Chapter 2. Is there help out there?

Chapter 2. Is there help out there?

The girl next hears and sees someone looking down at her. It is her mom, mom will get her out if she will just have faith and wait.
This was the second stage of my depression. At this point we may begin to look outside ourselves for our salvation. Perhaps we speak to our spouse, a trusted friend or medical provider about how we feel. We read God’s Word and pray and ask God to free us.
At this point we may go from one prayer meeting to another, begging God for healing. Thankfully, for some this is the end of their ordeal as God supernaturally reaches down and lifts them out.
However, at times God’s perfect plan may not include the physical healing we desire at that time.
During this time sufferers tend to turn to self-medication. Looking not so much at getting out as trying to make hide the reality or to somehow make the experience less uncomfortable.
Commonly the medication is simple and accepted and endorsed by the church and society. Many get busy doing “things.” Focusing on work, relationships, church, activities and causes to try to keep their mind off where they see themselves.
This is seen in the person that throws themselves into projects and causes striving to always be doing something because the thought of being alone or having time to think about their situation is terrifying. This person may be the man at church that is in the men’s group, leads the teens, teaches Sunday School and volunteers all the time at the mission. It may be a Pastor that completely throws himself into the ministry to the exclusion of his family and health or the woman who works 2 jobs and still involves herself in activities and functions at church and the community. They may be the typical type “A” executive that never seems to stop or the “super mom” that somehow is always there for everyone and everything.
I was, and at times still am, this type of person. I worked all the time and if I was not at work I was doing something. I had to keep busy and show the world, and myself, that I mattered. More importantly, if I was busy I did not have to face what I saw as my greatest enemy, myself.
I dreaded looking into a mirror because I saw what I perceived as the real me. The man I saw was the business failure, a little boy that wet the bed and the fat kid that stank at sports. Even today I tend to avoid mirrors. When I look at myself I tend not to see the real image of the man God made but the image as distorted in my mind by the well.
Another form of self-medication is to simply pull in the welcome mat and curl up on the couch. This is the person who withdraws from life and can’t find the strength to take care of themselves, let alone deal with any of life’s other issues.
This period in my life was marked by days where I would be on the couch when my wife went to work and she would find me in the same position hours later when she got home. I would neglect even to bath and shave unless she reminded me. [1] I spent my days either wanting to cry or just empty of all emotion.
Many also attempt to medicate in less productive ways. Over eating, sexual indulgences, being a control freak, or otherwise over- _________ (fill in the blank) are common. For many the self-medication takes the form of drugs, legal and illegal, and alcohol to try and hide or dull the emotions.
I also fell into this trap. I had, and at times still have, a love affair - - - with food. It is the perfect narcotic. Legal, tasty and reasonably priced. The more the sides of the pit pushed in the more I ate. Feel like a failure, have some pasta. Scared, have a Snickers. Depressed, go for the fried chicken. Feel fat (the greatest irony) eat until you were just so disgusted that you didn’t care. Have you ever just sat there and ate an entire large pizza and not realized it? I have. I would, and at times still do, eat just to and dull my emotions.
Another area is the desire to control everything. I feel so completely out of control of my emotions that I grasp onto anything I feel like I can control. However, when the control evades me my nemesis anger is right there to lash out at whatever I can’t control and whoever and whatever is closest.
I think, and this is just my opinion, that some of the issues where people become abusive are caused by them dealing with the lack of control they feel over their own lives. As a result they try to control people, things, circumstances and even God. When the desire to control fails they lash out. I have broken my hand twice by punching walls, left many holes in walls where my fist won, broken things by throwing them and generally acted like a jerk on far too many instances to remember. While I never physically abused my family at times I was clearly abusive and struggle with the reality that at times I still can be.
For many the desire to hide from the pain will lead to drug and alcohol abuse. Many times I have struggled with the desire to just take a pill or have a drink and just make the pain go away for at least a little while.
The downside of this is that it is only a temporary reprieve. To make it go away tomorrow you need to drink a bit more and take 2 pills. Before you know it the drugs and/or alcohol have taken control and have served only to throw you even deeper into the pit.
Through it all we try to find things to hide the bloody gouges in the walls and the smell of our fears. All the time though we keep looking up at the light and wondering, as Reba Mcintire put it in song, “Is There Life Out There.” Reba McEntire. "Is There Life out There." Writ. S. Longacre, R. Giles. From: For My Broken Heart. MCA, 1991.
Many have even reached the point in their life where they have stopped looking up at the light. They have become so used to the shadows that the light hurts their eyes. They have just accepted that there is no way out and it is their “cross to bear” and “thorn in their flesh.” They just have to accept their fate.
They withdraw into the routine of their lives, they function, they may even prosper in some ways. They have placed a basket over the spark inside, trying to protect it while at the same time dreading to look at it out of fear that it will dim and disappear.
I am reminded of the theme in Disney’s movie “Beauty and the Beast” where the witch has placed a rose on a container. As the rose petals slowly fall off the hope the Beast has of ever becoming “normal” are falling away with them. When the last petal falls hope dies with it. The Beast seals off the room and forbids anyone from entering out of fear that they will quicken the process to the day when his hope dies.

[1] I remember one poignant day when we went to a store and I saw a woman whose hair and clothes were disheveled. I made a comment to my wife about people going out like that and she told me the brutally honest truth that I often was like that; that unless she reminded me I often failed to take any care in my appearance or hygiene.