Battling Depression, Understanding It, and Finding A Way Out

Battling depression, understanding it, and finding a way out

Different voices screamed in my head.

You screwed it. You just failed. Your life is simply crawling. You’re not living up to expectation. You’re just confused. What will you do next? Do you think God is still so interested in you? You’ve not even been as faithful to Him lately…

With my head in my hands, I dropped on my bed. My head pounded. My heart bled. Tears welled up my eyes. I could just utter, “Jesus help me! I trust You. Help me!”

I hit rock bottom. Again. Depression. I felt I was almost losing my mind.

I’m a Christian. I trust in God; what He says about me, and how much He loves me. Somewhere down in my heart, I knew God lives, watching me with His all-loving eyes.

So, what’s really wrong with me? Why can’t I snap out of this?

And just then, something spoke to my heart. “The problem is not really in your heart, it’s in your head.”

My head?! Yes, it’s my head. I mumbled as I rose from my bed. I need to find a way to transfer what I believe in my heart to my head.

I jumped to my reading table, with prayers for help still flowing from my lips, as I grabbed my Bible and my computer for research.

It’s time to find THE WAY out of this. And as I studied and prayed, l found light…

One text hit my heart during that study: “Blessed be God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies, and the God of all comfort; Who comforteth us in all our tribulation, that we may be able to comfort them which are in any trouble, by the comfort wherewith we ourselves are comforted of God.” (2 Corinthians 1: 3-4)

You might be struggling with depression, or know someone who is. I believe God walked me through this (and keeps walking with me) so that my experience can be a light to walk you out of the darkness of depression.

I can’t say it all in this post.

I planned to do a series on this subject latter. But I felt the need to first give you this, because of the emails I’ve gotten, asking me to write on this subject.

You know, when you walk through some bitter paths in life, you could feel all alone. So here is me telling you, “Hey! I was there. And there’s a way out.”

But first, what does this word “depression” mean: Depression is an ache in the soul that crushes the spirit. It is a disorder in one’s mood or emotional state.[1]

“A feeling of severe despondency and dejection”, a dictionary says. And it is characterized by persistent sadness, heaviness, darkness and feelings of emptiness.”

According to World Health Organization,

  • Depression is a common mental disorder. Globally, more than 264 million people of all ages suffer from depression.
  • Depression is a leading cause of disability worldwide and is a major contributor to the overall global burden of disease.
  • More women are affected by depression than men.
  • Depression can lead to suicide.

So here are 6 things every Christian lady struggling with depression needs to know:

1. Depression can knock on the door of a Christian:

It sounds contradictory to say a Christian struggle with depression, right? This has caged many Christians, holding them back from finding a way out. Because… “if I tell my leader, or some other regular Christian around that I feel depressed, the default response will be – trust in God. They’re correct! But I’ve been trusting… in my understanding of “trust”. But why do the depressive thoughts keep hitting? Others label it as completely SINFUL. 

But thanks to the bible. It shows us different sides of the lives of saints of old. We read the story of Elijah after he killed the prophets of Baal, how Jezebel threatened to kill him, and how he ran off to hide in a mountain asking God to take his life. Elijah was there. And God looked on him with love and pity and sent angels to go feed him, again and again, till he jumped on his feet.

How about David? He had those moments when he cried out, “Why art thou cast down, O my soul? And why art thou disquieted in me?” (Psalm 42:5)

These people had moments when life looked bleak. And I didn’t see God throw them away.

2. Depression is a mental illness:

You need to understand this so that you treat it as such – an illness. And like we mentioned earlier, it is a disorder in your emotional state… your mind. That feeling you experience is a symptom though.

Depression can be caused by physical, mental or spiritual reasons. Physical – due to an imbalance of some neurochemicals in your brain.

Mental – when you entertain and dwell on negative, self-pity loaded thoughts in your mind.

Spiritual – when you don’t exercise your trust in God’s word and promises as you should… maybe because you don’t study His word, have faith in it, or sin keeps you away from Him.

So, when you want to treat this illness, you approach it from different angles, pulling weight on the part more responsible for this illness.

Just like if you have malaria, you pray… yes. You can as well take medications. And also fleet your room and have your net intact so mosquitoes don’t have access to your blood again. Depression needs a similar approach.

3. Depression keeps you in bondage:

Depression flogs every part of your being. It makes you feel hopeless and helpless. Like the whole world conspired to work against you.

No joy. No peace. Loneliness. You don’t even feel like getting off your bed. Your head a war zone…

 Someone once said:

We can live about 40 days without food, about three days without water, and about eight minutes without air – but only one second without hope.

Exactly what depression does – kills you before you’re dead. You walk around with hopelessness written on your forehead and no desire to live.

But the truth is, all those thoughts boiling in your head are lies. Lies from the pit of hell. Just to keep you from living the full and fulfilled life God has in store for you.

Will you rise up and kick the depression out of your life? Or will you keep crawling under its weight… merely existing?

There’s a significant life in front of you, girl.

It’s time to say NO to depression.

4. Your personality can make you more susceptible to depression:

I know you might have read some things about personality traits and/or temperaments.

If you don’t know your yet, read Spirit Controlled Temperament and also do a personality check here – https://www.16personalities.com/free-personality-test

You’ll find out that introverts are more susceptible to depression, particularly melancholics.

All temperaments or personality traits have their peculiar weaknesses.

A feeling of sadness, self-pity, and moodiness is huge for melancholics. Because, they think a lot, are perfectionists, over-process, criticize and blame themselves for almost any and everything.

When things don’t work out as planned or imagined, or something painful occurs, a sanguine can, maybe cry at the moment, but shortly jump into a jolly merry mood.

But a melancholic, she’ll brood over it… and flog herself so much about it. And it gradually drags her into depression.

The truth is, life sucks. Different unpalatable things keep happening. Like written in the book of Job 14:1, Man born of a woman is of few days and full of trouble.

So if you let the trouble of every day pierce into your soul, you’ll be carrying about a shattered soul… and mind.

If you have the melancholic temperament or mediator personality, watch against depression. And yes, every other temperament should watch against it.

But melancholics suffer more from depression caused by the mind – mentally.

5. You can be free from depression:

Do you believe this? You can be free!

Especially if you’re a child of God. And that’s the reason you need to confess your sins and accept Jesus as Lord and Saviour if you haven’t. Because, “if the Son, therefore, shall set you free, you shall be free indeed.”

The food angels delivered to Elijah from the hand of God pulled him up from the pit his soul fell into. And David, he commanded his soul to “hope thou in God.”

God says He hasn’t given us the spirit of fear (depression, despair, anxiety…), but of power, love and a sound mind. You can have a sound mind.

But first, you need to find out the cause. We mentioned three broad depression causes. Those caused by imbalance in some brain chemicals (physical) can be managed by antidepressants and/or food supplements and vitamins – especially vitamin B12. (You need to seek medical experts.)

However, “many in the medical profession acknowledge that a majority of their patients are suffering for emotional and spiritual reasons.” [1]

That’s why you should soak in this next point.

6. You have a part to play in your freedom from depression:

Yes, as you seek God’s help and study His word, He’ll give you victory over this monster.

But you know, God expects you play a part too. And this is crucial to your freedom. You want to be a transformed person – from hopelessness to a life full of HOPE?

Romans 12: 2 tells us what to do – “…Be ye TRANSFORMED by the renewing of your mind.”

Renewing of your mind! You need to take captive every though that exalts itself against God’s word – His promise and purpose for you.

Like we earlier mentioned, life won’t be all rosy. But instead of running it over your mind – then blaming and criticizing yourself, or allowing what people say or do to you eat you up, replace those thoughts with positive ones.

Meditate on God’s promises. Write affirmative statements to yourself and recite it into your soul daily. “For as a man thinketh, so is he.”

You can’t hold two thoughts in your mind at the same time,” someone said.

So once the negative thought seats in your mind, pull it off the seat and replace it with the positive one.

Do it actively. Intentionally.

I can’t exhaust this subject of working on your mind here. But you can add The Power Of Your Subconscious Mind to The Spirit Controlled Temperament I earlier shared.

They’ll help you understand yourself and learn how to handle your mind.

God bless and preserve you wholly.

If you have questions, or ideas from your experience, feel free to share below.

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3 thoughts on “Battling Depression, Understanding It, and Finding A Way Out”

  1. Chifulumnanya helen

    God bless your kind heart for this article
    I found it very helpful and soul lifting. Hope to share the story of how I overcame depression someday

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