Chaplain's Corner

October / November 2005

Dealing with Depression

Twenty five years ago, when I had a brain injury, I thought all that I need do was work hard on mental and physical healing. My emotions shut down and over the next year it became increasingly evident that the old me had gone on vacation, never to return.

In the spring of 1981 I had an emotional breakdown and ended up in the psych ward of the hospital where I had almost died the year before. In my spiritual distress the weeks before the breakdown I can remember crying out to God for help. I needed to make sense of how everything had seemingly gone so wrong.

After a few weeks in the hospital, where at the same time I got metal pins out of my right leg, I returned from North Carolina to Akron to begin the long road back. The pressure I placed on myself to live up to the old Charlie were there no more. In my depression I saw myself as Humpty-Dumpty, and I didn't see any way I could be put together again.

Then I rediscovered my spiritual being. I started attending a church. That first Sunday I felt the peace of God which had eluded me for the past year. Eleven months later I had recovered enough to return to the University of North Carolina and finish my degree. For almost ten years I was free from depression.

The ensuing years after that my marriage of seven years failed, and I left a very unhealthy church I had been the pastor of for two years. Then in the fall of 1997 I came back to Edwin Shaw as the Chaplain. Those seven-and-a -half years were the best of my adult life.

Yet, during the later years I began dealing with another disability. A failed shoulder surgery in the summer of 2001 left me depressed. With the help of medication and encouragement from family and friends my depression did lift for a time. Now I am waiting for the third operation as a skilled surgeon finishes reconstructing my right shoulder. I am hoping it only takes one surgery to repair my left shoulder!

I haven't worked since March and still must see one more doctor before being approved for disability. For over two years I have been trying to balance pain medication versus simply living with pain. With a brain injury, taking as many narcotics as are prescribed for “normal” persons changes my personality and ability to think so much that living with intense pain at times has been the best answer.

As a Christian, I know how important it is to take care of my body, soul, and spirit. As has often been the case lately, however, I haven't felt line exercising my body, reading the Bible and paying, or becoming involved in church.

But then there is the walk I took this morning! Beautiful sunshine reflecting through the trees, cooler temperature without humidity and the joy that comes from enjoying God’s creation was a great start to this fall day. I will continue pressing ahead, and in the process overcome the helpless and hopeless feelings of major depression.

The Apostle Paul writes this to the Philippian church:
 

“I want to know Christ and the power of His resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like Him unto death, and so, somehow to attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained all this. Or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me. Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead. I press on toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

Philippians 3:10-14

Friends, my hope is that all of us can choose to exercise our bodies, our minds, will and emotions, so that our spirits may be ready to hear and experience the love of God which has no end.

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