Wrestling with God and Depression

I thank you for this talk and for making it available to us. I read you whenever you post but had to wait until the kiddos went back to school to have time to listen in quiet. I have struggled with depression most of my life – since before adolescence my life was suffering. There was no diagnosis for depression in children or recognition that the brain could cause this; instead I was told to “pull myself up by your bootstraps,” “you have nothing to complain [or be sad] about,” “you’re doing this to your self,” and other such statements. I tried really, really hard, and felt like a failure most of my life because I could not consistently do these or many other things. Medication in my late 50s, after KNOWING I should be able to do it on my own, changed my life. I can say, at 61, that I had a good year, for the first time ever. Medication allows me to do those things that make a difference. Something doesn’t connect properly in my brain. Medication is the bridge that allows me to function most of the time, and to know when I can’t so I can stop spinning my wheels and rest until I’m able again. I find pleasure (!) in sometimes many things every day, sometimes even all day. I am not sorry about what I have experienced because I have developed a philosophy of life that allows me to be compassionate towards others who struggle and suffer, and allows me to be compassionate towards the me that was as well as myself now.

You help me, Dr. Monica. Thank you.