I am in no way shape or form an expert well-digger.  In fact, I have very little digging experience period, and even my digging around the garden experience is quite minimal and not really worth mentioning at all.

I have, however, spent most of my life “digging” in a metaphorical sense, where the ground or soil is that of the human heart, and “digging” is a matter of determinedly seeking answers to the things in life about people and relationships that are not so readily understandable at the surface-level.

Could be that is the way my mind was wired since birth–I see glimpses of the way my mind seems to work in my 5-year-old daughter every day, the wheels churning, the questions being asked because she has no reason yet to not ask her questions or share her ramblings as long as there is an available listening ear…

Or could be what I used to believe was a necessity for my survival through what was oftentimes a confusing and emotionally difficult home-life as a child, trying to analyze and understand things instead of passively succumbing to what I saw were dismal statistical probabilities.  If you come from an unhappy home, you are almost certainly likely to create an unhappy home in the future, genetically predisposed AND ill-equipped to know how to build otherwise…

Most likely it’s a combination of genetics and environment, of who we are born to be and who we are shaped to become.  Not nature vs. nurture, but nature plus nurture interacting and building together, which is what the experts always seem to come to conclude at the end, after first devotedly studying the two opposite sides separately as if they were at odds and could not co-exist…

The point is, some of us are thinkers, who can’t get through the day so care-free and content as we might witness in those around us, seemingly more normal/healthy (however overly optimistic or naive in our eyes) people who don’t seem as concerned with needing everything to make sense, to add up at the end of the day…because it just does so for them.

Those of us who have experienced (or are experiencing) depression know what it means to not have the luxury of being care-free in life… because when the appeal of life as being worthwhile or worth the “cost”/pain of existing is lost, being care-free is not a positive thing at all, but an idealization of escape from life, the idea that life is best when it is escaped, or over…

For me the feelings of unrepressable/undeniable depression hit in grade 8, and escalated through my high school years, culminating in a suicide attempt in grade 11 — my “hitting rock bottom” experience.

On the outside, I had appeared fairly normal and even well-adjusted — good grades, great circle of friends, a writer/editor for my school’s award-winning newsmagazine, a runner on our cross country and track teams…  I was “happy” in school, I enjoyed for the most part the activities of my day — I was one of those kids that even liked homework and papers and taking tests, able to appreciate the privilege we had with access to public education (it helped that I attended a public school system that rivaled private schools).

I was, however, unhappy at home.  Things weren’t so overtly bad that I had reason to completely un-identify and separate myself from my home (i.e. violence or blatant abuse), but there was unhappiness, discord, arguing, mistrust…and a debilitating inability to communicate and connect…to feel truly safe or be known and understood.  And there were boundaries crossed that sucked the will of life out of me for at least an hour or two a day, where just being alive hurt my heart physically, and the only way I could make it was to hide myself somewhere private and cry out the emotional pain.  Fighting through feelings of depression was a normal part of my day as a teenager, and the more I talked to different people and discovered the pain in their lives, the more I just thought depression was normal in life and something we just have to bear with and make it through as best as we can.

In my junior year of high school, I hit rock bottom and lost my courage to stay alive as I saw my emotional state unravel and begin spilling over into the rest of my life, affecting my grades and ability to study, affecting my ability to feel joy and be “happy” or even smile when hanging out with my friends…and I saw a glimpse of my future going down this road, becoming a run-away teenage girl fending for herself on the street, unable to finish school, no clue how to make a living, especially with zero motivation and emotional stability to count on and offer to the world.  A minor car accident was the tipping point, as I saw that while I was lucky no one was hurt this time around, but what could happen in the future, if I needed to drive around but couldn’t get my mind stable and focused enough to be “safe” for myself or the people on the road with me… the risk of hurting others was too great, and the pain I felt inside was too much for me to bear under.

I remember it was a cold, icy-rain type of day, even though it was May (the week after Mother’s Day).  I wrote my letter of apology to my mom, explaining why there was a dent in the car bumper and saying good-bye, downed a bottle of painkillers, and made my way out to this secluded spot in the nearby woods where I had often run to when I needed somewhere to go cry by myself.  My plan was to just stay there and fade away, fall asleep and let life drain from my body.

I remember waking up cold and wet from the rain, and vomiting the excess drugs still lingering in my stomach, feeling nauseous and disoriented, but still clear on my plan and the necessity of it.  I laid back down on my seat of branches, ready to drift back to sleep, when a conversation that would forever change the course of my life began – not quite audible yet so clear in my mind:

Voice: “You don’t want to die.”

Me: “Yes, I do.”

Voice: “You don’t want to die.”

Me: “Yes….I do. That’s why I’m here.”

Voice  (a 3^rd time): “You don’t want to die.”

Me: “Okay…. “You’re right.  I don’t want to die.  It just doesn’t make sense, why go through all this trouble of being alive only for dying to be the only ‘answer’—It doesn’t make sense… But…I don’t want to and can’t live…not like this.,,”

Voice: “Go back…”

Me: “What?”

Voice: “Go back…”

Me: “I can’t go back…what would be the point?”

Voice (a 3^rd time): “Go back….and see”

Me (feeling a sense of peace and calm come over me that I had not felt in years, what I would later understand to be a “peace which transcends all understanding”…): “Okay, I can do that…what have I got to lose?”

I remember thinking to myself, what is this new peace that I’m feeling from out of the blue, that maybe in all my efforts to read self-help books, to understand the teachings of world philosophies and religions, that perhaps I somehow missed something… But really, even if I hadn’t missed something that would make a big enough difference, I would/could end up right back where I was, so….really, I had nothing to lose, but a slight (however slight it seemed) chance to gain the world…

I then had a vision of this friend of mine I had started seeing casually that year, before my inner battle became so unbearable I had to cut even him off.  I had chosen for myself to avoid drinking and drugs and just generally not wanting to be intoxicated in any way because I didn’t want to have a fake sense of well-being or happiness to distract me from seeking something more real to “cure” my inner pain.  But this friend, at least it seemed to me, was so happy-go-lucky and care-free in the good sense, no matter what was going on, in part because he liked to smoke pot in his spare time.  I’m pretty sure he only used it recreationally, but it was this worldview he seemed to approach life with that afforded him a bliss that was fascinating to me, that was something I knew was a good thing, although the source of it was not exactly commendable or “real” enough for what I wanted…

I sensed the voice telling me: “I can give you this…without drugs….” And I knew, this was what I was to go back and see…if it could happen, this would be worth going back to see, to discover, to find…

So…basically, that is what I did.  Not knowing exactly what would happen or what I would discover…but eager to give this “something new” a chance, because if it could happen, that would change everything!

During the darkest nights of my depression, and in the long process of recovery, I often asked why I had to experience my “rock bottom” so early in life, at what seemed to be such an inconvenient time in my life… I’d think, what if my discoveries/realizations that escalated the pain beyond my control could have waited until my later twenties, when I was already done with school, financially secure, perhaps in some semblance of a happily-ever-after marriage? That then if my world fell apart, I would have the means and resources to somewhat take care of things and myself without being a burden and threat to the world (ie car accidents)…

Over the years, I came to realize that there were things God had in store for me to learn, to understand and to experience, that He wanted to give me life to the full and the very best of the very best He wanted and had for me… And perhaps I would only have the conviction to forego all distractions as distractions, because I would from then on desperately need and want only to find truly satisfying answers to the meaning and worthwhileness of life…the things my heart was designed to desire in its deepest parts when I was knit together…the things that would help me find and establish a true “happily ever after” in the deepest sense, even when my circumstances had dictated to me that this was near impossible.

Depression causes us to have to dig deep, and deeper… for the simple pleasures in life are simply ineffective to bring joy until those deeper hurts get identified, addressed and healed… like when a tree is facing a drought, its roots will penetrate deeper into the ground in search of those water reservoirs that can only be accessed by stretching and growing and reaching downwards…

Depression also equips us, when we are not overwhelmed and trapped by our own emotions, to have a natural empathy and ability to understand the hurt, pain and suffering experienced by others around us, and perhaps to have extra grace for brokenness.  Interestingly, I often found that when I would go through a difficult experience and have to work out all my own emotions and hurt through it, that soon after someone else would come into my life experiencing a similar struggle, whom I could reach out to, encourage and help based on what I had gone through – not just of the struggle itself, but also of a first-hand testimony of overcoming it  =)  What I have personally experienced overcoming, there is no doubt at all in my mind that God can do the very same thing for someone else…

This is what I believe sharing breakthroughs with one another is all about – not just to have a sense of solidarity in understanding our plight as imperfect human beings with imperfect lives through telling our stories, but to have a gift of powerful impartation to one another of encouragement, insight, faith, and direction that intellect cannot argue against because it’s based on experience — It’s our real life experiences of breakthrough being articulated, unpacked and shared!

Now, at 34 (and quickly approaching 35!), I find myself in a place of calm and joy, visited by the remnants of depression and the thought processes and emotions that come with it increasingly less frequently and less potently, whereas I can distinctly recall my life being the very opposite previously (where depression was my normal state, visited here and there by glimpses of what might be happiness).  I am approaching my 10-year anniversary with an amazingly patient, understanding and strong husband who has been an instrumental partner in building my new life, and I’m starting to really enjoy being a mother of three young children (2 daughters ages 5 and 3, and a son who will be 1 in February) who never cease to amaze me with their love, joy and fullness of life…

I am, of course, not yet perfect (I don’t believe perfection comes to us this side of Heaven), but for the last few months I have had this desire/passion growing inside of me to share what has been given me with anyone else out there who might happen to be wanting/needing it too…  so much so that even though I have been a reluctant learner of technology for so many years, I am now determined to master the world of blogging and internet networking/community-building? and figuring out what tools are out there for me to learn and use accordingly =)

*I apologize that this entry is so long….it is my first attempt to share my story, and hopefully now that the base story is out there, I will be able to focus a bit more in subsequent entries on single topics/thoughts… If anyone has a particular topic or question you’d like to explore through this site, please do let me know and I will do my best to address them (whether through my own sharing, research and/or initiating a forum discussion of sorts)   =)