"Functional" Depression
But maybe right here in the depression. In the darkness of having no hope of fixing my life for myself. Maybe in the midst of accepting I have nothing left to chase. . . . Maybe this is exactly where God finds me. In the surrendering to the lack of control, maybe God can finally bring me life.
The depression is back.
I hate it.
I hate that it creeps up on me. Never letting me know it’s coming until it’s inky black tendrils are wrapped around my soul.
When it does, suddenly I’m that girl again.
The grade 4 overweight brunette who gets made fun of at school for being smart and respectful and ugly. Funny how being smart seemed like a curse back then.
The thing that made the other kids hate me.
It made me different, and they used it to tell me that it made me not worth wanting.
Unfortunately ugly still feels like a curse.
The amount of times I’ve been told that I’m kind or generous or caring or Christ-like, but none of these things are enough for someone to choose me first.
It’s all about attraction, and whatever people find attractive - I guess I’m not it.
And so here I am - twenty years later, back to feeling like the round faced school girl with the pigtails, crying silently on the bus, looking out the window to keep my class mates from seeing.
I remember the pitying eyes of the parents waiting for their kids at the end of driveways and on street corners, sorry for me, but glad it wasn’t their kid getting off the bus with tears in their eyes.
Except I’m not 10 anymore.
I’m 31.
And when the darkness finds me again.
When it reminds me that I’m no one’s first choice. That I’m smart and kind and passionate, but none of these things are enough because I am unattractive and unwanted. The silent tears find me at my desk, or the gym, or when I’m grocery shopping.
”I’m not well,” I say, hoping they’ll assume I have the flu.
I pop in my headphones and pretend I’m listening to a really emotional podcast, or some hauntingly melancholy music.
I have become the master of hiding the pain.
Of allowing tears to stream so quietly and drying them without notice so people find themselves questioning whether I seem sad or just tired.
“Functional depression” is what my therapist calls it.
It’s been a long time since it’s been this bad.
3 years. Maybe 4.
Not that I haven’t been sad in that time.
In fact I went through some massive heart breaks, and struggled with some major anxiety.
But I always felt like there was something I can do.
That I had agency.
That if I just went back to the drawing board and came up with a better plan, I could fix my life.
If I was just kinder.
More generous.
If I volunteered more.
If I lost weight.
If I got out more.
Read more.
Tried harder.
I could change me, and if I could change me, then maybe someone would actually see me.
Maybe I would no longer be kind, but ugly.
The funny, friendzoned sidekick.
”Everything I want, but I don’t actually want you”
Maybe they could just see me.
Because if they could just actually see me, then they could choose me back.
But recently I’ve come to the end of myself.
No more drawing boards.
No more plans worth trying.
No more thoughts on how to be good enough.
Just me.
And so I feel depressed.
And the depression tells me that I am too broken to be loved.
Not whole enough to ever be wanted.
But I equally feel like I don’t have the right to be depressed.
”Come on, you can do this,” I say as I force myself out of bed in the morning.
”Just keep moving” I whisper as I park my car and have to convince myself to go through the movements of getting out.
”You got this,” deep sigh, “I’m so tired.” I admit while staring myself down in the mirror, and using the sink to brace my collapsing spine.
A deep breath and a desperate prayer to heaven when opening my office door.
Weary not in the ways sleep can fix.
And so I get coffee with friends,
And laugh loudly,
And buy flowers,
And volunteer more,
And write cards,
And remember peoples’ birthdays,
And try to let the world know that each person matters.
Because this matters, right?
Life matters, right?
I’m a Christian.
I believe deeply that every human being matters, that they are known and loved and valuable. . . .
How do I believe these things so deeply.
That we don’t earn our worth.
That we don’t have to strive to be good enough.
That I don’t need to convince the God of the Universe to be on my side, because he already chose to be there . . .
And yet today it doesn’t feel like it.
Today - at the end of all my plans.
With nothing left to try.
Nothing left to give.
Even with the deep conviction that God is with me, it feels like he has the power to set everything right, and yet he isn’t.
Why isn’t he doing anything?
The scriptures say I don’t have to be afraid because God is with me.
My mom says that being with God is our fulfilment, that his presence is enough.
It’s what we were created for. That type of deep, perfect community. That beautiful oneness. The one we spend our lives searching for in one another - it’s actually found in God.
And even here in the depths - I think that’s true.
But it’s annoying that I can’t get it by trying harder, or being better.
Relationships never seem to come that way.
They come from being chosen and trust.
How do I trust God enough to let the fact that he chose me be enough?
How do I accept his seeing me as where I find my worth?
Hard work I get . . . but knowing how to just be wanted, be chosen? That’s an experience I don’t know how to understand.
I’m out of plans.
But maybe right here in the depression. In the darkness of having no hope of fixing my life for myself. Maybe in the midst of accepting I have nothing left to chase. . . . Maybe this is exactly where God finds me. In the surrendering to the lack of control, maybe God can finally bring me life.
As Jesus once said,” You’re blessed when you’re at the end of your rope. With less of you there is more of God and his rule.”
Or translated differently, “What great happiness and abundant goodness is offered to you when you feel totally dependant on God! For there is no charge to enter the realm of heaven’s kingdom.
What delight comes to you when you wait upon the Lord! For you will find what you long for.”
All right God. You’re my choice. You’re all I’ve got left.
I want you to be my stop.
Please rescue your silently weeping daughter from this bus.
Engaged: Ian & Melissa
Sometimes you find love.
Other times love finds you.
Ian & Melissa met on a city bus.
On a day like any other day, a series of circumstances landed them on the same bus, and when the person seated behind Melissa insisted on giving Ian their seat - they met.
Just goes to show you - sometimes it’s okay to trust that everything will work out. ♥️
A slight change in edit on these final photos - but I couldn’t resist a little warm and romantic softness.
Tell me your love story! Leave me a comment with how you and your significant other met.
Book Review: What We Talk About When We Talk About God by Rob Bell
“How we think about God is directly connected to how we think about the world we’re living in.”
This was the first book that I both started and finished in 2019.
(You can find my full reading list here.)
Within the first couple pages of this book I remembered that I had read it before. Right after I moved to Niagara Falls a few years ago, but I decided to just go ahead and reread it. I love the premise of the book - reframing God as the God who is with us and for us. Not a God that is somewhere far away waiting to punish people, but rather someone who loves us and in the midst of good times and hard times and messy times, he’s right there in the middle of it with us and he is on our side, calling us to the next step of being the best version of ourselves.
Quotes & Notes
Holism is the reality that emerges only when all the parts are put together but can’t be individually located at smaller levels. (AKA: You are only you when you are you. Your elbow isn’t you, but it is you. Your foot isn’t you, but it is you. One atom of you is not you, but when all the atoms of you are together suddenly together they are you.)
The intellect has a way of building a fence around the heart, cutting us off from what we know to be true in a way that is hard to prove according to the categories in which proof matters.
The story of Moses seeing God’s back - one commentary says it like this: Moses got to see a glimpse of where God just was. I want to spend my life chasing glimpses of God.
Faith and doubt aren’t opposites. They are it turns out, excellent dance partners. You can understand something with so much conviction that you would die for that belief, and yet in the same moment say, ‘I could be wrong.’ Conviction and humility are not opposites.
In giving life to everything, God also gives creation the freedom to be whatever it’s going to be with all the possibilities and potentials for good and bad and beauty and chaos and love and loss that freedom might lead to.
All of life is sacred and holy. Interactions. Events. Tasks. Conversation. Work. Words.
The ground doesn’t become holy. Moses takes his sandals off because he realizes the ground has always been holy. You are already on holy ground - wherever you are.
We don’t transform our shadow side by denial but by entering into it, embracing it, naming it, because we believe that God is with us and for us.
What the modern world did in its fascination with parts and pieces is teach us that we are individual, isolated human units, talking and conversing and interacting, but not more than that. But we intuitively know there’s more than that.
We need reminders of who we are and how things actually are.
“And now I see God everywhere.”
2018 In Review
Weight
An ongoing goal in my life is to lose weight. I have a mental finish line for where I would like to be eventually, but from day-to-day it’s putting one foot in front of the other as I slowly inch my way forward. With such a big, life changing goal it’s hard to see any change from one day to the next, or some times even one month to the next, but this year I am happy to be able to look back and see change.
In 2018 I lost exactly 15 pounds! And dropped one pant size.
This means that I’ve lost 35.6 pounds in total over the last couple years!
I’m stepping into 2019 with the hope and plan of doubling my weight loss from 2018. :)
Books
I started 2018 with the idea that I wanted to read more.
Growing up I was a voracious reader - sometimes it didn’t even matter what I was reading, the act of reading in and of itself is something I enjoyed. But over the years with the accessibility of the internet, Netflix and binge watching - as well as a little bit of college reading burn out, reading got pushed out of my life.
I didn’t set an exact goal, but I knew I wanted to read more. So, I signed up for a library card and started bringing a book to work with me to read at lunch.
I tried to keep a blend of both fiction and non-fiction, and even read a couple of autobiographies that I really enjoyed. Some that stick out to me are Martin Short’s I Must Say, and Scott Harrison’s Thirst. I also ended up discovering two fiction series that I really loved - the Heather Wells comedic murder mysteries by Meg Cabot and The Lunar Chronicles by Marissa Myers - a futuristic fairytale.
In the end I managed to read 29 books in 2018, with 2 more books started but not yet completed. :)
(You can find a complete list of the books I’ve read here.
Debt
In 2018 I have successfully paid $4,862 off the principal of my student loans!
It’s so exciting to login each month and see the amount I owe go down.
I hope that in 2019 I am able to continue to pay this down, and hope to do so at a higher rate.
Events
2018 was a big year with trying new things, going on adventures and showing up for moments of big life change in the lives of my friends & family.
My Grandmother, Helga Wiedemann, passed away. Early in January of last year my grandmother was admitted into the hospital and after a routine angiogram experienced complications and passed away on January 8th.
My sister, Eve, got married on February 24th at a beautiful outdoor ceremony.
In March through a series of surprising events, I had my heart broken. It took me a long time to put the pieces together - maybe I’m still working at it - but because of this I started seeing my counsellor regularly. Seeing a counsellor has been a really, really great experience for me, and our monthly chats are something I always look forward to. Speaking with her makes me feel spacious and balanced, as if the world has more than enough for me.
It also led me to start meditating on a regular basis, take up yoga more seriously and begin reading my Bible, praying and journalling more regularly - all things that help me manage my anxiety.I participated in my first (and second!) vocal recital, and felt proud of the way my voice has grown and expanded since I started taking lessons a year and a half ago.
I photographed my 3rd wedding, and was so happy to have my sister Allysin as my second shooter.
I attended a few weddings. And I loved it! Wedding dance parties are one of the most wonderful highlights of life.
My niece, Acacia, was born.
I turned 30! And my best friends - Allysin & Brittany - planned me the most wonderful 80’s themed birthday party. It especially made me happy that all my friends came dressed to match the theme.
Went on my very first work trip with my boss Brady, and Kyle. Brady was speaking at That Church Conference in Atlanta and I was able to go along. It was so fun to get out and speak with members of our community in person. I love meeting people, connecting with them, hearing their stories.
Celebrated autumn with a chilly corn field adventure - one of my favourite days of the year.
Visited my cottage with my family for Thanksgiving and we took our family photos.
Review
As always, I’m so lucky! I have incredible, wonderful people in my life - family and friends who truly care about me and seem to enjoy my company and want the best for me. They hope for me and hold me up on the days that feel heavy. They believe in me and try to help me accomplish the goals I choose for myself, and support me in even the smallest victories.
Looking Forward
I hope 2019 is a year that feels lighter.
That in the coming year I’ll be able to see more of the things I already have in my life, and less of the things that I think are missing.
I hope 2019 holds a love story for me.
And more realized goals.
That in the next 365 days I will be proud of the way I spend my time. That I will continue to lose weight (and eat and move healthier) and read books and learn to be a more consistent, self-disciplined person.
That my faith will continue to weave itself seamlessly into every area of my life, and that the way I exchange my moments and hours and days will be intentional, and less by accident.