"Victorious Suffering"
My favourite part of the phrase 'victorious suffering' is VICTORIOUS, not suffering!
Recently I shared parts of my mental health story with a group of ladies in a Christian Coffee Hour. Since I enjoy both writing and speaking this was not a chore for me, it was a fun project. And from the comments of those who came up to speak to me afterwards, a lot of what I had to say was helpful, useful, informative and encouraging. For some it was the first time they had ever heard of depression spoken about so candidly and by one who understood it firsthand.
Make yourself a cup of your favourite drink and have a read:
I am a Victorious Sufferer!
I am a Victorious Sufferer!
I remember the very first time I came to this coffee hour in 1999. I had just moved to Havelock with my new husband. My mother-in-law brought me here. She introduced me to many friends and one of them said 'so this is the bride'!
At age 48, a failed marriage behind me, two grown daughters, and now three step children in high school, three dogs, two cats and a big house to take care of, I didn't think of myself as a bride, but that is what I was.
Just as I didn't really think of myself as a 'bride' all those years ago, I don't think of myself as 'mentally ill' now, but that is what I am.
Let's have a little laugh before we delve into this serious topic:
"Way back in the early 1900's a doctor at an asylum decided to take his inmates to a baseball game.
For weeks in advance, he coached his patients to respond to his commands.
When the day of the game arrived, everything seemed to be going well."
After the anthem he yelled, "Down Nuts!" And they all sat.
After a home run he yelled, "Cheer nuts!" And they all broke into applause and cheers.
But when he returned there was a riot in progress. Finding his assistant, he asked what happened.
The assistant replied, "Well...everything was fine until some guy walked by and yelled, "PEANUTS!"
You may be surprised to think I know anything about depression.
I mean look at me. (twirl around) I look pretty good, I'm standing up nice and tall, I sound clear and confident, why I'm even smiling! I don't imagine I look like a poster girl for depression let alone any kind of mental illness.
That's because I am a 'VICTORIOUS SUFFERER'!
Did you know that everything you have ever gone through has led you to this very moment, this very place, right now?
HERE is where you are supposed to be.
God has allowed you to go through good times and bad times, but they all led to here.
And so, no matter what you have gone through, or what you are going through right now, God has brought you here today and he has a word for you.
Whether the topic of depression hits home or not, God is speaking. So sit back, and wait to see how he wants to speak personally to you - today.
He loves you...he knows...you and he cares about every little detail of your life!
For instance, I first became a Christian in 1980 and for mainly one reason. I was in constant back pain and I had heard about this God who could heal and so I figured 'what have I got to lose?' and I became a Christian. I know that doesn't seem very spiritual but God did not reject me despite myself and I asked him into my heart. My motives were not good but my choice was very good!
*'Turning to God' was going to help me in the future.
So, if my excruciating back pain led me to God, I guess that wasn't a waste then was it?
In my desperation to find the healing I longed for, I delved into the scriptures in hopes of getting relief from my physical pain. But I became so wrapped up in my new Christian life that I sometimes forgot that healing had been my initial motive. God became real to me and I often wondered why it took me so long to wake up and see Him.
*'Searching the scriptures' was going to be a helpful habit in the future.
My new-found faith did give me some relief, although not for the physical pain. I got relief from the burden of carrying my problems on my own.
I now shared them with the great and awesome God, the one who created the heavens and the earth and everything in them.
I'm glad God positioned me on his loving lap inside his safe strong arms for what was to come next.
In 1995, after 24 years of marriage, my first husband who I loved very much had a midlife crisis and left me and destroyed the marriage I had worked so hard at and split up the family I cherished.
I'm so thankful that I already knew God. As soon as that crisis hit I went straight to him and opened my bible to Romans 8:28 and read “For we know that all things work together for good for those who love the Lord .....”
'All things' work together for good, that doesn't mean just the good things, all things....
I took my prayerful habits with me into the devastation of divorce.
Remember, I am a victorious sufferer!
I already had a routine of getting up early in the morning and spending time with the Lord so I doubled that time.
I already kept a little prayer journal but expanded that into a bigger prayer journal.
I already had a habit of walking for 20 minutes every day and talking to the Lord while I did and I increased that to over an hour every day.
I already had a habit of listening to inspiring Christian music and so I purchased some new stuff to add to my old and I surrounded myself with that both at home and in the car.
Since I now had so much time alone I had a lot of time to do these kinds of things, the kinds of things that should have prevented depression from slipping in, but they didn't.
I filled the empty side of my bed which my husband had occupied for 24 years with ...my bible, my journal and my CD player.
When I couldn't sleep at night, I would read my bible, or write in my journal or listen to the same music over and over and over.
I also added one other special thing to that empty side of the bed.
A teddy bear!
I had a few teddy bears in those days so I picked one to keep me company at night and called him “Dudley”. I had a hard time falling asleep in that big empty bed and so I would clutch Dudley to my heart for comfort. I got to the point that I couldn't get to sleep without holding Dudley to my broken heart.
Since Dudley was such a success I got another bear for the car. This time a really big bear who I named “Walter”. Interesting that my bears had male names. I guess I hadn't lost faith in men altogether. I buckled him into the seat next to me and he filled some of the emptiness. He also got me into some friendly waves and giggles, even a funny conversation now and then. It was a welcomed distraction from my grief.
*Divorce caused me to press even closer into God and so I guess divorce was not a waste then, was it?
I've always enjoyed strategizing, trying to adapt in as many ways as I can so the circumstances do not get the better of me!
Maybe I was destined to become a victorious sufferer.
*'Learning to make lifestyle changes' prepared me for the future.
So these experiences were all helpful, all things working together for good, they were all useful tools to take me into the world of mental illness.
Just the word 'mental' can conjure up all sorts of scary images for some people.
There was a time long ago, when people who were born with a physical or mental handicap were kept in asylums. No one knew how to handle them and people were afraid of them because they looked different and acted weird and did not fit into the mainstream of society. Now these were people who were born with a mental handicap, not people who became depressed during the struggles of life but that is where the stigma associated with mental illness originated.
Yes, decades ago, the word 'asylum' or 'mental' conjured up all sorts of negative images. If you had someone in your family in one of those asylums, you might have kept it a secret. After all, what would people think?
That negative stigma has carried over to today but popular thinking has progressed from that time to some extent. Certainly now we are a little more knowledgeable about mental disabilities and mental disorders.
A friend of mine has a special app on his phone and when you call him to leave a message this is what you will hear on his voicemail:
Welcome to the Psychiatric Hotline.
If you are obsessive-compulsive, please press 1 repeatedly.
If you are co-dependent, please ask someone to press 2.
If you have multiple personalities, please press 3, 4, 5, and 6.
If you are paranoid-delusional, we know who you are and what you want. Just stay on the line so we can trace the call.
If you are schizophrenic, listen carefully and a little voice will tell you which number to press.
If you are depressed, it doesn't matter which number you press. No one will answer.
If you are delusional and occasionally hallucinate, please be aware that the thing you are holding on the side of your head is alive and about to bite off your ear.
Now..... let's do a little survey.
Raise a hand if you or someone in your family or someone close to you has been affected by diabetes.
Next, raise a hand if you or someone in your family or someone close to you has been touched by cancer.
Last, raise your hand if you or someone in your family or someone close to you has been affected by mental illness.
Mental illness is just that, it is an illness, like diabetes and cancer are illnesses.
Are you embarrassed to admit you have diabetes or cancer?
Would you be worried about what people might think of you?
Of course not because everybody would know that it is not your fault if you have diabetes or cancer.
So why are some people still hesitant to openly admit that they suffer from depression?
Rather, I am talking about when that down mood stays with you no matter what you do. You can't lift yourself out of it. It lasts and it lasts. That is when it becomes an illness, that's when it becomes depression.
Untreated depression, just like untreated diabetes or untreated cancer, just gets worse.
Let me repeat that...
Untreated depression, just like untreated diabetes or untreated cancer, just gets worse.
Let me give you a description of some of the symptoms of depression. One of the main symptoms is fatigue. Some days you can barely get out of bed. You may not have the energy to do even the most menial tasks, let alone go to work or visit with friends. That in itself is depressing.
You may sleep too much or hardly at all.
You may experience a change of appetite, either eating too little or too much.
It's an illness of the mind. Your thoughts are affected. It's kind of like your thoughts are broken.
You find it hard to concentrate, to think the way you want to think. It's hard to stop thinking about negative things. It's easy to remember every bad thing that ever happened to you and think about that over and over and over. You may feel very critical of others and particularly critical of yourself.
You may feel like a failure. You may feel guilty that you can't be the kind of person you want to be. You may feel hopeless. You may even wish you were dead or even worse, you may be planning your suicide.
I'm describing Depression.
This is a serious illness and can sometimes be fatal.
This is all a little depressing so let me share another one of my mental illness jokes.
During a visit to the local mental institute,
John asked the Director during a tour how to determine whether or not a patient should be institutionalized.
"It's simple actually," said the Director.
"We fill up a bathtub, then we offer a Teaspoon, a Teacup and a Bucket to the patient.
We ask him or her to empty the bathtub."
"Ohhhh, I understand” said John. "Obviously a normal person would choose the bucket because it's bigger than the spoon or the teacup."
"No” said the director. “A normal person would pull the plug and let it drain.
Do you want a bed near the window?"
Now, here's a image for you to picture. Let's say that you are a doctor. While driving down a lonely road late one night you fall asleep at the wheel and run into a tree. You survive but you have two broken arms and one broken leg. Using your one good leg you manage to push yourself out of the car but you will not be able to walk for help if you can't get your broken leg in a splint. Since you are a doctor you know how to fix broken legs. You even have a couple of hockey sticks and some duct tape in the trunk of your car to make a splint. But you have two broken arms. So how are you going to fix a broken leg using two broken arms? Well, you aren't. The equipment you would need to fix that leg would be your arms but they are broken.
It's the same with a broken brain. Your brain is sort of broken when you have depression. Your thoughts are broken. You need to repair those thoughts so you can stop being depressed. But you can't use your own broken thoughts to fix your own broken thoughts.
You need help!
It's almost impossible for someone with depression to lift themselves out of it. If you've never been afflicted this way maybe you've thought about people you know with depression and wondered “why don't they just snap out of it?”
Do you think people actually enjoy being depressed? Of course not. They would snap out of it if they could.
It took me a long time to get over my divorce. There are probably some aspects of it that I will never get over. But I remember five years after my divorce, I was still grieving and a friend said to me, “Shouldn't you be over it by now?”
I answered “well I would if I could but I can't!”
Sometimes people may judge you and think that depression is self-inflicted, that the depressed person is just dwelling on negative things too much.
Part of that is true, they are dwelling on negative things too much. But that is a symptom of the illness, not some weakness on their part.
Let me tell about something that happened with a friend of mine. I was at a social gathering with this dear fellow and he seemed fine to me, even happy. But later that week I sent out an email to him along with several others telling them about my blog called 'Depression Getaway'.
He emailed right back and said, “Your email was timely. How could you know that I need your blog? Why I am so depressed I don't want to leave the house.”
I called him on the phone immediately and said that I had no idea that he was depressed and that I had sent that email announcement to several people, not just him. I actually thought he seemed very happy.
“You mean you didn't know that I was depressed, you mean I fooled you?” he said.
“That's right, I had no idea,” I replied. “But now that I do, please tell me about it.”
He proceeded to tell me about his depressed feelings and I told him that it was an illness, not just a funky mood that won't go away. I suggested he see his doctor.
“No way, that is a sign of weakness. There is no way I am going to take pills for this. What if people found out?” he proclaimed adamantly.
I shared some more with him about depression and about its symptoms. He was amazed that I could possibly know exactly how he was feeling.
The next day he called and said, “thank you. You have no idea what you've done for me. Just telling someone about this has made me feel a little better and I've decided to go and see my doctor.”
Which he did and he is now on some medication and starting to feel a little better. By reaching out to a friend, going to his doctor and starting medication, he now has some hope that he will not always feel this awful.
By telling someone, you take that old depression out of the dark and bring it into the light!
Getting the right diagnosis is key and it takes time and a little detective work.
Finding the right medication is also a challenge but worth the struggle if you succeed. Taking medication doesn't make you weak, it makes you smart. If you were a diabetic and had to take insulin would that make you weak or smart? Well, depression is also a disease and sometimes medication is required.
A little talk therapy can make a big difference, whether that is with a trained therapist or a trusted friend who is willing to listen to you just talk, and talk, and talk. Sometimes talking doesn't even have to lead to solutions, sometimes it just feels good to get those bottled up feelings out.
Diagnosis, medication and therapy, I have done all of those things but the most helpful thing aside from my faith has been making some lifestyle changes.
And since I choose to be a victorious sufferer, I am more than willing to make changes that will help.
From exercise and diet to sleeping and socializing habits, you will be surprised what small changes might make big improvements in your life whether you suffer from depression or not.
Something else I've learned about myself is that I am an extreme introvert. Oh I know what you are thinking, 'why Wendy is so friendly and outgoing!' True, and I do love people, but in the world of psychology, being an introvert means that being with people tires me and being alone energizes me. So often I must selfishly pull back from people, to hang onto what little sanity I have left.
On the flip side of that, an extrovert is someone who does not always enjoy being alone and gets energized by being with others.
So how about you? Do you think you are an extrovert or an introvert?
Even after today, which I am enjoying so much, I will have to spend a few days quietly recovering before I can venture out into the social world once again. Selfish? Sometimes, but it is a survival technique.
And I am a victorious sufferer.
He had always been an attentive, unselfish husband, deferring to his wife's needs and pretty well letting her run the show. He was, like many of us, preferring to avoid confrontation by not speaking up about his own needs.
When I talked to them about making some lifestyle changes I used one of my own examples and said, “I find travel difficult and stressful. I am not a happy traveler and so even though my husband loves to travel, we don't travel very much because I just can't.”
“But isn't that kind of selfish?” asked the wife who did not want her life to change.
“Yes it is” I said, “but I have to be selfish in order to survive. Being selfish has saved my life. Being unselfish caused your husband to want to end his life.”
And I am a victorious sufferer.
By the way, the particular kind of mental illness that I was diagnosed with is Bipolar Disorder. This means that yes I suffer from the lows of depression but that I also suffer from feeling too good. If I allow myself to feel too good for too long I will crash into a depression and so I have to guard both my low moods as well as my high moods. This is manageable sometimes but managing these moods is a full time job.
But since I am a victorious sufferer, with God's help and a supportive husband, I do manage these moods.
Whether you suffer from any kind of mental illness or not, we all could benefit by creating a life for ourselves which is within the range of our ability to cope.
Let me say that again.
Whether you suffer from any kind of mental illness or not, we all could benefit by creating a life for ourselves which is within the range of our ability to cope.
For instance, it would be stupid for someone in a wheelchair to rent an apartment in a building without an elevator. It would be ridiculous for someone who has allergies to cats to adopt a cat. It would be fatal for someone with a peanut allergy to risk eating peanuts.
Let me say that again.
What are you doing in your life that just isn't working for you?
Who are you spending time with that has a negative effect on you? What activities did you used to enjoy in the past that you don't do anymore?
Okay, so now you know a little bit about me and you have a sense of the history of mental illness in our culture.
You have a better understanding of the fact that depression is an illness, just like cancer and diabetes are illnesses.
I have shared with you some practical ideas for dealing with depression and some ways that you can lean on your faith to help you through.
From exercise and diet to sleeping and socializing habits, you will be surprised what small changes might make big improvements.
I am a victorious sufferer and if you want to be a victorious sufferer too, you may need to develop some strategies for your life.
So, what do you need strategies for?
Visiting relatives?
Overwhelmed at work?
Sleeplessness?
Think about those situations or people that you find difficult, and seek out a coping strategy to match the challenge.
Maybe you could become a victorious sufferer too.
The important thing is “DON'T GIVE UP!”.
There is always hope for depression.
Even though HOPELESSNESS is one of the dominant negative thoughts for a depressed person, HOPE is the very thing you need to battle this illness.
Hope--- we all want some. We all need some. How can you get some?
A therapist has a theory that couples who make love once a day are the happiest. So he tests it at a seminar by asking those assembled,
“How many people here make love once a day?” Half the people raise their hands, each of them grinning widely.
“Once a week?” A third of
the audience members raise their hands, their grins a bit less vibrant. “Once a month?” A few hands tepidly go up.
Then he asks, “OK, how about once a year?”
One man in the back jumps up and down, jubilantly waving his hands. The therapist is shocked—this disproves his theory.
“If you make love only once a year,” he asks, “why are you so happy?”
The man yells, “Today’s the day!”
This fellow has hope!
I would say that he is a victorious sufferer.
I talk to myself. For instance, on a bad day I say to myself, "okay, so this is not a good day. I have had days like this before and I have survived. I will survive again. It's only a day. It's not my entire life."
Some days are so pointless that I can't wait for them to end. When I finally turn out the lights at night I say to myself, "I got through today and I felt like I wouldn't. Tomorrow is another day. Maybe tomorrow will be better."
And that is my only hope at the end of some days – that tomorrow might be better. It is such tiny hope. But hope doesn't have to be big to be powerful. Little things can bring hope.
We've talked about a lot of ways that people with depression can make some changes that might make a big difference.
The biggest thing you can do for them is pray! The most powerful thing you can do for anyone is pray.
Bringing in a healthy meal when they are not doing well is always a good idea.
A cheery phone call just to say, “Hi, I was thinking about you today' and then if they want to talk, listen. Don't ask questions, just let them talk if they want to. Ask if they would like visitors and only visit if they want you. Those are the things TO do.
Now, what NOT to do. Don't judge. Don't drop in uninvited. Don't make suggestions aside from “maybe you should see your doctor.” It is hard to watch someone you care about feel so low but remember it is not hopeless.
I live a small life due to Bipolar Depression. But it's not an empty life or an unimportant life or meaningless. I spend time with my husband and my family and since there are five kids, 3 son-in-laws and 6 grandkids, that can keep me busy right there, when I am able to be busy. The good news is that they are all still talking to me, why they even love me despite my limitations. If I have learned one thing from depression it's that people value me, not because of my capabilities or even my personality but because of my character.
Depression does not destroy character.
Since one of the best medicines for me is to stay home alone and be quiet, I am thankful for some quiet pursuits which I thoroughly enjoy. I make quilts, I write novels and I write a blog about depression called 'Depression Getaway'. There's all sorts of good stuff in my blog to help with handling depression.
Now let me finish by telling you how God helps me when can't help myself.
When you're depressed, reading your bible can be pointless and overwhelming, just adding to your depression. You may even wonder if you have lost your faith. I know that feeling. Here is what I do. I pick one scripture and I cling to it.
Here is one of my favourites from Psalm 46:1:
GOD IS our REFUGE AND our STRENGTH,
A VERY PRESENT HELP IN TROUBLE.
And then I repeat it in various ways, change what words I emphasize each time and make it more personal.
"God is MY refuge and MY strength, a very PRESENT help in trouble."
So God is mine and he is present. What a comfort!
"God is my REFUGE and my STRENGTH, a very present HELP in trouble."
I think about the words, refuge, strength and help and take courage from those words.
"God is my refuge and my strength, a very present help in
TROUBLE."
Oh, so God even knows that we are going to have TROUBLE.
God knows. And he is PRESENT, he is here with me right now, I am not alone, there is HOPE!
This scripture and many others help me to be a VICTORIOUS SUFFERER.
The greatest victorious sufferer of all time is Jesus Christ. It is because of him that I am here today.
I will close with this final scripture from Psalm 94, which
perfectly sums up how God has seen me through and I know will continue to see me through:
“Unless the Lord had given me help,
I would soon have dwelt in the silence of death.
When I said, “my foot is slipping”
your unfailing love Lord, supported me.
When anxiety was great within me,
your consolation brought me joy.”'Victorious suffering' -
THE END
