It happens to the best of us.
It also happens to the worst of us.
It happens to anyone grappling with mental health issues.
The unwelcome tarriance of deep, dark, dreadful, debilitating depression!
Since I started my mental health processing I haven’t been in depression this deep in three years. I was aggravated to have this horrid appointment arrive unexpected and uninvited. However, over the years I’ve accepted that such is just how depression works.
I was shocked by this ridiculous romp because I’ve been doing so well. I’ve been using mindfulness to progressively unwind the emotional baggage lingering in my mental spaces and have processed so much closure recently.
I didn’t understand why I was so immersed in depression with my mental state of being on the upswing. I was stifled and trapped inescapably. If I had the ability to take a mental health day from work I would have done so.
I’m going to walk through the event, it’s trigger, how it processed and my recovery. I think this journey will help all of us. Maybe sharing my pathway out of my suffering will empower others to escape their own agony.
I began that day sharply awakened from a nightmare.
In my dream, my wife and I were together at some sort of retreat, but were segregated into separate houses. We agreed to meet up and hang out once we unpacked our things. Once I unpacked I sent her a text and went and waiting around the property.
Eventually the afternoon faded into the evening and not long after it was night. By 2:00am in the dream she still hadn’t replied to my text. Out of concern I forced my way into the other house and was met with the objectionable stares of dozens sending the message that I was unwanted there.
After I pushed past them and entered an open doorway into what appeared to be a dinning room, there I saw my wife giggling and smiling in full flirt while playing cards with some guy. I never saw anything more than the back of his head with his black hair coming from beneath his red and white ballcap because his back was too me.
I snapped awake and saw my alarm clock directly in my line of sight.
4:04 am.
I quickly realized it was a dream and immediately shut my eyes hoping to quell the overwhelming anxiety that was churning within.
I dozed. I snapped back awake at 4:14 am. My anxiety now was at fever pitch and I tossed and turned taking deep breath after deep breath hoping to calm and ease myself back to sleep.
It worked, until I awakened again at 4:44 am realizing I had mere minutes before my alarm was going to sound. My anxiety was having none of it. My heart was broken, by a silly dream nonetheless, and my anxiety was clocking heavily in my chest.
I drug myself into the shower where I did some deep-breathing while basking in the steam from my inferno-hot shower. That day, the breathing was relaxing but did nothing to shake the mounting depression.
Afterward, but before my quiet time, I did a quick Google search on what it means to keep seeing the number four. I know, depression makes you chase some wild rabbits down some exotic trails. I found several links that connected seeing the number four with God’s love, or a guardian angel, or balance. Nice!
I took those search results as an encouraging transition into my Bible reading, prayer, and meditation time. Usually, whatever is shaking in my system finds the exit during this daily centering time. Unfortunately, on that morning, the spiritual things weren’t flowing.
My “third eye” wouldn’t “vibrate” … I’ll share more on that soon. I’ve had a new realization that I’m just beginning to understand and enjoy.
My focus verses that morning were 2 Kings 2:11 which described Elijah being scooped heavenward in a holy tornado as Elisha watched helplessly and Matthew 6:25 which was a reminder not to worry about material things.
After digesting the verses I asked our Father to help me be a person through which He revelatory and uniquely speaks while asking God to … again … deliver me from the anxiety I’ve battled throughout my adult life.
My spiritual connectivity was on the fritz that morning. Otherwise I would have caught both references as He intended.
I’ve since understood our Father mentioned Elijah so that I would remember the powerful prophet’s furious war with depression that led to him hiding in a cave and feeling abandoned. He stayed there for 40 days but would have an unforgettable encounter with God (1 Kings 19) while in self-exile.
I’ve also recognized that Jesus’ quote about anxiety was couched in language specifically intended for me as well.
He was reminding me of the importance of enjoying His presence. Of lingering in His righteous and overwhelming love. Of centering my life on His kingdom that is coming into our world through our relationships with Him.
Just as He was present when Elijah thought He was absent as he spiraled from depression, so also was He present with me during a similar struggle.
I so wished I had just taken a few hours that day to ruminate in His loving presence.
But I didn’t.
So, instead of being lovingly lifted I plowed through my day. I got my job done. I meandered through the monotony while going through the motions. Task after task found completion, yet, I was not close to the precipice of the deep, depressive hole into which I’d wondered.
I was thrilled and exhausted when my lunch break rolled in. I spent half of it eating and reading. The other half was spent in my hot, HOT, southern summer heat wave with a heat index over 100 degrees, HOT car.
I stepped into the sauna and turned on the ignition and sat with my AC on low for a gentle cool breeze to pierce the heat. For me, that is relaxing and begins the mental clearing necessary to climb out of depression.
While in that atmosphere I began working through mindfulness. I attempted to unravel the knot at the heart of the emotions driving this round of depression. However, my effort was unfruitful. While I did get to a complete state of rest, I didn’t uncover any hidden or latent emotional issue at the heart of this depression.
I really wanted to talk with my wife about it in hopes that conversing through it might help me end it but when she got home she was irritated at USPS. We had a note on our mailbox about a package that couldn’t be delivered. She spent an hour of our evening on hold on the phone and was quite furious that the operator had no clue as to what we were supposed to be receiving.
They couldn’t even give her the return address! So, we didn’t talk. I didn’t want to add “another round” of my depression to her already full plate after her infuriating and frustrating waste of time with the USPS.
We hit the weights, hit the dinner counter with the kids, then hit the sack … early.
I did enjoy a deep, long sleep that night and awakened refreshed the next morning. The depression had finally lifted with the morning sunrise. I felt like a new man. The crushing depression vanished, replaced by rapturous joy.
I was baffled.
In normal circumstances, it takes some time to process a targeted emotion through mindfulness. Not this time. It was just gone. Apparently no unsettling and underlying emotion was requiring closure.
I discussed the occasion with my therapist.
My therapist believes the depression was the result of the mental health work that I’ve been doing on my own accompanied with a busy schedule for a few weeks. I’ve basically been brain-spotting myself through deeply and intensively focused mindfulness.
My brain needed a break … so it took one.
It felt like depression because my brain literally shut down and put my body on cruise control to rest.
As a result, my therapist decided it would be good to cut back my sessions to more of an occasional check-in. I’ve made a lot of progress, praise God! According to my therapist, I’m putting myself through therapy every day and all of this processing is benefiting me and my family.
I praise Christ because He is healing my mind using this therapy and these techniques.
I wish I hadn’t run from therapy for so long. I’m relishing in this new head space. I feel empowered against the leviathan that had conquered and dominated my mental wrangling for so much of my life.
I really wish more men would seek therapy for their mental health issues! Men aren’t allowed to do so, or at least not in the world of “men”. That view is so dangerous and toxic and is at least in part responsible for the elevated suicide rate among men.
I don’t want my story today to seem as though I’m bragging because I’m not. I’m celebrating a win. If you let me know about your wins I’ll celebrate those as well.
It’s on us to develop an atmosphere that encourages men to share their struggles so that we can rejoice when they rejoice and hurt when they hurt (Romans 12:15). We must refuse to judge based on the small piece of their story of which we’re aware.
We’re only privy to the now. We don’t know the beginning and we most certainly don’t know the end.
What we do know is that we can overcome mental illness and toxicity … if we choose to do it together … in community.
Community is what God designed us to enjoy and through which He can produce the best us. We need community because sometimes … it’s just depression.
Grace and peace!
If you liked this post, you just might enjoy my book, What He Said: Living the Sermon on the Mount, Transforming American Culture.
If you want to follow my journey, you can read each of the collections below:
Mark West, Xvangelical 
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