What follows is part of my own journey with depression. It might resemble yours. It likely will not. Mental illness is NOT one-size-fits-all. For an awesome resource on mental illness in the church, read Sarah Lund's book Blessed Are The Crazy. For an honest laugh at depression, click the photo below.
I still remember the day it clicked. It wasn't like a ray of sunshine or a rainbow or anything, but it was an epiphany. A star shining in the night. A weight shifted into a more comfortable place to carry.
You see, I was called to ministry at age 13. This career is, literally, all I have ever wanted. I tried to try on different career options but God kept calling me, pulling me, driving me into leadership in the church. It's where I am at home. I am called.
When I began to experience depression and anxiety in college, my heart sank in more ways than one. The depression told me, and I believed it, that I could not be a good minister if I was depressed. The depression told me, and I believed it, that I would never be able to care for a congregation if I couldn't take care of myself. And depression definitely prevented me from caring for myself.
My journey with mental illness led me to see a counselor toward the end of college. Through counseling I realized that my depression would be more easily managed with medication. I began taking medication a week before I left for Divinity School. I began to identify as a person who would live with mental illness for the rest of my life. I was thrilled by all the things I was learning and experiencing in graduate school. I was terrified by my daily struggles to do simple things, though much improved once I found the right medication regimen. The rigors of grad school continually changed my schedule, routine, and efforts at being well. I continued to rely on medication to manage my stress and anxiety. Much of my stress and anxiety stemmed from a deep conviction that I couldn't be a good minister if I was depressed. I was convinced that I would never be good enough for the job God called me to do.
During grad school, I began to explore the sources of my depression more fully with therapy. I was no longer just coping, I was seeking the source. I started to question the things that depression claimed were true, but I still clung to my greatest fear: that I wouldn't be a good minister. Many people tried to tell me that I would be fine, that it would get better, that knowing mental illness from the inside would help me have greater empathy with others. I couldn't hear them over the heartbreaking things my depression told me.
The epiphany came in the fourth floor ministry suite in Swift Hall at the University of Chicago Divinity School. I was sitting with my peers in our pastoral care practicum. On the topic of chronic mental illness and pastoral care, I shared my biggest fear: that I wouldn't be a good minister because of my depression. Perhaps it was the vulnerability that allowed me to hear it, or perhaps she phrased it differently than others, but my professor said to me, "McKinna, you can make this work for you, not against you. You will likely always struggle with this, but it can become one of your strengths. It doesn't have to be your weakness."
Something shifted. I continued to question the claims of my depression, but I also began to converse with it as a respected partner. No longer did it lord itself over me (well, most days), but I stood on equal ground with it. I carried it with me in my purse alongside my Bible. Most importantly, I no longer believed that it would hold me back in ministry. Instead, I began to believe that if I learned to use it well, I could be the sort of minister I felt called to be: good, faithful, steadfast, and trustworthy. I began to realize that the more I punished my depression, the more it would fight back to injure me. But when I treated it like I would a small child, I was able to gently interact with it in a more constructive way. I started to see past the lies that depression tried to tell me about myself and into the truths it was telling me about the world. That there are shadows and they are real. That sin lingers like a scar on every human heart and undermines the foundation of all of our institutions. Depression made me come to terms with the facts of life: that many of us struggle to survive, others are handed a tool-kit for success, and there's little rhyme or reason to any of it. It was only THEN that I was able to ask, "What's God got to do with it?"
The answer to that question, "What's God got to do with it?" is for another blog post, and perhaps, I'll just be trying to live into the question my whole life long.
I'm okay with that.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
My ability to manage and question my depression is
the only reason I survive it. Throughout grad school medication was a crucial piece of the management puzzle, as was weekly therapy, really good friends and roommates, and steadfast mentors who stared down the shadowy valley with me. I had to find my way to the manageable place before I could learn to work
with depression. Now that I am out of the stress-machine of grad school, my symptoms have changed. I no longer need daily medication, and I only see my therapist every other week. I have mostly "good days" or "okay days." I have very few "bad days" anymore, but when I do depression works me over and hangs me out to dry. On those days, depression is my enemy and I hate it. On those days I questions the truths I know: that my friends love me and care for me, and I treat my family and friends poorly. On those days I bargain with the world by saying, "I will survive this day by staying in bed, breathing slowly in and out, and eating mac-n-cheese out of the pan I made it in. And that's enough for today."
There are so many who spend weeks, months, years in that desperate place and to you I say: Fight it. Fight it hard. Please don't believe the lies. Surround yourself with people who will sit with you in the dark place and show you that you are not alone. Call the hotline, call your therapist, and pet your dog/cat/gerbil/fern.
You're not alone. Not now, not ever.
If you need immediate help, the national (US) suicide prevention hotline is 1.800.273.8255.
