I Am Angry With My Depression

Our Keepsake Journal is Here! 🎉

I am depressed.

And yes, this is different with me living with depression. I have accepted that I will always battle mental illness. And the days aren’t always dark and cloudy. Days, weeks, months can go by and I am me. Fully functioning, happy, joyful, healthy. The light shines bright on my heart and soul. I can eat, sleep, mother, be a friend, clean my house, enjoy life. During these periods of time, I almost forget. I almost lose focus of what it can be like. I am almost free.

But right now, today, I am deep in the trenches. Fighting my way out of this dark pit of emptiness. I force myself to complete everyday tasks. Get out of bed. Shower. Eat some breakfast. Smile. Breathe. Kiss my children. Play with them. Make dinner. Sleep. And repeat. My body aches. My limbs feel heavy. My shoulders are hunched from the pressure they bear. I feel empty. I feel hopeless. I feel helpless. Numb. Lost. Restless. I can’t focus. I can’t absorb what is going on around me. I can sit and stare at nothing for hours. Thinking of nothing. Thinking of everything. I am watching the world happen without me. I am standing in the dense fog with no way out. I am exhausted. I have no energy to move, to live, to be alive.

I have been living with depression with anxiety for 15 years. I know the signs. I see how the symptoms affect me. I am constantly looking for them in me. I analyze life events and how they could impact me. And I know what steps I need to take to overcome a stretch of active depression. I never miss a day of my medication. I take in as much sunshine and fresh air as I need to. I visit my counselor. I write. I exercise. I eat a little more healthy. I immerse myself with the word of God. I surround myself with friends and family. I take time for me. I make sleep a priority. I do everything I can do to fight my way back. Back to me.

However, this time it crept up on me. This time it is different. Slowly breaking down my shields. Sliding in so smoothly that I wasn’t aware of what was happening. Silently, it came in tearing down all the defenses I build up. It changed its appearance, portraying itself as something entirely new. For the past 5 months, it has been trying to bury me alive. I had to hurt a beloved friend and send a frantic SOS to an almost complete stranger for it to be revealed. And for me to watch it so closely for so long, I am shocked at how bad I am. I didn’t see it coming. Immediately, I started weekly sessions with my counselor. I upped my exercise. I reached out to old and new friends. For the past 4 weeks, I have been pulling out all the stops in treating my depression. I have been doing all the right steps. I have been doing all the right moves. I am pushing myself to step outside of what I have known. I am determined to beat this by whatever means necessary. I am fighting with all that I am. All of my thoughts are to overcome it. All of my actions are to overcome it. Right now, everything I do is on the battlefield.

And I am angry. Angry at this depression. Angry at this disease and all it is taking away from me. I am pissed off that I am doing everything I can to beat it back down and it isn’t enough. It isn’t enough to do all of the right and proven successful treatments and not just bounce back. Not to see any progress. I am mad my body needs more medication to control it. I am pissed off that I didn’t see it happening. I am pissed off that now I see how destructive it has become. How my words and behaviors lately have been a desperate plea to feel. To feel anything other than numbness. The desperation to feel alive, loved, healthy, free. I am embarrassed to know that during those weak moments, I have hurt others, making them feel pain, uncomfortable, and even annoyed.

I see that I am in the thick of it. And to see no end date, for all the hard work I am doing to conqueror it, scares me. It’s daunting. I am worried that this time it will do more damage then ever before. I am terrified of what it will do to me. I am afraid I don’t have what it takes to defeat it all. Yet, I am not backing down. My fists are up, my armor on, and I will beat this. But not without battle scars. Not without flaws. And not alone. I have my family, friends, and God to help me through it. I have humbled myself before them to ask for help. To show them my weaknesses. To show them my vulnerability. To try new ways to treat my illness. To be myself.

Dammit! I am done with depression stealing more of me. I am done with it taking away my time with my children. I am done with this disease. But depression doesn’t work that way. It doesn’t just go away. It is a disease that needs constant supervision. Constant work. Constant treatment.

Right now, I am tired. So tired of it all. But I will continue on. I have to. I have so much to live for. To fight for. Even though depression tells me otherwise.

The LORD is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit. A righteous man may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all. Psalm 34:18 and 19

***Note: I wrote this post a month ago. I can tell you that a couple weeks later, the fog started to lift. My increase of medication was finally kicking in and my weekly therapy sessions were making the irrational into rational. I am searching for new and different ways to beat the depression back down. Friends, if this is where you are, angry at your depression, keep fighting. It takes time. The fog will lift. You are strong enough to let the light shine in.

So God Made a Mother book by Leslie Means

If you liked this, you'll love our book, SO GOD MADE A MOTHER available now!

Order Now

Check out our new Keepsake Companion Journal that pairs with our So God Made a Mother book!

Order Now

So God Made a Mother's Story Keepsake Journal

Her View Shop

depression

Katie Weber

Me. My two little men. My second change. Motherhood. Depression. Divorce. Love. God. laugher. Friendship. My lovely. It's all right here. Follow along for more at Lovely in the Dark.

The Last Text I Sent Said “I Love You”

In: Friendship, Grief, Living

I’ve been saying “I love you” a lot recently. Not because I have been swept off my feet. Rather, out of a deep appreciation for the people in my life. My children, their significant others, and friends near and far. I have been blessed to keep many faithful friendships, despite the transitions we all experience throughout our lives. Those from childhood, reunited high school classmates, children of my parent’s friends (who became like family), and those I met at college, through work and shared activities. While physical distance has challenged many of these relationships, cell phones, and Facebook have made...

Keep Reading

I Obsessed over Her Heartbeat Because She’s My Rainbow Baby

In: Grief, Loss, Motherhood

Mother and teen daughter with ice cream cones, color photo

I delivered a stillborn sleeping baby boy five years before my rainbow baby. I carried this sweet baby boy for seven whole months with no indication that he wouldn’t live. Listening to his heartbeat at each prenatal visit until one day there was no heartbeat to hear. It crushed me. ”I’m sorry but your baby is dead,” are words I’ll never be able to unhear. And because of these words, I had no words. For what felt like weeks, I spoke only in tears as they streamed down my cheeks. But I know it couldn’t have been that long. Because...

Keep Reading

We’re Walking the Road of Twin Loss Together

In: Grief, Loss, Motherhood

Mother and son walk along beach holding hands

He climbed into our bed last week, holding the teddy bear that came home in his twin brother’s hospital grief box almost 10 years earlier. “Mom, I really miss my brother. And do you see that picture of me over there with you, me and his picture in your belly? It makes me really, really sad when I look at it.” A week later, he was having a bad day and said, “I wish I could trade places with my brother.” No, he’s not disturbed or mentally ill. He’s a happy-go-lucky little boy who is grieving the brother who grew...

Keep Reading

Until I See You in Heaven, I’ll Cherish Precious Memories of You

In: Grief, Loss, Motherhood

Toddler girl with bald head, color photo

Your memory floats through my mind so often that I’m often seeing two moments at once. I see the one that happened in the past, and I see the one I now live each day. These two often compete in my mind for importance. I can see you in the play of all young children. Listening to their fun, I hear your laughter clearly though others around me do not. A smile might cross my face at the funny thing you said once upon a time that is just a memory now prompted by someone else’s young child. The world...

Keep Reading

The Day My Mother Died I Thought My Faith Did Too

In: Faith, Grief, Loss

She left this world with an endless faith while mine became broken and shattered. She taught me to believe in God’s love and his faithfulness. But in losing her, I couldn’t feel it so I believed it to be nonexistent. I felt alone in ways like I’d never known before. I felt helpless and hopeless. I felt like He had abandoned my mother and betrayed me by taking her too soon. He didn’t feel near the brokenhearted. He felt invisible and unreal. The day my mother died I felt alone and faithless while still clinging to her belief of heaven....

Keep Reading

To the Healthcare Workers Who Held My Broken Heart

In: Grief, Loss

Baby hat with hospital certificate announcing stillbirth, color photo

We all have hard days at work. Those days that push our physical, mental, and emotional limits out of bounds and don’t play fair. 18 years ago, I walked into an OB/GYN emergency room feeling like something was off, just weeks away from greeting our first child. As I reflect on that day, which seems like a lifetime ago and also just yesterday, I find myself holding space for the way my journey catalyzed a series of impossibly hard days at work for some of the people who have some of the most important jobs in the world. RELATED: To...

Keep Reading

Can I Still Trust Jesus after Losing My Child?

In: Faith, Grief, Loss

Everyone knows there is a time to be born and a time to die. We expect both of those unavoidable events in our lives, but we don’t expect them to come just 1342 days apart. For my baby daughter, cancer decided that the number of her days would be so many fewer than the hopeful expectation my heart held as her mama. I had dreams that began the moment the two pink lines faintly appeared on the early morning pregnancy test. I had hopes that grew with every sneak peek provided during my many routine ultrasounds. I had formed a...

Keep Reading

I Loved You to the End

In: Grief, Living

As your time on this earth came close to the end, I pondered if I had given you the best life. I pondered if more treatment would be beneficial or harmful. I pondered if you knew how much you were loved and cherished As the day to say goodbye grew closer, I thought about all the good times we had. I remembered how much you loved to travel. I remembered how many times you were there for me in my times of darkness. You would just lay right next to me on the days I could not get out of...

Keep Reading

I Hate What the Drugs Have Done but I Love You

In: Grief, Living

Black and white image of woman sitting on floor looking away with arms covering her face

Sister, we haven’t talked in a while. We both know the reason why. Yet again, you had a choice between your family and drugs, and you chose the latter. I want you to know I still don’t hate you. What I do hate is the drugs you always seem to go back to once things get too hard for you. RELATED: Love the Addict So Hard it Hurts Speaking of hard, I won’t sugarcoat the fact that being around you when you’re actively using is so hard. Your anger, your manipulation, and your deceit are too much for me (or anyone around you) to...

Keep Reading

Giving Voice to the Babies We Bury

In: Grief, Loss

Woman looking up to the sky, silhouette at sunset

In the 1940s, between my grandmother’s fourth child and my father, she experienced the premature birth of a baby. Family history doesn’t say how far along she was, just that my grandfather buried the baby in the basement of the house I would later grow up in. This was never something I heard my grandmother talk about, and it was a shock to most of us when we read her history. However, I think it’s indicative of what women for generations have done. We have buried our grief and not talked about the losses we have experienced in losing children through...

Keep Reading