Ripples of Depression

Twenty years ago, I experienced several years of clinical depression that nearly buried me. My life's circumstances gripped me like a boa constrictor, squeezing my life out until I could barely breathe. I didn't know why or how I got there. I just knew my world was dark.

The sudden loss of my brother Brad from a drug overdose left me with a deep hole.

When therapy taught me unresolved grief was the root of my depression, I later learned the depth of my brokenness.

I'm a natural optimist, so the depression felt unfamiliar, yet it confined me in its clutches and left me powerless.

Have you ever felt like your life is out of control and you don't know how to fix it?

My dad pointed out, "You have a wonderful life, Liz, a nice home, a good family, great kids, I don't understand. You should be happy." My dad loved me and wanted to help, but he'd never been in my shoes.

I don't ever want to be there again.

Brad's death followed decades of riding in the sidecar of his drug addiction, lies, and codependent behavior. Mom, Dad, and I focused on managing him and his life, which unknowingly gave our lives meaning.

After he died, his loss and my lack of purpose left a space inside me, like a tree that bark beetles had hollowed out.

The perfect storm of losses from other life circumstances compounded my depression, such as moving to a new community, mayhem at my husband's work, and the dissolving a key friendship.

All the primary relationship attachments that created my identity had slipped away from their mooring, leaving me swirling in an open sea, lost without anchors. I didn't realize how much it sunk me as I repeatedly ruminated on my losses, drowning in a deep depression that felt foreign to me, yet I couldn't swim out.

Maybe you've been there.

I clung to people and activity to repair the voids left by my losses. I filled my holes with a need for MORE— distraction, people, busyness, and inclusion. I frantically sought a human connection to mend the space in my heart, to bring light to my hollow days. I clung to anything, large or small, to ground me again. I had an addiction to people, relationships.

Looking back, I can see the following scenario in my mind's eye.

My best friend, Susan, and her two young children live a half mile away next to other young families. Every school morning, the moms meet at the bus stop, a puppy or two in tow, often planning after-school play-date activities with the kids. Since my quiet street doesn't encourage chatting among bus-stop-mom-friends, I beg to be included in her experience and connect to her friends.

I call Susan on the cordless phone one evening to relieve my pain. "Susan, maybe I should drive my kids to your bus stop in the mornings for fun." I nibble my thumbnail in a dark room with my free hand, chewing it to bits.

"That doesn't really make sense, Liz," she replies gently. "I think you have the wrong impression." I hear her kids giggling in the background and the sound of pots and pans. Is she cooking? Emptying the dishwasher? "We're just there for around ten minutes, and then I go on with my day." My history keeper since birth, Susan is well-versed in talking me out of my anxiety when needed.

I'm not satisfied, convinced the moms are bonding, and I have no one. No brother. No community. The lies imprison me in recycling thoughts of worthlessness, darkness from which I cannot escape.

If I'm no longer my family's keeper, who am I? Who are my people?

My negative looping narrative shifted when therapy and meds modified my perspective until light seeped into my reality. I slowly recovered from my depression by growing and healing one day at a time. My activities included joining a Bible study, writing for a local paper, learning tennis, and practicing yoga. I took baby steps by climbing out of the darkness, one small but meaningful stair step at a time.

Until I could breathe again.

When we find ourselves slumped over in a dark place and can barely see light, viewing life through a healthy lens is difficult. To reason out of swirling, negative thoughts. To build on tiny successes that empower us. To deflect them, one by one, as though brandishing a lightsaber in the hopes of finding peace.

But it is possible.

That struggle was one of the most challenging seasons of my life. And I've been through plenty. But now, I appreciate the lessons I learned about resilience and recovery. Those lessons of hope will carry me through the unavoidable periods of light and dark, joy and sorrow.

Ripples of depression that once paralyzed me now serve and inform me as I engage in helping others. That's how it is with recovery.

Today, I value that season of despair, knowing it equipped me to understand and have compassion for others who've been there. Maybe even you.

I call that a win.

I'm so grateful for this community, this safe space to share my vulnerability and this place to help each other on our journey to Finding Freedom. Thank you for joining me . . . you belong here.