Let's Get Personal

**WARNING** This may be triggering for anyone who deals with depression, suicidal thoughts, and/or self-harm issues.  Please read at your own discretion and if it becomes triggering, please do not continue reading.  I do not want to be the cause of someone's relapse.


Now that that's out of the way.
Wednesday night, we were reading in Romans 12 and he picked out verse three.  "For I say, through the grace given unto me, to every man that is among you, not to think of himself more highly than he ought to think; but to think soberly, according as God hath dealt to every man the measure of faith."
He took this verse and said that in today's age, it's all about, "think good about yourself!" but that he believes people should have an accurate self image, which, yeah, they should!  But that lead to talking about depression.
He said that if a person is struggling with depression, it is usually because they aren't focusing on God, on Jesus, but on themselves.  That was a slap in the face.  A knife in the gut.  To hear a person that I trust and respect say something like that.  Because that is just not true.  Maybe in some cases, but not the 99% of depression cases that he went on to say, after I said I disagreed.
But, the more I thought later, the more I realized, "He's just never dealt with depression."  Yeah, sure, everyone's been depressed.  But what kind of depression?  The "Oh, my boyfriend broke up with me" depression that lasts a few weeks?  The "Yikes, we don't have enough money for ____" depression that lasts until you get your bills covered?  Or the, "I have no idea why, but I feel worthless and alone, like no one really cares" depression that lasts for months...for years.
That last depression...what even causes that, really?  I don't know.  But I've lived with it pretty much my whole life, hitting really hard when I was around 11-12ish.  By my youth pastor's saying, I just quit focusing on God and was focusing only on myself.  But that doesn't even make sense!  I was reading my Bible every night.  I was involved in AWANA.  I went to church every Sunday, morning and night!  I was focusing on God.
I remember the first time I was depressed all day, and not just for a little bit.  I was around twelve and all day long, nothing mattered.  I didn't know why.  I knew something was wrong, but I didn't know what, or what to call it.  But nothing mattered.  It didn't matter what I did, I didn't matter, just nothing mattered.  All.  Day.  Long.  I felt that way the entire day.  I felt like God had abandoned me.  And that was just one day!  The only reason I had to believe that God hadn't abandoned me was Hebrews 13:5.  "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee."  Didn't make my depression go away....
It only disappeared if I was really busy.  That's the only time it really left for any amount of time.  I was at youth camp and for the most part I was okay, except for one night.  And that was the year I was thirteen.  The rest of the years I've went, it's happened a whole lot more.
With my depression, my anxiety, which I've dealt with a lot more severely, although I also didn't know what to call it got worse.  If you put those two together, you have basically a very poisonous mixture and it is inside you.  You have yourself feeling worthless, like nothing matters, like you don't matter, it doesn't matter what you do it just doesn't matter.  Then, on top of that, you have a little voice inside you, whispering to you, telling you "Don't tell anyone!  They won't believe you!  They won't care!  They'll just hurt you!"  You have nowhere to go.  No one to turn to.  That's what your own mind is telling you.  Every.  Single.  Day.
I tried to ask my family for help once.  I think I was around fourteen.  I posted a blog post on our family blog (closed, so don't even try to look for it), telling how I felt, all but begging for help.  Wanna know the response I got?  My aunt told me it was just teenage hormones (because they make you go from perfectly fine to begging God to kill you, right?).  My grandma told me to just trust Jesus.  I wanted to scream, "Can't you tell I'm trying?!"  But I didn't.  But ever since then, I have never, and will never, go to them for help or support.
I'm eighteen now.  I have had depression living in me trying to control me strongly for six years.  I've had anxiety that strong for about as long.  But when I look back, I was depressed and anxious even when I was little.
When I was 6-7, I was at a church dinner, holding my doll and watching the boys play basketball from between two trees that were great to lean between.  My pastor's wife asked me if she could take my picture, because apparently I looked cute and I said sure, because why not.  It was a black and white picture and she gave it to my grandparents who still have it.  Do you wanna know why I was there?  It because I was anxious.  I wanted to ask if I could play basketball with them (I had no idea how, and still have no idea how), but I was scared.
I fight almost every day with my anxiety.  Thankfully my depression occasionally takes a respite...but it always, always comes back and while it's gone, if it's been gone for a long time, I get scared that it's coming back soon.
It's not because I'm not trusting or focusing on God.  If you want to know the truth, he's on my mind quite a lot.  Half the time, I have to coach myself through things and pray for help for things that are easy for other people.  Like...going up to someone and asking if I can sit by them.  Or having someone sit by me.  Or deal while people are making weird, repetitive, annoying noises.  Or even just having a car drive by me while I'm on my rollerblades!
This isn't a situational thing!  Yeah, it gets way worse through situations sometimes, but this, for me, is not a situational thing!  This isn't because I'm not trusting God, or focusing on Him!  I don't know why this is!
No, I can't fault my youth pastor for not understanding something that he doesn't live with, or that he hasn't dealt with.  But I can post about what I go through, and maybe it will help others understand.  And just so you know, I have written a letter to give to my youth pastor tomorrow, that has some of this and a few other things in it, so that maybe it will help him understand what "depression" means to someone who lives with it daily.
~Katie