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hi. long time no heart-to-heart.

it has taken a great deal of effort for me to actually write this, so forgive me if I struggle to get to the point.

I’ll start, I guess, by explaining the tension I’m feeling.  I feel that good stories are about redemption in some form. admittedly I’m biased, because my obsession with the arts is tied to my view that good art glorifies our Creator; I think through art we are able to relate to God, and that being creative is a way to bear his image. my main art form of choice is story-telling.

when I engage with a story – whether in reading, writing, or listening – I yearn for the redemption. for the closure, the restoration, the happy ending or sad ending or poignant ending (big fan of tragedies here). but always that resolution- why was the struggle worth it? what was the point? where was the win, or meaningful loss?

and we all tell stories with our lives, don’t we? so why shouldn’t I ask the same questions of reality?

my life includes micro-stories where redemption and closure are already visible. I see how my struggle / reluctance to learn to read was brought full circle in that I am now a published author. I see that the obstacles to my moving out when I was originally trying are the ones that put me in line for the best possible apartment, flatmates, job, etc. it can be easy to spot these micro-resolutions, and easy to assume that life is made up of them.

over the years, I’ve tried to be honest with the world about about struggling with depression, but I’m finding that it’s harder and harder to be honest with myself.

in the past few years, I’ve battled the darkness, I’ve won some battles, I’ve learned to fight more effectively. which is why, I think, defeat feels harder to admit? does everyone that takes two steps forward sometimes take one back? they must, right? I’m not some anomaly for feeling that I’m losing ground I once won?

the thing is, I’ve been actually practicing self-care. I’ve been blocking off nights to be home, to write. I’ve been really saying “no” for the first time in my life, holding to boundaries, spending time in prayer. I’ve been going to bed early (so early, guys). I’ve been doing it all right.

but this dreadfully familiar sadness prevails. that’s what I’ve been calling it when people ask- “sadness”, though if I’m honest I’ve been here before, and I know it has a name. I’ve been getting away with not naming it by telling myself it’s a fluke, but there’s no practical reason that I sometimes come home at night, crawl under my covers, stare at the ceiling, and cry until I fall asleep. some nights my thoughts go much darker than others, down a long, shadowy path that has death somewhere as the answer. sometimes I can catch them in time to fight back, pray, and go to sleep, and wake up before they do. it’s been almost a month of this, of almost every sad or happy thought finding a way to spiral downward into despair.

but still, when people ask how I am, I keep telling them I’m doing really well! like, with exclamation points!

why? why can’t I just tell them what I know is true, that my head’s still broken? that some things have gotten better, but not everything.

there’s a weird tension in Christianity called “the already and the not-yet”, and I think it applies to my story with depression, at least for now. I am redeemed. my broken, imperfect head and heart have been rescued from this decaying world for a better one- but for now I still have to live here, and feel these things, and try to get out of bed in the mornings, and try, try, to remember that God can be glorified in my pain and that that makes it all worth it.

in June of last year I wrote this note in my phone: “I think I’m supposed to write about depression & mental illness. I think broken hearts and minds are a part of my story for a reason.” that was the week I wrote my story about the siren, which I personally think might be the best thing I’ve ever written.

in the spirit of difficult honesty, I’m crying while I write this, wondering why this hasn’t been enough. I feel as though I’ve learned so much, grown so much, relinquished so much. I don’t have to still be depressed to empathize with those who are, do I? I don’t have to still be depressed to write about it, do I? couldn’t I just remember? why does it have to be a present struggle?

maybe it doesn’t. maybe tomorrow it’ll be gone. maybe this season of my life that has felt so long (a decade, I think? a decade is a long time, even if I’m still young) will come soon to its close and I’ll look back on it one day as the foundational time that I learned my own heart and God’s. I don’t curse him for the depression; I know he walks beside me in the midst of it, and I know that he is a good father. he may rid me of it, or he may not, and either way I will praise him.

I’m digressing, though.

I started writing this because for some reason I’ve been incredibly reluctant to admit to anyone that I’m depressed.

my friend Joy asked me how I was this weekend and I cheerfully said I was doing “pretty well!” and she said, “right, that’s great, but are you lying?” and I realized I was. to her and myself and apparently everyone else who’s asked recently. I told her that it felt like I was admitting defeat to say I was depressed, when I’d made such strides and had been doing well for a while, and that I didn’t want to “go back” to being depressed.

her response was so kind and truthful, and I am so grateful for it. (to paraphrase) she said, “if we feel like we’re letting ourselves down and failing, that’s saying that the victory was ours to begin with, when really it was the work of Jesus and not our own efforts. we can’t ‘go back’,” she said, “because our old self is dead, we are new in Christ, and whatever happens next, we’re moving forward- even if that new season comes with depression. it will also be a new season of knowing God in a new way.”

so to close, without any resolution save the hope of some to come, I’ll just admit to being depressed, repent for thinking that people don’t care enough to know, and ask for your prayers. I’m tired of being depressed. I’m tired of not being able to believe the voice of my own thoughts. fighting them is exhausting. even when I look at the ways God has redeemed pieces of my pain in the past, it’s still hard to feel like it will be worth it at moments.

I could write pages on the tension of being content in all things and in bearing my suffering well, while also not giving in to the darkness and accepting it without a fight. but for tonight, I’ll sign off, because this post is long enough, and I’ll ask you to pray as I do that I’d know God’s voice better than my enemy’s, so that when they’re both speaking to me, I’ll know who to listen to. right now I don’t have closure, but I have a God who will redeem every broken thing in the end.

 

soli Deo gloria

~Lydia

 

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I wasn’t going to share this with anyone.  it was cathartic for me to write it, and I was going to keep it like that.  I don’t want to be dramatic.  I promise, promise, that’s not why I share these things.  I am passionate about hearing and sharing stories, yes, but not about clickbait.  (unless it’s a facebook status.  sometimes I think I’m funny.)  but I don’t share my feelings – which are sometimes very painful to write down, and sometimes very soothing to write down, but always leave me very vulnerable when shared with other people – to get attention.

I share them because I have learned by doing so that I am not alone.

because for some reason, to help me cope, or to help others cope, my creator allows me to word things in a way that have made other hurting people say, “I feel the same, but I didn’t know how to say it.”
I share my feelings because people have said to me, “I didn’t think I could talk about it, but now I will.”
because people have said, “I had no idea you felt those things.  I thought I was the only one.”
because people have said, “I don’t struggle with depression, and I didn’t know how to relate to loved-ones who did. your writing has helped me understand.”
because people have said, “I tried to kill myself, and I don’t know how to tell anyone, and I need to talk.”

and I promise I don’t mean this to puff myself up in any conceivable way.  I am deeply grateful for the chance to open a crack of light into someone’s darkness, someone who maybe doesn’t realize the scores of people who love them and want to be there for them but don’t know what’s going on behind the scenes.  I am deeply grateful for the chance to process through words what often feels like unbearable weight; without that outlet, I think I might have broken by now.  I am deeply grateful to the people who surround me and ask me how I’m doing, and remind me that I am loved when they see me, and have never, ever, made me feel disgusting or annoying or too broken when I share what’s crowding my head.  I know there are so many people who don’t have that, or who are so much more severely depressed than I am.  I could have it so much worse.  so I am grateful.  I hope that when I tell you that most people are willing to love, you will be encouraged to talk about the hard things.

so.  suicide.

we can skip the backstory on my decade or so of struggling with depression, and the years where I felt guilty even calling it that because I wasn’t cutting or trying to kill myself.  by God’s grace I’ve never gotten that far, thought I’ve thought about it a lot.  I’ve decided, and then undecided.  I actually just typed out the story of the first time I planned to take my life and then erased it.  I don’t think you need to know that.  I don’t think I need to talk about the details of the moment or the ways I decided to “do the deed” over the course of those hardest years.  what matters, I think, is that I’m still here.  and that you are, and you’re reading this, if suicide as ever appealed to you.

about a month ago was the first time I thought about ending my life in years.  thoughts of, “I don’t want to be alive” and “this is all just too much” have come and gone, sure, but I’ve been in deep enough pits that I can see mere potholes for what they are, at least.

this last time it was a different approach, one that seemed logical and causal.  I think it was the worst, because it was the hardest to talk myself out of, and the hardest to pinpoint where to lay the blame.  I’m not going to tell the story of how my brain reached the conclusion of, “it would probably be best and simplest just to end things.”  instead I’m just going to share what I wrote afterward, angry and exhausted.

 

“

dear Suicide:

you’re beautiful in theory.  you sound like the clear air after I’ve been under the covers for too long, or the quiet darkness when I close my eyes after a long, weary day.

you sound like the easy way out, and the hardest decision.  a little selfish, because you leave so many in pain in your wake.  but right, because some things feel too heavy to keep on bearing.

you sound like rest.  to be done with the pain and the heaviness.  an end of the weariness and the sharp aches and the tears and fissures in my heart.  what a thought.  full to brimming over with sweet possibilities.  and my savior at the end, of course.  a shortcut to that joy.

these are the sweet things you tell me.  these are your calls, your promises, your guarantees.

but Suicide, I need to stop listening to you, always beckoning me closer.

all the crowding thoughts, that tell me things won’t change, or need to change, I need to shut them out.  they all lead to you.  you don’t tell me how to fix things, only how to escape them.  I don’t think Jesus wants me to escape the hard things.

I think he wants to redeem them.

maybe with my help.

maybe that’s why I can’t quit.

that’s why I have to stay, even though you’re pulling.

I’ve said no once, twice, half a dozen times.  why do you insist?  why do you try to change my mind?

what if this is all so much bigger than I am?  what if I need to stay to do something, to bring God glory, to tell stories, and hear stories, and bless people and be blessed by people?  what if I’m a thread Jesus wants to weave through this city and the lives of the people around me and the literary arts?  what if, what if, what if?  why would you want to take me away from that, pulling at me with your sweet whisperings, or your alternating emotions and logic?

one day it’s, “but it makes sense.  you can’t fix this, you can’t be better; just cut it off now before you waste breath and time and effort.  you know you should quit while you can.  just make the rational decision.”  and another day it’s, “you know this is too heavy to bear up under.  you know you’ll break.  it hurts too much, it always will.  it will only get worse.  end it.  save yourself the heartache.”

but I won’t listen.  I won’t obey.

you’re a pretty door I won’t walk through.

you’re not worth it.

it’s really hard to say what is worth it, on the hard days.  so I’m making a list, of just a few things:

-little faces, splitting with love, and the cries of, “MISS LYDIA!” as they run on pitter-pattering feet toward me across a room.
-heads dropped on shoulders, looking at the stars, losing trails of thought and laughing about feelings.
-dancing in my room when I’m the only one home, pretending I’m Liza Minnelli in a cabaret club.
-knowing I’m the only one in the world who was trusted with someone’s secret.
-curling up in bed with pillows all around and a good book and a sense of total calm and real sabbath.
-crowds of strangers on a city street with stories etched on their brows and unknown eternities riding on their shoulders, full of endless possibility.
-the moment when the airline company sends you a confirmation on tickets you’ve just purchased, and you know you’re going to go somewhere.
-coming into a room and having someone grin and wave when they spot you.
-perfect, smooth pebbles worn down by salt water, and bright green leaves against dark wood after a spring rain.
-finding dried, pressed flowers in a book you forgot about.
-waiting for a polaroid picture to develop.
-the moment when the lights go dim in a theater and the orchestra quiets before the overture starts.

so goodbye, Suicide the Promising.  what you have going for you is an end.

I’m going to choose beginnings.

you lose.  you’ll always lose.

”

 

it’s World Suicide Prevention Day, the culmination of World Suicide Prevention Week.

two days ago I was at work and I got lost down a trail of ugly thoughts that ended with me saying to myself, “you are just weak and afraid, Lydia.”  I think the worst things I’ve ever been told are the things I say to myself.  I am so unkind.  maybe we need to stop listening to ourselves.

you, reading this: you are beautiful.  and valuable.  and the God of the universe stamped you with his image because he loves you, and he died to save you because he thinks you’re worth it, and he calls you his beloved.  he has made us his sons and daughters by giving up his own life for us.

and maybe you don’t believe that.  or you know it’s true but it doesn’t seem like enough- like living isn’t worth the pain of the day-to-day, when everything is going wrong, or nothing is but you are the world’s biggest mess on the inside.  I know those days.  today I’m writing from a good place; life is crazy and I’m in the middle of my own heartbreaks and frustrations, but I know I’m okay.  maybe you don’t know you’re okay.  but today, I want to stand in the gap for you.  today I know you’re brilliant and you have purpose, and you are a gorgeous, unique, funny, strange, worthwhile human being.  there are people who love you, or who will love you, people who will hurt with you and hold your hand if you let them.  and there is a world around you that is in need of you.  a neighbor who will need help up the stairs, or starving children who need your rescue plan.  there is a place that you are meant to fill on planet earth.  don’t quit on humanity yet.

don’t quit on me.

I’ll see you tomorrow.

 

~Lydia

 

p.s. I wrote something, this summer, when I was in a dark place.  it’s short, some weird fiction that deals with depression.  maybe it’ll speak to you.  maybe not.  you can find it here.

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the exquisite William Butler Yeats penned one of my favorite poems into existence somewhere around a hundred years ago:

A mermaid found a swimming lad,
Picked him for her own,
Pressed her body to his body,
Laughed; and plunging down
Forgot in cruel happiness
That even lovers drown.

cover that I made because that's my favorite

I am – and have for a long time been – so in love with this tiny poem as to consider tattooing a line from it on my body.  I have since narrowed down my tattoo plans, but that was just so you know how much I adore it.  it’s sad and beautiful, which all of my favorite poems are (don’t get me started on Annabel Lee – I melt every time).

all that to say, like many girls I have an interest in and love for the idea of mermaids, for whatever reason.  unlike many, however, I like the bleak, tragic side of those tales- the deaths, the retribution, the eeriness.  I love the siren myths, the old Norse legends of Rán- stories with hideous creatures singing themselves into the favor of unsuspecting sailors before drowning them.  while I enjoyed my fair share of Emily Windsnap books as a tween, the darker stories have always been that toward which I gravitate.  (we shouldn’t really get into what I think of the modern treatment of “vampirism” in recent “literature”.  I get a bit heated.)

I’ve had this story about a human-turned-siren in my head for a while, and in my secret boards on

pinterest for a while.  I tried writing it once or twice, and it fizzled out each time.  I think I want to turn every idea I have into a full-length novel and am only just now (um…maybe last week? yeah, it might be that recent) discovered that I can write short stories and novellas as well.

so yesterday I jotted down a few notes, and today I sat down at my laptop and recorded my first efforts.  it’s not that exciting, I’ll warn you up front.  it’s really just me typing and back-spacing strings of words and occasionally clicking over to pinterest for a refresher on something I’d wanted to include, or a dash of inspiration.  (I didn’t even spice things up with a trip to dictionary.com.)  so this is quite nerve-wracking, in a way, because you get to see that my writing process is really not that magical.  just in case you had been thinking that before.  which I’m sure you were.  so sure that I’m going to stop talking about it.

siren song pinterest screenshot

 

this post is also an opportunity to couple my new project with something that my lovely, amazingly-talented writer friends have been urging me to join in on: the newly invented “#WatchMeWrite” tag.  it took me a while to produce a sample because a) I don’t have a mac and needed my tech-savvy brother to help me find an alternate program and b) everything I tried to write “on camera” was coming out boring, awkward, boring, and did I mention boring?  hopefully this satisfies!

so here it is, my new project, temporarily titled “Siren Song”- because that was what I called the pinterest board, okay?  (p.s. bear with me on the tense in this piece – I cannot in words express my love for second-person-tense in fiction, when it’s done well, and preferably with longing and dismay.  however, this story is proving difficult in terms of remembering the perspective I’m supposed to be in.  I’ll work on consistency.)

thanks Sam Chaffin and E. R. Warren for making me do this!!  go check out their blogs/vimeos and watch their videos of the tag!  and to those of you who were tagged and haven’t participated, or haven’t been tagged but would love to make a video, get right on it!  it’s so much fun/pressure and I loved it.  make sure to tag it #WatchMeWrite and tweet about it, and feel free to share a link to it in the comments below!

(song: If I Had A Heart by Fever Ray (my love for this song is unparalleled.  that may be extreme.  but I love it lots, thanks to the epic show Vikings on the History Channel).)

(video assistance credits: introduction to and help with the program ChronoLapse from my big brother, video game developer extraordinaire, Jake Albano, and video/audio/slide work/help from my stellar film-editing-genius little brother Ben Albano.  they’re the best.)

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