Depression and Persevering in the Suffering
I began writing this blog post for a simple reason: I wanted to share some valuable advice given to me in the confessional by my priest. Because the advice he gave me was related to my depression, I also wanted to share some of my experience of living as a Catholic with a major depressive disorder. However, once I started writing, this article became much more than I intended. I wasn’t sure what or how much I should reveal, but I decided to keep writing, frequently invoking the Holy Spirit for help and guidance, in the hopes that what I produce will somehow be beneficial to souls who are suffering through similar trials.
Depression
First, I’d like to make a distinction between “a depressed mood” and a major depressive disorder.
Depression is a mood. Feelings of sadness are a normal part of life, and “feeling depressed” is not unusual nor a cause for concern. Human moods shift back and forth, up and down based on changing circumstances, environments, and life events (like losing a job or the death of a loved one). It can be normal to fall into a funk or slip into a slump, or just to feel sadness about any number of things. This is part of the experience of being a human. Remember, even Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus. To be human is to endure suffering and to feel sorrow.
Then there is major depressive disorder, which is a mood disorder that is thought to be related to genetics and psychological factors. This is more like a persistent, deep sadness that does not go away and interferes with every part of a person’s life. This illness comes with an inability to experience pleasure. It can be debilitating and blinding as depressed people are obsessed with thoughts of worthlessness, are haunted by guilt and regret, and remain in a constant state of hopelessness. They can’t concentrate or focus, they have trouble remembering, they withdrawal from social settings, and they usually suffer from insomnia and suicidal ideation. The constant mental anguish is overwhelming, exhausting, and painful. Most days, it is difficult to rouse oneself to function normally; some days, it is impossible. I can attest that it is beyond frustrating to never be able to escape from your own ill mind.
I’ve suffered from a major depressive disorder for most of my life and I’ve never been able to just “get over it.” From my experience, people treat this disorder like it is simply a “depressed mood.” They think that it will change with time, or that it can stop if the person’s circumstances or environment changes. “Maybe you just need a break,” people offer sympathetically. I can tell you in all honesty that when you have a disease, it doesn’t matter if you take a break, take a nap, how much time passes, or what things in life change, the disease remains. I can tell you from decades of experience that it doesn’t just go away. There are certainly things I can do to lessen its grip on my life, but even on my best days, there is a lingering element.
Although I’ve struggled with depression for most of my life, I don’t manage it or cope with it as most people do. This is because I view depression the way I view everything else: through the lens of my Catholic faith. Although I have in the past had recourse to medication and therapy, I’ve ultimately decided that neither of these things are beneficial for me in particular, and I prefer to manage my symptoms in other ways.
Feelings vs. Truth
One of the reasons I am so adamant about “truth over feelings” is because if I listened to my feelings, I'd be dead.
My “feelings” tell me all kinds of things, but it is my faith that enables me to recognize them as lies. My brain often feeds me lies that I exist for no reason, that I have no purpose in life, and my existence is worthless. My brain reminds me daily how inept and incompetent I am at everything I do, and it uses this fact to convince me that I can’t contribute to anything in a meaningful way.
This is where the devil slithers in with his deceptions. “Your life is pointless,” he hisses, and my depressed brain clings to the lie. “Your life is meaningless,” he goes on, “you haven’t done anything with all this time that God has given you— and your time will end soon! Why do you keep trying? Why do you continue to waste time living when your life has produced nothing worthwhile? And you’re miserable anyway! Are you really supposed to live in this state of misery for another 40 years until you die? Is that really what God wants? What does it matter if you end your life now, or if you live for another few pointless decades?”
These are the daily thoughts I battle. Each day that I wake, I have to firmly resolve again to keep living through another day, even though I know it will bring nothing different. I see nothing good in my past, and I see nothing good in my future. I will go through all the same motions as yesterday and I will feel achingly miserable the whole time, constantly aware of my failures, and simply willing myself to keep living. My feelings? Well, they’re tired of feeling, and they’d rather end my life. I have to resolve each new day to keep living, despite how I feel.
The End of Man
In the midst of this fog, like a plant tending toward light to direct its growth, I turn my face toward God and His Truth. Because of my faith, my intention in life is to conform to God’s reality, not to invent my own reality based on how I’m feeling moment from moment. God has already determined what is true. I need not invent my own truth; I need only to conform myself to His.
Truth tells me that God willed for me to exist; that is, that I was created intentionally by a Creator. Since God is the Author of my life, He is also the Owner of it. My life belongs to Him, both my body and my soul.
Truth tells me that I was not only willed into existence by God, but that I am held in existence by Him. Fr. Kenneth Baker, an old pastor of mine, said in one of his books that, “If God were to stop thinking about you, you’d cease to exist.” It is a truth of our faith that God not only brought us into being but that he sustains our being every moment. Therefore, if we are alive, it is because God wills us to be alive. Every breath of our lungs and beat of our hearts is proof that God desires for us to be living. That’s the key: knowing that I am alive because it is God’s will for me to be alive. For me, that’s the only reason I need to keep living. Because it’s God’s will.
But for what reason did He create me? St. Thomas Aquinas says that “God is the last end of man.” For anyone who might be confused by this terminology, the definition of the word “end” here is “the goal or result that one seeks to achieve.” The end of man is what man is aiming for— his goal, his objective, his purpose. God is the goal.
I’ve personally always liked how St. Ignatius’ defines “the end of man”:
“Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.”
This truth is also expressed simply and sweetly in the Baltimore Catechism under the question, “Why did God make you?” to which the answer is, “God made me to know Him, love Him, and serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next.”
St. Ignatius says, “I come from God. I belong to God. I am destined to return to God.”
God willed me into existence.
God holds me in existence.
And I’m meant to go back to Him when my life on earth ends.
When my life feels totally and utterly pointless, it is then that I must keep my focus on God, turning my head towards his illuminating Truth and conforming my life to that Truth, much like a sunflower demonstrating heliotropism—turning its head toward the sun. I must always turn my face to my Father in heaven.
Depression and the Dark Night
It’s not easy to turn one’s face toward the light when there is no light; that is, when one is engulfed in darkness. We all have to experience what St. John of the Cross calls “the dark night of the soul,” which occurs in the spiritual life as a soul progresses in holiness. Living with a depressive disorder has been like living in a perpetual dark night. Not everyone will suffer from a depressive disorder in their lifetime, but everyone will experience depressed moods, and everyone will have to endure a dark night at some point, which I think can be likened to a “depression” in the spiritual life.
Now, I’m not saying the “the dark night” and a depressive disorder are the same thing! But I think understanding the dark night and how to navigate is a good launching point to understanding depression and coping with it.
It’s a paradox of the spiritual life that as we journey closer to God, He wills for us to experience darkness. Yet these times of aridity are essential for purification and growth. It’s much like the weeding of a garden, or the pruning needed to allow new and good growth in a plant.
Interestingly, if we look at why pruning is required for plants, we can find parallels in the spiritual life. Pruning promotes healthier plants by removing the dead and dying branches and stubs, which allows room for new growth. Likewise, “pruning” in the spiritual life removes vices and attachments that allow us to grow closer to God. When struggling branches are removed from a tree, it can dedicate its resources (water and nutrients) to other parts of the plant. Likewise, when we stop wasting our time on useless and worldly things, we find we have more “resources” (time and energy) to dedicate to God. Dead limbs are a perfect place for insect infestations and diseases to flourish, and a sick tree is not going to produce fruit. Neither is a soul in a state of mortal sin. Chopping off the dead pieces of the tree is going to protect it from infestation, disease, and allow the growth of new spurs where new flowers can blossom and bear fruit. The purification process that our souls must undergo may be painful, but it’s also necessary so that we may “produce good fruit.” As we know, our Redeemer warned us that “Every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire.”
God is a very good gardener. It’s a great mercy that He prunes us so we can be more fruitful. It’s necessary to cut off the dead limbs of sin and attachment so we can have a more pure love and closer union with Him. We cannot have a heart divided between God and the world, He wants and deserves our whole heart, and the dark night is meant to purify us, like the fire of God’s love burning and consuming all that is disordered within us. Fr. Troadec explains it thus in his daily meditation series, “When God enters a soul, He inflames that soul with the fire of His love, but at the same time He consumes, He burns, He destroys whatever is opposed to that love.” The periods of dryness in the spiritual life are so the old man can be annihilated and the new man may emerge.
A major part of living with depression is that my thoughts tend to be dominated by a constant awareness of how inept I am. I can truly say that there is nothing I excel at, and my brain reminds me on a seemingly hourly basis how worthless I am. I have struggled with this sense of inadequacy for my whole life, as my life appears to be nothing but a series of repeated failures. But over time, I have come to see even this as a gift — part of the pruning process. Because I am constantly aware of how incompetent I am — painfully aware of my own insufficiency — I can lean on God completely, as I have no confidence in myself. I have no illusions of my own grandeur, instead I have proven to myself consistently for 36 years that I really am nothing and I cannot trust or rely on myself. I know my own weakness because I am confronted with it daily, which makes it hard to persist in any fantasy of pride for very long. I stand before God empty-handed, poor and barren, in need of Him every moment.
St. Augustine wrote a well-known prayer that begins with the often-quoted line: “Let me know myself, let me know Thee.” But the rest of the prayer, which seems to be lesser-known, goes on to say: “Let my hate myself and love Thee. Let me humble myself and exalt Thee. Let me die to myself and live in Thee. Let me flee from myself and turn to Thee. Let me distrust myself and trust in Thee.” St. Augustine’s conversion was a long, difficult, mentally anguishing journey that was assisted by the prayers of his mother, St. Monica, and the instruction of St. Ambrose. There’s a painting by Fra Angelico depicting a pivotal moment in Augustine’s conversion, where he can be seen sitting in a garden with his head in his hands, apparently weeping. The pruning process is painful. The turning away from sin and vice and pride is a turbulent journey, one that we would easily shrink away from had we not the grace of God to strengthen us. When I read these words written by Augustine, I can relate so much. Let me distrust myself and trust in Thee. Let me fear myself and turn to Thee. Like Augustine, I know where trusting in myself leads. I know where relying on myself will take me. I have no desire to guide myself, but like a humble lamb, I turn to my Shepherd to lead the way.
Spiritual Direction
Recently, I went to confession and had to confess some negligence that was due to do that fact that my depression was really, really bad. I was “in the depths of despair” as Anne of Green Gables says, and as a result, I stayed in bed and ignored my life a little too much. In the confessional, I simply told the priest, “I’ve been neglecting my duties of prayer to God, and to my family and home.”
My priest has always been so good at understanding the deeper meaning of what I’m saying and somehow gives extremely relevant advice. Even though I didn’t go into any detail or give specifics (I only said a few words) his advice was right on point. There were a couple times when he was speaking that I got goosebumps because it was like hidden questions of my heart, known only to God, that were being answered.
“Even when you’re lacking motivation, you need to stay faithful to your duty. As you know, God wants you to do your duty.”
These words were particularly impactful because too often I doubt what I’m "supposed” to be doing. I understand that I’m supposed to do God’s will, and I am willing to do it, but most of the time I find myself praying pathetically, “What do you want me to do?!” as if it is some great mystery that I can’t know unless it is divinely revealed to me. The truth is that we are sanctified in the fulfillment of our daily duties, and our duties are determined by our state in life. Since I am in the marital state, fulfilling the duties of the married state is my path to sanctity. It’s not like it’s some great unknowable mystery that I can’t figure out. God wants me to do my duty!“You remain in possession of your will. Even if you don’t feel like praying, you can still act and pray.”
These words seemed inspired, as though God wanted to assure me that I am free to ignore my feelings and can still choose to do the right thing even when I have zero motivation to do it.“If you only pray and act when you receive spiritual consolation, then you act selfishly. Pray because it is your duty, and act for the glory and honor of God — the only reason we should act at all. Persevere in your duties despite the lack of motivation and consolation.”
If you don’t know, to neglect to pray is a sin against the virtue of religion. We are bound by the law of our being to render God the worship due to Him as a matter of justice. Too often, we think our prayers are for us, to bring us comfort, or to ask God for the things that we want. Indeed, supplication is one kind of prayer, but it can’t be the only reason we pray. If we stop praying because “it doesn’t feel good,” or because we “don’t get anything out of it,” then we are not praying for the right reason. Regardless of how we feel, we still have a duty to pray: to adore, to praise, to thank, and to love God. We owe this to Him as a matter of justice (giving someone what is rightfully due to them).“God is giving you an opportunity to grow in virtue and prove your love for Him.” When prayer is not easy, joyful, or satisfying, but we remain faithful to our duty anyway, it is an opportunity to show God with our actions that we love Him even in times of desolation.
“Your sacrifices are not worthless; God will reward you.”
This was another line he spoke that felt very powerful. My depressed brain is constantly telling me how worthless I am and how worthless everything I do is. Sometimes I avoid prayer because I think my prayers are worthless. Sometimes I avoid my duty because I think my life is worthless. I needed to hear these words: “your sacrifices are not worthless.”“You don’t know who your sacrifices and prayers may be helping, or what souls may benefit from your sufferings and prayers offered up for them.”
On the one hand, this was a reminder to persevere in prayer. Who will pray for my husband and my children, if not me? Who will pray for my deceased relatives, if not me? Yet on the other hand, this was also a reminder that by suffering we are able to obtain graces for others. It shifts the focus off of myself and reminds me that I don’t only prayer and suffer for myself, but for others, too.
I wanted to share these little pieces of advice from the priest because I found it so powerful and important. I hope that by sharing, anyone struggling with depression, a dark night of the soul, or any kind of spiritual desolation, can find inspiration to keep persevering.
Comforter of the Afflicted
As a penance, he gave me the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary. When I was praying my penance in the church after confession, there were two titles of Our Lady that distinguished themselves in my mind: Health of the sick and Comforter of the afflicted. It reminded me of what a powerful intercessor we have in Our Lady, the Queen of Heaven, who desires so much to bring her children to her Son for all eternity. It is only recently that I am appreciating how Our Lady is the “Gate of Heaven,” — how she was the gate by which Jesus came down from heaven to us and is the gate by which we go up to Him in heaven. So many times in my profound weakness I have symbolically thrown myself at her feet, begged her to wrap me in her mantle, and to carry me to Jesus. The fact that Fr. gave me this litany as my penance seemed like a grace in itself, if only to remind me to call upon my Mother. How many times have I failed to call on her aid?
The concluding prayer of the Litany:
Grant, O Lord God, we beseech Thee, that we Thy servants may rejoice in continual health of mind and body; and, through the glorious intercession of Blessed Mary ever Virgin, may be freed from present sorrow, and enjoy eternal gladness. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.
What Living with Depression Has Taught Me
Believe it or not, after suffering with depression for as long as I have, I’m able to see some great graces of this particular suffering. Besides humility, depression has helped me to cultivate another important virtue: detachment.
A heavy reality of living with depression is that I never really feel a sense of what we might call "happiness" or “joy.” But it was only in the last few years that I’ve been able to recognize what a gift it is to not find much joy or happiness in this world. In fact, I now esteem it as a mark of God’s love that He permits me to find no consolation in worldly things. I know you may be thinking, “This is not true! God wants us to be happy.” Yes, God does desire our happiness, but that happiness is to be found only in Him. It is by experiencing suffering and discomfort in this world that we are able to perceive that we are not made for this world. Without suffering, our hearts would be lost in the love of present things. It is our suffering that breaks the deceptive charms of the world that incline us towards earthly things. It is our suffering that makes us recognize that God alone is our rest, and that outside Him all on this earth is vanity and vexation of spirit.
Suffering acts as a purifier that disengages us from the world and forces us to look higher, to enter into a state where God alone is everything to our heart. It is precisely the absence of joy and happiness and consolation on earth that creates within me a great longing and desire for Heaven, where I can quit this “vale of tears” and enjoy God in the Beatific Vision for eternity. It makes sense that the more joys we have on earth, the harder it will be for us to part with them. I’ve come to see this inability within me to feel any happiness as a true gift from God because it enables me to stay detached from what is passing and keep my eyes fixed on Heaven, the only true and lasting happiness.
There is a prayer I say in the morning that was written by St. Thomas Aquinas. It’s a short prayer that begins with the words, “May Your will be my will.” And it ends with these two lines: “Apart from You, may every joy be bitter to me. May I have no desire but to rest in You.” I’ve been reciting this prayer daily for two or three years, but it only recently struck me that it’s a request. I literally ask God every morning to render all earthly joys bitter to me so that my only joy and only rest is in Him. Through depression, He has made me aware of how empty the passing pleasures of earth really are, to the point where I cannot relish in them and do not desire them.
Children of God vs. Children of the World
A depressive disorder is the burden the Master has placed on my shoulders. What can I do but humbly accept? It is by accepting trials in a Christ-like manner that we find salvation. Our suffering can only be seen in proper perspective when we remember that they will only be for a very short duration and that they prepare us for the eternal joys of heaven that will never end.
We were just reminded of this in a recent Gospel at Mass, when we heard these curious words from Our Lord:
“Amen, amen, I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice.”
He spoke these words to His Apostles shortly before His Ascension. What do they mean? Have you ever thought about it?
Our Lord has drawn a contrast between two classes of people: the children of God and the children of the world. While the children of God are given crosses and tears in this life, the children of the world are given up to their riches and material enjoyments. The children of the world appear to be happy, but in reality they are very unfortunate.
Jesus foretold to His Apostles that their portion in this world would be persecution and suffering, making worldly men look upon them as unfortunate beings leading a sad life. The worldly pity Christians because they do not understand the Cross. You see, God gives His children trials because He desires for them to be purified from even the smallest sins by these passing sufferings.
The “sorrow” of the children of God is an apparent sorrow only, because the eternal joy of heaven awaits them. “I will see you again,” Jesus told them, “and your heart shall rejoice; and your joy no man shall take from you.” These words from Jesus assure us that the tears and passing sorrows of the children of God will be succeeded by an eternal joy in heaven. But the children of the world will have a different lot; their passing joy will be changed into tears and eternal torment.
For the children of the world: an earthly moment of joy, and then eternal suffering.
For the children of God: an earthly moment of suffering, and then eternal bliss.
This is why we, as Christians, can endure our suffering bravely, because it is rooted in a lively faith, a firm hope, and an ardent charity. Faith, hope and love are not feelings. They are acts of the will. They are something we can choose despite how we feel. Regardless of “feelings,” we can courageously and patiently bear with all the sufferings which come upon us during the remaining days of our lives, because we have the blessed hope that to secure Heaven these momentary sufferings are but little and nothing.
“In the evening weeping shall have place, and in the morning gladness.” - Psalm 30
Despondency vs. God’s Will
It’s important that we try to never let a spirit of despondency overtake us. We cannot let the gloom of depression make us forgetful of God’s Truth, or give way to hopelessness. We make a mistake if we allow our depression to make us angry and if we blame our melancholy and pessimism on others, or think that if “something changes” then we’d be better (ie, if we lived somewhere else, or had a different spouse, or had a different job, or made more money, etc.) This, I have discovered, is one of the hardest parts of depression: in between feelings of utter despair, feeling depraved and worthless, there is also a pervading sense of anger and frustration, and a real tendency to want to blame it all on someone else.
Keep the end goal in mind: to return to God at the end of our earthly pilgrimage. God will always provide us with the means to do this. It is God’s will that we be sanctified. We do not need to have a different spouse, home, family, job, whatever, in order to attain holiness. We can and will obtain holiness exactly where we are if we cooperate with the graces that God is sending us.
I believe it’s His will that my cross to carry in this life is the perpetual darkness of depression. This is the particular suffering He saw fit for me to endure. My cross is to keep living, even when I don’t want to. I am convinced that the great cross of my life is to persevere in my duty despite how I feel. Basically, to continue doing the right thing even when my depressed brain persists with the lie that it’s worthless to do so. Every day, I have to fight against the thoughts that tell me my life is not worth living, that life is nothing, that it doesn’t matter what I do. Every day, the most heroic occurrence of my life is simply getting out of bed and doing my mundane duties, even though I can’t see or understand the point of doing anything.
This depression brings with it a number of feelings; feelings of despair, hopelessness, discontent, rage, frustration and annoyance, but I remain in control of how I respond to these feelings. Every single hard day, every single negative emotion, is an opportunity to show God that I still choose Him. We do not have to have “good feelings” in order to do the right thing. I choose to obey; I choose to love. This is what St. John of the Cross meant when he said, “Where there is no love, put love, and you will find love.” We can choose to perform loving actions despite having no fervor. We can choose to obey, despite having no desire.
It is not always my will to keep living. But it is God’s will. And with St. Thomas I continue to pray, “May Your will be my will.”
