I lost my soul. Not my salvation mind you, just my soul. Some may say that is unbiblical. I will not argue with them. I have been known to be wrong. Still, I will stick by my statement, because it is the best way I know to begin to describe what was for me a living hell on earth as I battled the beast of depression.
St. John of the Cross spoke of the dark night of the soul, and Martin Luther simply called it “anfectung” — a word he had to invent because no existing word could adequately describe his misery in dealing with his own utter hopelessness in the black bottomless pit of depression. Luther's definitive biographer Roland H. Bainton attempted to define anfectung this way: “It is all the doubt, turmoil, pang, tremor, panic, despair, desolation and desperation which invade the spirit of man.” Well, that's a start anyway, but depression is a lot worse than that.
Yes, I lost my soul to depression. Or perhaps I should say that depression stole my soul and buried it so deeply that for me, with apologies to the apostle Paul, to live was not Christ at all, but to die most assuredly would have been gain.
Now the Bible teaches that “nothing can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus.” I believe that. I know it is true. But I also know it is true that if one sinks so deeply into the pit of depression that that individual becomes incapable of having a cognitive awareness of God's presence, his soul will be lost. This may not be true from a biblical or theological standpoint, but it is most assuredly true from an experiential one.
Let me tell you why I know this to be true:
My personal battle with depression has lasted for about 17 years. In the early 1990s I began to experience a loss of motivation for my life and work. When at home, all I wanted to do was sit on the back porch and stare into space. At work I had no desire to prepare sermons, visit the sick or attend meetings. I mentioned this to our associational director of missions. He told me it sounded like I was depressed. I ignored him. After all, preachers don't get depressed; we just get a little burned-out from time to time.
But things got worse. I began dreading going home in the evening. I had two small children awaiting me there who wanted to play with daddy. I loved them, but I dreaded seeing them. I had not the physical energy nor the emotional strength to deal with their young exuberance. I began to cloister myself from my family and my church. All my energy and motivation were gone. An empty shell does not even begin to describe the nothingness inside me.
I spent much time in prayer during these days, which soon became years. I took walks in our neighborhood and prayed. I sat in my office and prayed. I prayed in the sanctuary, the car and on the back porch. I know what it is like to pray without ceasing, for that is all I knew to do. I pleaded with God to take away my darkness, sometimes through tear-drenched sobs. Once, while attending a conference at Eagle Eyrie (don't even ask how I managed to drag myself up there) I entered the chapel and there prayed for three solid hours. I left under the same cloud of darkness that I had entered with.
At about this time, the early 1990s, my doctor offered to put me on an antidepressant. I refused. I just knew I had a spiritual problem and that surely with prayer and good old-fashioned will power I could conquer this thing. There was only one problem. My depression had been with me for about four years at the time and was slowly strengthening its death grip on my soul. Prayer and will power were not working.
In 1995 a great blessing occurred. Literally over night (and I do mean over one 12-hour night) my depression left me. I awoke one morning and it was gone. What had been slowly squeezing the life out of me for about five years left in an instant.
But alas, my insidious enemy was merely regrouping. Over the next few years I had periodic episodes where I was on and off of medication and on a continuous roller coaster of feeling better and worse. In 2003, the bottom fell out. My depression returned with a vengeance. No gradual suffocation this time — rather a devastating body blow that sent me and my wife speeding to the emergency room. If ever anyone had a nervous breakdown, I was having one. Heart racing. Hyperventilating. Panic. Darkness descending. My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? All is lost.
At the hospital, the emergency room doctor talked to me for a few minutes and told me there was nothing wrong with me. He sent me home with the advice to relax and take deep slow breaths into a paper lunch bag. Two hours later, after we had returned to the ER, with me in an even worse state than before, the same doctor again was convinced that there was nothing wrong with me that a little fresh air and a stiff upper lip couldn't cure. He prepared to send me home again.
This time I made a scene. I didn't use profanity, but I didn't exactly use the king's English either. Desperate times do call for desperate measures, and I was willing to do whatever I had to do to get help. I did.
Very shortly afterward, I met with a psychiatrist and became acquainted with a number of antidepressant and anti-anxiety medications. I thank God for both him and them. I soon began feeling much better, and for about a year and a half all was well.
Then came 2005 and my electro-convulsive treatments. My medications by themselves had become increasingly ineffective, and by July both I and the church I was serving realized I simply could no longer carry on my duties as pastor. I resigned my position and went on disability. In October I had nine ECT treatments.
No, it was not a One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest scenario. In fact, it was easier than most peoples' trips to the dentist. And it worked.
By February 2006, I had résumés out, and in November assumed duties in my current pastorate. I know my story (and I was very honest about it) scared off some churches and directors of missions that I talked to. That's okay. The church where God wanted my wife and me to go (she is our director of music) is where we are. We landed squarely in the arms of a loving church that was just right for us, and we for them.
I have read much on depression and its related mental illnesses, and I must say that almost without exception that far and away the best material is clinical, medical and secular. It speaks to the fact that depression, though there may be many contributing factors, is at its core a physical illness. It is the result of a chemical imbalance in the brain that is every bit as much a physical issue as is heart disease, diabetes or cancer. It speaks honestly and directly to the necessity of pursuing counseling and medication as not only viable but necessary co-treatments.
Unfortunately, at least from my personal observations, most Christian writing on depression falls far short of offering an adequately helpful treatment. Perhaps I could say that while most secular treatments tend to offer a hard analysis, most Christian treatments are soft.
One shortcoming of Christian writing is that there is not much of it. Also, it seems to me that what Christian writing there is tends to skirt the edges of the disease. It is not nearly as honest as it needs to be in addressing the living death that a depressive experiences. Living death? Yes. Not all depressives sink this low, but many do. For those who have not experienced it no explanation is possible; for those who have, no explanation is needed.
Another shortcoming that I see in most Christian writing on depression is its tendency to spiritualize the disease. There is extensive talk of counseling, attending church, praying and getting involved in personally meaningful ministries, while medical treatment is only given a cursory nod — if it is mentioned at all. The underlying message, though usually not specifically stated, is that there is shame or weakness or lack of trust in God attached to the taking of medications. The assumption seems to be that depression is a spiritual, not physical, matter. I would agree that there is a spiritual element involved (after all, it took my soul). However, to deny the physical chemical imbalances within the brain is not only misguided, it is wrong and even dangerous.
Now I am not saying that the depressive should not pray. In fact, I myself have literally “prayed without ceasing” to be healed. What I am saying, however, is that the depressed person should avail himself of all possible treatments.
Let me say this clearly. Depression is not the result of a weak constitution, nor is it due to a weak faith. No thinking person would ever accuse a cancer patient of having cancer because he did not have a strong enough faith; neither would that person tell him to pray himself well and shun available medical treatments. It is a terrible injustice (might we say sin?) to suggest the same to a person battling depression.
One may ask, and the Christian probably will, “Where is God in all this?” There are no completely satisfactory answers. Some will say that God caused it. Others will argue that God had nothing to do with it. Still others will point out that though God may not have caused it, he did allow it to happen.
Personally, because here we see through a glass darkly, I realize that ultimate answers will be hidden as long as I am on this side of heaven. That does not mean, however, that I don't know anything. I know for instance that true to his word Jesus never left me nor forsook me — even when I had lost my soul and had no inkling that he was anywhere around. I know too that he brought me through the dark night of my soul.
And finally, I know he has seen fit to use me. Since I got my soul back he has sent many people my way who are themselves walking through their own depressive darkness. I count it an honor to be allowed to walk with them in that dark (yet holy) place, and, hopefully, by the grace of God help point them in the direction of healing so they too may have their soul returned to them.
Kirby Smith is pastor of Oak Forest Baptist Church in Chesterfield.