Dark.
Lonely.
Hopeless.
UNBEAUTIFUL...
For my entire existence, my life has been tainted by depression. The ugly beast steals light and joy. Security and worth. Depression is a liar and a thief.
My alcoholic father was ravaged by depression. The first eighteen years of my life were broken stumbles trying to survive it's effects.
My beloved, Ironman, suffered from a highly intellectual, introverted depression since he was a child. Until recent years, we never understood that it was depression who was the thief. We suffered from it's loathsome grip -off and on- for the first 17 years of our marriage.
After 37 years of life, I had no tolerance for the thieving beast any longer. I wanted away from it's darkness. It had dominated for long enough, and I was going to escape from it's claws once and for all.
Then it happened...
*I* fell down UNBEAUTIFUL's merciless slope into the deepest pit I could have ever imagined. The girl who *KNEW* she would *NEVER* be depressed was in the steely claws of depression's grip. I was stuck... unable to move, breathe, live. I felt like God had left me. I felt hopeless. I felt utterly and completely ALONE.
ALONE...
ALONE...
ALONE...
Then something BEAUTIFUL happened...
My beloved who UNDERSTOOD the helplessness of depression tenderly and intentionally cared for me. He spoke softly and gently when I would listen, and he prayed when I wouldn't. He brought soup to me in my dungeon. He washed my clothes. He coaxed me out of bed to shower. He wept for me and he wept with me. He KNEW the prison I was in. He KNEW my incapability to rescue myself from it. He knew UNBEAUTIFUL.
HE KNEW...
HE KNEW...
HE KNEW...
Last week, I picked up a book by Alise Wright (and several other authors) called Not Alone. It's a compilation of personal stories of those who have walked this road. These are stories of those who KNOW. They have been in the pit and are sharing their stories so you will know that you are NOT ALONE. Catalysts of chemical imbalance, insecurity, alcoholism, divorce, adultery, anorexia, job loss, failure, faith crisis... have left these writers crippled and in the darkness of UNBEAUTIFUL's grip. In the same way my beloved understood where I was locked away, these writers also understood. Deeper healing has found me as I have read the precious stories of these warrior writers. Something of true BEAUTY has been unveiled in UNBEAUTIFUL.
The book Not Alone: Stories of Living With Depression edited by Alise Wright is available through Amazon.com
