Sometimes I'm Angry at Depression, but Mostly I Don't Have the Energy

There's a really great pastor at my church who is kind and clearly loves serving people. Just about every time he sees me, he asks how I'm doing. "I'm OK," I reply. And I'd say about 75% of the time he follows up with, "Just OK?" If he doesn't say it, the sentiment at least flashes across his face for a moment. I never really know what to do in that moment. Usually "I'm OK" means one of three things for me:
1. I'm having an average, normal day. Nothing especially fantastic has happened, but it's not horrible. It's fine. It's OK.
2. I don't think you want a truthful answer, so I'm just moving the conversation along.
3. I'm feeling really awful and have no idea how to be truthful when it's not the time and place to have a serious discussion.

I don't think people really know what to do when their friends or family members are depressed. I don't even know sometimes. It's not something tangible you can fix. And mental illness can cycle around, so it seems like the same thing over and over again. Sometimes I think my brain is just damaged, that there's nothing that can be done to make my life better, more hopeful, more meaningful.

Depression is not fair. I hate that I find both relief and unspeakable loneliness in isolation. I hate that I struggle to connect with people, to find deep friendships. I hate that asking for help sometimes feels like putting a burden onto people I love, so sometimes I don't ask.

For a majority of the past month, I haven't really felt like myself. Everything just seems like too much. I'm so lonely, but I can't stand to be around people. I spend hours upon hours at home alone, wishing things were different, that I had the energy to be a different, better person. I spend so much time trying to hold myself together that I don't have much room for anything fun. It's not that I'm always miserable, but it's hard work to have fun sometimes. Even as I was writing this I got a text from a friend about Connect Group, but I told her I wasn't going. It's too hard. I feel like a failure when I can't connect with people, when I can't care about other people.

Yesterday I was so jittery it was like I'd been drinking caffeine all day, even though all I'd had was water, but most of the time I am so low in energy it feels like a Herculean task just to get the basics done. Often I use up all my social energy at work and have little or none left at the end of the day. So most nights I go home and watch Netflix or read or even just go to bed because I'm so tired I don't even care.

One of the worst things, the thing that is most unspeakable for me, is how angry I get at God for all of this. I get so angry that I just have to suffer when he could take it away. I get so angry that he is mostly just silent, leaving me feeling unbearably isolated and unwanted. I watch worship at church unable to participate because I just can't, and it makes me feel sad and alienated. I pray and read my Bible most days, but so often it brings little or no comfort. Sometimes I feel a peace that I know isn't coming from me, but mostly I just feel lonely and sad. I watch as friends devote their lives to serving Jesus and sharing him with others while I don't even know what the point is of anything anymore. It's really hard to deal with existential angst when you're supposed to be a Christian. I sometimes fear that all my anger and doubt excludes me from God's love, because who could love someone so broken and fickle? I get really angry at myself for not being able to believe, for being selfish, for being prideful, for knowing that it's probably my fault that God feels far away.

I don't know how to fix any of it. I do my best to get through each day and fulfill my duties at work, at church. Sometimes I text my friends asking for prayer. Sometimes I just lie in bed and cry, my tears a silent prayer for relief. There are days when I feel like myself, when I have fun, when I revel in an ice cream cone and laughing with people I love. I hope I have more of those days, that those days will start to outnumber the bad ones. They will, eventually. My depression cycles always end at some point. That gives me great hope, or at least enough oomph to carry on.

Unforgiveness

Tonight at Deeper the theme of unforgiveness came up a few times. Tonight I didn't feel like this was an issue I needed to tackle, but there are times when something brings up a memory of the past and I find myself holding a grudge again. As I was thinking about how unforgiveness holds us back, especially when it comes to God moving in our lives, I got a mental image of why we hold on to unforgiveness.

I pictured a dragon, but in case you have not recently read several books about dragons like I have, I'll use a dog. Dogs are generally considered to be friendly and loveable. They are fun, and they like to play and interact with their owners. The dog is healthy and happy. But then it gets hurt. Say the dog's paw gets pierced with a sharp stick. The dog is probably not going to walk up to its owner and willingly sit still while the stick gets pulled out and the wound gets cleaned. The dog will retreat, and may even growl and snap at its owner. The dog might even bite to keep people away. It does not want to get hurt anymore, so it does the only thing it knows to protect itself.

When we get hurt, we are like that dog. It sometimes feels easier to be angry and keep people away, sometimes even hate them, than it does to let go. Justice is really important for me. It is so hard for me to let God deal with people who hurt me rather than creating my own justice. I often cover up my pain with anger. The truth is that if I don't lower my defenses and let God start to remove the junk, I'm not going to get better.

Sometimes I think I have forgiven someone and that I'm fine, only to have someone say something that makes me hurt all over again. I wonder if maybe that's what Jesus was talking about when he said that we can't just stop forgiving after seven times. I have to choose time and time again to let go, to forgive, even for the same thing. I'm not perfect at forgiving. Whenever I hear someone talking about forgiveness, there are two people I have known in my life who always come to mind. These two people are people who hurt me tremendously. Part of me wants to stay angry, to stay defensive. Deep down, though, I know that really just hurts me.

For example: a person whom we'll call Sergio (not his real name) was someone whom I really trusted. Sergio was really important in my life. And then he did something that crushed me. I was so hurt, so devastated. For awhile, I was incredibly angry. I absolutely did not want to forgive Sergio. I wanted to hate him. I wanted bad things to happen to him so that he would hurt as much as I was hurting. But after awhile, it was really hard to be so angry. Sergio had really helped me get through some tough stuff. He had a big influence on me. It was important to me to hold onto the good memories. Trying to both hold onto good things and be really angry was more than I could handle. So I let go of my anger. I remember exactly how it happened, but I let go. And it felt so good. There are times when I still feel the hurt, but now that I'm not holding onto anger and unforgiveness, I can think about the good memories. I can heal.

I wish that deciding to forgive someone meant that you instantly felt better and you wouldn't ever hurt again. Unfortunately, that's not how it works. Even once you let someone pull the stick out of your paw, it takes time to heal. Sometimes the skin is sensitive even after it heals. And there's always the chance you'll step on another stick sometime and get hurt all over again. But choosing to forgive again and again means choosing healing again and again. Forgiving means choosing to acknowledge the pain but not holding on to it. I'm so glad that even though forgiveness is often difficult for me, God forgives me every single time I ask him, and he never holds grudges against me.

Anger

Have you ever had the experience of hearing a sermon that could have been written specifically for you? That's what happened to me on Sunday. As a part of the series "Why Me?" Peter talked about how we can hold onto our anger when things happen, especially betrayal. At one point he asked everyone to close their eyes, and picture the person or thing they always get angry about. I immediately had four people pop into my head, and after a minute, I added one other person.

Peter showed a summary clip of "The Count of Monte Cristo." If you haven't seen it, the jist is that a man whose life is going really well is betrayed by his best friend and spends years in prison. When the man escapes, his life starts to turn around, which is clearly at God's hand. He threatens to lose all that, however, if he chooses to seek revenge on his friend. Revenge is tempting. I totally understand that. I may not want people's lives to fall apart, but I've definitely wished that the people who hurt me would be hurt back.

The point is that when we pursue revenge, we are saying that we don't trust that God will bring about his perfect justice. It's amazing how many things come down to whether or not we trust that God is in control, isn't it?

I have recognized that I get angry because I'm afraid of getting hurt again or of re-experiencing the hurts I already have. There is a person on Facebook with whom I am not friends but have several friends in common. When I see this person's name, I tense up. I have a physical reaction. I don't hate this person; it's just easier to be angry and bitter than to deal with how raw the pain still is.

Choosing to forgive is NOT easy. Forgive and forget is a lie. We don't forget when we've been wronged. But we can choose to let go. So a few minutes ago, when I saw that person's name on Facebook, when I had a second where the anger and tension tried to rear its ugly head, I chose to take a deep breath, and let it go. I'm going to have to make a conscious choice to let it go each and every time. My prayer is that with God's help, it will get easier and easier to keep letting go, and that eventually it will be second nature to let go. It is a process. I see a professional counselor to help me work through stuff like this. I pray about it, and ask others to pray for me.

I have to say, that as familiar and easy as it can be to hold on to anger, it really is incredibly freeing to let go, to choose forgiveness.