My Secret

So I have alluded to, and mentioned, my struggle with depression. I would like to elaborate on that in this entry, and try to start telling my story about living with depression.

I went to see a therapist for the first time when I was 20 years old, in the spring of my sophomore year at Towson. I still remember walking to that first appointment. My school had a free counselling center, and since my mood and life had been off, I thought a therapist might help me figure out what I should do with my life, and help me manage my low moods a little better. Plus, as mentioned, it was free.

That spring, through no fault of my therapist (whom I did not like), my mood, anxiety and depression increased. By the time I reached the weeks before summer break, my therapist told me he thought I should meet with a psychiatrist for medication management, and potentially get a new therapist, off campus who could work with me.

That summer, I went to my primary care practitioner in Frederick, and started my first medication; Celexa.

I didn't tell my parents about the addition of an SSRI to my life because I was pretty sure they would not be pleased, or have a bunch of questions I could not answer.. It was the first time in my life that I kept a real secret from them.

As I started my junior year of school, the depression and anxiety just got worse. I had moved into a one bedroom apartment with one of my best friends, but inside, something was still not right for me. I tried several medications that fall of 2000, but not much seemed to help.

Depression started to take it's suffocating hold on my life, and drag me down into the depths of despair. When I say I was depressed, and that this was a serious, painful, overwhelming force in my life, I am not exaggerating. I am not trying to make my story more interesting. I am telling the truth, and while I hesitate to tell the whole story, it does no one any good to keep it a secret. That year, probably in the late fall, I started down a path of personal destruction that would take hold for a number of years. In a moment of desperation, isolation, loneliness, and disregard for my personal preservation, I injured myself, intentionally, alone in my bathroom, while my roommate watched TV.

I was probably more suicidal than anything else, but my relationship with God prevented me from actually making any kind of plan to make an attempt at my own life. So I cut myself. I know, this is a little gruesome, and ridiculously personal, but what good has it done keeping it a secret? I was sad, I was sick, and for all its merits, the church was absolutely no help in this area. I was desperate to feel something, and having seen an episode on self injury on the show, ER, it seemed like the path of least resistance, which would validate how awful I was feeling on the inside.

I tell this part of my story not to get sympathy, but because if someone like me, who was raised in the church, and truly believed in the POWER of God, can experience this kind of desperation, anyone can. I knew the Lord, I knew, during those moments that he was broken over my actions, but I could not stop. More than that, I did not want to. And when I turned to my faith for help, I was told to pray. I am telling you right now, by the time you are cutting on yourself, prayer is not gonna be the cure-all. I needed a band of believers huddled around me, keeping me accountable. All I had was; "Pray about your depression and God will heal it." You know what? Sometimes people get diagnosed with cancer and God does not heal it.

Having been a Christian my whole life, all I knew about depression was that God, could heal it. That was not going to be enough for me. When I told other Christians about my sadness, they prayed for me, and told me to pray. You know what? Depression is sometimes bigger and uglier than any cancer. Sometimes it has a tighter grip than any tumor. If there is one thing I hope to convey in this blog, it is that the church needs to stop treating depression as a sin - and start treating it like the aggressive, violent and deadly illness it is.  

I knew a young man in college. He loved the Lord. He was such a pillar of faith that he was chosen to be a symbol in our campus ministry for who Christ is. He attended church regularly, he did all the things a good Christian man is supposed to do. And then, one day, he threw himself in front of a train, and killed himself. When I heard that he had died, I was overwhelmed by the thought of how lonely and isolated he must have felt in those dark moments of his life. How desperate he must have been to have his faith help him and then feel like his prayers went unanswered. I was also overwhelmed by the fact that I knew exactly how he felt.

There is more to my story, and it will unfold in good time. I am pretty sure that is what this journey is all about.

L

Help For Self Injury