The Prayer of St. Francis has always been very special to me. In a series of entries over the next couple of weeks I plan to break down each line and what it means to me.
"Where there is despair, hope"
Despair sucks. Bad. There is nothing as bad as the feeling that one has when you know that all hope is lost and that there is no way out. Anyone that has suffered through or is currently suffering from depression can tell you that. There were periods of time in my early twenties where I barely left our apartment. I skipped class like it was my job. I called in sick to work non-stop. It got so bad at one point that Amy called the principal of the school where I was teaching and asked if I had been missing a lot of days. She knew something was wrong...
I knew something was wrong too, but I was too clouded by depair to see what "it" was. Everything about my life seemed to be horrible. All I wanted to do was sit at home and watch The Price is Right and The Jerry Springer Show. I was addicted to pornography, something of which I am terribly ashamed. I lied to everyone about everything. I told school that work was keeping me from coming and I told work that school was taking up all my time.
I never studied. I didn't see the use. I got by on reading the chapters right before the classes that I actually decided to attend. I am blessed with an above-average intelligence. Unfortunately, I wasn't using it to it's full potential; I was using it to barely get by.
I know now what was going on: I suffer from Major Depressive Disorder (more specifically: atypical depression) and Attention Deficit Disorder. So, my brain was working against itself on two different fronts: I wanted to be away from everyone to avoid rejection and stimuli, but my attention issues craved stimuli. It caused serious mood swings and outbursts. I was a total mess.
Hope for me came in several different forms:
-My wife, Amy. She never gave up on me. She always supported what I needed to do.
-My therapist, Jaime. She was amazing. She "got" me, and most of my major breakthroughs happened though our sessions.
-Psychotropic drugs. More specifically: citalopram
It happened slowly, but I sought treatment, changed my life, shed my baggage, and moved on. I simplified my life and took my medicine and it helped immensely. My current doctor said it in a way that I hadn't really thought about it before: "You take these medicines not to be 'better', but to be 'normal'." I had always seen my anti-depressent as a way of helping. I never thought of trying more until it worked.
So, recently, I started to take ADD medicine, and it has changed my life. I have ambitition, control, concentration, and determination. Quite frankly, it's amazing.
For many people, despair comes in other equally-ghastly forms. Any time you can't see "the bright side of things", you are dangerously dangling over the precipice of depair. I have a friend at work (hi, if you're reading this) that's experiencing a bit of dispair right now. This person doesn't feel like their job is doable in it's current form; that there's too much expected out of this person and their peers.
The dangerous part of that mindset is that it transitions you from doubt to dispair. Once you cross that gap, it takes much more effort to cross back over.
I have recently taken on the mindset of "God won't throw anything at me that I can't handle." I have more work on my desk now than I have in a LONG time, but I have a plan and I know that I can get through. If I allow myself to get bogged down by the sheer volume of work, I'm done-for...and I've been there before.
Much worse than work issues are relationship issues. As humans, we invest so much into interpersonal relationships. When the relationship is of a romantic nature, the investment jumps exponetially. So it is to be expected that when one party in a long-term romantic relationship suddenly calls it quits, the other party falls down into the pit very quickly. I have a family member going through this now and they're working through it. It's has taken them months to start crawling out though. I don't know that they could have avoided it, to be honest. This person is blessed, however, with a GREAT support system.
The final key to this whole puzzle is "the Man." While we claw and scrape to climb out of our pit, leaning on Jesus sure makes it a lot easier. He doesn't do all the work for you, but it's like the difference between climbing a mountain without gear, or having a Sherpa to quide you.
Jesus doesn't physically sit by your side and talk to you. If He does, you're either divine or crazy. What He does do is give you a road map to get out of whatever it is that you may be stuggling with:
-Trust in Him. You have got to trust that God's got your back.
-Read the Word. Get out your bible and read two passages
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Job. I know, it's not a passage; it's a book.
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Romans 5:1-8. Hard to argue with the logic.
This is a tough topic for me. Maybe it's too close to my heart, or maybe it's just too big for me to tackle. I think this one's going to need a part II.
