I Beat Depression and So Can You
I have this success story that I’ve always been too afraid to share. For some reason, something made me think that my story is insignificant and not important. This, however, is a lie that the devil makes many of us believe. I know that the our stories can help lift others up from a deep pit. Our testimonies give people the opportunity to hear of the bright light they have the opportunity to stand in.
So don’t be ashamed of the testimony about the Lord or of me, his prisoner. Instead, share the suffering for the good news, depending on God’s power.
2 Timothy 1:8
This is my testimony – and I am no longer ashamed of it.
I was relatively young when I first started experiencing depression. Likewise for most people, depression and anxiety often come as a package deal. This package deal was my truth when I was 15 years old.
A lot of people would have never noticed, because I was active, had people in my life that cared about me and was doing well in school. But inside my chest, a dark hole slowly started to grow. I didn’t value myself enough to do anything about it, so I allowed the hole to grow bigger and bigger until it enveloped my entire life.
To this day, I still don’t know how it started. There wasn’t a specific terrible occurrence, and I often felt guilty for feeling the way I did when I actually had a pretty good teenage life. But what I did not understand was that depression is not something we can use logic to solve.
I remember the panic attacks. I had this crippling fear that I would always be alone, even with so many people surrounding me, and this deep sadness eroded itself into anxious reactions. At the time, someone very close to me knew and saw the panic attacks that I was experiencing. The day that I passed out at a music festival, only because of my social anxiety and crippling depression, they decided that they had to tell my parents about it.
I will always be thankful that they did, even though I wasn’t thankful then. Sometimes when the pit of anxiety and depression gets dug deeper and deeper, your only option is to get help. Real help. I started various medications to help with the panic attacks and the depression.
I definitely think that medication is very important for a person who is seriously struggling and is too deep in their hole to climb out themselves. But it is a temporary solution. No one really tells you how addictive the medication is that they give you. They don’t tell you that the pills will numb the pain you’re feeling, but will also numb the joy you’re meant to experience. But again, I needed the medication then. The medication did however not take my anxiety and depression away, but merely dealt with the symptoms of what I was experiencing
I went through my teenage years, from age 15 to age 19, on these pills. I thought that this is all life would ever be for me, relying on medication to be stable and relatively okay. And I was okay. But I was not free from my depression or anxiety at all. There were also days were the medication didn’t work, and my only option (as it felt then) was to stay in bed and cry until it didn’t hurt as much.
My heart swells for the girl that I used to be as I write this. I think the hardest thing about depression is when you watch yourself from the outside. When you see this random human struggling to fight against something invisible. It’s almost as if you see someone you love going through something you have no idea how to help them with. But you’re actually that person and it makes it even more confusing and painful. I hope this makes sense.
I remember my matric dance, and that it was a good day, but not as good as everyone told me it would be. Or my 18th birthday, or graduating high school, or falling in love, or whatever everyone hypes up for teenagers. It was all just okay, and nothing in life made me want to rejoice in my youth. I felt incapable of doing that.
When I went to university, I was hoping that something would change. That anything would change. And this is my testimony, that everything absolutely did change.
I was in this new place, meeting all these amazing new people, and yet I was so far from everything that I loved. I was so excited, but so broken to be away from any sense of security. Then I came face to face with Him. I saw His face, and I saw Him hanging on a cross because of me. For me. And I saw the pain in His eyes, the pain He had taken on for this girl that I had become, who was depressed and anxious and was deep within all the mistakes and failures of her life. I saw how He looked at me, and He wasn’t angry. And I couldn’t understand that. I put Him up there, and He took on my pain, but He did it because He loved me. That’s when I realised I needed to stop being so broken. Because someone was broken for me not to be broken. It felt like double pain and that just didn’t make sense.
Of course the moment I experienced salvation was life changing, but my depression and anxiety obviously didn’t disappear in an instance. It just doesn’t work like that. However, I finally had the motivation to get rid of it, and I finally felt like I wasn’t fighting the battle alone. Someone had already won the biggest battle, and all I had to do is become best friends with that someone. He really is my best friend.
But this journey took a lot of work. I’m not going to sit here and pretend like from that moment forward it was easy. Because Christians are not excluded from the pain of life – we just have the best therapist anyone could ask for.
So I got baptised. That helped a lot. It washed my entire life clean. But I needed more. I needed to know the truth. So after years of sitting in a school chapel and not experiencing the truth that was right in front of me, I had to decide to do some hard work to get rid of my depression. I had to decide that I wanted to get better. And I really did get better. I got so much better that on the 17th of September 2019, after 4 years, I stopped taking my medication. The medication I was on is so addictive that many patients go into a rehabilitation to get off of it, but I just stopped. Cold turkey. I was told that I would probably fall apart. But honestly, besides some normal withdrawal symptoms, I was fine. I was fine because I had a counsellor I could speak to every day, free of charge. Of course it was not a straight path, and I had times when I fell back into holes of depression, but I never stayed there. I was somehow always picked up out of whatever hole I found myself in.
The crazier thing is that during this pandemic, a time of serious isolation, confusion, loss and anxiety, I have never felt better. Of course I’ve had my low days, just like everyone, but that is normal and okay. But for the first time in a really long time, I feel so much love in my heart. There is a lot of love inside of me in a time where the world is fighting more hate than probably ever before. And that is why I am writing this. If I look back, and if I were to tell the 16 year old girl eating alone by her locker in high school, that one day, just one day, she would be 20 years old and have so much light to share with the world – I know she would have never believed it. I sometimes still can’t believe it. That’s just how good God is. Even if this is just for one person that really needs to hear this, that is all that matters. Jesus is interested in the one lost sheep. I truly hope you find your way home, whoever you are.
Out of this testimony, I have learnt some important truths that may help someone who is struggling right now.
The biggest mistake anyone can make is to identify with their depression. To say, I am depressed, gives the enemy power. It is important not to ignore the problem of depression in your life, but you as an individual are more than what you are experiencing. Imagine someone said, “I am cancer“, just because they have cancer? Yes, there is depression in your life. You are experiencing a depression. But you are more than this depression.
As much as you try to convince yourself, you don’t deserve to have such a downtrodden spirit. No, it doesn’t matter how much wrong you’ve done, how horrible and unlikable you think you are, you do not deserve to feel this way. We are all forgiven and loved despite anything we can and will do. Whether you believe it or not, it’s the truth. Would you tell your brother he deserves to be depressed because of what he said about you last week? No. So you don’t deserve to be depressed either.
When you are in a pit of despair, you tend to forget the love you are constantly embraced in. Looking back now, there were so many people rooting for me to return to the girl they used to know. And they continued to root for me till the day I became that girl again. And more than that, someone loved you enough to die for you. Like, actually die for you. If our God said you are worthy of the death of His Son, I promise you, you are loved and worthy of love.
There is so much I could say about depression and about finding your way out. But not much can really change your current situation or the dark hole you seem to find yourself in. I can however tell you, from the one who finally found her way out of a very long tunnel, that though your valley seems endless, it does get better. This season you are experiencing may be nothing you ever dreamt about, but you are going to reach a destiny far greater than you can ever imagine. And I know that sounds cliche, and if someone told me this when I was in that deep hole, it honestly would of just made me angry. But it makes us angry because we have fooled ourselves into believing that what we believe about our future is the only finite truth. Sorry to break it to you, but you are conditioned and programmed to believe a lot of lies. And this is one of them. Because it gets better. With Jesus, it always gets better.
From one fighter to another, I wish you all the love in the world.
By Mila Ottavini
But you, Lord, are a shield around me, my glory, the One who lifts my head high.
Psalm 3:3
If you know of anyone who needs help, or you yourself needs help, never underestimate the power of a hand trying to pull you up. Speak to someone, anyone. Someone will help. Here are some South African helplines if needed:
- Adcock Ingram Depression & Anxiety Helpline: 0800708090
- Dr Reddy’s Help Line: 0800212223
- SADAG Toll Free: 0800456789
- Suicide Crisis Line: 0800567567 (SMS 31393)
- Destiny Helpline for Youth and Students: 0800414243
