Dumb Dumb Dumb

Last Friday was dumb. I couldn’t get out of bed. When I finally got out of bed, I schlepped over to Costco for minimal shopping. Necessities like toilet paper. You know, real boujee stuff. And when I got home… right back to bed. I couldn’t move until past one in the afternoon.

Like I said: Dumb.

It was depression. I’d just overworked and pushed myself and been with people so much I hadn’t been able to recharge. It was no crisis of darkness. I wasn’t thinking about cutting myself or tearing myself down for people not liking me or pondering my millions of past mistakes. Nope. Just a total lack of energy.

Saturday, thankfully, was back to normal. I was busy doing stuff. Spending time with family. It was good. Sunday morning I was interacting with my members at church. Worship was great. I laid down to take my semi-normal Sunday afternoon nap.

And when I woke, I couldn’t figure out what year it was. All the depression came back. I’d planned on playing with the kids in the afternoon after a brief nap. That’s the normal way of things. Not Sunday. Nope. I got to stare at them and do not much else. Instead of engaging with the people I love playing games we all love, I was a lump.

Like I said: Dumb.

Needed Transparency

I’ve been dealing with a lot of depression lately. Thankfully, not so much mine… at least not directly.

This last week I got to speak at a retreat about being a pastor with depression. They gave me seventy-five minutes. It was… it was emotional for me to speak out publicly about what I’ve gone through to a room full of people who are currently really struggling. Earlier in the conference I’d heard stories of people relapsing into alcohol, meth, self-harm… I sat next to a guy who just got out of the hospital for being stabbed and shot. What could I possibly bring to people suffering so much?

Apparently enough.