It is possible to live a depression-free life. If you had told me that several years ago, I would have dismissed you. I would have dismissed you because I was battling depression, steeped in it – a manic depressive. In fact, I fall, according to statistics, into the category of individuals who are at increased risk for major depressive disorder.
I come from a broken home, I am female, a black woman and I am genetically predisposed to it and battled low self-esteem. But I figured my depression was normal, and the logical response to living in a world plagued with suffering.
But then God stepped in, and gradually, my perspective began to change.
It was not an overnight process, however. It took years to get here. It took years because there was an all-out tug-of-war between God and I as he worked on changing my perspective – my perspective on life and him. You see, I blamed God for a lot of what went wrong in my life, and I could not understand how a good God existed, yet evil was and remains the order of the day.
I grew up with a Christian grandmother and went to church every Sunday where my sister and I sat in Sunday School, but I kept my distance from God because I could not understand him. Additionally, I continued to carry the pain of my parent’s divorce (I cried over that “spilled milk” for years), and the misery of life in general, my own misery, and that around me made me dispirited. I spent years angry at him.
My anger at God only intensified when I left Trinidad and Tobago to study abroad. While in the United States, there was another disruption in my family life when two close relatives fell out and my university education was threatened as my sponsor (a close relative) withdrew her financial support. I also had an encounter with racism that did not help my situation.
Moreover, I had given my life to God before leaving to study abroad; but I did not focus on building my relationship with him; I withdrew into myself, tried to solve my problems on my own and continued to see him as my problem until I eventually snapped and tried to take my own life.
I survived the suicide attempt by God’s grace and only by his grace. Today, depression is at my feet because God put it there. I battled with that spirit of depression for years; but when I finally submitted to God, he gave me victory.
Read the last two lines again. Exactly. Staying out of depression is a battle, but one you can win with God. Give him the wheel.
Written by Akilah Holder
Trinidad
Wow, that’s for sharing your story!! Many don’t understand the grip that depression can have on a person. I am glad God set you free