The Pit of Despair (Depression #3)

It's hard to describe how depression feels.  It's like childbirth, you have to experience it to understand it, and  for many, its the worst pain they've ever endured.

Trapped in a room with no doors or windows can describe depression.  You can function, but you can't go anywhere.  I mean physically, yes, but I mean mentally too.  So giving up, sitting down, and crying makes the most sense.

Paralyzed is another word.  I arrange meals for hundreds of people at a time.  But when I am experiencing depression, I can't think to feed myself.  Sometimes its easier to get in the car and drive thru for a burrito even though I have beans, cheese, and tortillas at home.  Sometimes, its easier just not to eat at all and hope someone will think to bring me something to eat.  It is very scary to be in that situation.

Once desperation sets in, it can be a spiral into the pit of despair.  The pit of despair can be so deep that it feels like no one or no thing can pull you out.  Panic, worthlessness, and confusion are all friends in the pit.

None of these words can begin to describe the physical pain.  But there really is no pain that can be described.  For me, it was my digestive tract.  I could only pin point the pain in my chest and back.  Every test was run, the drs. next step was to open me up and explore, but he still would not have found anything.  I just lived with the pain.

The pain in my brain was torturing too.  Sometimes it was as though my brain was seizing and cramping inside my head.  My cranium actually hurt.  My brain felt like it needed to throw up, just like my stomach.  I still experience the "brain throw ups" from time to time.

Then there's the pain of depression.  No point of reference, no actual spot.  Just pain.  Depression hurts everywhere.  It is not uncommon to be diagnosed with fibromyalgia or arthritis just so a dr. can  make sense of the pain.  But the pain doesn't make sense, it just exists.

Existing is all that I could do.  There were days that I didn't brush my teeth.  There were days that I was totally functional, and many days in between.  At my worst point I would get up in the morning, counting the hours until I could go to sleep.  The pain just didn't stop.  I couldn't eat, or drink.  I was living in my pajamas at my parents' house, and I wanted to die.  I was like this for several weeks, and then on again off again for months.  Very few people knew.

I couldn't take care of my children.  There were friends who took them.  Ethan spent many nights away from Jeff who was down the street from me at our home.  Jarrod was at school and then a friend would bring him to my parents' house where he would sit and play, and I would go upstairs and nap or cry because even seeing my children was stressful.  That stress added guilt, and then the pit seemed more real than ever.

As I write this I begin to shake and want to cry.  It has been years since I was this bad, but the memories are fresh, the pain is still real, because unlike childbirth, the memory of the pain stays tangible.

I mentioned I still have the brain throw ups from time to time.   I still find the pit, my old friend, and fall into the pattern.  I'm learning to reject the pit, but it was such a way of life for so many years, that it is easy to go back.  My bible helps.  Talking to someone helps.  Having someone bring me lunch helps.  Reading my "From Panic to Power" book helps.  I am taking steps in the right direction, but even as far on the journey as I have come, I still have a long way to go. 

If you suffer from depression, hopefully you can take some of my words and make them your own to convey to your loved ones what you are feeling and what your needs are.  Do not give up.  Keep going.  Keep searching for your means of escape.  Remember there are those who love you, but if you don't communicate to them your needs, they can't help you.  Empower yourself with knowledge, read, talk to a survivor.

If you know someone who suffers from depression, you now have a glimpse of how it feels.  Don't let your loved one feel alone.  Remind them that you are there, that you can help, that you will help.  Try not to feel helpless but empower yourself with knowledge by reading or talking to a depression survivor or the loved one of a depression survivor.

There are many good books and websites for depression.  I found some in my hunt.  Every person is different and needs to find their own sources of empowerment.

Escape is possible.  Freedom can come.   Healing is available for you.  I know it, because it happened for me.

For no temptation (no trial regarded as enticing to sin), [no matter how it comes or where it leads] has overtaken you and laid hold on you that is not common to man [that is, no temptation or trial has come to you that is beyond human resistance and that is not adjusted and adapted and belonging to human experience, and such as man can bear]. But God is faithful [to His Word and to His compassionate nature], and He [can be trusted] not to let you be tempted and tried and assayed beyond your ability and strength of resistance and power to endure, but with the temptation He will [always] also provide the way out (the means of escape to a landing place), that you may be capable and strong and powerful to bear up under it patiently. I Corinthians 10:13 amplified