The Fight on Depression

by Liz Reehle

Everywhere I walk, I see a battlefield. My crashed car, my lousy grades, the person that my harsh words hurt: they cast shadows of shame that must be fought with a righteous blade. The shadows whisper that I am a failure, that I am abominable.

My sword attacks, saying “I am redeemed;” “His Grace is enough.”
My feet take me past beggars, through graveyards, and far away from the people I love. Those paths are filled with monsters of rage that relentlessly attack saying, “this is not how the world is supposed to be!” But I defend with a quiver of hope, saying “all will be made right, and there is peace in the pain.”

I didn’t always see the world like that. Once, I saw only the shadows and monsters. There was a time when I was absolutely defeated by depression. I felt either nothing or everything at once. My life was ruled by either apathy or rage.
I would feel so much that I had to turn it off. I would get so angry that I needed to resort to apathy.

That was the only way I knew how to survive.
But not anymore. Now, I fight back. And I find joy.

Joy In The Fight

What I offer you in these pages is not a way to end the pain in your life. No, I want to show you that it has been redeemed. Not for some reason you will never understand or for some far off time that seems out of reach. Your pain can be fulfilled in this present time. There is hope to be had and joy to be grasped in the very center of this raging mass of pain that seems to push on us with the weight of the world.
Just don’t give up. Fight.
 
Someone told me once that they always associate joy with fighting. They said, “I can’t quite explain it, but every time something good happens, I need to grab my training swords and go at it. It’s like that moment in battle when you’ve finally pushed past the enemy line and it's no longer a deadlock—you finally have the advantage.

That's pure joy to me." The man who said that understands that the Fight is not the exception. We don’t fight temporarily, hoping for something better. We do not fight depression only to see it gone. The Fight itself is hope and joy.

The Fight is not a time when you strip yourself of the honor that you practice so you might destroy and conquer. The Fight is the epitome of who we are and what we strive to become. Battle is where our skill is most truly displayed, our honor is most prominent, our joy is most true. Any one of these things can falter on the field, but if it does, then that is the true color of it. The Fight is the test which kills the lies that hinder the progression of these qualities.

The Fight may drain your body and heart; it may steal your joy—but it will restore it in full—if, with every drop of sweat and blood, you cling to the sober foundation that every moment of pain has meaning.
And as you begin to understand—to truly grasp joy in the midst of grief and death and horror—you begin to taste the truest form of joy. And from then on, the Fight becomes inseparable from any form of joy—because you know what joy is supposed to be. You need the raw, sober, reality of the joy that once flowed so strongly through your pulsing, bleeding veins.

There is victory to be found in the War on depression, but victory is not something that you achieve then leave in the pages of history. Victory is something that you grasp every day as you Fight. It does not come easily, but there are no words to describe the worth of fighting for it.

Depression is hell. No matter how you may convince yourself that you’re alright, depression causes a rift between you and everything good. Depression separates you from Life, from Love—from God.

Don’t settle for it.

Don’t give up.

Fight!