I have always planned to write this. It is my duty to write it for myself and anyone else who is suffering with the same problem. Alright, here goes nothing. I am 25 years old and I have struggled with depression since I was 10. Of course I did not know I was depressed at ten years old but looking back it is obvious. By age 17, I was suicidal and tried to kill myself and at 21 I gave up…mostly. I went to therapy, got me some Citalophram and dreaded going to sleep every night because I did not want to wake up the next day. The meds did not work for me so I stopped taking them after four months and decided to fake it ‘till I make it, which also did not work. I shunned (most) of my religious beliefs, I did not pray and barely went to church for almost two years because I was angry with God, myself and everybody else. I no longer cared about myself so I engaged in self-destructive behavior. I tried smoking myself to death with cigarettes and would hang around when my dad smoked so I could inhale all those carcinogens (hoping I would get cancer) and I tried to drink myself to death. I would have daydreams of swigging from a bottle of bleach, stabbing myself, or being killed in various ways. I dreamt about my funeral, planned it all out (got kind of emo on the inside) even how I would kill myself which would be carbon monoxide or laying across the Marc train tracks and waiting for the train. At 24 I saw an ad for a clinical trial, which I joined and began taking Cymbalta. It seemed to do me a world of good. I worked myself back into church and really began enjoying it because that is the type of life that is best for me and by then I had resolved not to kill myself (still thought about it though). I had a meltdown this July at work and just left, never to return. Now I find myself back on the downhill portion of the emotional roller coaster.
One word to describe my days now is “tepid” and I cannot see any change on the horizon. Praying, I can do that but trusting is hard because I am accustomed to doing things with what I thought was my own power. It is hard to face the realization that I do not trust God as much as I thought I did. I will go into more detail later but what I want to share the most is that despite my relationship with God (a work in progress) I still struggle with depression but it is that same relationship that keeps me from jumping out a window. Sometimes I feel like a fraud because I can write uplifting stuff while still feeling crummy inside but all my posts are true. I have grown so much spiritually but I still have a long way to go and this lingering depression is a part of that.
A special “thank you” to Hanna, author of Purposeful Purity for inspiring me to be courageous and share. It took a while but I finally did it. I pray for your happiness and success in your future endeavors.
The Aspiring Adventist 