A friend wrote a post very openly about something she had struggled with and while there is a level of fear at putting yourself out there, I feel compelled to open up and share some of the things I have struggled with in the hopes that it will help someone else.
Back in February, I told Motorola that I was quitting. After hearing from the Lord that I needed to be at home with Gabriel back in November (I was a little slow at being obedient), I gave my notice and my last day was February 28th. So this was a big change. And March came around and I found myself very depressed. The year anniversary weighed heavy on my mind and the more the days passed and the date came closer, the more depressed I became. Which made me sad on multiple levels. The date I was dreading also happened to be Gabriel's birthday. It wasn't fair! Why couldn't it have been a different day. But it really didn't matter. I was depressed all of March and began crying everyday at the end of March and early April. At that point I knew I needed help. I didn't want to feel this way anymore. I wanted to be happy but knew I couldn't "snap out of it." I scheduled an appointment with a Christian Counselor and my physician. I went in and told them that I thought I was depressed.
They gave me a test to see if I was depressed and how depressed I was. I tested moderately depressed at the time. When the physician came in to talk to me, I began to cry and told her I didn't want to feel this way. I don't want to cry everyday. I had resisted taking medication always and forever. Not that I ever needed it before. ha ha :) (At one point when we were struggling with infertility and we kept experiencing delay after delay my mom suggested I get on some medication). I NEVER wanted to be on medication. I was not depressed.
Of course now looking back, I was probably mildly depressed and could have benefited from medication. My thought at the time was that I had seen too many people "use meds. as a crutch and never get to the root of the emotional problem." I realize now how judgemental I have been. Lord, please forgive me for having such a critical spirit.
I minored in Psychology in college, so I have learned a lot about the physiology of the brain and depression etc... but I still didn't "get" it. Now don't get me wrong, I still do believe that counseling and medication should go hand in hand, and for some people this will help and they can eventually get off the medication. But for others it truly is a chemical imbalance and like with a diabetic and insulin, they will always need a medication to supplement the chemicals in the brain that control mood.
All of this to say that my doctor placed me on medication and I saw a counselor every week for a couple of months.
Depression is weird. I look back at the past year and a half where I can now see that I was CLEARLY depressed (with good reason, I know). But I didn't return people's phone calls, I would send emails and not copy everyone I intended to, I couldn't concentrate at work, I didn't have the energy to clean and keep up with the laundry. I was doing the bare minimum to get us all by. Working 40+ hours a week certainly wasn't helping. For all of those months I was able to mask my depression with just being tired from working and having an infant. I wish I would have gotten on medication earlier. I definitely needed a leg up to get out of my pit of depression. I would have never gotten out on my own. So now I'm still on medication and take it daily along with my thyroid medication. I don't view it much differently than that but am aware of the stigma associated with it in our society. I remember in college some sorority sisters talking about a girl that had to take prozac. They were not talking nicely about her and alluded to the fact that she was crazy.
Recently I learned that Chris Seidman was preaching at a church in the metroplex and I ran across the church web site. I was in the Singles class at RHCC when he was the Singles minister back around 1996-1998. I pulled up the list of sermons and ran across a series called "Baggage Claim." Wow! What a blessing this series has been to me. If you think you might be depressed you can take this test: http://www.med.nyu.edu/psych/screens/depres.html or any other test you can find online.
Chris Seidman's sermons can be found at http://thebranch.org/chrislibrary.htm
I promise future posts will be more light-hearted and include Gabe blogs and pictures of the cutie pie. :)
1 comment:
I think it is so awesome that you openly shared your struggle here! That is definitely not an easy thing to do - there's most defintely a level of vulnerability. BUT as we talked about today - Blogland is so interesting and you'll never know who you touched or helped with your words.
You obviously know I've been down this road myself and can not agree more that the combo of counseling/medicine is so important! I'm so glad you pointed out that the duration of having to take medicine is different for everyone - for some it's temporary and for others it's a lifelong necessity. I think some people don't want to go down the meds road for fear of being dependent on something the rest of their lives when that may not be the case at all.
I love what Beth Moore says in her Get Out of the Pit book about being delivered . . .that God may choose to work through counselors, medicine, friends, family, etc. to start down the healing road but ultimately God and God alone is the true deliverer. Relying solely on anything else will eventually bring disappointment because He is the only perfect One in the equation.
Ok - I wrote a novel as a comment! I just so appreciate your openess and honesty on this topic . . .and Praise the Lord for getting us out of slimy pits and setting our feet upon the Rock!
Love you!
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