lora A wife, mother and sinner saved by grace. View all articles | Contact author

Victory Over Depression

When I was in high school, I was very wacky. I used illegal drugs to self medicate; usually I used uppers to maintain the "maniac" phase of a "bi-polar" disorder. The maniac phase always seemed better to me, even though I was off the wall with running/racing thoughts, and crazy behavior. I hardly ever needed to sleep, and was always going somewhere.

I tried to kill myself twice, but both times I backed out at the last moment. Thankfully.

(I should mention I was not yet a Christian.) My family history contains depression on both sides, and my brother suffered from it too. Honestly, I could tell you all sorts of stories of my familial dysfunction, and depression... but anyway... I try not to rehash all the details.

Well when I was seventeen I finally went to a psychiatrist and was diagnosed as Bi Polar. I accepted medications, which "WORKED". (But I do not agree with them in principle, I do not think that just because a medicine works, means you had a physical disease... because as I mentioned illegal drugs were "working", but not exactly in the "right" way.)

Anyway, I went away to college, and stopped cold turkey on the meds. I resumed immoral behavior and drugs. I still was not saved.

Ok fast forward... I got saved my junior year in college (about eight years ago). I was still struggling with emotional upheaval, manic streaks, and depression. My husband and I did not agree with the use of drugs to medicate this. We believed that it was a spiritual issue, and needed to be dealt with in that way. (I majored in Psychology, and while I was reading all this in the school, I was reading the Bible too... and that is how I came to these conclusions...from experience, and school and the Bible.) I kept reading about things in the Bible (which I do not recall now... go figure...) that made me think of depression, and how it was a sin.

Mainly things about how we are to think on whatever is lovely, true, good.... etc. and how we are to have the joy of the Spirit, and peace. When you are depressed or manic, you do not feel the peace of the Spirit.

So, in our first year of marriage, I was still struggling, but was unwilling to go to a doctor about it. After our first baby I got what I believe is termed PPD. (I was never diagnosed...)  I used to have visions of hurting my baby, of killing him. I had terrible thoughts of hurting myself and leaving the baby somewhere. It got pretty bad, and those thoughts lead to guilt.

I started to get into the Bible more, and I was given a book called "Victory Over Darkness" by Neil T Anderson. That book revolutionized the way I thought of myself as a Christian....

 
I learned who I am in Christ. When I was able to learn that, AND how to take thoughts captive and replace evil thoughts with "whatever is pure, lovely, true..." THEN I saw victory.

I noticed that my times of depression SLOWLY started to diminish. Whenever I would get wrong thoughts, condemning thoughts, I would say in my mind "NO, that is NOT true, there is no condemnation for those who are in Christ." I would use specific verses to refute lies.

What I did first was to analyze the things I was hearing in my mind. What was I saying in my thoughts that was wrong? This was a very hard step, because I was seeing no change, I just had to begin recognizing lies, and that is also hard to do when your whole life was made up of lies. (Did I mention I was a chronic liar most of my life?) My whole mental image of myself was a made-up lie. I prayed that the Lord would reveal the lies to me.

Then after that, I started to look up the truth to refute the lies. I started to memorize certain Scriptures. Most of them I took from the book mentioned above, and started there.

I started to keep a prayer journal, where I wrote down prayers to the Lord. (I have done this throughout my life off and on.)

I started to act on the truth I knew, by

1. Recognizing the lie

2. Saying "NO." to it