How I got out of depression

faithpersists (50)in #christian-trail • 5 years ago (edited)

In my early 20s I had a depression. It was a moment where all these things came together: I moved out from my moms house. I broke up with my boyfriend. My best friend and I got a miscommunication and distanced each other. And last but not least my church splitted.

Within no time I found myself doing nothing, but: Eating, sleeping and crying. I didn't have any mood to do anything. I isolated myself from people. I forced myself to eat. The food didn't taste like anything at that moment.

Symptoms of depression

I didn't know what was going on with me, so I looked up on the internet. Based on the symptoms, it said I had depression. So I bought self help books. Trying to get out of it.

Vacancy for 'your life'

Credits

One of the books wrote this: If you could put up a vacancy for 'your position in life'. How would that vacancy look like? What qualities should that person have, to be able to fill in 'your place'?

The unshakable rule

Once I accepted Christ, I was told that christians were not allowed to commit suicide. That was a rule in my mind that was unshakable. I would never commit suicide. That was a decision I made when I was 17. (Later on in life I didn't find that scripture in the bible. So where did this rule came from? Haha! Anyways, at that moment it was a good rule. It prevented me from any suicidal thoughts)

Exchange?

While reading that self help book, I did imagine to exchange 'my place'. I didn't know how that would look like. But I was too down to be able to think further. My mind just wanted to try out what that book says, so I can get out of the depression. My mind didn't came across the word suicide. Cause I've set my heart upon getting out of that depression. I wrote down some qualities that that person needed to have, to be able to fulfill 'my place'. It took me some time to fill in the qualities. It looked something like this:

Vacancy for Hannah's life:

- play piano, play guitar, singing, maths, art, creative, caring for people, believes in God, and so on...

Would you apply for the job?

Credits

The next question was: If you see this vacancy, would you be interested to apply for this vacancy? Well honestly, the vacancy looked more positive than I thought... My life, looked more positive than I thought it was... I still wasn't too sure, if I would really want 'this position' back.

Then a thought came in: My life still has some 60 till 80 years to go. So I want to give up ALL of that, because of 1 person who did something towards me?

People who hurted me

Credits

Is this 1 person who hurted me, more important than my life? I imagined a scale. I put each of the persons that hurted me on a scale. Each of them seperately. I didn't put them all on the scale at the same time. Cause I thought: If I'm going to measure, I should measure them all seperately from each other. Then I can measure it well.

I asked myself these questions:

- Is he (or what he did to me) more worth than my next 60 till 80 years to come? No.

- Is she (or what she did to me) more worth than my next 60 till 80 years to come? No.

- The answers were all: NO

Situations that hurted me

What about the situations that were so bad? Again I did not accumulate all those situations together. I splitted them 1 by 1.

- Is this 1 situation (that hurted me so much) more worth than my next 60 till 80 years to come? No.

- Is that other situation (that was so bad) more worth than my next 60 till 80 years to come? No.

- The answers were all: NO

My life; with the upcoming 60 till 80 years, is MORE WORTH than every single person and every single situation that hurted me.

I decide

And because I decided that my life was more worth, than ANY-one who did ANY thing towards me. And because I decided that my life was more worth, than ANY situation that EVER happened to me. I came out of the depression.

Ever since I made this decision. I could be down sometimes. But not so far anymore, until I got depressed. Cause before I could go so far, the question will rise up again: Is that person or situation more worth than 'my life'? I never went back to depression.

How much value do I give to...