Greetings from the sports desk located somewhere below the main deck of the Good Pirate Ship RedState. The ship is in fine form, even if the sports desk has been MIA for far too long. When you manage to miss the Super Bowl (the Seahawks easily handled the Patriots), the Winter Olympics (yes, I did get up at 5 AM on a Sunday to watch the men’s hockey finals, and oh was it worth it), and almost miss March Madness (my team, namely Cal, won their first-round NIT game yesterday; good luck to everyone going for a slightly higher accomplishment than being considered the 65th best team in the nation), there had better be a reason. There is.
As noted, I haven’t been around here much the past several weeks. To be more precise, I haven’t been around at all since sometime in January. My apologies. The official story is that I’ve been tracking down fish crackers for Sammy the Shark and Karl the Kraken. The truth is, my lifelong — literally — battle with the depression monster hasn’t been going well this year. Although I cannot say I’ve gained the upper hand, I have at least battled it to a sufficient ceasefire, enabling me actually to write something.
I am a lot less prone to talk about such things than in my younger days. For one thing, I’d just as soon not talk about it. There is no sense of embarrassment in suffering from depression, but even as depression itself is wearisome, so is chatting about the matter. Also, I’m keenly aware that everyone has their battles and struggles in life. Given this, who needs to hear about my problems?
I can, without guilt, discuss depression in a deliberate third-party manner. It is the great liar, doing all it can to steer a person into single-track thinking that is going down the wrong track. Depression tells a person there is no hope when, in reality, hope abounds. It tells the individual that there is nothing above and beyond the immediate misery, when in fact there are multiple options available for the taking. In its own peculiar way, this adds to the depression. The depressed individual often knows there are available actions to derail the self-destructive doom train, yet the ability to accomplish these things remains frustratingly just out of reach.
Depression is not selfishness, nor is it laziness. Again, it is a lie, one often at least in passing known to be such. Nonetheless, it remains a crushing, suffocating force doing all it can to drive those it chooses to do whatever seems necessary to end the seemingly impossible-to-end pain.
One might say, and not without justification, “But you’re a Christian. How can you be depressed?” Oh, the same way Christians get cancer, enter into ill-advised relationships, and do all the other things we do that fall under the category of being human. It is one of life’s ironies that the same thing driving the Christian who endures depression into Jesus’ Arms does its best to drive a wedge between the Living God and us. In his brief but pertinent epistle, Jude admonishes us to contend for our faith. Sometimes, the one we most need to contend with for the faith is ourselves.
In the second Star Trek movie, there is a scene in which Khan, after having failed to destroy the Enterprise, sarcastically communicates, “Kirk, my old friend. You’re still alive.” (For those of you unfamiliar with the film, Khan and Kirk are not friends.) So it is with me and the depression monster, this intractable, implacable foe seeking to win via accomplishing the ultimate loss. It must not be allowed to claim victory. Be it the assorted specific symptoms of depression dragging its victims down — agitation, inattentiveness, ennui, and the like — or the overall drain on resources, one must confront the lie.
I take comfort in the prayers and love of others, even when the depression monster does its utmost to deflect such blessings from taking root. Depression is a private little hell, but as the saying goes … if you’re going through hell, keep going. By God’s grace, I will do so.
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