Blue

There are so many facets to the pain of depression.  One of the darkest is simply the immense confusion that comes with it.  It is of little surprise, looking back, that so many people treated my battle the way they did.  Time and again I was looked at with disgust or confusion as I tried to open up and explain what was happening.  A few years ago, my little brother told me that, for the entire first year of my struggle with depression, that he didn't believe my pain was real.  My parents spent the first months placing the blame on other, more common things.  It was just me being a teenager, or something like that.  I quickly learned, and barely told a soul for the first three years, leaving me to shoulder my pain in the shadows.  Some high school friends just found out about my depression within the last few years.  They had no idea.  Even at college, where I was more open about my battle, most people just stared.

The most common response I got was that people changed the subject.  Some nodded their heads, but then promptly treated me as if nothing was wrong.  At no point did I get mad at them.  I wasn't mad at them, because how could I get upset at others for not understanding and being confused, when I didn't understand and was confused.

To this day I can not tell you what caused me to feel that way, just that the pain is very, very real, and fir me, far worse than I could ever begin to share.  It just hit, and didn't leave for the next decade plus.  The pain is so different from normal depression, that I didn't have any way to make it known what I felt.  It was so different from anything I had felt before.  It felt as if it was like trying to describe the color blue to a blind person.

This confusion opened the door for so many lies!  Satan had a field day.  Was I being punished?  Did God just hate me?  Did I have some kind of post traumatic stress disorder?  If so, from what?  I couldn't recall anything tragic beyond what was common to an American teenage boy.  I asked myself horrifying questions.  Did someone do something to me?  Did I do something horrible to someone else?  Something so horrible my brain was subconsciously trying to bury it?  I HAD NO IDEA!  I couldn't recall any such thing.  Yet, the pain was there, and entirely unrelenting.  But for a few brief moments, the pain held me nonstop for the entire decade.

I used to imagine what it would be like to have had a "normal" disease/problem/whatever.  People would get sick and everyone would empathize.  They would make cookies, write cards, preform acts of service, they would pour out their hearts to encourage a brother or sister in need.  I coveted that as I fought through a battle most were not convinced was real.  It was in the actions and love of a very select few that God held me together.  Looking back, seeing how confused I was, understanding the confusion of others, it truly marks those who were able to see me and encourage me through my pain, those who actually listened and hurt for me, it marks them with greatness.  Such actions could only have been afforded through faith, and not in God, who deserves it, but faith in me, who doesn't.  They took my word for it, and shouldered a pain they had not personally experienced.  I said blue, and they trusted that the color blue was real without ever seeing it.

Surely it is difficult, as you can't see it like you can a broken bone on an X-ray, but you must begin to believe in the pain of depression.  That is my prayer, and I pray it that those who are still fighting it, or are going to in the future, won't have to fight it in the shadows as has been done throughout history thus far.