

But I have the desire to live beyond the tragedies I’ve faced. I work hard to live in the present moments yet honor my pain when it surfaces. Sometimes it takes me back to hard places and there are times I can grow from that. Other times it feels like it hijacks my emotions and I find myself in distress and I can’t just find my way out real quick. 

I have to fight. I struggle to allow my past to empower me and make me stronger rather than just feeling weak. 

It’s an uphill battle, one I wouldn’t wish on anyone, yet we’ve all in one way or another fell prey to its demands. It doesn’t discriminate. Whether it be in our own lives or the lives of those we love, we’ve all been touched by tragedy. 

Everyone who’s endured trauma deserves to be heard. To lay themselves wide open and be seen. 

The best thing we can do for those who are experiencing the effects of trauma is to hold space with them. Don’t avoid them. Speak truth to them. Bear them up with your support. Allow them to be where they are and don’t try to change them. The last thing they need is to feel shame about where they are at. It’s damaging to rush them beyond when the light hasn’t yet risen for them. Darkness comes and goes. We don’t need to try to move people out of where they are. Being supported in those times will give way to healing. Being pushed to get over it and move beyond it can hold us hostage in the pain. We want to find our way out. We long to be free. 

Responses to trauma creep up when it’s least expected and is relentless in its attempts to be heard. It deserves respect for its efforts to change us. 

Trauma causes people to withstand a lot of dark feelings. Eventually the light rises up and the darkness goes away for a time and we can see again but it’s often a lifelong battle of finding our footing and allowing healing to take place along the journey. 

Jesus modeled this so well. He came as a human baby, he grew to endure much pain and rejection. He endured traumatic events. He felt forsaken. He begged for mercy. He wouldn’t deny us the ability to navigate or tragedies when He himself honored His own. He wept for Lazarus, He had conflicting emotions at the garden of gethsemane. He even felt overwhelmed to the point of death. He endured the trauma of the cross, feeling abandoned. He knows trauma and He knows disappointment. He never denied Himself the journey.

Cry in the rain

Sometime in order to grow beyond our hurts we have to first acknowledge and honor them. 

Sometimes to move on from our disappointments we have to first name them.

Sometimes the route to becoming free from the darkness is to embrace it. 

Sometimes to find our way out of the depths of our grief we have to plunge right into it. 

It’s ok to linger in hard moments, to take them in and allow them to wash over us. 

It’s in grieving that we give honor to our losses. 

Grief has its own language and it deserves to be spoken freely.  

When we sit face to face with Jesus we are met with arms wide open, ready to take us in. 

It's ok to cry out to Jesus. 

Mourn your losses. 

Let out the pain. 

Pause in the ache. 

Whale in the rain. 

God went to the depths of the cross just to be with us.

It’s ok to give yourself permission to unravel.

Jesus grappled in the garden of gethsemane.

Reel from the injustices in your life. 

You don’t have to move on until you're ready. 

We can revisit the heartaches as often as we need. 

Suffering isn’t a weakness.

Suffering can be an avenue to be one with Jesus. 

Asking God to enter into our brokenness doesn’t mean we won’t be broken, it means we won’t ever be alone in our brokenness. 

Make room for questions and embrace the ache of our fears. 

Facing our battles can make way for new hopes and dreams to grow up wild. 

 

It’s ok to crumble, it’s ok to face the depths without hinder. 

Sometimes we have to revisit, and that's more than ok. 

Grief has its own language, it’s own rhythm and rhyme.

We must face our sorrows, just as we embrace our strengths. 

Stuffing our pain down inside doesn’t make it go away.

Denying its existence threatens to snuff out life and make us bitter. 

Sometimes I feel like I’m in a constant revolving door moving in and out of grief. 

So many losses, so many casualties of the heart, so many unmet dreams. 

It's ok to honor our memories. 

They remind us how far we have come and how much we have grown.

Laying down our wants and unmet expectations we can lean into Jesus. 

He'll lean right back. 

Get angry, get mad, scream and cry and let it all out. 

Do whatever you need to to overcome your battles. 

Don’t bury the darkness, let it all out. 

That's how we find the Light. 

Each time you face your pain it becomes a little less heavy and not quite as impactful. 

Face the truth and then let it go. 

It will come and go and let that be. 

We are worth the time and effort to become healed.  

Allowing ourselves space to feel what we feel enables us to move into healthier patterns of thinking.

It gently guides us towards truer versions of who we are and who we want to be.

Open your heart wide open to Jesus, He’s never let us down. 

He’s a firm foundation.

He’s a soft landing when we fall to the ground. 

We are going to make it through.

Joy in the pain, beauty in the ashes.

It’s in the breaking and the shaping that we are made new. 

There will be a day

The truth is I don’t know what my life would be like had I not suffered trauma at a young age. 

I don’t know what it would be like to not have everything I think and feel go through the filter of being traumatized as a young teen.

 

Would I see myself differently? 

Would I second guess everything I think and say? 

Would I think I am enough? 

Would I see strength or would I just see my weakness?

Would I have confidence in my choices? 

Would I be able to make my own decisions without always overthinking? 

Would I love that sweet little girl I still have inside me?

Would I deny her the love she so desperately needs? 

Would I still feel all this anxiety and fear and strife? 

Would love be enough to keep these hard feelings at bay? 

Would I be free from bondage? 

Would I know my true name? 

Would I feel secure in Jesus?

Would I escape all the negative memories? 

Would I still think love has strings attached? 

Would I still have mental illness? Would I still fight some days just to stay alive? 

Would I feel like I could be doing so much more?

Would I feel like I’m always missing the mark? 

Would I care so much what people think? 

Would there still be all the striving and struggling and fighting? 

Would I have to try so hard to be happy? 

Would I feel safe in my own skin? 

Would I feel like there’s more to my days than just getting through to the next? 

Would my heart more naturally stay in a more positive place? 

Would I be able to see beauty within and around me?

The truth is I won’t know if these things would be different had I not had abuse at a young age. 

I don’t have the answers to all of this pain. 

I don’t know if I would still have the tormenting thoughts and anguish and fear. 

I do know that there is someone who always hears my hearts cry before I even speak a word. 

He especially sees me on those days I feel paralyzed by my woundedness.

I wonder when I see Him face to face if I will ask Him if He can tell me how it would have be different?

I don’t know if I will care. 

I think I’ll be so happy to fall into His arms and not have to fight so hard. 

I think I’ll be joyful to see the face of the One who has seen me through so many dark days.  

I’ll tell Him how much different my life was because He just loved me.

I’ll tell Him I’m so thankful that He helped me through. 

I’ll have that long awaited embrace that I’ve so often longed for. 

I’ll feel all these questions melt away as I become whole and happy and free. 

I’ll heal more on this side of heaven I’m sure. God knows how hard I try to let Him in. 

Over time I’ll find freedom and health and be able to fully rejoice in His name. 

One day I’ll know my worth and see through eyes that aren’t shadowed by pain. 

One day I’ll surrender fully and I’ll be filled peace instead of strife. 

One day I’ll receive all the confidence that I’ve been in constant pursuit of. 

One day I won’t have to grapple for truth, because I have Truth Himself. 

I don’t think when I see Him face to face that I will need to know anymore. 

I think I’ll have all I’ve ever needed. 

Well some days I think I know that. 

Sometimes I just wrestle with my humanness and the devil that pursues to consume me. 

Sometimes I rest on my Jesus and everything feels ok again. 

I’m not sure what it would look like to not see life through the lenses of trauma but I do know there will be a day that I won’t have to care anymore because I’ll have a new mind and a new heart.  

I’ll no longer live in the shadow of affliction. 

Someday I’ll find myself on the other side.

It will be just me and Jesus and all this other stuff will go away. 

I’ll soak in His presence without the constant battle. 

Some days I’m able to really press into Jesus and with His help I’m able to let Him heal more of me.

Some days I just see all the strife. 

Some days there’s no sadness 

Some days I have hope.

The more I lean into Jesus and His promises I see His truth and goodness for me.  

The more I lean in the more He leans into me and the closer we become. 

The more I seek His face the more whole I become.

Someday I won’t have to worry about all this. 

I’ll be one with Jesus and none of this will matter.

One day I’ll have deep deep healing and joy and I pray that those days are more and more on this side of heaven. 

I’ll praise Jesus for all my days and there will be no more pain, no more suffering. 

I long for those days today and always.   

Searing pain

Trauma has a way of weaving itself into every fiber of our being. 

It torments our thoughts, pollutes our feelings, and covers us with a blanket of shame that can feel suffocating.   

It breaks down our identity, clouds our sense of self. 

It lies to us, tricks us, and confuses us.  

It’s downright brutal. 

It sets up fires in the basement of our hearts and demands that we feed it day and night. 

The effects slowly creep into our no hearts and minds and become darn near impossible to snuff out. 

Its embers are so hot they can burn holes clean through our souls. 

The fire beckons us to come close. 

It’s as if the flames are begging to burn us up. 

They echo together, “You aren’t enough”. 

We cling desperately to the ladder, frantic to get out of the basement. 

If only we could climb the stairs and find our footing. 

We fight but we are weary. 

We fall, landing in the blistering heat of agony.

Our spirits crushed by the scorching flames of heartbreak and sorrow. 

Eventually it becomes hard to breathe. 

The smoke invades our lungs. 

Soot covers everything we see. 

Somewhere in the rubble we lose our hope. 

We succumb to the heat.

The fire suffocates any trace of life. 

It’s a grueling fight over life and death. 

Jesus knows the depth of searing pain that we suffer.

He knows the flames that tear right through our heart, 

breaking us wide open.  

He knows what it is to be wounded.

He knows what it is to be marred by someone else's sin.

He bore our sin on His back in the form of the cross, carrying us even unto death. 

His basement was the cross and our scorning was the flame. 

He too had His heart shattered.    

Even Jesus needed His Father to navigate the cross. 

He too has felt the anguish of the world’s harm.  

He loved us unto death despite our rejection. 

He walked straight through the fire just to get to us. 

Death doesn't get the final say. 

Jesus rose again on the third day.

His life blood pulses through our veins. 

We are freed from the clutches of death. 

Hope has come. We don’t have to live in the basement anymore. . 

His greatest pain became God's greatest glory.

Could it be that our greatest sorrows can become His greatest glory too? 

32 years ago and the memory feels like yesterday

 TRIGGER WARNING. I don’t want to cause anyone to go to a bad place.

32 years ago my innocence was shattered.
It sounds like forever ago when I count the years like that.
In my memory it could have been yesterday.
Sometimes I’m taken back and I still feel like that little 13 year old girl who’s world, in just one night, was turned upside down.
I can still smell the stench of alcohol on his breath.
I can still see his eyes that pierced into my soul.
The physical pain lasted but for a few fleeting moments compared to the real pain that came in the years to follow.
Sleepless nights and questioning why.
The slow death of my self esteem, my hopes and dreams, my identity.
Sometimes It came in strong bouts of shame and condemnation.
Years of guilt thinking I could have done something different.
The death didn’t come quickly, no it came gradually over years of thinking I was dirty and used.
It was 30 years before I would settle in my heart that God was good and He didn’t like it either.
It was a long slow walk of pleading and screaming, crying silent tears and mourning. Great loss and brokenness is not easy to mend.
It would be years before I would see God in that part of my story.
It was just this year when I allowed myself to let go of feeling dirty and used.
Just this year that I put the blame in the right place and let myself off the hook for it even happening.
Looking back it was ludicrous to even think I had a part in it, but lies do that, they lie to you. They wreck you.
I bought into the lie that victimization brings, that you aren’t worth anything anymore, that you are used goods ready to be broken at any moment.
The lie that I can never be whole again and I’ll always be that broken little girl that sobbed and pleaded.
No I am not her anymore, though at times there are remnants of her existence.
Joy comes in the morning.
Mourning I have done.
Sometimes no joy came and it was years of waking up to those same dark realities.
Joy does come in the morning though, sometimes decades later but it does come.
I know sorrow and I know broken.
I also know a savior.
One night changed my whole life, bringing years of dying and decay.
One night on the cross Jesus was beaten and abused.
His death bore through greater pain than we could ever know.
One night on the cross brought a lifetime of hope and healing for my pain.
His cross covered my body when my innocence was taken,
His cross covers all those silent tears and hopeless nights and questionings.
His cross covers all my wanderings and all my dying and all my broken misplaced feelings.
32 years ago and it still sometimes feels like yesterday.
32 years and I have joy after mourning and peace after agony.
32 years and I’m still healing.
32 years and he didn’t take it all.
Beauty for ashes…
Strength for fear…
Gladness for mourning…
And peace for despair.
He restores the years the locust have eaten.
He heals what the enemy has stolen.
Though I walked through the valley of the shadow of death, He was with me.
He restores my soul, surely goodness and mercy will follow me all the days of my life and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever.

He wins!

If you know this kind of pain, you are not alone. If you need support please PM me I want to be there for you.

#tellsomebody