Shadow

This has been a year of healing for me.

Perhaps that’s ironic, since it is a year most of us spent sheltering from a global pandemic. But at the beginning of the year I saw that I was a shadow of my former self, and realized at last that the person I used to be was gone forever. I spent some time mourning that fact. Then I set about getting my feet under me again and striving to discover who I am now. I am now someone who lives with clinical depression/anxiety, and someone who has been affected by trauma. Those realities have changed my entire life, and this year has been a year of learning to cope with them. I will probably go into this in some more detail later, but for now, it’s just an overview.

I began reading a book recommended by our pastor about dealing with trauma, and it has made a world of difference in my life. I also, after months of hesitation, embraced the keto lifestyle. Both have made a big impact. And then, I have started acknowledging more of my weaknesses and limitations, and realizing that some days I need to slow down and do less … to process, or rest. It has helped a lot.

I miss how easily joy used to come to me. In 2017 I was in the throws of undiagnosed clinical depression. In 2018 I was dealing with a major health crisis and still trying to get my depression under control. In 2019 I was doing much better, but at the end of the year I experienced a flare-up in my depression and ended up going on a slightly higher dose of my anti-depressant – which, thankfully, worked wonders and left my feeling much better.

But in 2020 I have felt stable. Stable – but I did not experience the giddy, wonderful joy and excitement that used to come to me so easily. When I first started dealing with depression, I would walk by those signs which say “choose joy” and it would hurt. Because for some people, that’s not a choice they can make. They can’t “choose” to feel joyful. They can’t “choose” to feel anything. Depression is like a big, engulfing cloud of numbness and darkness. You can choose, for example, to be grateful – to acknowledge your blessings, and your value and your worth – but it doesn’t change how you feel – it simply changes the current of your thoughts. Having that detatchment between your feelings and your thoughts is hard. It makes every day – every waking moment – a fight. A fight just to get out of bed. A fight to work. A fight to not isolate. A fight to keep pushing forward. And having to fight every moment is exhausting.

God speaks to me in many different ways, but when mental illness came the voice went away like a snuffed candle. I see, now, that he was still speaking to me, and he was still there, but it was much harder for me to see it. Those struggles plunged me into darkness deeper than any I have ever felt before. I would think of the words of Thoreau, sometimes, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation,” never had I so resonated with those words before. And as I would walk through a grocery store or other places, struggling against my inner demons and striving to put on a brave face, I would look around and wonder how many other people were walking around in darkness, struggling, beneath the mask they put on to hide it? I would think, how many of us are walking around like empty shells, looking for something to make us feel again?

Thankfully, I did not stay in that place. There is help to be found, and I found it. I feel joy again, now. Sometimes. It does not come to me as easily as it did before, but it comes pretty often, and usually when it does I savor it… like a favorite food you haven’t been able to eat for a long time… I linger in the moment, sometimes delay going to bed, and just savor the feelings of joy, excitement, and life that I feel once again. There are still many ups and downs.

But I am no longer a shadow.