Depression & Purpose

As noted by a friend, I haven’t posted a “real” post in quite a while. Life has grabbed me by its’ almighty hand and run away with me. At least that’s what it’s been like for the past few weeks. My laptop screen is incredibly fuzzy as I write this post, because I took out my contacts. Just thought you’d like to knowBefore I rant, It’s been heavily pressing on my mind these past few weeks that all I can do is pray that I will be a tool for God to use. I can’t let myself get in the way of His goals for my life. And if I do, I suck. Every day it becomes clearer that God has a definite plan for my life, I just don’t know it yet. These crazy situations arise and it seems like there’s just no end to it all except the finality of death. God has been teaching me lately that nothing happens that is without a purpose in His plan. Nothing. So as strange as life seems, it’s not purposeless. That’s a beautiful concept. Look around you. Everything in your room has a purpose; the dresser holds clothes, the bookshelf organizes books, the pencil is to write with – nothing without form and function. Our lives are the same: every person God brings into our lives, every experience, every laugh, every tear, every unanswered question, every frustrating Calculus problem, everything He uses for His glory. When I can’t see a reason, He already knows. God is good, all the time, and all the time, there’s hope for a new day in Him. Always.

Rant #3: Depression

To clear up some misconceptions right away, I don’t have a problem with poetry on Xanga, because frankly, I really don’t care. What I do have a problem with, however, is the “woe is me” attitude that has been expressed in both poetry and prose.

Depression is not the same as feeling sad. Hate to break it to you. Depression is an utter lack of emotion; you don’t feel sad, or angry, or frustrated, you feel nothing. You feel like a shell; you’re missing something and yet you can’t seem to see a way to get that something that you’re missing. When I read these posts that are like [example] “I was depressed this morning,” I don’t feel sympathetic at all because sorry, you’re not depressed, you’re sad. I think too often sadness is automatically assumed to be depression. Which is flat out wrong. It’s ok to be sad, we’re human and our range of emotions isn’t limited to happy through mildly ok. Depression is a slow process that often takes a few days for a reaction to even process of “hey, something’s not right.”

As far as the selfishness aspect, we’re human, and it is human nature to think only of ourselves. Look at the founders of the race: did Eve think about how it would make God feel when she ate some fruit that God specifically told her not to? No. Do babies ever think about not crying at 2 am when all they want is some attention? No. However, as Christians, we are told to put God first, others second, ourselves last- hence “die daily” to His will. Selfishness is antithetical to Christ because Christ gave everything for us. The thought processes that lead us to depression generally are selfish because we can’t stop thinking about ourselves and what is wrong with us and how our lives are going. This type of selfishness-depression is completely emotion-related because we lead ourselves to believe that it’s all about us. That’s incredibly frustrating to me because I’ve been there. It leads to a spiritual decay because when all you can think about is yourself, you’re not thinking about God, nor are your thoughts really glorifying to God.

Chemical depression is something else as well. When you can’t help irregular seretonin levels in your brain, it’s not your fault that your hormones run haywire. It’s different because your physical being is working independently of your emotional being. My aunt has been on medications for most of her life, and I’ve seen her in her up days and her down days. It frightens me, because the swings often make her so frustrated that she becomes emotionally depressed as well. It’s a disease like any other that affects the mind.

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~ by Liz on January 27, 2004.