I’ve been reluctant to write about this matter… Aside from it’s something private, I’ve been a little worried that some people might misconstrue things. But since the purpose of this blog is to put across my thoughts and feelings… to serve as my ventilation, so here it goes…
I would have described myself a year ago as a bubbly person who could cope with just any difficulties that come my way… people who are close to me would agree with that. Last year when I arrived here, although I was sad, a part of me still felt excited for being in a whole new place. But after a few weeks, the exhilaration began to fade away. There were lots of times that I found myself crying incessantly for reasons I couldn’t actually tell. Most of the time I was just awfully sad or more rightly so — depressed. At first, I thought maybe I was just really home-sick or I just badly missed my loved ones back home. So I tried to ignore the unstoppable flow of tears, hoping it would eventually end. But it did not. It became worse when tears soon became part of my routine. Each time I woke up, I often felt something was tightening like a fist in my chest. In the evening, I wept and wept with great heaving sobs that left me breathless. At work, there were even a few times that I had to step out of the office in the middle of work because I couldn’t breathe. But I tried to ignore it, convincing myself that I was just sad. But when I started having panic attacks and crying hysterically over small things — I knew there was something really wrong with me. The most horrible thing about my depression was the fact I couldn’t tell anyone…or maybe I just didn’t want others to know. My sister was the only close relative I was with during that time, and she was aware of what I was going through. But as the only believer in the family, I couldn’t tell her everything because I was afraid that my depression would trip her up. I thought that succumbing to sadness would totally contradict my beliefs. How could someone who supposedly had the ‘joy of the Lord’ be in despair? How could someone who always thought she was a complete person suddenly felt empty? So I tried to hide my misery with the fear that it would ruin the testimony I have in my life.
Hiding it was too exhausting. It came to the point that I couldn’t longer keep it to myself. So, I tried to tell it bit by bit to my “small group” during our weekly “meeting”. I tried disclosing my dilemma to them with the hope that they were the ones who could understand me, but in my dismay, the more I divulged something, the more I felt terrible. Let me just clear that they didn’t say anything that made me feel that way. (They were great people, just for the record)However, they didn’t say anything that made me feel better either. And that was perfectly fine! It wasn’t their duty to take me out of my wretchedness in the first place. And I didn’t think they could anyway. What somewhat bothered was the way they dismissed the idea of depression of among believers; and their (her rather) implicit manner of saying that there’s something probably wrong with your Christianity if you were depressed, since believers are supposed to be joyful at all times.
I began questioning myself. I reassessed the condition of my spiritual life. I prayed each waking moments for enlightenment and rescue. It did not come right away like a thunder of light as I wanted. But God, as magnificent as HE has always been, slowly revealed something great to me day by day. I realized that it was alright to be depressed, that it was normal — it was human. After spending many sleepless nights crying, it dawned on me that indeed God allows these things to happen for a reason.
Being depressed is hard enough for anyone, but being a depressed believer is another story. Depression wouldn’t just drain you, t could also lead to questioning yourself, your faith, the very foundation of your life, and most of all, your Creator. But pain if handled correctly could build you. These pains can help build you faith if you allow them to, if you don’t allow them to kill you first. Our pastor once said that, “God places His children in a place where we have no other options but to depend on Him.” … In my case, God put me literally and figuratively to a seemingly impossible place where learned (still learning) to fully depend on Him. My pain and misery were the instruments He used to teach me. I realized that can never stand alone that I was (I’m) limited. I never thought that I’d see a burst of light in a dark time of my life. Well I suppose, sometimes we have to be wounded to be healed, destroyed to be rebuilt, trampled to be risen up and be broken to be fixed. ***
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