This post is part of a series meant to foster understanding about life with depression.
Other posts in this series include the following:
11/08/2023 – Part 1: Revealing Challenges to Understanding

I need to start this post with a trigger warning.

Seriously…if you are triggered by mentions of suicide, self-harm, or similar themes…please do us both a favor and close this window.

Furthermore, if you are a friend, family member, or part of the church I pastor, and you believe you will struggle to read about those topics specifically when it comes to me…please close this.

I’m not writing this post for pity. I’m not writing this post for attention.

I’m writing this post because I believe it needs to be written.

I’m writing this to speak for those who may not have the words to say.

I’m writing to develop understanding among those who want to show compassion for someone they love.

If you have ever gotten new glasses, you understand what it’s like to suddenly see the world clearly. Previously, you had gotten used to walking around with a slight blur. It didn’t happen all at once, or else you would have noticed it. Instead, over time your view of the world just got worse bit by bit.

It was only when you put on the new glasses for the first time that you realized, “WOW. That was so much worse than I thought!”

As I wrote about previously, I was diagnosed with depression in 2015. With that diagnosis, I began to take anti-depressants and, for the first time, began to see the world clearly.

I distinctly remember saying to my wife, Kara, “You mean not everyone walks around with a boiling ball of rage inside their stomach? Not everyone feels like they might harm someone else or even themselves at any moment?”

My wife is a marriage and family therapist, and thus, no stranger to mental health issues. Yet she looked at me with surprise and said, “No…no we don’t.”

You see, I had gotten used to my blurry perspective of the world.

Especially when it came to myself.

Are you familiar with the term “cacophony?”

The word is used to describe a mixture of bad, loud, or even piercing sounds. If you imagine a bunch of metal pans falling on a concrete floor or a school full of elementary students all producing a piercing type of scream at once, you have a good idea.

“A constant cacophony of hateful messages” is the best way I can describe what it is like inside my mind during those days or moments when depression is particularly loud. For most people, an intrusive thought of, “You don’t deserve to be alive” can be dismissed without much effort.

But that is much more difficult when the cacophony of messages is constant.

When every compliment offered is reflexively brushed aside in your mind as “They didn’t mean it…they’re just being nice.”

When your brain interprets every slight negative as a massive failure on your part because someone else would have done it right…

When you are convinced that any and all things positive happen in spite of you and your ineptness…

When your mind tells you from the moment you wake up to the moment you sleep that you don’t deserve to be alive…that everyone would be better off without you…that you should do everyone a favor and kill yourself because you’re not worth the oxygen you breathe…

Like water dripping on a rock, it is only a matter of time before the endless cacophony of messages wears down any strength you have.

For me, depression meant that every moment of every day was a struggle to hear anything BUT those internal messages. Thus any moment I could escape the noise whether through sleep, video games, or anything else, was a welcome momentary respite from a fight no one else could see.

I learned to hate myself because my depression had convinced me that was what I deserved. Furthermore, the well-intentioned but misguided religious answers of, “Just pray about it!” or “Just have the joy of the Lord!” only reinforced how I was a failure as a Christian and especially as a pastor.

It was not until I was diagnosed and began to make changes that my blurry perspective began to change and I began to see the world differently.

I would love to say that today I am wholly and utterly “fixed.” But that’s not true.

I can say I’m better. I can say I’m healthier. I can say that depressive thoughts tend to focus on my achievements and abilities rather than my inherent worth. I can say that when suicidal thoughts pop in they are much more easily dismissed.

I’m not all fixed. I am, however, much better.

In a future post, I’ll write more about how I now take an active role in cultivating a healthier mind and know better how to respond when depression gets loud.

For today, know that sometimes depression still does get loud. Depression still rears its ugly head. Depression still sends me lots of mean, insulting messages. And, much to my dismay, I recognize that this may be a battle I have to fight for the rest of my life.

But…I’m still getting better.

For mental health resources in your area visit the National Alliance on Mental Illness.

If you know of someone who struggles with suicidal thoughts, encourage them to text HOME to 741741.
A trained volunteer at the National Crisis Text Line will anonymously help navigate whatever crisis they are going through.