Depression and Persevering in Darkness

A memoir of living with depression + six valuable pieces of advice given to me in the confessional.

Depressed Moods vs. Depressive Disorders

To begin, I’d like to make a distinction between “a depressed mood” and a major depressive disorder.

Depression is a mood. Feelings of sadness are a normal part of life, and “feeling depressed” is not unusual nor a cause for concern. Human moods shift based on changing circumstances, environments, and life events (like losing a job or the death of a loved one). It can be normal to fall into a funk, slip into a slump, or to feel sadness about any number of things. This is part of the experience of being a human. Remember, even Jesus wept at the death of Lazarus. To be human is to endure suffering and to feel sorrow.

Then there is major depressive disorder, which is a mood disorder that is thought to be related to genetics and psychological factors. This is a persistent, deep sadness that does not go away and interferes with every part of a person’s life. It’s an illness that interferes with one’s inability to experience pleasure. It can be debilitating and blinding, as those who are depressed are often obsessed with thoughts of worthlessness, haunted by guilt and regret, and remain in a constant state of hopelessness that things that will never get better. They can’t concentrate or focus, they have trouble remembering, they withdrawal from social settings, and they usually suffer from insomnia and suicidal ideation. The constant mental anguish is overwhelming, exhausting, and painful. Most days, it is difficult to rouse oneself to function normally; some days, it is impossible. I can attest that it is beyond frustrating to never be able to escape from your own ill mind.

I’ve suffered from a major depressive disorder for most of my life and I’ve never been able to “get over it.” From my experience, people treat this disorder like it is simply a “depressed mood.” They think that the sad feelings will change with time, or that it can stop if the person’s circumstances or environment changes. “Maybe you just need a break,” people offer sympathetically. I can tell you in all honesty that when you have a disease, it doesn’t matter if you take a break, take a nap, how much time passes, or what things in life change, the disease remains. I can tell you from decades of experience that it doesn’t just go away. There are certainly things I can do to lessen its grip on my life, but even on my best days, there is a lingering element.

Although I’ve struggled with depression for most of my life, I don’t manage it or cope with it as most people do. This is because I view depression the way I view everything else: through the lens of my Catholic faith. Although I have in the past had recourse to medication and therapy, I’ve ultimately decided that neither of these things have been beneficial for me at this time, and so I manage my symptoms in other ways.

Feelings vs. Truth

One of the reasons I am so adamant about “truth over feelings” is because if I listened to my feelings, I'd be dead.

My “feelings” tell me all kinds of things, but it is my faith that enables me to recognize them as lies. My brain often feeds me lies that I exist for no reason, that I have no purpose in life, and that my existence is worthless. My brain reminds me daily how inept and incompetent I am at everything I do, and it uses this fact to convince me that I can’t contribute to anything in a meaningful way.

This is where the devil slithers in with his deceptions. “Your life is pointless,” he hisses, and my depressed brain clings to the lie. “Your life is meaningless,” he goes on, “you haven’t done anything with all this time that God has given you— and your time will end soon! Why do you keep trying? Why do you continue to waste time living when your life has produced nothing worthwhile? And you’re miserable anyway! Are you really supposed to live in this state of misery for another 40 years until you die? Is that really what God wants? What does it matter if you end your life now, or if you live for another few years?”

These are the daily thoughts I battle. Each day that I wake, I have to firmly resolve again to keep living through another day, even though I know it will bring nothing different. I see nothing good in my past, my present, or in my future. Rationally, I know that there are good things in my life, and yet the depression acts like a cloak, blinding me from perceiving any of the good. Each day, I know I will go through all the same motions as the day before, I will feel achingly miserable the whole time as I’m constantly aware of my failures, and I’ll simply will myself to keep living. My feelings? They’d rather end my life and stop feeling. So, daily I have to resolve to keep living, despite how I feel.

However, this is an essential skill for spiritual growth. Catholicism is not centered on emotions and feelings; rather, faith involves our intellect assenting to the truths revealed by God. Catholicism is about objective truth, not subjective feelings. A life of holiness is one of turning away from sin, of conquering our passions by resisting our inordinate desires. It's necessary that we learn how to recognize when our thoughts, feelings and desires are not aligned with truth, and then to turn away from them.

The End of Man

In the midst of the fog of depression, I liken myself to a plant tending toward the light to direct its growth. I turn my face toward God and His Truth.

Because of my faith, my intention in life is to conform to God’s reality, not to invent my own reality based on how I’m feeling from moment from moment. God has already determined what is true. I need not invent my own truth, I need only to conform myself to His.

Truth tells me that God willed for me to exist; that is, that I was created intentionally by a Creator. Since God is the Author of my life, He is also the Owner of it. My life belongs to Him.

Truth tells me that I was not only willed into existence by God, but that I am held in existence by Him. It is a truth of our faith that if God were to stop thinking about us, we would cease to exist. God not only brought us into being, but He sustains our being in every moment. Therefore, if we are alive, it is because God wills us to be alive, and every breath of our lungs and beat of our hearts is proof that God desires for us to be alive right now.

That’s the key: knowing that we’re alive because it is God’s will for us to be alive. And if it is the deepest desire of our heart to conform ourselves to God’s will, then must also want to be alive, if only for the pure and simple reason that God wills it and we want to will all that God wills.

But why? For what reason did He create us?

St. Thomas Aquinas says that, “God is the last end of man.” For anyone who might be unfamiliar with this terminology, the word “end” here means “the goal or result that one seeks to achieve.” The end of man is what man is aiming for— his goal, his objective, his purpose. God is the end of man means God is the goal, the whole purpose for which we are striving, that everything in our lives will culminate in the end with blessed union to our Creator.

I liked how St. Ignatius of Loyola defines “the end of man:”

“Man is created to praise, reverence, and serve God our Lord, and by this means to save his soul.”

This truth is also expressed simply and sweetly in the Baltimore Catechism under the question, “Why did God make you?” to which the answer is, “God made me to know Him, love Him, and serve Him in this world, and to be happy with Him forever in the next.”

St. Ignatius says, “I come from God. I belong to God. I am destined to return to God.”

So, we can be assured that:

• God willed us into existence.

• God holds us in existence.

• God intends for us to return to Him when our life on earth ends.

When life feels utterly pointless, it is then that we must keep our focus on God, turning our minds towards his illuminating Truth and conforming our lives to that Truth, like a sunflower demonstrating heliotropism, in which they turn their faces toward the sun. We, too, must always turn our faces to our Father in heaven.

Depression and the Dark Night

It’s not easy to turn one’s face toward the light when there is no light; that is, when one is engulfed in darkness.  

If one is sincerely progressing in the spirtual life, they will eventually have to experience what St. John of the Cross calls “the dark night of the soul,” which occurs in the spiritual life of a soul that is climbing up a steep mountain toward union with God.

Not everyone will suffer from a depressive disorder in their lifetime, but everyone will experience depressed moods, and likewise, everyone will endure a spiritual dark night at some point, which we could liken to a sort of “depression” in the spiritual life.

I think that understanding what the dark night is and how to navigate it is actually a really good launching point for understanding depression and how to cope with it.

It’s a paradox of the spiritual life that as we journey closer to God, He wills for us to experience these darknesses. Yet, these times of aridity are essential for purification and growth. It’s much like the weeding of a garden, or the pruning of a plant which is needed to allow new and good growth in a plant. 

If we look at why pruning is required for plants, we can find interesting parallels in the spiritual life.

• Pruning promotes healthier plants by removing the dead and dying branches and stubs, which allows room for new growth. Likewise, “pruning” in the spiritual life removes vices and attachments that allow us to grow closer to God. 

• When struggling branches are removed from a tree, it can dedicate its resources (water and nutrients) to the healthy parts of the plant and stop wasting its resources on sick limbs. Likewise, when we stop wasting our time on frivolous and worldly things, we find we have more “resources” (time and energy) to dedicate to God and the practice of virtue.

• Dead limbs are a perfect place for insect infestations and diseases to flourish, and a sick tree is not going to produce fruit. Neither is a soul in a state of mortal sin going to produce anything for eternal life. Chopping off the dead parts of the tree protects it from infestation, disease, and allows the growth of new spurs where flowers can blossom and bear fruit. In the spiritual life, the purification process that our souls undergo is painful, but it’s also necessary so that we may “produce good fruit.” As we know, our Redeemer warned us that, “every tree that bringeth not forth good fruit, shall be cut down, and shall be cast into the fire.” If we are unable to bring forth this good fruit due to sickness of soul, the Gardner must prune us, cut off the dead limbs, heal us from our illness, and cultivate our soul to blossom and bring forth fruit.

God is a very good gardener. It’s a great mercy that He prunes us so we can be more fruitful. It’s necessary to cut off the dead limbs of sin and attachment so we can have a more pure love and closer union with Him. We cannot have a heart divided between God and the world, He wants and deserves our whole heart, and the dark night is meant to purify us. God’s love is like a burning fire that consumes all that is disordered within us.

Fr. Troadec explains it thus:

“When God enters a soul, He inflames that soul with the fire of His love, but at the same time He consumes, He burns, He destroys whatever is opposed to that love.”

So, those periods of darkness and dryness in the spiritual life? They are necessary so the old man can be annihilated, and the new man may emerge.

"You are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God" -Col. 3:3

Competency vs. Sanctity

Living with depression often means that my thoughts are frequently overshadowed by a persistent sense of my own inadequacy. I can honestly say that there is nothing I excel at, and my brain reminds me of that on a seemingly hourly basis. Throughout my life, I have grappled with a profound sense of inadequacy, feeling as though my existence is merely a succession of continuous failures.

But over time, I have come to see even this as a gift — part of the pruning process. Because I am constantly aware of how incompetent I am — painfully aware of my own insufficiency and inabilities. I harbor no illusions of my own grandeur. Therefore, I can rely wholly on God. Having no confidence in my own abilities, I put all my confidence in Him.

For nearly 40 years, I have consistently proven to myself that I am nothing and cannot trust or rely on myself. I am aware of my own weaknesses as I face them every day, which makes it impossible to maintain any delusion of pride. I stand before God with empty hands, impoverished and barren, in need of Him at every moment.

St. Augustine wrote a well-known prayer that begins with the often-quoted line: “Let me know myself, let me know Thee.” But the rest of the prayer, which seems to be lesser-known, goes on to say:

“Let my hate myself and love Thee. Let me humble myself and exalt Thee. Let me die to myself and live in Thee. Let me flee from myself and turn to Thee. Let me distrust myself and trust in Thee.”

The conversion of St. Augustine was a long, difficult, and mentally anguishing journey that was assisted by the prayers of his mother, St. Monica, and the instruction of St. Ambrose. There's a painting by Fra Angelico's where he captures a crucial moment in Augustine's conversion, showing him seated in a garden with his head cradled in his hands, seemingly weeping. The pruning process is painful. The turning away from sin and vice and pride is a turbulent journey, one from which we would readily recoil if not for the grace of God to fortify us.

Let me distrust myself and trust in Thee. Let me fear myself and turn to Thee. Like Augustine, I know where trusting in myself leads. I know where relying on myself will take me. I have no desire to guide myself, but like a humble lamb, I turn to my Shepherd to lead the way. Augustine once asked, “What am I without You, but a guide to my own destruction?”

Me, too, Augustine. Me, too.

I heard a sermon once about the life of St. John of God, in which the priest called him “the saint who couldn’t do anything right.” In his sermon, the priest stressed that, "God doesn't promise competency, He promises sanctity.” He went on to say that God will not judge us for what we cannot do, He won’t judge us for not being successful; He will judge us for not being willing and generous. “All of us can give,” he said. “All of us can try.” And that is what God is asking of us: a generous heart that loves Him and is willing to try. The outcome is irrelevant. It’s the faith, love, devotion and intention that matter.

I heard another priest once say, “Spoiler alert: you will fail, and God knows you will fail.” But God doesn’t want us to look at ourselves in our failures. He wants us to look at Him.

There is a prayer written by St. Teresa of Avila in which she laments that “other women have proved their love of God by heroic actions,” while she is “only good for talking.” She says to God, “Therefore it is, my God, that Thou wilt not employ me in works. Instead of immolating myself in Thy service, I have nothing but words and desires. I beseech Thee, strengthen my soul and begin to dispose her. Let not Thy Providence delay; may it quickly furnish me with favorable opportunities for working for Thy glory. To receive so much and give nothing in return is a martyrdom which I cannot succumb. Let it cost what it may, Lord, but do not allow me any longer to appear before Thee with such empty hands… I feel, O Tender Master, all my weakness. Keep me near to Thee and I shall be able to do all things; but however little thou dost depart from me, I shall immediately find myself as formerly, on my way to hell.”

The cry of St. Teresa’s heart echoes St. Augustine, as she confronts the reality of her own weakness and how without God’s guidance and direction, she would be her own guide to destruction.

And what can we take away from this model of the saints…? Not to be discouraged by our weaknesses and failures, because they are normal. We are, by our nature, weak. We are supposed to distrust ourselves and trust in God. We are supposed to surrender ourselves entirely into His very capable Hands. We are supposed to depend wholly on Him, not on ourselves.

“Lord, I put my will and all that concerns me, inwardly, outwardly, temporally, and eternally, into Thy Holy Hands. Dispose of all as Thou pleasest, and direct me in all to do Thy Divine Will.”

Six Pieces of Advice

I had to confess some negligence that were due to my depression being particularly bad. I was “in the depths of despair,” as Anne of Green Gables would say, and as a result, I stayed in bed and ignored my life a little too much. In the confessional, I simply told the priest, “I’ve been neglecting my duties of prayer to God, and to my family and home.”

Somehow, the priest seemed to perceive the deeper implications of what I was saying. Even though I didn’t go into any further detail or give any specifics, his advice was extremely helpful.

Here’s what he said:

1. “Even when you’re lacking motivation, you need to stay faithful to your duty. As you know, God wants you to do your duty.”
   
   These words were particularly impactful because too often I doubt what I’m "supposed” to be doing. I understand that I’m supposed to do God’s will, and I am willing to do it, but most of the time I find myself praying pathetically, “What do you want me to do?!” as if it is some great mystery that I can’t know unless it is divinely revealed to me. The truth is that we are sanctified in the fulfillment of our daily duties, and our duties are determined by our state in life. Since I am in the marital state, fulfilling the duties of the married state is my path to sanctity. It’s not like it’s some great unknowable mystery that I can’t figure out, but sometimes I fool myself into thinking it is.
   

2. “You remain in possession of your will. Even if you don’t feel like praying, you can still act and pray.”
   
   These words seemed inspired, as though God wanted to assure me that I am free to ignore my feelings and can still choose to do the right thing even when I have zero motivation to do it. One thing I keep learning over and over in the spiritual life is none of the virtues are based on our feelings. Our actions are in our will. We can love even when we don’t feel like loving. We can pray even when we don’t feel like praying. We can forgive even when we don’t feel like forgiving. In other words, through an act of the will, we can do what we know is right, even if we don’t have accompanying “good feelings.”
   

3. “If you only pray and act when you receive spiritual consolation, then you act selfishly. Pray because it is your duty, and act for the glory and honor of God — the only reason we should act at all. Persevere in your duties despite the lack of motivation and consolation.”
   
   If you don’t know, to neglect to pray is a sin against the virtue of religion. We are bound by the law of our being to render God the worship due to Him as a matter of justice. Too often, we think our prayers are for us, to bring us comfort, or to ask God for the things that we want. Indeed, supplication is one kind of prayer, but it can’t be the only reason we pray. If we stop praying because “it doesn’t feel good,” or because we “don’t get anything out of it,” then we were entering into prayer with selfish intentions to begin with. Regardless of how we feel, we still have a duty to pray: to adore, to praise, to thank, and to love God. We owe this to Him as a matter of justice. It’s rightfully due to Him, simply because of Who He is, not because of what we get out of it.
   

4. “God is giving you an opportunity to grow in virtue and prove your love for Him.”
   
   When prayer is not easy, joyful, or satisfying, but we remain faithful to our duty anyway, it is an opportunity to show God with our actions that we love Him even in times of desolation and aridity.
   

5. “Your sacrifices are not worthless; God will reward you.”
   
   This was another line he spoke that felt very powerful. My depressed brain is constantly telling me how worthless I am and how worthless everything I do is. Sometimes I avoid prayer because I think my prayers are worthless. Sometimes I avoid my duty because I think my life is worthless. I needed to hear these words: “your sacrifices are not worthless.”
   

6. “You don’t know who your sacrifices and prayers may be helping, or what souls may benefit from your sufferings and prayers offered up for them.”
   
   On the one hand, this was a reminder to persevere in prayer. Yet, on the other hand, this was also a reminder that by suffering we are able to obtain graces for others. It shifts the focus off of self and reminds me that I don’t only prayer and suffer for myself, but for others, too.

I wanted to share these little bits of advice from the priest because I found them so powerful and important. I hope that by sharing with you, anyone struggling with depression, a dark night of the soul, or any kind of spiritual desolation, can find encouragement to keep persevering.

Comforter of the Afflicted

As a penance, he gave me the Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary. When I was praying my penance in the church after confession, there were two titles of Our Lady that distinguished themselves in my mind: Health of the sick and Comforter of the afflicted. It reminded me of what a powerful intercessor we have in Our Lady, the Queen of Heaven, who desires so much to bring her children to her Son for all eternity. Our Lady is truly the “Gate of Heaven,” — she was the gate by which Jesus came down from heaven to us, and is the gate by which we go up to Him. So many times, in my profound weakness I have symbolically thrown myself at her feet, begged her to wrap me in her mantle, and to carry me to Jesus, knowing I lack the strength to do it myself. The fact that Fr. gave me this litany as my penance seemed like a grace in itself, if only to remind me to call upon my Mother.

The concluding prayer of the Litany:

Grant, O Lord God, we beseech Thee, that we Thy servants may rejoice in continual health of mind and body; and, through the glorious intercession of Blessed Mary ever Virgin, may be freed from present sorrow, and enjoy eternal gladness. Through Christ our Lord. Amen. 

What Living with Depression Has Taught Me

Believe it or not, after suffering with depression for as long as I have, I’m able to see some great graces of this particular suffering. Besides humility, depression has helped me to cultivate another important virtue: detachment.

A heavy reality of living with depression is that I never really feel a sense of what we might call "happiness" or “joy.” But it was only in the last few years that I’ve been able to recognize what a gift it is to not find much joy or happiness in this world. In fact, I now esteem it as a mark of God’s love that He permits me to find no consolation in worldly things. I know you may be thinking, “This is not true! God wants us to be happy.” Yes, God does desire our happiness, but that happiness is to be found only in Him. It is by experiencing suffering and discomfort in this world that we are able to perceive that we are not made for this world. Without suffering here below, our hearts would be lost in love of present things. It is our suffering that breaks the deceptive charms of the world that incline us towards these earthly things. It is our suffering that makes us recognize that God alone is our rest, and that outside Him all on this earth is vanity and vexation of spirit.

Suffering acts as a purifier that disengages us from the world and forces us to look higher, to enter into a state where God alone is everything to our heart. It is precisely the absence of joy and happiness and consolation on earth that creates within me a great longing and desire for Heaven, where I can quit this “vale of tears” and enjoy God in the Beatific Vision for eternity. It makes sense that the more joys we have on earth, the harder it will be for us to part with them.

I've come to view my limited capacity for happiness not as a deficit, but as a divine gift. It allows me to remain unattached to fleeting things and focus my gaze on Heaven, the sole eternal joy.

There is a prayer I say in the mornings that was written by St. Thomas Aquinas. It’s a short prayer that begins with the words, “May Your will be my will…” and it ends with these two lines:

“Apart from You, may every joy be bitter to me.
May I have no desire but to rest in You.”

I’ve been reciting this prayer daily for years, but it only recently struck me that it’s a request. I’m literally asking God every morning to render all earthly joys bitter to me so that my only joy and only rest is in Him.

Through my depression, He has made me aware of how empty the passing pleasures of earth really are, to the point where I cannot relish in them and do not desire them.

Children of God vs. Children of the World

A depressive disorder is the burden the Master has placed on my shoulders. What can I do but humbly accept? It is by accepting trials in a Christ-like manner that we find salvation. Our suffering can only be seen in proper perspective when we remember that they will only be for a very short duration and that they prepare us for the eternal joys of heaven that will never end.

We were just reminded of this in a recent Gospel at Mass, when we heard these curious words from Our Lord:

“Amen, amen, I say to you, that you shall lament and weep, but the world shall rejoice.”

He spoke these words to His Apostles shortly before His Ascension. What do they mean? Have you ever thought about it?

Our Lord has drawn a contrast between two classes of people: the children of God and the children of the world. While the children of God are given crosses and tears in this life, the children of the world are given up to their riches and material enjoyments. The children of the world appear to be happy, but in reality they are very unfortunate.

Jesus foretold to His Apostles that their portion in this world would be persecution and suffering, making worldly men look upon them as unfortunate beings leading a sad life. The worldly pity Christians because they do not understand the Cross. You see, God gives His children trials because He desires for them to be purified from even the smallest sins by these passing sufferings. The suffering, the purifying, its all ordered toward closer union with God.

The “sorrow” of the children of God is only an apparent sorrow, because the eternal joy of heaven awaits. “I will see you again,” Jesus told the Apostles, “and your heart shall rejoice; and your joy no man shall take from you.” These words from Jesus assure us that the tears and passing sorrows of the children of God will be succeeded by an eternal joy in heaven. But the children of the world will have a different lot - their passing joy will be changed into tears and eternal torment.

For the children of the world: an earthly moment of joy, and then eternal suffering.
For the children of God: an earthly moment of suffering, and then eternal bliss.

This is why we, as Christians, can endure our suffering bravely, because it is rooted in a lively faith, a firm hope, and an ardent charity.

Faith, hope and love are not feelings. They are acts of the will. They are something we can choose despite how we feel. Regardless of “feelings,” we can courageously and patiently bear with all the sufferings which come upon us during the remaining days of our lives, because we have the blessed hope that these momentary sufferings are but little and nothing to secure Heaven.

“In the evening weeping shall have place, and in the morning gladness.” - Psalm 30

Despondency vs. God’s Will

It is crucial to resist succumbing to a spirit of despondency. We must not allow the shadows of depression to obscure the truths of God or lead us into hopelessness. It is a mistake to let depression fuel our anger or to cast blame for our melancholy and pessimism onto others, believing that a change in circumstances would lead to some kind of improvement (i.e., if we lived somewhere else, or had a different spouse, or had a different job, or made more money, etc.) I have come to realize that one of the most challenging aspects of depression is the fluctuation between feelings worthlessness and a prevailing anger that often places blame on others.

Don’t give in to these feelings. Keep the end goal in mind: to return to God at the end of our earthly pilgrimage. God will always provide us with the means to do that one thing, the only thing that matters. It is God’s will that we be sanctified, which means He gives us exactly the graces we need to be sanctified. We can and will obtain holiness exactly where we are, if we do our part to remove the obstacles to grace and cooperate with the graces that God is sending us.

I am convinced that the continual cross of my life is to persevere in my duty despite how I feel, which is, in a way, what everyone has to do, not just those who suffer from depression.

Daily, I battle thoughts that try to undermine my life's value, suggesting that my existence is meaningless and my actions are inconsequential. Each day, the greatest act of heroism I perform is merely rising from bed and attending to my mundane duties, persisting in doing what's right, even as my depression insists it's worthless.

I think this is what St. John of the Cross meant when he said:

“Where there is no love, put love, and you will find love.”

Despite all the feelings of despair, hopeless, discontent, and frustration, we remain in control of how we respond to those feelings, and we can choose to perform actions of love and obedience despite having no fervor. Every single hard day is an opportunity to show God that we still choose Him with an act of the will, even if we lack those “good feelings.”

It is not always my will to keep living. But it is God’s will. With St. Thomas I continue to pray, “May Your will be my will,” and with St. Augustine, “Let me die to myself and live in Thee.”

“I give Thee back, O merciful Maker, my whole being; either to be what Thou wilt or to be nothing at all; to love Thee or not to live at all.

I offer Thee, O Pious Redeemer, my sins to pardon, my works to perfect, my will to purify.

I offer to Thee my wounds to cute, my soul to cleanse, and my spirit to comfort.

I offer to Thee, O Holy Spirit, my intentions to rectify, my inclinations to sanctify, my affections to Deify.

Finally, I offer all for One, I give all to One, and all I desire is to be one with Thee, my All and my only Lord and only Love.”