Depression (Day 8)

This post is important. Mainly because it contains one crucial truth.


People dealing with clinical depression are in a constant state of mourning.

One day, my therapist said "Tell me what you are feeling right now."

I told him I was dealing with grief. That I was in mourning.

He said "Did you lose someone?"

"Yes." I said. "Me."

People with depression, just like people who have lost a loved one, are experiencing grief.

The person who lost the loved one will begin by grieving the person they lost, and then eventually begin to grieve the person they themselves were before losing them. Because that person they were is gone.

The daughter who lost her father will grieve his loss, and then grieve the loss of the daddy/daughter relationship they shared. So she begins by grieving him, and then grieves the loss of who she was to him.

The mother who lost their child when they were just a baby will initially grieve the loss of the child, but will also grieve the loss of the person they were to the child.

The caregiver who lost their friend to cancer will mourn the loss of being that caregiver.

You mourn your own death.

People with clinical depression mourn their own deaths every day. We mourn the person we were before things went bad, or, if we don't rememeber when they went bad, we mourn the moments that things were so good they eclipsed the depression, but now they are gone.

This grief can last for weeks, months, years, or an entire lifetime.

Sometimes, this grief is almost unbearable, and all we can do is turn to God, or if not, turn simply to hope. (Because sometimes, it gets so dark we can't see God.)

The other day I was having one of those days. I was getting ready for teaching my class, and had become so used to holding my little house of cards together day after day, than the balancing act had become rote. Then, a little girl in our homeschool group came over to me, smiled, and sat down next to me and put her head on my shoulder. For that two and a half minutes, the darkness lifted, and it was like feeling normal again. I can't thank her for that enough. I truly believe children have a sixth sense about people who are hurting, and can see it before others even know (or bother to know) it's there.

Please.

Be kind.

Everyone is fighting a hard battle you don't know.