Depression: Dispelling the Myths - Insight from author Anne Jackson

Anne Jackson is an amazing woman. She's an author. She's on staff at a large emerging church. She's helped raised thousands for the underprivileged. And oh yeah, she struggles with depression. I stumbled across her blog after reading a Twitter post (technology!) and her honesty about this topic was so insightful that I asked if I could rerun her post here. She gladly said "yes". These are her words... I changed nothing because I wanted you to hear it straight from the heart of an amazing person I admire.

From FlowerDust.net

it was interesting some of the emails i received about monday’s post on depression. it made me realize a lot of people have some misunderstandings about what depression is and why some people battle it.

now, let me preface this by saying i am not a doctor or a psychologist (although i’ve been to more than my fair share of both) :-) however, here are some common myths about depression i thought we’d remove so that everyone can have a better understanding.

why are you depressed? i thought you loved your new job and it seems like stuff is going well for you.

you’re right. i love my new job and things are going great. for the first time, we’re not financially stressed out in our marriage, the relationships i have are incredible and i have never felt more at home than i do in nashville. all of my external circumstances are awesome! too bad depression isn’t caused by any of them. sure, environments can influence ups and downs, but a lingering bit of sadness or feelings of low self worth means it’s probably something more.

to further prove this point, last year at this time i was going through probably one of the toughest times in my life. i had an awful, no good, very bad situation i was walking through over the course of late fall and early winter. on top of that, i was also weaning off of anxiety medication (stressful!), writing a book (stressful!), and getting ready to move from dallas to oklahoma city (stressful!)

but you know what? i had absolutely no symptoms of depression at all. nada.

don’t worry. if you trust God more, he’ll bring you through.

thanks for the kind and faithful words. and i don’t doubt that. but depression generally has little to do with someone’s relationship with god. if that were the case, every person without faith would be miserable and every person with faith would be happy all the time. can i afford to spend more time with god? absolutely. depression isn’t caused by a bad relationship with god or healed by a good one. if anything, i have to lean even more into that relationship (and the relationships with my husband and friends) to get the strength i need during the seasons of depression.

so, you wrote this book on burnout and you talk about being emotionally healthy. your past struggles with this and your current struggle doesn’t really give the best example. what gives you the right to write about this?

i won’t lie. that email hurt (and that is just a small snippet of it). and the thoughts of my own human inadequacies haunt me all the time when i ask myself, “really, what authority do i have to speak into this topic? i’m struggling right there!” fortunately, i got another email after this one that said this.

Listen, your struggle doesn’t mean you are broken as a person, and it doesn’t make you less spiritual. The devil is going to lie to you and say you have no business writing about Mad Church Disease with this going on. Don’t give in to that lie! Your experience and even your struggles uniquely qualify you to speak authoritatively on this subject. God uses our weaknesses to demonstrate His strength in us. I believe our precious Lord wants to take what the enemy meant to destroy you and use it to bring glory to Jesus.

that answer was for both the person who wrote the first email, and the demons that walk around in my brain. but i know that question is something probably a lot of us wrestle with: what qualifies us to do the work we do when we screw up all the time?

grace.

so there you have it. depression has little to do with your environment, relationship with god, and capacity to be used in this world. it has much to do with our bodies’ brokenness, chemical imbalances, and the hand we’re dealt. we honestly have very little control over it.

what we do have control over is how we manage it if we have it, or how we treat others who are struggling.

From Suzie: Thanks, Anne! Ladies, Anne recommends this great resource: Seeing In the Dark: Getting the Facts on Depression and Finding Hop... by Gary Kinnamon

To find out more about Anne, go to her popular blog or check out her book, Mad Church Disease: Overcoming the Burnout Epidemic.