My Dirty Little Secret

Depression is one of those things I assumed only happened to people who had experienced something significant and life changing – divorce, bereavement, redundancy or something similar. In my head it was not something that affected an 18-year-old student with a cosy middle-class life.

Yet there was an undercurrent of deep, pervasive sadness in my life. I don’t know when it started, but it wasn’t until my gap year that I realised there was a problem. The most frustrating thing for me, however, was that I couldn’t identify the ‘cause’ or root of my unhappiness.

Depression is not just ‘feeling sad’ – it is crippling despair. It could start with a passing negative thought, and spiral down into a sense of complete helplessness and misery. Moreover, the sense of sadness is intertwined with feelings of guilt and shame.  Often the thoughts you have are totally self-deprecating: “I’m a rubbish person, I’m so weak, how could anyone really like me?” But you worry that sharing these thoughts will make you sound self-absorbed, attention seeking or irrational. You feel like there’s something wrong with you for thinking this way – that you’re broken and faulty, that you’re never going to get better, and the best thing to do is stay silent and hope nobody notices that something is wrong. You feel so ashamed and lonely. And fighting it - putting on a brave face, acting 'normally' - is exhausting.

Being a Christian complicated matters for me. In my mind, Christians were supposed to be joyful people, content with life no matter what their circumstances. Yet I just could not feel happy.

The strange thing was, I had every reason to be happy - I loved my university, enjoyed my course, joined an awesome church, met some incredible people and life was good. But the depression kept getting worse. There were days when I was fine, but equally there were times where I would isolate myself in my room and spend evenings curled up crying and feeling like I just wanted to disappear from the face of the earth. Even when I wasn’t feeling low, the fear of slipping back into that place of misery hung over me like a guillotine. I even turned to self-harm as a kind of release from all my pent-up emotion, but it only increased my shame and guilt.

I was on medication for months. I didn’t want to go for therapy because in my mind that just confirmed the notion that I was somehow crazy and abnormal. The pills helped a bit, but instead of feeling sad I just felt numb and sometimes found it impossible to cry, which was weird. If I forgot to take a tablet I’d feel sick and get a weird buzzing sensation in my head.

I was lucky to have amazing support from certain people my church, and in a couple of close friends who were going through or had been through the same thing. I felt I could open up to them without fear of judgement or misunderstanding. But there was on-going frustration at the fact I didn’t seem to be getting better, in spite of prayer and medication, nor could I pinpoint why I kept feeling so low.

The turning point for me came in June 2012. I had just finished my first year of university and had resigned myself to the fact that summer would be awful. My parents were going to separate and I was facing 15 weeks away from my friends and church.

I was praying one morning when suddenly the word ‘inadequacy’ hit me like a brick. Something clicked and I realised that THAT was the root of my problem. I felt totally inadequate. Moreover, I was looking to people to make me feel adequate – to affirm me and give me a sense of belonging. Don’t get me wrong, people are great - we definitely need to be in community with others. Ultimately, however, I was defining myself by how I thought other people perceived me.

I remember saying (somewhat flippantly) to God, “No offence, but you’re invisible and intangible most of the time. How am I supposed to be feel affirmed by what you think of me, compared to physical human beings?”

I suddenly remembered something called ‘The Father’s Love Letter’, which recalls some of the most beautiful verses in the Bible. These verses from Psalm 139 (vv.13-18) particularly resonated with me:

For you created my inmost being;


    you knit me together in my mother’s womb.

I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;


    your works are wonderful,


    I know that full well.

My frame was not hidden from you


    when I was made in the secret place,


    when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.

Your eyes saw my unformed body;


    all the days ordained for me were written in your book


    before one of them came to be.

How precious to me are your thoughts, God!


    How vast is the sum of them!

Were I to count them,


    they would outnumber the grains of sand –


    when I awake, I am still with you.

For some reason at that moment it just felt like God was saying to me: “I love you more than you can possibly imagine. You don’t need to earn my affection, you already have it. You don’t need to worry about what others think of you – only my opinion matters, and you mean the world to me. You are NOT inadequate.” I am so grateful for that truth.

I got better after that - I was off anti-depressants and cold turkey for a couple of years, at least. I'd love to tell you that I was healed of depression for good. Sadly, that's not the case. I was re-assessed and re-diagnosed last November, and once again I am back on the antidepressants. In some ways, it's harder when you relapse. But I'm ok because once again, I am getting better, and I know the support is there when I need it.

If any of this resonates with you: please, please talk to someone. Message me, I’d be more than happy to talk or meet up if it's feasible. You don’t have to be a prisoner to depression or mental illness. You are not alone in your struggle. There is light at the end of the tunnel. Only by coming forward and supporting each other can we get rid of the stigma attached to mental illness. It’s #TimetoTalk.