Living With Depression: History and Background (Part 1)

The other night while I was driving back to Moberly from Columbia, I realized that while I've talked briefly about my depression in various blog posts in the past, I've only touched on minute aspects of it and have never actually talked in-depth about what my experience with it is like on a day-to-day basis. So this sparked up an idea that has surfaced intermittently in my mind over the past year or so: a series of blog posts dedicated solely to talking about my personal experience with long-term depression.

IS THIS REAL LIFE? A BRIEF HISTORY AND BACKGROUND

My earliest memory with depression was fifteen years ago, when I was nine years old. It may have started sooner, but this is the earliest that I can look at it and think, "Yep, that's depression." I had been chapter 51'd for attempting suicide by walking down the middle of the street hoping to get hit by a car. While I don't remember much from the hospital itself, I remember being one of the younger kids there. I also remember my dad coming one night to take me home. I can only suspect it was not an authorized release, because he told me at the time not to tell anybody, and when we got home he instructed me not to turn any lights on, but rather closed the blinds and lit a couple of candles. I never actually learned why he did what he did that night, but I do have a couple suspicions. Nevertheless, I digress.

Though social and familial isolation while growing up definitely played a role in feeding my depression, there is also much, much more to it that I've talked about in various blog posts before. One Little Lie and Cutter are two reads that I would recommend in terms of adding a bit more context to the storyline. Most of my memories between the ages of nine and sixteen are blurry to me; unless a memory surfaces randomly in my mind, odds are I won't remember it. I remember "going crazy" (as some may call it), talking to myself and getting lost in mental fantasies only to return to a reality that was generally cold and foreboding. My distaste for reality, of course, spurred more and more elaborate fantasies, sometimes blurring the lines of reality to the point that my dad would question whether my "friends" were actually real (the truth is, I lied to my dad about having friends until I was fifteen just so that he wouldn't worry about me). Had I actually opened up with my counselor as a child about these fantasies, there's a chance I may have actually ended up institutionalized for how closely they sometimes bordered on psychosis. 

The question of whether or not I experienced psychotic episodes as a child is one that I've pondered in great depth, but also one that I've never been able to come to a definite conclusion on. Mostly, this is due to the fact that I was always in control of the fantasies and knew what was real and what was not. The closest I came to a psychotic episode was when I was fifteen and in juvi; I found myself so caught in a mental fantasy (which I had created as a way of coping with the reality of being incarcerated) that for a few brief minutes, I legitimately lost touch with what was real and, in a moment of realization that I can only attribute to a transcendent force that I had not yet become aware of, snapped back to reality. This is the primary incident in question; the rest were less severe. I would have internal dialogues with "voices" in my mind, but I always had some degree of control over them and always realized that they weren't real. I've always chocked it up to a hyperactive imagination.

Though my INFJ personality does lend to being more reclusive than most, depression while growing up certainly affected my ability to socialize. Combine that with the fact that my dad worked most of the time (which I admire to a degree), I found myself alone more often than not and generally operated on my own, internally, intuitively, and spontaneously. Unfortunately, I was also an angry child, lacked moral guidance, and was almost continuously on probation. My early teen years found me in and out of juvi, and eventually locked up for a stretch that lasted fourteen and a half months. Needless to say, I didn't exactly grow up with ideal conditions for becoming a mentally healthy adult. I knew this, too, but only continued to make matters worse for myself; instead of doing something to make a change, I played the victim and blamed everyone and everything but myself, avoided responsibility, and through it all I didn't care. Every day I felt like my head was in a fog; the lines of reality were so blurry that I couldn't make out what I should or shouldn't do.

If there's one thing I'm grateful for, it's that my depression wasn't particularly known while I was growing up. Truthfully, I didn't even know what to call it until recent years; I just knew I felt like shit all the time. Aside from a few incidents that raised concern, I have little doubt that I may have been institutionalized had I been vocal about the truth regarding what was really going on in my mind. I knew this to a degree, and so like many people with whacked-out minds, I was left to fend for myself (mentally speaking, that is). Now I'm not saying that I was utterly insane, or that I should have been institutionalized, but it certainly could have happened. I often wonder why God didn't allow it to happen, but always find myself grateful that it didn't; I've met people who were, heard stories of atrocious things that had happened in such places, and would thus never wish institutionalization upon anybody with mental health issues.

I was seventeen when I tried to kill myself. If there's one thing I remember, it's that the blade was cold, and that it only stung for a moment; once the adrenaline kicked in, I couldn't feel anything. I watched the blood flow and then stop, so I jammed the blade deep into the cut and flicked it outward, watching the gash get wider and wider until the blood started flowing again. I can't honestly say whether I actually cut a vein (because frankly I'm no expert when it comes to medical things like how fast blood flows when you cut a vein), but I remember starting to feel weak and tired after a little while; despite the adrenaline that masked the pain, I just wanted to fall asleep. Nevertheless, I only found myself angry that it didn't work. I've talked about this, before, so that's not what I want to focus on; besides, the scars have faded some over time.

What I do want to focus on is this: I continued to cut myself, intermittently, up until I was 20. I've often told people that I stopped cutting after my suicide attempt, but that's not the truth. The last time I cut myself was during my first year of bible college. One night, almost on a whim, I decided to personally hand my box cutter over to the men's residence director and explain why I was handing it to him. But hold your applause; I only stopped cutting because I was afraid of getting expelled and being left alone halfway across the country with no home to go back to. However, I handed the blade to him personally instead of simply discarding it because I wanted somebody to know that I wasn't okay. And this is where I get to the point of all this talk about self-harm: despite being depressed, I longed for a sense of home, for companionship, and for somebody to know.

This longing is a thread that I can see playing out all through my childhood, teenage years, and very early adulthood. I would be lying if I didn't say that it's still a present thread in my life and in my thinking. Yet the very nature of depression makes it difficult to reach out for help. As a teen, I feared that I would only get in trouble if I asked for more help; I was already under pretty close supervision as it was, and I wasn't about to put myself in a situation that would require even closer supervision. Sure, I had a counselor (who I was required to see), but I didn't even talk to him; either my dad was sitting in on the session, or I feared he (or my probation supervisor) would find out nonetheless. When you're depressed, your first thought isn't that people care about you; neither is it your second, third, fourth, fifth, hundredth, thousandth, or millionth thought (if your mind operates as fast as mine does). I found myself rationalizing to the point that I was convinced that nobody really liked me, and that my isolation was my own fault for being so undesirable.

Yet during all of it I had things that I wanted to do, things that I would become passionate about (even if I lost interest after a while), things that kept my hands busy. As I was generally alone a lot (despite being closely supervised), I found myself absorbed in things that would offer my mind something to focus on, a safe escape from reality. If anything, it offered short-lived blips of happiness that speckled my reality like stars in the night sky. But the problem is that it was always short-lived; I couldn't find a lasting solution to my depression. No hobby that I wrapped myself in could satisfy me. There was no word that could soothe, no blade that could cut deep enough, no pill that could fix, no patch that wouldn't shrink and rip off.

It was as though God wired me as an INFJ with depression (or allowed it to happen) so that only He could satisfy me. It may sound weird (even preposterous to some), but it's how I think nonetheless. Yet I've been told by well-meaning Christians over and over that "if you just have faith, God will set you free from your depression." Little did they know that their words damaged more than they healed; it left me envious of those who seemed to get better and made me question my faith and whether God loved me. I ask: what's so difficult about supposing that God allows some to be depressed so that His glory could be displayed in their lives? Two stories come to mind. The first is John 9; the story of the man born blind, whom Jesus healed. If you haven't read it, go read it now and then come back to this. Jesus said he was born blind so that God's glory could be displayed in Him. The second is 2 Corinthians 12, where Paul prayed and prayed for God to remove "a thorn in his flesh," to which God simply replied, "My grace is sufficient for you."

Perhaps I'm wrong, but I think that depression and other mental health issues are simply an effect of what sin did to this world (i.e. that depression is simply "part of this fallen world," as some would say). I don't think being depressed makes a person any less lovable or desirable, and I don't think that my relationship with God is dependent upon whether or not I am depressed. Though I used to believe the opposite (that if I didn't "feel" God close to me, He wasn't there), I want to encourage you that you're not alone, and God loves you; God has allowed you to be the way you are for a reason. Don't doubt for a moment that He has your best interest at heart. Even if it's dark, He is there. This isn't some sort of sympathetic attempt to paint a silver lining, but the truth: Jesus suffered just as we do. He understands our pain and our struggles. Even if it's dark, He's right there with you, and you're never alone. 


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Part two of this series is coming soon. Keep an eye open.

Cutter

My teenage years could be summed up in the scars which adorn my body.

I can feel them when I fold my arms. I see them in the mirror every time I take off my shirt. There's a reason why I prefer to wear jeans instead of shorts. I look down and see exactly where and how I slashed my left arm open in the bathtub, the way the lines start thin on one side and become thicker toward the other. The story continues in the white dots flanking alongside two of them, telling of how my arm was sewn back together. Another scar, near the bigger of the two, tells its own story of a morning before school. I remember resting the box cutter against my arm and flicking it downward, watching for the first time as my skin split open. Another scar on top of my forearm stands as witness to a week spent scratching myself with a blade I had removed from a pencil sharpener. The stories could continue on for pages.

Each scar contains a memory, some of which still cause me to cringe upon remembering. Admittedly, some memories are clearer than others, while some I no longer remember at all; for the most part, though, I'm still able to recall when, how, and even why most of them came to be. Each scar had its own reason for coming to be; some were placed out of boredom while others were conceived in depression or anger. Each stands as a reminder of a life once lived, loathed, and nearly ended. Each scar reminds me who I used to be.

Cutter.

That was the label given to me during my junior year of high school by the powers that were in what seemed a pitiful, if concerted, effort to objectify my need for help. Dangerous, Unpredictable, Unstable, and Untrustworthy were other names I frequently heard used to fill in the blank after "Ben is…" I was surrounded by teachers, counselors, a therapist, and a social worker. Each had their own two cents to throw in about what I should or shouldn't be doing and who I should or shouldn't be spending time around. Ironically, it was in the company of those I was told not to be around where I found acceptance while those who were put in place to help me didn't seem to want to be around any more than I wanted them around.

The school board placed me under continuous supervision after finding razor blades in my backpack so they could make sure I wouldn't hurt myself "or others". This meant I couldn't be anywhere on school grounds alone. I had to go straight to the office every morning upon my arrival at school, where I would sit and wait for a teacher to come and escort me to my first class. At the end of each class, while all the students filed out of the room, I had to wait for that same teacher to come and escort me to my next period. I was told it was for "protection." When I inquired, "Whose?", they said "Ours." When I asked, "From whom?", I was told, "From you." Shortly after, I was expelled because I was labeled as a liability.

Cutter: that is what they called me.

It was in the isolation of my bedroom that the depression grew deeper and the cutting more frequent. I developed a staunch preference for jeans and dark shirts because they hid fresh wounds. I became an avid internet-dweller as well, and it was during this time that my penchant for online forums came into being. I developed "online" friendships with people all over the world (some of whom I still talk to today) and spent a lot of time talking to people from behind a keyboard. Since I wasn't going to school, I spent several hours a day playing guitar while my dad was at work, and my musical abilities grew. If I wasn't playing guitar or tooling around on forums, I was writing and publishing short stories, poems, and songs.
 

I had plenty of positive, constructive outlets through which I could vent emotions, yet the cutting continued. There was plenty to keep myself occupied with and people from multiple time zones to talk to at any time I wanted, but I still spent the vast majority of my time trapped in self-loathing. Ironically, it was a place I came to feel comfortable in, with walls that I built myself and carefully maintained. I spent so much time in my room that it felt like a prison and I had to get out. I spent so much time in my mind that it felt like a casket, one I didn't want to leave because it had a nice pillow. At one point, the lines between abstract and concrete blurred, I lost all sense of time, and I didn’t even leave my room; simply going to the kitchen became a frightening endeavor, and the back yard exhausted my energy.

I had cut myself off from the real world.

Eventually, thanks to my dad and my therapist, I was somewhat forced to get out. This presented itself in the form of a job. Still, the cutting continued and it was during the summer of 2008 that the two most prominent scars on my arm came to be while I laid in a bathtub. I only attempted suicide one time; I couldn't bring myself to do it again. I couldn't even bring myself to cut again after that. It took a long time to forget what the inside of my arm looks like, but I still remember watching my blood literally pour out. It was a very gruesome experience, and one that I will spare you the disgusting details of. Nevertheless, my days of self-mutilation were over.

I began to change after that. Christ began to slowly work in my heart, gradually drawing me toward salvation. It wouldn't be for another six or seven months that I'd finally respond to that prompting, but when I did, my thinking began to transform. I was still primarily focused on negativity like I was before, but this time I began to see an alternative to what I was doing. I knew I didn't have to stay stuck in the same cycle; I could choose to pray and ask God for help. This simple knowledge would save my life on numerous dark occasions during subsequent years. To some it may seem like a crutch, and frankly, it was.

It still is.

I'm not ashamed to admit that there are times when I have to use Jesus as a crutch. I'm not perfect; I fall down, and I need help getting back up. To say anything different would be a downright lie. Sometimes I sustain an injury and I need help walking afterward until it heals; sometimes, I need a crutch. And it's during those times that I'm reminded how blessed and loved I am that the King of the universe would want to be that crutch for me. It's just as humbling as it is helpful, but that's what my Father does for His kids (1 John 3:1).

Yet the cutting continued.

Wait, what? But, the cutting had ended, right? Ben, you're not making any sense here.

Though I wasn't cutting myself physically, I was doing so in other ways. I would look at my scars and say things like, "If I wasn't so stupid, I wouldn't have these scars. If I had done it right the first time, I wouldn't be alive to see where I was sewn back together." I traded razors for damaging relationships, broken pieces of glass for the bottles they came from, doubt for drugs, and dove deeper into self-loathing. I wasn't cutting myself physically, but I was still a cutter at heart. The only difference was that I had traded immediate, short-term self-harm for progressive, long-term self-harm. Though I knew of better alternatives, I was still convinced of the idea that what I was doing was all I deserved. I longed for better, but I couldn't bring myself to accept anything more than what was right in front of me.
 

This "cutter" mentality, as I'll call it, blinded me to anything beyond a moment in time. I clung desperately to anything and everything that I could immediately take hold of. I felt like my life was spinning out of control. To an extent, it was; to another extent, it had always been spinning out of control and I was finally realizing it. I can't pinpoint exactly when things began to change, because the truth is that coming out of the "cutter" mentality was a long, slow, and painful process. I had listened to stories of people who had virtually "changed overnight", as if something clicked in their sleep and they woke up with a totally new outlook on life. All these stories told me was, "If so many people are experiencing this, what's so wrong with me that I can't break out of this?" It all made me feel worthless.

I wasn't cutting anymore, but I was still a cutter.

Even today, it can be difficult. There are times where I have to slow down, get away from everything and everyone, stop, and listen for that still small voice that speaks light into my darkness. There are still times where I have to humble myself and listen to God reminding me that I am His child. There are still times where I want to cut myself off. I'm not sure if this desire is fed by my introversion or the desire feeds my introversion, but I do know that if I'm not careful, I can get trapped in a cycle where both become true simultaneously; at that point, it takes somebody stepping in and pulling me out. This actually happened just last semester. It took pneumonia to slow me down enough for two good friends to intervene.

I don't think I'm alone in this. The cutter mentality is something that I think a lot of people struggle with. There are some that I can see it in just as clearly as I can see my face in a mirror. It's one thing to know what the Bible says about how God sees us, but it's another thing entirely to believe it. I confess that my number one struggle is believing that the words recorded in Scripture which speak of who I am in Christ are actually true. Even as a fourth-semester advanced Greek student who is able to dissect the original texts and see what the English language is incapable of expressing (which, by the way, blows my mind every single time), there are times where it feels like nothing more than words on a page. Just like my past sometimes feels like nothing more than scars on my arm.

It's true: my past could be summed up in the scars which adorn my body.

It very well could be, but that's not the end of the story. Yes, there are scars on my body that speak of a life once lived, loathed, and nearly ended, but that's not all that they speak of. They speak of a kind of grace which can only come from God. Anyone who has heard my testimony has heard me say this: Jesus found me in a bathtub full of my own blood. And it's true; that's the day when He started to stir in my heart. But Jesus isn't the only one who found me there; it was my dad who pulled me out of the tub and took me to the hospital. I can't even imagine what that felt like; how much more does Jesus agonize over us while interceding on our behalf to God?

When I look at old photos of myself, I scarcely recognize who I'm looking at; not because of what I looked like, but because of who I was. I'm sure many of you can relate. Who I am is nothing like who I was, and that is by the grace of God. If you're like me and find yourself sometimes stuck in that "cutter" mentality that says "I don’t deserve anything more than this," then I have 20 things that have been shared with me which I would like to share with you.

 

1.   You are a new creation in Christ. (2 Corinthians 5:17)

2.   Your new self is righteous and holy. (Ephesians 4:24)

3.   You are a friend with God. (John 15:15)

4.   You are a child of God. (John1:12; 1 John 3:1)

5.   You are an heir with Christ. (Romans 8:17)

6.   You are justified and redeemed by Jesus Christ. (Romans 3:24)

7.   You are not condemned by God. (Romans 8:1)

8.   You are chosen to be holy and blameless before God. (Ephesians 1:4)

9.   You have been accepted by Christ. (Romans 15:7)

10.  You have been set free from the law of sin and death. (Romans 8:2)

11.  You are redeemed and forgiven by the grace of God. (Ephesians 1:7)

12.  You are a member of Christ's body and a partake of His promise. (Ephesians 3:6)

13.  You have wisdom, righteousness, sanctification and redemption in Christ. (1Corinthians 1:30)

14.  You are the righteousness of God. (2 Corinthians 5:21)

15.  You are no longer a slave. (Galatians 4:7)

16.  You have been set free. (Galatians 5:1)

17.  You have access to God through faith in Christ. (Ephesians 3:12)

18.  You are one who overcomes in Christ. (1 John 5:4)

19.  You are chosen and loved by God. (1 Thessalonians 1:4)

20.  You have been made complete in Christ. (Colossians 2:10)

I am not who I used to be, and if you are in Christ, neither are you. I may have to remind myself of this on an almost-daily basis, and I may sometimes need other people to step in and remind me of it, but it is true nonetheless. There will always be the voice from my past which whispers names that I used to be labeled with: "Cutter, unstable, unpredictable, untrustworthy, untrustworthy, dangerous, depressed…" The list could go on. I can choose to listen to that voice, or I can choose to listen to the only Voice that really matters, which speaks names like, "Loved, Worthwhile, Made New, Redeemed, Chosen, Complete, Accepted, Free, Heir, Partaker, Righteous, Friend, Son, Forgiven…"

I know which voice I choose to listen to.

What about you?