So here, it is…the story of my journey through depression. Of course this is the condensed-made-for-Sunday-morning-TV version.

So first watch the video, then come back and read the in-between part of my story.

Depression Testimony Video

Back? Okay.

So it took a minimum of 6 months of misery before I had that “revelation” that I talk about in the video. It was at that point that I finally began to share with those around me what was going on – Mark, Kristen, Stacey. To this day, none of those 3 people probably knew the whole story, or the depth of it. It was something that I had never really put into words until preparing this testimony.

Turns out Kristen had been experiencing similar things and was already on meds. I think in talking to her I finally realized that “Yes, this might actually be depression.” Before, I had written that word off. I thought that because I was functioning that I couldn’t possibly be that bad off. WRONG! I’m apparently, just amazingly stubborn.

So I finally went to see my doctor who, God bless her, happens to have a real interest in psychiatric medicine so, while it wasn’t her specialty she was very well versed. She went through the list of questions that went something like this…

• Have you lost interest in normal daily activities and/or hobbies you enjoy?
• Do you have crying spells? Feel sad or hopeless?
• Do you have trouble sleeping or want to sleep too much?
• Do you have trouble concentrating and making decisions?
• Do you have an increased or decreased appetite?
• Are you restless, agitated, irritable and easily annoyed?
• Do you have less interest in sex?

Yes, yes, yes….

The only question I said no to was “Have you had thoughts of suicide?” I think my actual response was, “Are you kidding? And leave my husband to take care of the kids alone? They’d eat cheese crisps every day for the rest of their lives.” (Moment of humor to break up the tears that were flowing by that point. I’m sure if something does ever happen to me they’ll be fine – he does know how to make other stuff.)

I was diagnosed with clinical depression and put on anti-depressants. We talked a bit about my family history. My paternal grandmother dealt with depression – I remember several severe episodes growing up.

Luckily Wellbutrin seems to work faster than some of the other drugs that can take a couple of weeks before you see an improvement. I remember waking up one Saturday morning about 3 or 4 days after my doctor’s appt. I got in the shower and all of a sudden it dawned on me – I was actually in a good mood. (Well as good a mood as I can have in the morning). It was amazing and I felt such a huge sense of relief.

It still took me a couple of months to tell the rest of the family about my depression. Friends too. It’s one of those things that’s kind of hard to just work into conversation. “Hi, how are you?” “Good now that I’m on anti-depressants.” See what I mean? AWKWARD!

I was on meds for about two years before I weaned off of them. I’ve been back on them once since then. I can spot the warning signs now and that helps.

So this is already really long, so I’ll be back with another post about some of the things that helped me as I was coming out of the depression.
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On a completely shallow note one of the first things I thought when the video started to play for the first time was “Dang, my hair looks GOOD!” (Go Jen!) And just for the record I’ve had like 4 other people tell me that too, so it’s not just me being vain 🙂

So this weekend was the big weekend when my video testimony about my struggles with depression aired in church in front of about 1,500 people (for background read here, here, and here). By then I had watched the video at least a half dozen times and I, for the most part, could make it through without crying.

I decided to attend the last service (we have one on Sat eve. and 3 on Sundays) which is when we usually attend (well, hubby is there all weekend as he’s on staff). My in-laws come too. They are very soft-hearted people and I knew it would be difficult for them to watch. I tried to email them the link so they could view it ahead of time but it wouldn’t work so they had to go cold turkey. They actually remained somewhat composed – proud of you guys!

I got about a dozen hugs from people who had already seen it before I even made it to the auditorium, some I didn’t even know. Very cool! I love our church family!

The whole message went really well. It should be online by tomorrow and I will post a link. The main chunk of my testimony is at the beginning, then Pastor Greg speaks, then the end of my testimony, then more from Pastor Greg.

At the end we did a really cool thing. People had been told to bring "baggage" they wanted to release to God to church – some brought letters, pictures, divorce papers, etc. We put them in backpacks and hung them on the cross to symbolize the freedom we have in Christ. It was very powerful and moving.

I have a ton of other stuff percolating in my head about depression – a good week’s worth of posts. Hope you’ll come back.

P.S. I have to give a huge shout out to my girls who were praying for me through all of this and were such a huge encouragement to me – Stacey, Jen, Brooke, Tracy, Juli, Kristen. You guys Rock!

So this weekend is rapidly approaching – the weekend where they show my video testimony about my struggle with depression to the entire church – about 1,500 adults. (You can read more about that here and here.)

Since we shot the video on August 9th I have been waiting anxiously to view it. The night we shot I didn’t even look at any of the footage and it was rather frightening knowing that my story was entirely in the hands of someone else who would hopefully make it look good.

Monday I got a call saying they had a rough draft of the video done and I could watch it. I had Jen, Brooke and Vavella over at my house for scrapbooking so we all kind of gathered around the computer to watch – me in the chair, the 3 of them standing behind me. At one point I looked over to grab a Kleenex and the box was gone – turns out the girls were already passing them out.

Dana did an AWESOME job with the video editing. They are making a few minor tweaks. About 5 min. of my story will be shown right before the message, then the "end/healing" portion after Greg talks.

The reaction from the select few that have seen the video has been interesting. I guess having to write my testimony helped me articulate a lot of things that I was never able to put in words during the actual journey through depression, or even shortly after. So even those closest to me have been surprised by some of the things I think.

Then there are some who have expressed guilt that they were not more supportive during that time, or that they didn’t know how bad it was.

I’ve just had to tell them – that’s not your fault – it’s mine for not telling you. I think that is one of the hugest things about depression – it’s like a dirty secret – especially among Christians.

I found a statistic yesterday that said that 54% of people see depression as a sign of personal weakness. How telling is that???? The people suffering from depression are afraid to talk about what their feeling because they are afraid of what people will think. Or in my case, just fear in admitting that I could not fix this on my own, or control it. (I’ve never been one to care what people think.)

Hopefully my testimony will help others who are suffering silently to start talking about it and get help.

I will be posting the video testimony sometime next week.