The Sun Also Rises

Last night, Monty and I were watching a TV show.  There was a scene where the husband was telling his wife about all the dark thoughts he fights against.  The wife listened, then said, “Choose the sun.”  I asked Monty to pause the show, so I could write that down.

“I love that,” I said to him.  “Choose the sun.”  I thought for a minute and added, “Of course, Icarus might have a different viewpoint.”

Monty stared at me.

“What?” I said.  “You remember the myth of Icarus.  His father made him a pair of wings that were attached with wax, so he warned Icarus not to fly too close to the sun.  Icarus didn’t listen, the sun melted the wax, and Icarus plummeted to his death.”

“I know the story,” Monty said.  “I’m just wondering how your mind went from ‘Choose the sun’ to the death of Icarus.”

I suppose Monty had a point.  But that’s how my mind works.  Monty can find the silver lining in any situation; I find the dark underbelly.  I’m melancholy by nature.  When I wake up, my first thought is never, “Ooh, what fun things am I going to do today?”  It’s usually, “If only I could sleep longer, I could put off dealing with a new day.”  I’ve been this way my whole life—I can’t remember a single day that I wasn’t either suffering from depression or trying desperately to fight it off.  And when I say “fight,” I mean it.  It takes everything in me to fight back against the dark thoughts that follow me around, trying to tempt me into giving up and settling into the familiar arms of depression.

I saw a quote on Instagram this weekend by Robert Downey, Jr.—an actor known as much for his years of addiction and recovery as his acting career.  He said, “It’s like I have a gun in my mouth, and I like the taste of metal.”  I instantly identified with that—I, too, have that impulse to self-destruct.  I’d done it with both alcohol and drugs.  I started thinking about how I’d gotten to that point where I surrendered to addiction.  And I had an epiphany—I didn’t just wake up one day and decide to abuse drugs and alcohol.  I was depressed.  So depressed, in fact, that I no longer cared what happened to me.  And because that depression led to alcohol and drugs, it nearly killed me.  I realized as I thought about it that addiction isn’t the gun in my mouth.  Depression is.  When I feel down, depression speaks to me:  “You realize, don’t you, that this isn’t just a mood?  It’s the beginning of the downward slide into Darkness.  You might as well stop fighting.  You’re going to end up here, anyway.”

When I listen to that, I tend to believe it.  And when I believe it, I start making choices that turn it into a self-fulfilling prophecy.  I settle into melancholy.  I wrap myself tightly in the blanket of Darkness and hide from the world.  I wave the white flag and start tasting the metal of that loaded gun.  And though I’ve been in recovery for years, I start wondering what it would be like to use or drink again.

There’s another gun in my mouth, too—happiness.  When I’m happy, I get suspicious.  I start asking myself why: Is this some kind of trap to make me crave happiness?  Because if I let myself feel that happiness, it won’t last.  Depression will be right around the corner, and I’ll feel so much worse because I had a taste of happiness—I flew too close to the sun and got badly burned.  So before I get carried away with happiness, I need to remember that it’s transient, it’s fleeting, and it’s for people like Monty, not me. 

These patterns of thinking are the roads that lead to depression, which in turn leads to a kind of living death.  I recognize the patterns now, but recognizing them doesn’t stop them.  And as fall and winter approach, I know that I have to find a way to stop those patterns.  Otherwise, the Darkness will become literal, and I’ll feel the walls closing in on me.  Over the years, I’ve found coping strategies for depression:

• Stay connected to the people who love me; don’t isolate myself and hide from the world.
• Don’t miss recovery meetings.
• Write in my gratitude journal every night.
• Seek light—literally and figuratively.
• Reach out when I’m struggling.
• Use the words in Philippians 4:8 as the guide for my thoughts and my choices—focus on what’s true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy.  For instance, choose to watch “I Love Lucy,” not a documentary on why Seattle has spawned a disproportionate number of serial killers.
• Spend time in God’s Word.  Ephesians 6:17 says, “Embrace the power of salvation’s full deliverance, like a helmet to protect your thoughts from lies.  And take the mighty razor-sharp Spirit-sword of the spoken Word of God.” (TPT)

I know these coping strategies keep the worst of the depression at bay.  So why don’t I embrace them?  Because it’s hard.  Changing the thought patterns that my brain has defaulted to my entire life is hard.  And many days, I don’t want to do the work it takes to change those patterns.  I get tired of fighting and choose to let my thoughts go wherever they please.  But I’ve realized that as hard as it is to fight back, it’s much harder and much more dangerous to exist in a state of Darkness day after day.  I’ve also realized that I have a choice—depression isn’t inevitable.  The character in that TV show I mentioned said, “Choose the sun.”  What if I did that?  What if I took my eyes off myself, and looked up into the light?  That would mean choosing to cope rather than giving in.  It would mean choosing to fill my head with God’s Word and not my own self-destructive thoughts.  It would mean putting down that gun and working hard to change my thought patterns.  And it would mean making those choices over and over again, hundreds of times a day.

I know it won’t be easy.  But I know it will be worth it.  I wonder if Icarus thought it was worth it—if his flight right up next to the sun filled him with so much joy and ecstasy that the only thought in his mind as he fell was that he’d experienced more in that one flight than most people experience in a lifetime.  I want that joy.  I want that flight of ecstasy.  Even if I get burned.  Even if the joy doesn’t last.  I still want it.  And I’m ready to work for it.  I’m ready to choose the sun.

If you’re struggling with depression so dark that you don’t see a way out, please get help.  There’s no shame in getting treatment for depression; it’s an illness and may require medication.