One of the things I've learned from therapy is that I have a generally hopeless outlook on life. My therapist took me back to middle school when I was most strongly depressed and vaguely suicidal. I told how my desire to be dead was largely religious. I was obsessed with Philippians 1:23, in which Paul says, "I desire to depart and be with Christ, which is better by far." I also took C.S. Lewis's quote to heart, the one about how if nothing in this world can satisfy, then we must be made for another world. That's encouraging from an eternal perspective, but it has always struck me as depressing for the here and now. It will never get better.
Had those feelings left? my therapist wondered. And immediately I knew, no, no, I still feel that way. I've learned to cover them up with busyness and friendships. But whenever those things fall apart, I'm left staring at my philosophy of hopelessness. What a shift, to realize that I don't suffer from periodic bouts of depression. I constantly live from a foundation of hopelessness, only most of the time I can ignore it with distractions.
Two things have helped.
I'm making some really wonderful friends in Dallas. One in particular is special. We've decided to meet every week and get honest. We've already addressed the fact that neither of us like vulnerability and we move away when things get too uncomfortable, so we're understanding of each other and committed to keep each other close even when the other is trying to run away.
Today we had lunch and talked about shame, casually mentioned some habitual sins, sharing an unhealthy desire to control everything, especially who I am and what I do. It's freeing to talk with her, because we come from a place of "this won't get fixed immediately, and it doesn't have to. God is patient, and what I can offer to you is my listening and my care and my acknowledgement that this is really awful for you." I don't want people to fix me. I'm tired of advice. I'm loving having a friend who is screwed up and owning it, who lets me be screwed up and still wants to get coffee.
Life seems hopeless. The one thing that gives me hope and makes me think I have a purpose is when someone says, "I wanted to be your friend because you're real. You're not perfect and you don't pretend to be. You're safe." That's what I have to offer the world. My imperfections. In a screwed up world, that's rather lovely.
The other encouragement I had was from a job-searching book I have to read for class, ironically. I get bogged down in the big picture, in the global sins and the ways in which nature and humanity cause pain on top of pain. But this poem that the book quoted reminded me to look at the details for the reasons life can be good.
"What is success?
To laugh often and much;
To win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;
To earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
To appreciate beauty;
To find the best in others;
To leave the world a bit better, whether by
a healthy child, a garden patch
or a redeemed social condition;
To know even one life has breathed
easier because you have lived;
This is to have succeeded."
--Bessie Anderson Stanley
Couple of thoughts off the top of my head:
ReplyDelete1) If God wanted you to be with him now, you would be. It is for Him to decide the timing, so suicide is not a good idea. Suicide hurts a lot of people. My first wife committed suicide and the pain she left behind was just enormous, for me and my children, for her parents and family. Suicide solves (after a fashion) a person's problem but creates a hundredfold more for everybody else.
2) For me, hopelessness is just another symptom of depression. Medication works for me. I can remember wanting to die just to get out of all the hopelessness, but I was not perceiving things accurately.
3) Bessie Anderson Stanley had hit the nail on the head with her poem. Success is how you define it, and she defines it exactly as I would.
Keep working at your therapy! You are discovering yourself and deep down you will find an interesting and fascinating person that you like. A lot of other folks like her as well.
I know you said you did not want advice, so please don't consider this advice. It is just some comments from an old man who understands depression and hopelessness and has done a reasonably good job of overcoming them and knows that you can as well.