Sheer happiness

Wow! Over the past little while I have found out what happiness truly feels like. I've been removed from that feeling for so long that and I've become so unfamiliar with it that I actually feel kind of high, though my friends say I'm acting quite normal - just the happy Marja they haven't seen for a long time.

Looking back over the past 8 months or perhaps longer - perhaps much longer - I can see that I've been depressed, even though at times I thought I was doing alright. I wasn't doing alright. I had forgotten what it was to be truly happy.

Truth of it is that my husband had to help me with many things that I should have been quite capable of doing on my own. I've needed him so much - with cooking, shopping, cleaning, paying bills. For a long time I've been avoiding shopping, buying only as few things as I could get away with. No big shopping lists for me. Though the motivation only completely disappeared during the times I was extremely low, which happened a lot, I was very often only moderately motivated. And at those times I thought I was doing quite well. I was coping.

But things could have been much worse. I was able to keep my commitments. Living Room continued, though I had to lean on others to do the devotionals a few times. I was able to keep supporting people, though there was one time when someone asked me to pray with her and I had to tell her I couldn't. I was having too hard a time myself.

I'm grateful that God brought me through as well as he did. I'm grateful I have a ministry that is of utmost importance to me, one that gives me a purpose to live for. I'm grateful that I was able to keep clinging to God, even though I didn't always trust him as much as I should. Grateful for my husband and friends who supported me. Yes, things could have been much worse.

Today I know what joy feels like. I'm energetic, motivated. Eager to continue the work God gave me to do.

With other people in place to carry on the responsibilies of my group, I'll have time to spend the next while doing some of the broader Living Room work. Work on the manuals, the website, and - hopefully - some more writing.

I thank God for where he's brought me. God IS good.

What feeds you?

At Living Room this Friday we're going to discuss what activities feed us and what activities drain us. When I think of what feeds me most, giving me joy, peace, energy, and satisfaction, I can see how important God's commandments are to my day-to-day life. God's commandment to love God, love others, and love ourselves are not merely given to us because it's a good thing to do or because we need to do it to please God. God gave us these commandments because he cares for us and wants the best for us. It's not just good for God - it's good for us.

I've learned that when I do things that flow out of love I receive feelings of joy and satisfaction. When I do things simply because I think I should, because they're a chore, I get dragged down - drained of energy and joy.

Jesus said to the Samaritan woman at the well, "Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life." John 4:13-14. Jesus referred to this spiritual water as "living water."

I've always sort of known what he meant by "living water," but was never able to quite define it to myself in words. But in the meditating I've been doing lately, I think I've come up with what he meant: God's love flows into us and then flows out from us to others - never lying still or becoming stagnant - always flowing. In the receiving and giving it quenches our thirst; it feeds us; it produces an abundant life. This is the Holy Spirit living within us, helping us to be the kind of people God wants us to be and helping us live the kind of lives that will be fulfilling.

For me, supporting people with mood disorders, both in bloggerland and in the world around me, feeds me tremendously. It gives me great joy. Cleaning house when I'm expecting friends over is okay too, especially if I listen to some good music while doing it. But when I have to dust, vacuum, and clean the bathrooms simply because "I should," that's draining - it's a drag.

So...What activities feed you? And what activities drain you? Where do you find most joy and fulfillment?

Good things about depression

I've had Susan Bernard's post on depression open for days, intending to add some thoughts it stirred up in me. But I've been too lazy to use my head for a while and have - I'm sorry - had to put off blogging for a while. But today is the day I will try to address it.

Susan quotes from a book by Jonathan Zeuss, M.D.:

"Depression is a quest for vision; its essence is transformation. Depression wells up and encompasses us for a time in a state of painful, dream-saturated formlessness, but its true purpose is to provide the opportunity for healing insight, renewal, and reintegration..."

One of my favorite books on depression is New Light on Depression by Harold G. Koenig, M.D. and David B. Biebel, D. Min. Much of the book deals with depression from a Christian perspective. I think it's Biebel who said, "...depression's saving grace is not that it can be conquered but that it puts depressed persons of faith in touch with deeper truths about reality, spirituality, and themselves than might otherwise be known." (Yes, I think I understand more about life than those for whom life has been easier.)

He goes on to say - and this is a little bit of a different positive angle I can really relate to:

"Having one's capacity for serenity and joy restored is little compensation for the agony of despair, much less the 'despair beyond despair.' The only true compensation for depression has to do with the sense of purpose and fulfillment that comes from redemptive involvement with others in distress, sharing the comfort we've experienced. This is the true route to joy."

In my own way, I've found a purpose that I probably would not have had, were it not for my bouts with the effects of bipolar disorder - especially the depression. I've come to think of depression as fodder, something bad out of which good can come. Though I suffer as much as anyone while I'm going through it, I know it will help me to help others. And helping others IS "the true route to joy." It truly is.

Depression: a disease or a state of mind?

Mel Avila Alarilla left an interesting comment on my last post - something that prompts me to discuss this further.

Yes, depression is a state of mind, but this state of mind is caused by a disease - or a disorder.

I think there's an unfortunate misunderstanding of what mental illness is. In my opinion keeping "physical" and "mental" illnesses as separate entities is a mistake. I believe that mental illness is just as much a physical problem as heart disease, asthma, or diabetis. In mental illness the organ that's affected is the brain. Physiological malfunction of this organ affects a person's thinking, emotions, and behavior. This occurs through no fault of the person who is ill. I feel the time must come that mental illness be no longer put in a separate category. It IS just another illness.

Can faith conquer depression? Faith will help us cope, as it does with other illnesses. But once a person has a disease like bipolar, depression and mania are inevitable, no matter how much faith he has. We can cling to scripture all we want and it will often help, but the depression and negative thinking and feeling that comes with it cannot be avoided. Neither can our highs with the elated feelings be avoided. This is the nature of the disease.

Mel says how his life changed when he began following Jesus. I can enthusiastically say mine did too. It's quite amazing where God has brought me and I'm very grateful. I'm sure I wouldn't be doing as well as I am now if it weren't for Jesus in my life. The church I belong to has been very supportive. Through my friends there, I've come to understand how great God's love is. The knowledge and assurance of that love does much to keep me well, secure, and with less fear than I would otherwise have. Sharing that love with others has taken me out of the victim role and made me strong.

...Yet I still get hopelessly depressed at times. It just happens. I went through two months of it only a while ago. I struggled, I prayed, and my friends prayed with me. But it had to run its course.

I must say, though, that experiencing these moods is not all bad. The suffering is misery - yes. But going through this suffering is what helps me understand others who suffer. I know a language that those who have it easy cannot understand. This language helps me connect with many people. If I didn't go through depression once in a while I might forget. I would perhaps lose the ability to have compassion.

I'm not sorry that God made me the way he did - bipolar and all. I know he did it for a reason. He has given me work to do that I can do precisely because I have this disease. And I love this work. Facilitating Living Room, the faith-based support group for people with mood disorders, is pure joy. I like to refer to the way I feel after meetings as "holy joy." There's nothing else like it. Hard to believe, I know, but true.