I wonder how much of my life I’ve spent trying to convince people I’m okay because I was terrified of what would happen if they found out I wasn’t.
And an even uglier question?
How much of that convincing was really for me?
Because somewhere along the way, I became a woman who could survive just about anything but couldn’t figure out how to admit when something was killing her spirit.
And I hate that sentence.
I hate how familiar it feels. I hate that I can encourage somebody through the very darkness I’m sitting in and somehow still convince myself that asking for the same encouragement makes me weak.
I can tell somebody else that depression isn’t their fault, that healing isn’t linear, that God hasn’t abandoned them, and that needing help doesn’t make them less of a person.
Then turn around, look in the mirror, and ask myself what in the world is wrong with me.
Girl, are we extending grace or are we running a nonprofit with everybody else’s name on the application?
Because apparently compassion is available to the general public, but I’ve been denied membership.
And here’s what really hurts.
I have a life I prayed for.
I have people who love me. I have reasons to laugh. I have mornings where the coffee tastes exactly right, the house is quiet, and nothing particularly terrible is happening.
And sometimes I still feel sad.
Not because I’m ungrateful. Not because I don’t recognize God’s goodness. Not because I don’t want to be here.
But because depression doesn’t check my gratitude list before deciding how heavy the day is going to feel.
And do you know how exhausting it is to feel guilty for struggling?
To feel like you owe God an apology because He’s been good to you and you’re still having a hard time?
I’ve caught myself wondering whether my sadness is an insult to His faithfulness.
As if the God who formed me is somehow shocked that the woman He created has a nervous system, emotions, limitations, and a breaking point.
And maybe that’s the part of my insecurity I haven’t wanted to confront.
I don’t just fear being inadequate.
I fear being seen as inadequate.
There’s a difference.
Because I’ve spent years building an identity around being the woman who figures it out. The woman who doesn’t need much. The woman who can take a hit, straighten her shirt, fix her face, and keep moving.
And people applaud that woman.
They call her strong. Resilient. Independent.
But nobody asks how much of that strength was developed because she never felt safe enough to be anything else.
Whew.
Because I didn’t become hyper-independent simply because I enjoyed doing things myself.
I became hyper-independent because somewhere in my story, needing somebody started feeling more dangerous than going without.
And now I’m grown, loved, married, surrounded by people who genuinely care, and still occasionally responding to tenderness like somebody just pulled a weapon.
“Let me help you.”
Help me WHAT?
See. Ridiculous.
But that’s what happens when survival becomes your personality. You start protecting yourself from the very things you’ve been praying to receive.
And depression has a way of making those old defenses louder.
Which brings me back to Bridesmaids.
Remember when Annie and Helen kept trying to outdo each other during the engagement speeches?
One grabs the microphone, the other takes it back. One gets sentimental, the other gets more sentimental. Then we’re speaking foreign languages, singing, performing, and doing absolutely everything except letting somebody else have a moment.
That’s my mind.
God says, “I knew you before I formed you.”
Depression grabs the microphone.
“Then You knew she’d end up like this?”
God says, “Do not be afraid, for I am with you.”
Insecurity stands up.
“Okay, but let’s discuss all the times she thought she was doing well and fell apart anyway.”
God reminds me that I am not abandoned.
And hyper-independence is already halfway through a speech about why we don’t need anybody, including the people God may be using to help us.
MA’AM. THIS IS NOT YOUR RECEPTION.
But what bothered me this morning wasn’t that those voices were speaking.
It was realizing how often I handed them the microphone.
Jeremiah 1:4-8 tells us about God calling Jeremiah. Before Jeremiah could explain his limitations, God established that He already knew him. Before Jeremiah could argue that he was too young and didn’t know how to speak, God had already spoken about his purpose.
And Jeremiah still objected.
Which, respectfully, I understand.
Because sometimes what God says about me feels so far removed from what I feel about myself that I wonder whether we’re discussing the same woman.
God, You see purpose?
Because I see somebody who has cried over things she thought she’d already healed from.
You see strength?
Because I see somebody who sometimes gets irritated by the smallest inconvenience because she’s already emotionally exhausted before breakfast.
You see somebody worth using?
Because I see somebody who has needed more help lately than she’s comfortable admitting.
And that’s when the question hit me.
When did I decide that struggling made me less worthy of being loved, helped, or called?
Who taught me that being useful was the price of being valuable?
And why am I still making payments on a debt God never asked me to owe?
Because Jeremiah’s limitations didn’t surprise God.
And mine don’t either.
But I need to stop romanticizing my ability to suffer silently.
There is nothing holy about refusing help until I’m drowning. There is nothing admirable about bleeding internally while congratulating myself for not inconveniencing anybody.
And there is certainly nothing faithful about treating my depression like a character defect.
I can love God and need therapy.
I can believe in healing and take medication.
I can have a beautiful marriage and still have difficult days.
I can be grateful to be alive and still admit that living has felt painfully heavy sometimes.
Those truths can exist in the same body.
And maybe the reason this season has been so uncomfortable is because I’m being confronted with something I’ve spent my entire life avoiding.
I cannot always rescue myself.
Lord, I don’t even like typing that.
Because if I can’t rescue myself, I have to trust somebody else enough to reach for their hand.
And if I reach for their hand, they might see how badly mine is shaking.
But perhaps that’s what I need to learn.
Not how to become stronger.
How to stop being ashamed of the moments when I’m not.
I don’t want to spend the rest of my life being so committed to appearing healed that I never give myself permission to actually heal.
I don’t want to keep confusing isolation with peace, emotional numbness with maturity, or exhaustion with obedience.
And I don’t want to keep treating every difficult morning as evidence that I’m failing at life.
Because sometimes getting up is an act of courage.
Sometimes making the appointment is courage.
Sometimes telling my husband the truth instead of saying “I’m fine” is courage.
Sometimes taking the medication, asking for prayer, admitting I’m overwhelmed, or allowing somebody to sit beside me without trying to fix anything is courage.
And none of those things make me less of a woman of faith.
I’m realizing that the voice of depression may be loud, but volume has never been proof of authority.
Just because a thought sounds convincing doesn’t mean it deserves my agreement.
And just because I’ve believed something terrible about myself for years doesn’t make it true.
So maybe today I don’t need another performance.
Maybe I need honesty.
I’m hurting in places I don’t always know how to explain.
I’m healing from things I thought I’d already survived.
I’m learning that being needed and being loved are not the same thing.
And I’m trying to stop punishing myself for being human.
I don’t know exactly what the fully healed version of me will look like.
But I hope she’s softer with herself.
I hope she doesn’t apologize every time she needs something.
I hope she learns that rest doesn’t have to be earned through exhaustion and that love doesn’t have to be secured through usefulness.
And I hope she remembers that God knew her before she ever learned how to hide her pain behind competence.
So depression can have its feelings.
Insecurity can have its objections.
And hyper-independence can sit down somewhere because, baby, we have heard ENOUGH from you.
But none of them gets to define me.
Because I am not just the woman who survived what happened to her.
I’m also the woman who deserves to experience the life she survived for.
And perhaps the most courageous thing I’ll do in this season isn’t proving that I can carry everything.
It’s finally admitting that I was never supposed to.
I spent so much of my life being proud that nobody could tell I was drowning. Now I’m learning there’s no prize for making the struggle look pretty.
And for once, I don’t want applause for how well I survived.
I want to be well enough to enjoy being alive.