Bringing Light to the Darkness

Hope flickers faintly.
Fighting  s u f f o c a t i o n.
The smallest flame dispels the darkness.
Bigger is better, but just a spark–
Keeps you going.

I’ve struggled with depression on and off for 14 years. Sometimes it’s a lakeside ripple; other times it’s a tsunami crashing over my head. Sometimes I can see it coming; other times it broadsides me. I share this post today in the hope that I might encourage someone else to press on through their depression.

You can make it to 2026 and beyond.

In the desire to be fully transparent, I’m not actively depressed at the moment, though in the past month–yes. As bad as it’s ever been. But that’s where (at least for me–I pray for you as well) the strategies I discuss in this post come into play. Even by posting this, I’m practicing the most important step, which I did privately on a phone call a couple weeks ago. I hope you will do similarly.

I hope you’ll add the following four steps to your toolbox for overcoming depression. If you’ve done some of these in the past, consider utilizing the new ones to see how they help your struggle. I’d recommend using them all together–not one at a time. But I’d reiterate that the second is the most important, even though the first is the most beneficial.

1. Trace it

Another critical step in battling depression is to identify any patterns in your life that run parallel with increased levels of depression. Use the insights gained from identifying these patterns to make needed and beneficial changes in your life. Allow me to demonstrate.

I have pinpointed 6 specific chapters in my life that were marked by a consistently increased amount of depression (from 2009 until now). When I trace this, three words come to mind:

• alone
• undesirable
• directionless

All three of these feelings continue to pop up at times, so it is important that I take steps to pursue an intentional calling (direction), avoid things that leave me feeling undesirable, and remember that I am never truly alone.

2. Don’t struggle alone

Find someone you can trust, and share your struggle. Depression loves the darkness; bring it into the light and watch it lose some of its bite.

3. Find a hobby

Losing myself in a good book or video game has also been a helpful strategy in my struggle with depression. There’s also no feeling (for me) quite like completing a full draft of a novel.

Find something fun to do that can take your mind off your situation. It’s not going to solve your depression–when you turn off the game or the word processor, the thoughts will still be there–but it might help you get past the more intense moments, and it will certainly help in coordination with the other steps mentioned above.

4. Take medication

This is not a step I’ve ever pursued, though I’ll probably mention my struggle with depression at my next physical. But there is no shame in taking medication to help alleviate the feelings of depression if a medical professional believes it would be a benefit to you.

Don’t pay any attention to Christian leaders who demonize the use of medication in this struggle. God uses means, and prescribed medication is a means God uses.

In conclusion, trace your depression, tell someone, find a distracting hobby, and take medication (if prescribed). Putting all of these steps together will help you a lot, but I can’t recommend the tracing step highly enough. If you know when your depression flares up, you can take extra steps to guard yourself in similar times or work to prevent those times from occurring again in the first place.

And if I can–give Jesus a chance. Your depression might not disappear, but he’ll walk with you through it, and he knows deeper pain than any of us ever can.

In this with you.

Thanks for reading!