Some moments in life swallow us whole without any consideration whether we can bear them or not. Clearly, we cannot. We’re consumed and absolutely unable to respond as we otherwise would like to.
Such a moment, though both exposing and terrifying, is instructive. It takes us many levels deeper as we journey from the deck of our life to the engine room to become acquainted with the workings within.
The fact that we’ve descended to a place far deeper and lower than we’ve previously conceived not only shows our strength to bear such weakness, it shows our capacities of humility in being momentarily humiliated without being comprehensively crushed. Even if we do feel crushed.
Depression within the realm of the realities of grief correlates that much with clinical depression, the two merge and may be indistinguishable. The symptoms of deep grief and clinical depression are so similar, all we may deduce is that grief separates from depression only to the degree that a tangible cause of loss is identified. Surely there’s a huge part of depression in grief. Both are an affront to and an overhaul of the identity.
When the realities of grief overwhelm us, where there’s panic because a life we cannot let go of has ended, and that life is either ours or someone precious to us, there is absolutely no scaffold to hold onto, and the sense of acute or chronic panic is justified.
Even as we will enter into such a season where there is withdrawal from life at large, as light diminishes and hope shrinks under the gravity of despair, as new powers of darkness hover overhead, there is a broadening of the personhood under such a temerity of challenge.
That’s what must be held in tension all along—when you’re going through hell, keep going, as Sir Winston Churchill said, because hell is a place, a situation, a time, a bearing, and it’s not a destination. It takes fortitude to face hell, to travel so close to it, to approach it knowing it nears upon the moment.
The moment of overwhelm in depression comes like a thief in the night. When it’s snuck up on you a few times, it leaves you feeling vulnerable to its capacity to drag you under, especially as a bout of acceptance is enjoyed for its fleetingness. The scary reality in that bout of acceptance is it will end at some point, and as peace ebbs quickly away, despair fills the void with cosmic emptiness that resembles death.
Depression in its fullness is the most terrifying reality on the record of our consciousness.
Validate the one you know who faces their depression valiantly. If it’s you, be validated by these words. You’re braver than you know to face and endure these terrors alone, even if there are a crowd of helpers. You know how brave you’re being. Perhaps you’ve never before conceived life could ever descend to this. Now you endure a state of consciousness that opens your mind and heart that loss, grief, and depression could end you. There’s nothing scarier than situations where the floor disappears. Just know how brave you’re being.
Your fortitude is exemplary, and God knows, of that be assured.
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