My depression is something I am choosing illuminate

My current experience is one of depression. It is overwhelming. Like a parasite, it saps my energy. Sleep is hard and eating isn't any better. Few activities carry interest and I have lost motivation to do much of anything. It is hard for me to accurately illustrate the true portrait of my emotions and feelings. Surprisingly to me I am eager to share what I am experiencing with others, although this is probably out of a desire to advertise the "depth of my emotional capacity." Maybe that is what I am doing here too. There is irony to be found, perhaps, as my burden is deep and penetrating in a way for which I am completely unprepared; but my ability to experience and appreciate a broad spectrum of feelings is severely limited.

At first, I thought I knew the causes. There was also a primary catalyst. The catalyst remains, but the causes are lost to me. Just yesterday, I was overwhelmed with sorrow and pain, a terrible aching which I have not experienced in a long while. My broken spirit recognizes some illness or intruder, but is terrifyingly unable to identify the threat.

But what is one to do? I naively thought that depression was merely an affected attitude. But as Elder Jeffrey R. Holland said in his address Like a Broken Vessel, sometimes there is "affliction so severe that it significantly restricts a person’s ability to function fully, a crater in the mind so deep that no one can responsibly suggest it would surely go away if those victims would just square their shoulders and think more positively." I find myself in a position where I am unable to simply think more positively and laugh my problems away. There is a process and causality, perhaps chemical. I am no expert. All I can do is portray the experience as well I am able.

Something I have thought about during the past few weeks is this: there are others out there like me. Maybe they hide their burden well, but they need help. They need others to know. Maybe. Everyone deals with issues in different ways. I tell someone about my problems not to excuse behavior, but because I want that someone know. Me knowing that someone knows makes a difference. And I have wonderful friends who do know. I am grateful for that.

I ache and I hurt. Part of me allows the depression to stay, because perhaps by some logic I deserve my burden. Another part submits with apprehension to a torturous pain, begging for relief. There is a thought: why? There is another: I'm done. I beg God to allow my burden to pass. I long for any noticeable  progress toward the light, some small glimpse of hope that Grace is around the corner. I am left to bear my cross. I do not blame God or anyone for the pain. But I continue to ask why.