The Roller Coaster

I suppose every person has what I call a "bag of tricks." It's that place in our minds where we store all those euphemisms, metaphors, truisms and sometimes even trite sayings that we pull out to describe various events in life. Many's the time when I've sat with a person in the midst of a difficult situation--usually illness or death--and reached into my bag of tricks and said, "It's really a roller coaster, isn't it?" I can't think of a single instance when the person didn't immediately understand and identify with my words. I guess that's because life itself is a roller coaster and the extreme ups and downs are only heightened in the midst of a specifically difficult situation.

The reality that life is a roller coaster puzzles me. Why, yesterday, did I feel on top of the world, even empowered, and today I'm feeling a bit moody and unsettled?

Not too long ago, I was talking with a man who told me that he always woke up happy. I lied and said that I did too. I lied because he has something that I so want. I lied because who wants to hear that, most mornings, I wake up in a mildly depressed mood and it often takes the better part of the morning for me to not want to analyze every part of my psyche to try to figure out why I have this light haze of negativity surrounding me?

As I look back over my life, I guess that, in some form or fashion, depression has always lurked, though I can't really say when it began to affect my mornings. As a kid, I loved the mornings, much to the consternation of the rest of my family. I was always an early riser and ready to play. When I was in junior high, I was a paper boy and on Sunday mornings, after I had finished my route, I came home and made breakfast for the whole family. But, by the time I was in my thirties, I had what I refer to as two major depressive episodes. About seven years ago, as I was going through the process of coming out and going through a divorce, my doctor told me I needed to be on anti-depressants, not episodically, but for the rest of my life. He put it to me this way: "You have hypertension and you will be on hypertension medication the rest of your life, because it's a physiological reality. It's not a moral issue. It's not a character issue. Depression is the same thing. It is a physiological reality. It's not a moral issue. It's not a character issue. You need to be on a daily anti-depressant medication for the rest of your life." I got the message. I'm on daily medication. But I still hate depression.

I don't hate my high blood pressure. It doesn't affect my day to day life. I never even knew I had high blood pressure until it was diagnosed. I had only had one symptom--waking up in the middle of the night with a headache--but I didn't even know that was symptomatic of hypertension. So, I take daily medication and never even think about it. Depression is not that black and white. It affects my day to day life.

I guess that, to be fair to myself, I'm facing some pretty difficult circumstances. I've been out of work going on four months now. I'm an interim pastor, so the job stability is not all that great. You can put the details of all of that in the "I'm sure I'll write about that later" category.

The curious thing about all of this is that, in the midst of being unemployed and dealing with mild depression, my faith is growing stronger. You can put the details of that in the "I'll write about that in my next post" category.