I'm reading a biography of Abraham Lincoln by Joshua Wolf Shenk entitled Lincoln's Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness. Did you know that Lincoln suffered from chronic depression all of his life? Shenk, a fellow sufferer of depression, does an admirable job of showing how such melancholy, as it was called in those days, is both a bane and a blessing.
Dysthymia is the clinical term for chronic depression. I have it, too. It's different from episodic depression in that it's always there, like your body and mind have only one aim: to suck all the joy out of your life. It's exhausting, always working to combat the pull of the undercurrent, the black water that threatens to engulf you. It's difficult to know how to handle it, especially in our current culture, where the idea that personal happiness is the ultimate goal of life, predominates. I have never quite trusted that ideology; it seems too shallow.
Dysthymia typically hits in the mid to late twenties, as it did both Lincoln and me. And, like Lincoln, I have always looked for the gifts, the benefits of such an ailment, indeed, of anything "bad" that happens to us. Depression is hell to live with. Many turn to drugs to relieve the suffering, and I don't fault anyone their personal approach to depression. My 25-year experience, though, is that if I can just stay functional, depression brings a certain kind of deep awareness, a knowledge of Truth that can't come any other way. And I benefit from those hard lessons, in ways that change me permanently, hopefully for the better, as I keep my eye on Christ. I rarely feel happy. But I have many times experienced a joy in my soul that goes beyond anything this world can offer.
Lincoln always felt that his life had a larger purpose, even long before his time to shine came. And he used everything he had at his disposal -- his intelligence, his compassion, his training, his melancholy -- to try to live into that nebulous destiny that he sensed. I'm not trying to compare myself to Lincoln. But I do hope that like him, I can use all that I've been given to fulfill my own life purpose. Even the hellish gifts. All of it. All for the glory of God.
Announcing Segullah May 2024 Edition
1 week ago
What a lovely mission statement for life. Give all you are to God. You are a shining example of Jesus. Your very presence uplifts me and I always come away wanting more to give to Christ because of you! Thanks for being you with all your bane and blessings.
ReplyDeleteSorry to comment so much but I hope you will print your blog posts in a book so my kids can read it and get to know more about you when they grow up! Thanks for running this blog! They will love to know you more deeply through your writing! Love you!
ReplyDeleteLiving with a partner who has depression has opened my eyes to a whole new world. My world is pretty simple and mostly happy; it's hard for me to imagine the debilitating ennui that sucks the joy out of everything. I didn't know you had depression; it helps me to understand you better. Too many semi-colons! So many great artists and world leaders struggled with mental diseases. I sometimes wonder if we try to diagnose and cure too much, rather than try to understand and deal with. It's a big subject.
ReplyDeleteIllness. Mental illness, not disease. I knew it wasn't right when I was writing it.
ReplyDeleteI love that you posted this, because I will frequently get so depressed and I don't know what to do with myself. But like the reference to Lincoln, I do feel that I am meant for something bigger and it uplifts me in the worst of times. Even though I kinda feel like I won't fulfill that bigger purpose until after this life, I know I have to stay on the right path to be able to be where I need to be (with Heavenly Father) to do so.
ReplyDelete