In my distress, I called to the LORD

Today had all the ingredients to be a very bad day.

After tossing and turning with a cough all night, I slept through my alarm. Emma was uncooperative from the get-go. I was buried in e-mails, and my phone just wouldn't stop ringing. One of those calls was from my boss, with whom I had an impossibly frustrating conversation. Then to top it all off, I couldn't (and still can't) seem to kick this ridicules cold. Argh!

Yes, it was a rotten day, but it did not consume me. Then again, I'm not the same woman I was just a few short months ago.

I'm not completely sure why I'm sharing this, except that over the past few days and weeks I've felt compelled to make sure other women (or men, for that matter) in similar circumstances know they are not alone. Perhaps the biggest lie the devil tells people in the midst of depression is that no one will understand, that no one could possibly look at you the same if they only knew the truth.

That's how I felt. That's why it took me months before I could even tell my husband. And that's why when I finally worked up the courage to see a doctor, I silently handed him a typed up list of symptoms because I was too ashamed and emotional to even voice them out loud.

It's not that I really had the much to be sad about. But that's the thing with depression; even the small things appear to be insurmountable at the time.

Most people would have never guessed I struggled with depression, because it wasn't that bad during the day. But by the time I got home, I was sapped. All I wanted to do was sleep, and I would zonk out on the couch at the drop of a hat. However, if I actually went to bed, I'd lay awake all night worrying about nonsense. It was a vicious cycle.

The things that kept me up at night were trivial and mostly out of my control. I'd find myself replaying conversations from as far back as my teennage years, and I obsessed about the situations of other people that had little or nothing to do with me.

It was my daydreams that ultimately led me to ask for help. It's hard to describe, but I felt like I was enveloped in darkness. Sometimes I'd picture myself going into a bar and drinking until I was left feeling nothing. (Honestly, I never followed through with so much as a drop of alcohol for fear of being "caught".) In the worst moments, I'd curl up in bed and visualize going to sleep and never waking up. Or I'd think about laying in the bathtup and simply slipping under the water without coming up for air. That's when I knew I had a problem.

All this to say, I asked for help, and I got it. It took me months to come to grips with the fact that it was a medical issue and there was no shame in letting a doctor help me come up with a plan for getting better. In my case, it was probably lingering post-partum, amplified by several life changes that happened all at once. My doctor was able to put me on a low dose medication for a few months and then slowly took me off them to live a "normal," happy life.

The funny thing is, once I finally got the courage to tell a few close friends what was going on, three of them told me they had recently been through the exact same thing. Guess I wasn't alone afterall.

In some ways, it's hard to write about what it was like to deal with depression. Is it still a little embarrassing? Maybe that's a small part of it. But more so, it's hard to remember what it was like because I feel like that was a completely different person. Things just don't get to me like they did before.

My pastor recently preached from the Book of Jonah, and a verse jumped out from the page like never before. It said, "In my distress, I cried to the LORD and he heard my cry." What a perfect synopsis of my testimony!

I thought the verse sounded familiar, and sure enough, that same phrase (or very similar) appears in the Bible three other times ... in Psalms 18, Psalm 120, and 2 Samuel 22.

If you feel like you might be struggling with depression, don't be ashamed to talk to someone about it. You are not alone, and don't let the devil fool you into believing that you are.

It's comforting for me to know that in our times of distress, we can be confident that the Lord will always hear -- and answer -- our cries for help.