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Depression.
All my life I've felt alone and unloved. I don't even feel that I was ever part of a family. Even as a child being the oldest I had to sort out my own problems. Then when I had my own family I still felt like an outsider.
Thinking back I wonder if that's why I'm like I am today. I find it hard to talk to anyone if I have any problems. I try to hide my feelings and work things out for myself. Sometimes when something really gets to me I explode but even then I'll only let so much out. I just can't let anyone see how much they have hurt me.
I've been told I can't let things go. When I've been hurt in some way no matter how trivial it might seem to that person I can't let it go for a while no matter how I try. Eventually I let it go but it's very rare that I forget.
Sometimes it would be nice to just be held and told that you are loved or that everything is going to work out fine even if there isn't anything wrong. Just to feel loved, wanted and needed. We all need re-assurance from the person we love, even if we are living with them and we lie next to them in bed every night.
They say what you've never had you never miss. I don't feel this is true. Each one of us has a heart. We all need to feel part of a family but most of all each and everyone of us need to feel loved, wanted and needed.
Is there something wrong with me? Or am I right.
Maybe some of this is what lead upto the depressed state I got into a couple of years ago.
I'll try and explain that now:-
Depression.
Do you ever:-
1. Feel no one cares if you live or die?
2. Hate yourself?
3. Have days where you feel constantly sick and want to lie in bed, just wanting to go to sleep and never wake up again?
4. When you look through a mirror all you see is this over weight ugly witch staring back at you?
5. You can’t face food?
6. Everything you try to do is wrong?
Etc………..
About two years ago I took that one step further. I took an overdose.
I feel this is the right time to talk about this, in the hope that if you’re in same position you know you are not alone. Many before and many after us have and will go through it. To those of you who haven’t hopefully it will give a little insight.
Somehow I got through the first twelve months after my husband passed away, I sorted everything out and then I planned a vacation to go and see my family in England. Maybe that’s what carried me through, I had something to look forward to.
I wanted to come back to Canada, England didn’t feel like home anymore. Then about 5 months after I returned the depression started to set in. I felt no one cared if I lived or died and that no-one loved me. I had all the feelings I’ve listed above and more.
I had it all worked out. My friend had gone to Germany to see her Grandchildren, I’m a private person so my neighbours don’t find it unusual if they don’t see me for days on end. I wouldn’t be found until it was too late.
I woke up three days later. God must have had other plans for me, even though I didn’t realize it at the time.
The next few months were a struggle. I had to fight with myself everyday not to take another overdose. Then I started to lose the fight with myself. I was ready to make another attempt to take my life. This is when God stepped in. I heard a song “Teach Me” – Ken Rich. I wrote to Ken and he told me about his site “Indie Gospel Artists”. Even though I can’t sing a note I’ve always loved music so I joined Indie. In many ways I’ve gone from strength to strength, thanks to Ken’s song and Indie Gospel.
It’s not easy by any means to get over depression. I’m not really sure if it ever goes away completely. I'll probably always have those feelings I listed above. But I do know I have to be strong and fight back, no matter how easy it seems just flip the lid on the pill bottle and end it all. I know now there are people out there who love me and would miss me.
Thank you God for your love and giving me a second chance.
Thank you Ken for “Teach Me” and letting me run riot on Indie.
Thank you Jim for being you, loving me and always being there for me.
Truly an awesome testimony Jean! Now must be the time for you to tell this, I am sure it will help someone here! I struggled with sickness/pain and bad depression in 1997-1998. I reached out to food for my comfort though.
Your testimony prompts me to share a part of my "Damascus Road" experience with everyone here also. I had lived a life of great sin, from the time I was about 14 until I was led back to Christ in 1995. I was "saved" at an altar at a church when I was 12 years old, and truly believe that I was saved, so I believe I was in a backslidden condition.
I was only writing secular songs, and playing in clubs and bars. I had not yet been given my first Gopel song. I was living in much sin, when I began to get very sick with migraine headaches and uncontrollable high blood pressure. Drs. put me on different pills, trying to cure the headaches and bring the blood pressure down. Nothing worked and it was so bad I could not get off of my couch, because the pain in my head was so bad. I would go to the emergency room 3 times a week, begging them to help me. It was so bad that I even remember scratching the walls in my bedroom and begging for God to help me. This went on , this suffering for about 3 or 4 years or more. Then one day in particular, yet another dr. gave me yet another pill.
I had already taken so many "new " pills and would end up in the hospital with terrible reactions to the pills, so I was reluctant to take another one, but in desperation I did. Well, this pill did worse than all the other pills, and I had such a horrible reaction that I went into deliriums and turned white as a sheet (I am told). I knew,after taking that pill, and how I felt, that I was going to literally die. I knew it with such a certainty in my heart.
When I knew I was going to die from this bad reation to the pill, I got this terrible feeling, an eerie feeling, that I was going to go to hell when I died, and I KNEW this also in my spirit. It was a very creepy but urgent feeling. Out of the right corner of my vision, as I began feeling this eerieness, I saw 2 or 3 black shadowy type figures come into my bedroom, and they came past the side of my bed, through the entrance to the bedroom, and they went and stood at the end of my bed! I knew with absolute certainty that they were there for ME. I knew that they were waiting to take my soul to hell.
At that moment, with those shadowy figures standing at the end of my bed, I began beseeching the Lord to SAVE ME, and not let me go to hell. I promised I would serve him, and probably all sorts of other promises, if He would just SAVE ME. IN my heart, I begged the Lord like I had never begged before in my life. I did not want to go to hell!
Right afterward, I began to feel a PEACE in my heart and my spirit, and so I looked up at the end of the bed, but then these white shadowy figures floated in the same way the black shadow figures came in,and I could see them, and they went to the end of the bed, and they ran the black figures back out of the room!
I could see it all, but it was all in shadowy form. Let me tell you, it was not a hallucination, it was real. That was my Damascus Road experience, and I know for an absolute FACT, that I was truly brought back from satan's clutches that afternoon, by the Lord Jesus Christ.
Still I stayed in awful pain from the migraines. Finally one night I told the Lord to either heal me or let me DIE, I couldn't stand that awful pain anymore. I went to bed that night, and in a dream I heard the Lord speak to me! In the dream He said, "Go back into the studio and do your music!" And He spoke it very firmly.
So, I began getting my secular songs together, 10 of them! I found a studio, got a quote for an album and began saving up my money. The studio owner allowed me to come in with $100 here and $100 there. So I began recording once a week! I began feeling better, and the music made me forget about my illness, and in about 9 months I had lost almost 80 lbs. and felt great! I didn't even have the migraines anymore, only rarely.
Now, I had done almost the whole album, and THEN the Lord gave me my FIRST Gospel song! Oh no, I had already spent alot of money recording secular song, and I felt convicted about them now! I asked the Lord what to do. He showed me that I was NOT to put out the secular songs, and he began giving me more Gospel Songs to record! I had to take a great loss of money on those 10 secular songs, but I didn't mind! I knew what the Lord had DONE. He had used those secular songs to get me BACK into the music, and so He really answered my prayers.
Then I was writing and recording only Gospel/Christian Music, and with my first Gospel Song, the Lord baptised me in the Holy Spirit also! So, it was the MUSIC that helped me! But, all the Glory goes to God for using the music to get me back on the right track with HIM!
So, again, I can see the Lord's hand in Ken's song, and that the Lord reached out through that song, to show you that He loved you. Just as the Lord is reaching out in all songs that glorify Him. He is reaching out to all of us, through a song, a word, to show us that it is HIS love that is the only thing that can really make a difference to us. Music goes straight to the heart many times quicker than just a spoken word!
We are here to show that same love to others, and as we do, we will get that same love back. I know all of us are on a journey, but it was still the Lord's MUSIC that reached out to you Jean, and I am glad that He did! Well, if I were there right now, I would give you the biggest hug! You have touched my heart with your testimony, thank you Jesus! I want to post some song lyrics here, that I think are appropriate: It's the Martina McBride song, "ANYWAY"...I am sure alot of you have heard it...
ANYWAY
You can spend your whole life buildin' Something from nothin'
One storm can come and blow it all away-Build it anyway
You can chase a dream That seems so out of reach
And you know it might not ever come your way
Dream it anyway
God is great, But sometimes life ain't good
And when I pray It doesn't always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway, I do it anyway
This world's gone crazy, It's hard to believe
That tomorrow will be better than today
Believe it anyway
You can love someone with all your heart, For all the right reasons
In a moment they can choose to walk away, Love 'em anyway
God is great, But sometimes life ain't good
And when I pray, It doesn't always turn out like I think it should
But I do it anyway, Yeah - I do it anyway
You can pour your soul out singing, A song you believe in
That tomorrow they'll forget you ever sang- Sing it anyway
Yea, sing it anyway-Yeah, yeah!
I sing, I dream, I love anyway...
Thank you Marty and for sharing your testimony. Lets pray there are others we can help by sharing and letting them know they are not alone.
God Bless
Jean