Depression in Marriage

Tonight as I was working out, I was praising God
for the day He gave me.  To anyone else, it may have seemed
a very dull, uneventful day.  I cleaned the house, worked on the
nursery for my new baby girl, went over letters and numbers
with my five year old, was 'basically' patient with my two year old,
watched my boys play in the snow, and worked out.  And for me,
this day was  a miracle.

Yesterday was not a good day.  I halfway did the above without
any heart involvement.  I tried to work out and instead cursed myself to
God, asked him why he created me and asked him why he gave me
children....I thought they deserved much better.  Yesterday the life
was sucked out of me again by depression..

It is even hard to remember yesterday...when I try to analyze the day,
my thoughts fog up and it almost seems as if I am trying to recall a dream.
And as I pray, I find myself wanting to completely ignore the day before.
But the way I felt was so extreme and inescapable, I felt it wrong to ignore.
It is extremely difficult to pray about things that do not make sense in my
life and depression is one of those things.  I cannot come up with any logical
explanation for the depth of my depression at times.  It goes beyond any past
or present pain that could be to blame.  It surpasses all efforts I have exhausted
against it.  Depression swallows up my prayers and leaves me silenced in
heartwrenching tears.  But the tears are welcomed in these moments..it is the
 moments that I feel numb that scare me the most...numbness disables my
cry to God for help.  I was able to cry out to God this time, but that is all.
I basically asked him to just rescue me.  As I write this today, I am just shaking
my head.  It is interesting to record how you feel when you are depressed.
If you suffer from this, you should do it sometime then look at what you wrote
a day  or two later....you will be amazed.

I have shared some of my journaling with my counselor on days I am fighting
depression and I just cry reading it, and it is almost embarrassing which is odd
because it is a part of me.  Funny how we can forget our own selves!  Rethinking
previous days may seem pointless.  To me it feels like someone asking me, "Hannah,
the next time you are locked in a cell and the key is incinerated, how will you escape?"
I am starting to believe that there is no escape from depression.  So what can I do
other than escape?

I can change my attitude towards it.

There are situations we can experience in life that are beyond our control.  I have been
reading Man's Search for Meaning by psychologist, Victor Frankl.  He was in a
concentration camp during the Holocaust, and he observed how that life affected
those men and women around him.  I cannot begin to scratch the surface of this book,
but he says the last freedom you have no matter what, the only freedom that no one or
no thing can take away is your attitude towards your circumstances.  He explains this
 in great detail with sufficient evidence, and I can say, it has changed my perspective
about everything in life.

There was no escape for these prisoners and they had no idea of how long they
would  have to endure their sufferings and their incarceration.  The ones that were not
reduced to becoming a product of their surroundings were those grounded in an
inner spiritual life which surpassed the extreme conditions that surrounded them.
Does this apply?  I see this EVERYWHERE.  I see countless people who have
become a product of their situation.  So it is safe to assume that all of us will be
called to rise above something in our lives even if the 'something' is unavoidable.
So I may not be able to escape my depression but I can change my attitude towards it.
I can accept that it is a part of me.  I think that I have spent way too long ignoring that
I struggle with something that leaves me completely helpless.  Is that so bad?  It is if I
do not accept it.  If I accept it, I can change my attitude towards it and maybe even
manipulate it to my advantage....

Another thing about depression that I believe makes it unique in battling is that there
seems to be no value in suffering from it.  Anyone who has suffered from it knows how
trying to force your way out of it only makes it worse.  There are many ways I have tried
to force my way out of it, but just giving up in the moment seems to be the only answer.
If I cry out to God and find myself in the same state of mind, then I do not know of
anything more I can possibly do.  God knows I do not want to feel that way, and God
also knows that he cannot use me in the moments I am struck down by this disease.

And this brings me to another example....think of John the Baptist when he was imprisoned
before he was to be beheaded.  Jesus said that there is none greater than John the Baptist,
yet John the Baptist sat in a cell.  He must have thought he could be doing much more good
if he was released right?  Which is how I feel about depression, which shows that my attitude
still needs to change.  What is at the heart of all this?  What do I really want to know from God?
Is he good?  Do I just believe in him or do I also believe he is good?  If he is good and if I experience
things in life that render me useless to him at times then there must be more to me than
just being used for his purposes.....I am still important to him when I am useless.

This has caused me to desire to make a promise to God...that the next time I am depressed
that I will praise him for he is good.  I believe there is power in that.  And the next time I am depressed,
I will not judge myself.  In the midst of battling depression, no  judgements should be made....and
if judgements have to be made then it needs to happen another time.  And I will not talk to anyone
who does not understand depression and who is not honest with themselves.  And I will not try
to be objective about anything...there is no way around taking everything personal on a depressed
day, so I will try to avoid difficult people and difficult situations.  And with my children, I will err on
the side of passivity.  I will accept my limitations, I will praise God, I will put my boxing gloves away,
I will realize that no matter how hard I fight I will not win, but I will also bring forth a new attitude
towards defeat.  I hope this helps....