Hi, friends. Kaeli here about nine months postpartum. If you haven’t read about my psychotic episode, please feel free to do so in my post “In the Darkness, God will keep me.”
This space here is to shed some light on postpartum depression. Or what I’d call the very ugly, unwanted guest.
I was home about two months following my hospital stay (this past January) when depression began to set in. It was more than just being weepy, emotional, or finding myself in a perpetual bad mood. It was the stereotypical “I can’t get out of bed” symptom, while also feeling like someone had covered my entire life in a heavy blanket. It was a suffocating, oppressive, foreign state. I lost confidence in all of my abilities from big things like managing our finances to little things like making my kids breakfast. I felt like I was a failure on all accounts and I would speak ill of myself repeatedly. My demeanor morphed into constant eyebrow furrowing and highly anxious, searching eyes. Depression is one of those things that even for the person going through it, it feels like something you are making up. Does that ring true for anyone reading this? How it changes your entire emotional and mental viewpoint, but is also a medically recognized condition. It’s hard to grasp.
In June of this year, I was trying to pack for an annual family camping trip. We were staying at a campground that was only 15 minutes from our house so I really didn’t need a super thorough packing job. But it was an excruciating exercise just the same. I had friends/family help me over the course of a few days do something I normally could have done by myself in half a day. I cried through the entire process, wondering if I’d ever be the same person again or would ever be able to enjoy life the same way again. It really felt like this was just “me” now. We ended up going on this trip and I spent the majority of the time in a cloud of sadness, concern, and obsessive thoughts.
Depression makes everyday tasks feel insurmountable and every interaction feel taxing. I wanted to close my eyes and just be gone, thinking that being in heaven sounded much better. That experiencing life in this state wasn’t worth it to me.
If you’re reading this and have been through postpartum depression, I extend to you the most giant of virtual hugs. It stinks. It really, really does. Depressed me didn’t enjoy being around my kids because I was reminded of how I felt like I was a terrible mom and wife. And really the other side to the depressed coin in my case was comparison. Everywhere I turned it seemed as though everyone else had it all together. I would watch my family members and friends going about their ‘normal lives’ and think to myself, “They can handle life as it comes. They are so much better at everything than I am. Their kids are dressed nicely and mine are disheveled. They have an incredible amount of talents and I have none. They can cook better, plan better, socialize better– be better. They make everything look so easy and for me everything is so hard.”
Now the important thing I need to stop now and reference is this: None of the statements I was feeding my sad mind with are ultimately true. My kids were (and still are) fed, clothed, content. I have talents (weaknesses yes), but strengths–those too. No one has it “all together” right? Everyone has struggles. Life is plum full of struggles because guess what, dear reader? Life isn’t supposed to be easy. If you’re a Reformed Christian like me, maybe you’ve heard this life referred to as: the wilderness. I think on the Israelites in the Old Testament (from the book of Exodus), fresh out of Egypt and the bondage they experienced there, finding themselves in the desert. Disillusioned by their earthly circumstances. Facing challenges day after day after day. Waking up not in the promised land, but in the wasteland. Follow me just a bit longer and I’ll remind you and myself of this: God provides in the wilderness. His grace is FOR the wilderness. Each and every struggle you may be facing today is part of His plan for you. It doesn’t catch Him by surprise and it most definitely is for your eternal good, no matter how bad it may seem now.
When you’re depressed–the way out seems unattainable. Every minute seems like an eternity. I still have many days where I struggle with thought patterns, but the cloud has lifted to a certain extent. I do find joy; I do experience gratitude; and I do recognize a bit better which thoughts lead me to dark, discontented places. But I still struggle, often. And that’s okay.
In our weaknesses, the Lord sustains. When we are trudging through this life, experiencing things that bring us to our most fragile state; When we don’t even have the strength to see beyond 5 minutes from now, the Lord is extremely near. Even when I didn’t want to read my Bible (and that was often these last few months), I would sometimes think this thought, which was heaven sent: “Daughter, you are loved.” My depressed heart didn’t believe it and sometimes it made me angry to even think it while I was feeling nothing of the sort. I thought I was never returning to the Kaeli I was before, but the Lord was holding tightly onto me. Sometimes all I could utter was a simple prayer: ‘Lord, help. Make this stop.’
If that’s you today; if you find yourself in the valley with no end in sight, I’ll recall to you where the Lord gives us comfort & peace. Think on the one place where hope is trumpeted even when the darkness surrounds us. Where the quiet, still voice of our Lord, His work and His ways, is repeated to us over and over and over again:
In His Word.
Here are some verses for your weary heart, dear reader.
1 Peter 5:10
“And after you have suffered a little while, the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.”
When you are suffering (and you are promised that you WILL suffer), your eternal state is secure. As a believer, you are already marked for eternity. You are already on the path to the promised land–one of glory beyond our wildest imaginations. Your suffering here is temporary. It is a “little while” as 1 Peter says. You are promised that in the end, you will be restored. You will be confirmed. You will be strengthened, and You will be established. And by extension, the Lord already offers you strength for the journey. He already is good and faithful and promises you never to leave your side.
Romans 8:18
“I consider that our present sufferings are not worth comparing with the glory that will be revealed in us.”
This is beautiful isn’t it? Depression stinks. But the glory to come, it’s going to surpass abundantly more in it’s perfection. No more crying there. No more weary hearts there. I think about it a little bit like giving birth. You mamas know as much as giving birth to your babies hurt, the meeting of them was worth every bit right? The joy of holding that precious child in your arms did eclipse the pain. It has a way of making you forget because it is that wonderful. Heaven will be that much more wonderful, friends.
2 Cor 4:16-18
“Therefore we do not lose heart. Though outwardly we are wasting away, yet inwardly we are being renewed day by day. For our light and momentary troubles are achieving for us an eternal glory that far outweighs them all. So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal.”
The final destination matters most. Hope for it. Fix your eyes on it. Live in light of it. Remember that what you are facing is temporary and that through it, the Lord is shaping and molding you for eternity. Don’t allow the wind and the waves (metaphorically speaking) keep you from remembering Who commands them. He has the power to, with one word, silence them. The Maker of the entire universe is your good and faithful Father. He sent His one and only Son to be your lasting, eternal hope. It’s because of the bought and paid for work of Christ that we have hope amidst the storm. Treasure the thought that when you belong to Christ, you are kept safe and secure by the Anchor Himself. Nothing will separate you from His love. By nothing I mean depression and a whole host of other ills.
Romans 8 was and is still my favorite passage in all of Scripture.
Hear this: “No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor demons, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.”
If you are anxious or depressed, remember that God has provided everything you need already.
You may not feel Him near, but He is.
What you are facing may or may not be “explainable”. It may or may not be an “ah-ha moment” later on as to what the Lord was using this time for. But even if it isn’t, know that your present circumstances are not wasted. They are part of the story the Lord Himself is writing, one of refinement and testing that produces perseverance and steadfastness. Isaiah 48:10 reminds us that the Lord views our suffering of high value, for as we are “tested in the furnace of affliction”, we come through only by the grace of God–holding fast to the Rock of our salvation, able to showcase more fully the riches of His glorious grace & the wonders He has done.
I hope that even as you struggle, you remember with me one very important truth. The devil can scrap, but the Lord has already WON. Dear Christian, dear mama, dear fellow sojourner, Jesus took the bitter pill for you. He dove down to the depths of Hades for you. His finished work is just that–finished. He secured for you eternity, and all that you are asked to endure in the here and the now doesn’t change the outcome one iota.
Btw, I write this to myself as much as anyone else. Life isn’t about getting to a place of perfection, rather it is a journey. One of ups and downs in which the Lord has grace for each moment. Each day has enough trouble of its own, says Matthew.
May peace be yours before, during, and after the light has broken through the darkness. Even if you feel like it will never end, it will. It is a guest and not a permanent resident. You will be yourself again, and you will find joy again too. In the meantime, remember Who has you. If Christ is your hope, nothing and no-one can snatch you from HIs hand.
Repeat after me:: Nice try Satan, depression doesn’t win–Jesus does.
John 16:33
“I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”