This is going to definitely be a very personal and
story-oriented post about my earlier life and my current struggles with
depression and self-hate. If you’re not into story-time, skip to the end where
I will explain the truth God has shown me that may help you or a loved-one deal
with the same things.
*trigger warnings to
those sensitive to the subjects of self-harm, eating disorders, and suicidal
thoughts*
So, depression, it’s an ugly and disappointing word. It’s
what none of us think of being when we’re little, and what we all try to hide
from the people we love, especially our kids. It’s when we’re torn between,
“maybe if they saw my struggles they’d also see some strength that could help
them later,” and, “I can’t let them know what I am. They deserve so much
better.”
It’s a list of things you should have been but you’re not.
“What do you mean you're depressed?” “There’s nothing wrong with you or your
life.” “But you’re a Christian.” “It’s about joy, not happiness!”
But, I do know how to be happy. It’s outlined pretty clearly
for us, and that adds to all the guilt when I can’t get there.
What I’ve come to realize, after years of various counseling
sessions and medications, is that I don’t think my form of depression is rooted
in a physiological imbalance of serotonin and dopamine. I can tell you exactly
where it started and when it’s at its strongest. It started when I began to
hate myself.
I was in the fifth grade when I stopped thinking of
friendships as a thing that happens between two people who like each other’s company,
and friendship turned into the people you are safe around—the ones who don’t
dedicate their days to making you feel worthless. And then, a year later, it
morphed again into something to be pursued with those who can stop others from
trying to make you feel worthless.
And for myself, I believed I was worthless. I believed I had
nothing to offer. I thought I was ugly. I thought I was annoying. I thought I
was a waste of oxygen for everyone else. And those thoughts took root and took
hold and never ever let go.
Here’s the deal with lies: when we believe them, we give
them power. We take authority away from God to tell us who and what we are, and
we hand that authority over to the lie, or the liar, as is often the case.
When I was in fifth or sixth grade, or maybe long even
before that, I stopped believing “I am your workmanship, and your works are
wonderful,” and started to believe God had made me wonderful, but something I
had done or said made me no longer his, no longer wanted, and I began to make
lists of goals and perfection to be sought.
Ironically, believing that I was no longer “good enough” was
the only thing at the time that pulled me out of alignment with God’s truth. I
could have gone to him back then and asked, “So, I’m really weird, people tell
me I’m a freak, and that I shouldn’t exist. Is that true?” And he would have
told me, “You are my workmanship, and my works are wonderful.” I could have
seen what made me quirky as something valuable, and then I wouldn’t be writing
this.
When I stopped believing I was God’s workmanship, I also
stopped believing that he loved me.
Everything that went wrong in my life was
no longer a struggle we could handle together, but became a punishment. “They
hate me because God does, because I am unworthy and damaged and irredeemable.
SO. BE. IT.” Or at least that’s how I wanted to think. But we weren’t made to
think that way. We were not made to accept lies, so I fought them with more
lies. Oh, how I wanted to not care
what God or any person thought. But I did, and so I hated myself even more.
An odd and vicious cycle began to take hold. My coping mechanisms
for hating myself were also my desperate tie to the hope that someone would
come out of the woodwork and say, “Stop! You are worthy!” And that didn’t happen, or if it did, I was too lost to listen.
So I started to cut, and otherwise injure, myself. I stopped
eating more than 600 calories a day, and punished myself for eating too much
with cutting or doing sit-ups until I thought I would tear in half.
Then cutting and being hungry would make me high, and it
felt much better than the numbness I had adopted.
Then, while high, I would think, “Maybe someone will see.
Maybe they will help me.”
And then the high would wear off and I would think “How
stupid and petty and selfish of me to want someone to help me, to notice. I’m
not worth of anyone’s time.”
So I would cut and not eat lunch the next day, because I
hated myself, and I was in a kind of pain that I didn’t know how to otherwise express.
Not eating properly was my way of trying to reach
perfection. Cutting worked two functions. It was my way of expressing and releasing
my anxiety and hopelessness, and also it was how I would punish myself for not
being perfect. Sometimes I would cut to feel better and, a few minutes later,
cut to punish myself for thinking I deserved to feel better.
Around other people, my childhood confidence turned to crippling
doubt. Doubt turned to fear, and fear turned to isolation. I started to relish
endless hours in my room, or better, my closet. In the silence, and two doors
away from the outside world, I was finally safe from the opinions of others, but
not from myself. Solitude was my sanctuary and also a training facility where I
was determined to build the perfect me.
There were, of course, times I wanted to die—not really to
kill myself—just to die, to unravel, to have never existed at all. I’d sit in
that closet and fantasize about a world where I didn’t exist and so was free
from my fear of all the people who could reject, hurt, or tell me that I was
worthless. What a beautiful, black, nothing. And then I would punish myself for
thinking that way, for being a coward, and for being selfish.
But, I was still very young, and I knew that misery
couldn’t last forever. There must be someone eventually who could save me. I
thought it would be a boy (at that time, specifically, Orlando Bloom). But I
had hope in the idea that SOMEONE SOMEWHERE would find me worthy enough of
salvation, even if I wasn’t worthy of it yet (Cue the obvious foreshadowing).
When I was fourteen, I was dragged to a Bible study against
my will. That was when things began to change. First, I had people around me
who were kind, accepting, and made me feel safe. Second, I realized that being
a Christian, despite everything I was shown, meant showing unconditional love
in the name of Christ. Lastly, and after about two years of breaking down the
old walls, I began to re-connect with God.
I didn’t yet believe in my physical redemption—one where I
was made to matter on this earth—but I could believe in a spiritual one—one
where God forgave my sins, and believed me to be worthy and beautiful and
exactly as he wanted me to be, because my sins we paid for, and I was going to heaven when I finally died.
But I still couldn’t shake that other people didn’t see me
that way, and sometimes, most times, I cared a lot more about what other people
thought than God. I would come home, even from my Bible study, and as soon as I
was alone in my room again, I would start to doubt. “Did I talk too much? Was I
in on that joke, or was I the punch-line? Are they all just being nice but
wish I weren’t there?”
God’s love still seemed distant and impersonal, and people,
well, they had presence, voice, the power to affect my life. I didn’t know I
had the ability to not care what people thought. Even when I learned that I
did, that God’s love is far more present and matters far, far more than
anything else, I was so far tangled up in the lies I had believed, and the
authority I had given away by believing them, that I didn’t know where to begin
to change.
Even though I’m 26, and I know that God’s opinion is the
only one that matters, and there are so many people in my life who love me and
have told me I am worthy, that I matter, and that I have value, the lies (having
grown strong from so many years of my servitude) are sometimes just too loud. I
sometimes can have a conversation where 99% of the things said are positive,
but if ONE THING even seems a little
negative, it’s all I can remember of what we talked about. “I wasn’t good
enough.” “I made a mistake.” “I’m not worthy.” My husband and other friends and
family can assure me that they had
something nice to say that one time, and I simply don’t remember.
Sometimes, I know that I care too much what other people
think and I let it get to me anyway—to the point of absolute, cataclysmic
destruction.
Sometimes, I know that all the Enemy wants for me is to never
be able to let others’ opinions go, until my self-hate and drive for perfection
destroy me.
Sometimes, I feel like all others see are my failures, so
that’s all I can see too, and it started a really long time ago.
Sometimes, I still have the urge to hurt myself and even engage
in “lesser” versions of self-harm when I’m stressed. And it can happen
instinctually, without the planning it takes to physically pick up something
sharp and put it to my skin. I can’t diet or put myself on any kind of eating
program because it spirals into a fear of food almost immediately, leaving me
weeping at the top of the stairs when it’s time to eat.
So what’s the answer? Because, it’s clearly not over. I
still deal with feelings of self-doubt, self-hate, and social anxiety. I still
crave the safety of solitude and some days don’t want to get out of bed. I
still feel like I’m cut a little smaller by every little failure. There are even the
occasional darkest moments when I still fondly imagine the beautiful, black
nothing of not ever being.
What is it that I would tell myself if I wasn’t drowning in
those moments? Drown in something else? Don’t even let yourself get there? Be
so steeped in truth that the lies can’t get in?
But fifteen years of steeping in lies, that’s more than just
a foothold. That’s a stronghold, and one that makes it so I’m not even able to
ask for help when I need it because that makes me a “problem.”
**PLACE TO SKIP TO**
Depression for me isn’t physiological. It’s a big, ugly
monster that I fed for fifteen years on believing that only what people think
of me could determine my value in the world, and that I didn’t deserve even the
slightest relief because I was not one that people could think well of. Even
though I beat it back enough to get married and a have two beautiful children
and make friends who care about me, when the monster reminds me that it’s still
there, I’m paralyzed.
I tried other remedies up till now. I went to God and tried
to reconcile with the people who made me feel worthless, who said and did
things to feed the fire, but that didn’t help. I went through the arduous
process of forgiving those who I felt slowly wore me down over time. That
didn’t help either.
Then, finally, I asked him, “Who else? Who else could I
possibly need to forgive? Whose opinions do I need to let go of?” And it was
like he slipped a mirror in front of me.
I could suddenly see that this has nothing to do with what
people think of me. No other person holds any power over me at all. But I had
the power, and I clung to every negative word, look, rumor, possibility, and I
locked them in a box like a treasure—my collection of lies, my shrine of
self-doubt, words I would chant to myself in the dark while I made lists to
pour over like scripture, failures that I tallied on my skin like days on a
prison wall.
The secret to self-love is in what authority you are under—what
you give the power over your life to. Is that God’s truth, or the big, ugly
monster of lies and of this world and your Enemy?
You can be a Christian, and bear fruit, and grow in your
relationship with God, while he uses you in amazing ways, even if you’re not
100% under his authority. Even if you haven’t 100% surrendered. Even if there
are those areas where you say, “Please, just leave that there. I can’t.”
Well. Bull. Shit.
Because I’m a Christian who has believed those lies far too
long and I say, “Nope, not gonna happen anymore. Not today, never again. I KNOW
what is true and I’m ready to believe it NOW! I’m not wasting anymore time.”
So what to do?
I started to do the exact opposite of what the lies tell me
to do (Please make sure if you choose
this method that you do it prayerfully and with others behind you, because it
gonna get UGLY).
Number 1, I forgive myself. I forgive the one who told me I
was worthless, who wouldn’t let me eat, or go outside, or call for help. I
forgive the one who demanded my blood over and over and over again. I forgive
the one who could take the best days of my life and turn them into hours of
being plagued and paralyzed by questions that never mattered to begin with.
With more difficultly, I forgive the one who made mistakes,
acted foolishly or out of fear, and hurt other people. I forgive the one who isn’t the perfect wife or mom or person. I forgive the one who
let the monster run free for fifteen years. I forgive until I can say to her,
“I love you,” and “Let’s finally get better.”
Number 2, I ask my Father to forgive me for handing his
authority over me to the Enemy. I repent for the lies I believed about his
child and the pain I caused her. And I ask for all the strength he can give for
what comes next.
Number 3, I start practicing acting like I’m a child of God.
I feel like I’m not worth anyone’s time. I’m gonna ask for
help.
I would only be a problem at that party? I’m gonna go.
I have nothing to offer? I’m gonna find someone to pray for.
That blog post is stupid and makes me seem pathetic and
petty? Imagonna post it.
And all the while, I keep asking God, "Am I still doing this
right? Am I still acting the way I should? Am I still being your light for
others?" And if his answer is, “Yes,” then I keep trucking, one little victory,
one little step at a time. Not looking at the failures, but only at the ways
today was maybe better than a month ago and what I want for tomorrow. And I
keep forgiving myself.
And maybe, maybe one day I won’t feel like my skin is
tearing apart when I ignore the lies.
Maybe one day I won’t feel like I’m about to fly into a
thousand pieces when I don’t punish myself for my mistakes.
Maybe one day the monster of self-hate and self-doubt won’t
just get smaller, maybe it will die!
And maybe you can kill yours too.
