My Journey with Post-Natal Depression

My Journey with Post-Natal Depression

by | Sep 1, 2020 | Mental Health

When my daughter was almost 2 years old and my son was just 10 weeks old, one Friday night, I couldn’t sleep at all.

I tried everything – a warm bath, herbal tea, prayer, everything I could think of – but to no avail – I could not sleep, no matter what I did.

Earlier that day, I had been to see my Psychiatrist and told him how bad I’d been feeling lately.  I wasn’t on any medication at that stage, but had suffered from Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) since I was a nine year old child.

My Psychiatrist said that there was medicine that could really help me, but I really didn’t want to go on medication if I could help it.

I told him that I was probably just exhausted like any new mum and just needed to catch up on lost sleep.

I told him that I would arrange for some close friends to look after the kids for a couple of days and I would try to catch up on sleep.  If I still felt bad in a week’s time, I would come back and get the medicine.

But it was that very night that I couldn’t sleep at all.

I was beside myself.

I knew I couldn’t look after two young children on no sleep!  Now I was desperate to get my hands on the medicine that had been offered that day, but I knew my Psychiatrist office would not be open until Monday morning.

About 10 am the next morning, I went to our local doctor to see if he could get me the medicine.  I knew he was a horrible man – we hated it when he was on duty, but just my luck, he was the only one available that morning.

I sat in the waiting room and literally prayed that God would give him compassion that he did not usually have; that he would be kind and sympathetic, not grouchy and cranky like he usually was.  God did answer my prayer – he wasn’t too bad that morning.

When I told him what was going on, to my shock, he decided I was sick enough to be hospitalised in a Mother-Baby unit.

He let me go home and pack but said I must go straight to hospital after that.  My son could come with me to stay in the hospital, but my daughter had to stay at home.

For the first 2 days in hospital, I spent the whole time on the phone arranging care for my daughter for the next 2 – 3 weeks.  I couldn’t rest until I knew she was going to be well taken care of.

I had great friends from church and they were only to happy to help out by looking after my daughter.

I knew I could not leave her at home with my husband
as he went to work every day and plied himself with
huge doses of alcohol every night.

Once I had my daughter’s care organised, I could finally rest and shift the focus to taking care of myself.

It wasn’t until that moment, that I actually took time to stop, and I realised just how sick I was.

I was very open about telling the nursing staff I had Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD) so they just assumed that this was the main problem.

The trouble is that the more they talked about OCD and the more they focused on OCD, the worse my OCD got!  I knew myself really well and I knew that OCD was NOT my main problem – something else was going on.

I finally had to say to the nurses, ‘if you keep talking about OCD and I keep thinking about OCD’, I’m literally going to go mad – so please STOP!  Thankfully they did.

Every day, we had group sessions of mums – watching videos and having discussions in groups.

One of the videos was called ‘1 in 10’ and it showed a whole lot of women who had Post-natal Depression and how it felt for them and what kind of symptoms they had.

I was shocked!  Every single symptom they had, I had!

I knew then and there that my actual problem was Post-natal Depression, not OCD.  I told the group that I had just realised what was wrong with me.

It had not been obvious to me because I had not been depressed.

I mean, every new mum has heard about Post-natal Depression, but I assumed that would mean that you were actually depressed – but I wasn’t.  But I had all the other symptoms that the mums had talked about on the video.

On my first day in hospital, my usual Psychiatrist came and saw me and started me on Movox – a medication that helps both OCD and depression.  After that, he handed me over to the in-house hospital Psychiatrist.

To my shock, she was an awful person – cold and unfeeling – the last thing I needed!!

She showed no compassion or empathy at all.  She was cold and unemotional and distant.  How could someone with this personality be a Psychiatrist??  I had to just cope with her the best I could – she was certainly no help!

So with a Psychiatrist that was unhelpful and a medical team who had not realised I had Post-Natal Depression, it was left up to me to diagnose myself correctly and ask for what I thought would help.

From the first night, the nursing staff had given me sleeping tablets, but even the strong tablets would not put me to sleep.

I was awake for days, leading me to get even sicker.  They finally found a medication strong enough to put me to sleep – much to my relief.

I was way beyond exhausted – and still taking care on my 10 week old son who had come to hospital with me.

One day, they accidentally doubled my medication
which left me unconscious!!!

I had terrible medical care, but at least the rest was starting to do me some good.

I got so sick that one day I was sitting down at the communal kitchen table and one of the mums was talking to me, but I couldn’t understand a word she was saying!!!

She was talking plain English, but my brain was so frazzled, I couldn’t make any sense of the words.  I tried to just nod and say ‘ah ha’ at what I hoped were the right moments.

When I’d been in hospital for about 5 days, we had another shock!  Someone had called Child Protective Services to investigate us!!!

So while I was at my sickest, I now had to deal with a full investigation by Child Protective Services!

I was beyond shocked – I just couldn’t believe it.

Who thought that we were such bad parents that our kids were in danger!!

Nothing had happened – there had been no ‘incident’ – so why did someone call Child Protective Services?

My daughter’s care was all I was focused on for my first two days in hospital – I would not rest until I knew she would be extremely safe and well looked after.  So why the investigation?

So while I was at the sickest I’d ever been in my life, Child Protective Services came to the hospital to begin their investigation.  I was fuming!  Who on earth had called them – and why?

I decided that it might have been the doctor who put me in hospital, because when they began their investigation, it was obvious that they knew everything about us.

They knew I had OCD and now Post-natal depression; they knew that my husband drank a tonne of alcohol every night; they knew I was in hospital and they knew that our son had been born with a rare genetic condition.

When I stepped back from the emotion of the situation, I could see why it looked  like there were lots of red flags – but we were loving parents – our children were not in any danger – despite all that we were dealing with our family still functioned pretty well.

At the time, I had a great Mother’s Group and funnily enough, just the week before, one of them told me that someone had called Child Protective Services on her!

They were fully cleared but the investigation had been really stressful.  I was so glad she had told me this – it helped take a little of the shock out of them investigating us.

Another amazing thing was that one of the girls in our Mother’s Group, held a very senior position with Child Protective Services.  I rang her immediately and she already knew about our case.

She said that she’d been near the phones, when the call came in.  Naturally she could not reveal who it was that had called them, but she said that she would talk me through the process and put in a good word for me.

Up until that point, I had been running Bible study groups for young mums and this girl attended my group.  She knew we were good people and good parents.

She asked the investigation department if the investigators could be Christians as this would mean a lot to me.

They did allocate Christians people to our case, but they certainly did not go easy on us.  They absolutely interrogated us about every detail of our lives.

I’m glad to say that after the investigation, we were fully cleared.  It had been so stressful though.  I just couldn’t believe it had happened when I was at my lowest, trying to get well in a Mother-baby Unit in hospital.

I don’t think I told anyone at the time, but the day they put me in hospital, I was booked to preach at my local church for the first time.

That was 20 years ago – and I never did preach that sermon, but I do feel God is calling me back to His Ministry now – 20 years later.

After 2 ½ weeks in hospital, I was finally deemed well enough to go home and we had our family all together again – it was great.

This was one of the most stressful times we’d ever been through in our lives.  I was now on medication for both OCD and Depression as I tried to recover from Post-Natal depression.

The medication worked quite well for the OCD but from then on, I was rarely free from debilitating depression.

It wasn’t until 10 years later, when I saw a new Psychiatrist, that he diagnosed me with
Bi Polar Disorder and put me on medication for that as well as for extreme anxiety.

So I was now dealing with:

  • OCD
  • Major depression
  • Bi Polar Disorder; and
  • Anxiety.

But despite these really stressful events, God has brought us safely through to a place of health and peace.

My husband stopped drinking 3 years ago – something that I never thought would happen – and most of the time I am well and happy.

I am so grateful to be able to see that our children have grown up to be the most amazing young adults I have ever known.

In the Bible, in Psalm 34 17 – 19 says “The Lord is close to those who hearts have been broken.  He saves those whose spirits have been crushed.  The person who does what is right may have many troubles, but the Lord saves him from them all. People who love God cry out and the Lord hears them.”

And earlier in Psalm 34, in verse 8, it says ‘Taste and see that the Lord is good’.

I have certainly see God at work throughout our lives and I can say wholeheartedly that “God is good”.  I invite you to seek Him for yourself today.

The life changing power of gratitude

The life changing power of gratitude

by | Aug 1, 2020 | Faith Blog, Mental Health

In the challenging times we are living in, it is more important than ever to deliberately look for things to be grateful for; to focus on what we do have, rather than what we don’t have.

I’m saying this to remind myself as much as anyone else.

I have to admit, I have struggled to be content about some things lately.  But I know from past experience, that no matter what you are going through, being grateful for what you do have can be truly life changing.

As we begin to focus on the positive things in our life, it tends to lift us up out of depression and pain and give us hope for the future.

One of my favorite people on You Tube, has recently purchased a 14th century mansion in the English country side.  Now they are completely redecorating it and purchasing luxury furniture to fit it out.

I have to admit, I have found it a bit hard to watch lately.  I live in a small, old, run down house on a main road and we still have quite a decent size mortgage.

But when I choose to be thankful on purpose, it changes my mindset completely.

I am so grateful that we have our own home.  It’s warm and cozy and it’s enough. 

I especially love how the sunshine streams in our bedroom window all day long – the sunshine is so healing.

As my husband has said many times:

‘it’s not much, but it’s ours and it’s full of love’.

I have to admit this is true.  It helps you to see beyond the cracks in the walls, the flaking paint on the window sills and the broken tiles around the fire place. 

But it is ours, and it is full of love.

This is something to be very grateful for.  And it reminds me of the miracle God has done in our 

For many, many years, our home was full of drunkenness, fighting, sadness, depression, anxiety and apathy.  We have been on the brink of divorce more than once.

It is truly a miracle that God has completely restored our marriage.  So much healing has come to our home.  It is now filled with peace, calm, laughter and love.  We love each other more now than we did, when we got married 30 years ago.

Many, many years ago, when things were at their worst in our marriage, I started to wish I had a different life partner.  I really thought it would be easier to start over.  Only the Grace of God stopped me from doing the unthinkable and betraying our sacred marriage vows. 

I will be forever grateful for one special person, who advised me:

Next time you feel like walking away, I want you to sit down and write down all the things you love about your husband.

This wasn’t easy and I really didn’t want to do it.  It felt like it would have been a lot easier to just walk away, but I followed their advice and before I knew it, I had written a list of more than 20 things I loved about my husband.  And I can tell you, it really helped.

It reminded me of the man I had fallen in love with and married.

Knowing that he was still in there, somewhere, buried deep within his own pain and numbed every night with large quantities of alcohol.

Writing this list of things I loved about my husband; things I was grateful for, really worked.  It was one of the things that helped me to stay the course, for well over fifteen years of heartache, when it looked like things would never change.

I am ever so glad that we stuck it out.  God has completely restored our marriage.  We love each other now more than ever. 

Now our house truly is ‘full of love’.

I am forever grateful to the person who told me to write down all the things I loved about my husband; all the things I was grateful for about him, when I was right at the point of walking away.

I know that many of you are facing the seemingly impossible right now.  Perhaps, like me, your marriage feels like it’s on the brink of break down; perhaps you have lost your job or you have had to close your business down; perhaps you have a child who has gone off the rails and is caught up in drug addiction.

No matter what is going on in your life, there is always things you can
be grateful for. 

I want to encourage you to take time today, and every day, to be grateful on purpose.

Write down what you do have, rather than focusing on what you don’t have.  You might be really surprised just how many things are still good in your life; things to be truly thankful for.

And the most surprising thing is how much better you feel, when you approach life through a lens of gratitude.

I guess this comes a little easier to me as I’m naturally a ‘glass half full’ kind of person, but even if you are a ‘glass half empty’ kind of person, you will be amazed at how much better you will feel, by choosing to be grateful on purpose.

In Philippians 4:11–13 the Bible says “I have learned to be content, whatever
the circumstances.  I know what it is to be in need and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry; whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do all this through Him (God) who gives me strength”.

And if you are in need, as so many people are at this terrible time of the Coronavirus pandemic, God says in Philippians 4:6-7

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace which is beyond our understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”.

In the challenging times we are living in, it is more important than ever to deliberately look for things to be grateful for; to focus on what we do have, rather than what we don’t have.

I’m saying this to remind myself as much as anyone else.

I have to admit, I have struggled to be content about some things lately.  But I know from past experience, that no matter what you are going through, being grateful for what you do have can be truly life changing.

As we begin to focus on the positive things in our life, it tends to lift us up out of depression and pain and give us hope for the future.

One of my favorite people on You Tube, has recently purchased a 14th century mansion in the English country side.  Now they are completely redecorating it and purchasing luxury furniture to fit it out.

I have to admit, I have found it a bit hard to watch lately.  I live in a small, old, run down house on a main road and we still have quite a decent size mortgage.

But when I choose to be thankful on purpose, it changes my mindset completely.

I am so grateful that we have our own home.  It’s warm and cozy and it’s enough. 

I especially love how the sunshine streams in our bedroom window all day long – the sunshine is so healing.

As my husband has said many times:

‘it’s not much, but it’s ours and it’s full of love’.

I have to admit this is true.  It helps you to see beyond the cracks in the walls, the flaking paint on the window sills and the broken tiles around the fire place. 

But it is ours, and it is full of love.

This is something to be very grateful for.  And it reminds me of the miracle God has done in our marriage.

Our house wasn’t always full of love.

For many, many years, our home was full of drunkenness, fighting, sadness, depression, anxiety and apathy.  We have been on the brink of divorce more than once.

It is truly a miracle that God has completely restored our marriage.  So much healing has come to our home.  It is now filled with peace, calm, laughter and love.  We love each other more now than we did, when we got married 30 years ago.

Many, many years ago, when things were at their worst in our marriage, I started to wish I had a different life partner.  I really thought it would be easier to start over.  Only the Grace of God stopped me from doing the unthinkable and betraying our sacred marriage vows. 

I will be forever grateful for one special person, who advised me:

‘next time you feel like walking away, I want you to sit down and write down all the things you love about your husband’.

This wasn’t easy and I really didn’t want to do it.  It felt like it would have been a lot easier to just walk away, but I followed their advice and before I knew it, I had written a list of more than 20 things I loved about my husband.  And I can tell you, it really helped.

It reminded me of the man I had fallen in love with and married. 

Knowing that he was still in there, somewhere, buried deep within his own pain and numbed every night with large quantities of alcohol.

Writing this list of things I loved about my husband; things I was grateful for, really worked.  It was one of the things that helped me to stay the course, for well over fifteen years of heart ache, when it looked like things would never change.

I am ever so glad that we stuck it out.  God has completely restored our marriage.  We love each other now more than ever. 

Now our house truly is ‘full of love’.

I am forever grateful to the person who told me to write down all the things I loved about my husband; all the things I was grateful for about him, when I was right at the point of walking away.

I know that many of you are facing the seemingly impossible right now.  Perhaps, like me, your marriage feels like it’s on the brink of break down; perhaps you have lost your job or you have had to close your business down; perhaps you have a child who has gone off the rails and is caught up in drug addiction.

No matter what is going on in your life, there is always things you can be grateful for. 

I want to encourage you to take time today, and every day, to be grateful on purpose.

Write down what you do have, rather than focusing on what you don’t have.  You might be really surprised just how many things are still good in your life; things to be truly thankful for.

And the most surprising thing is how much better you feel, when you approach life through a lens of gratitude.

I guess this comes a little easier to me as I’m naturally a ‘glass half full’ kind of person, but even if you are a ‘glass half empty’ kind of person, you will be amazed at how much better you will feel, by choosing to be grateful on purpose.

In Philippians 4: 11 – 13 the Bible says “I have learned to be content, whatever the circumstances.  I know what it is to be in need and I know what it is to have plenty. I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry; whether living in plenty or in want.  I can do all this through Him (God) who gives me strength”.

And if you are in need, as so many people are at this terrible time of the Coronavirus pandemic, God says in Philippians 4:6-7.

“Do not be anxious about anything, but in every situation, by prayer and petition,
with thanksgiving, present your requests to God.  And the peace which is beyond our understanding will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”.

You can have peace despite the most stressful circumstances

You can have peace despite the most stressful circumstances

by | Jul 7, 2020 | Faith Blog, Mental Health

I want to say up front that I am not telling this story to put my husband down in any way.  Rather, I want to glorify God who restores marriages, even when it looks like it would be impossible.

I am married to a great guy, who was an alcoholic for over 30 years.

He stopped drinking 3 years ago – something I never thought would happen.  God’s restoration of our marriage is truly a miracle, given all that we have been through together.

One cold, dark night, about 11.30pm, my daughter, who was 4 years old, came rushing into our bedroom choking and struggling to breathe.  I had to get her to a doctor or hospital – and quickly!

I looked over at my husband, who was passed out drunk as usual and I knew I couldn’t leave my 2 year old son home while I sought medical assistance for my daughter, because if he needed any help, my husband would be too drunk to get up and help him.

So I woke my son up out of a sound sleep and bundled both the children into the car.

I knew that there was an after hours doctor’s clinic about half an hour and way, so I drove straight there.

When we got there, we found that it had closed for the night just 5 minutes earlier.  I was gutted – and worried.

I knew that there was a hospital about 10 minutes away, so I went to re-start the car, but it wouldn’t start.  The battery had died!

I checked my mobile phone – the battery was flat.  I couldn’t believe it!

How could all this be happening when I was in the middle of a medical emergency?

I had to get to a telephone so I could ring roadside assistance to get the car going.

I remembered that there was a Nursing Home just a few doors up, but it was a bitterly cold night and pouring in rain and I knew I couldn’t take the children with me.  It would only make my daughter sicker.  But I didn’t want to leave them alone in the car either.  I didn’t know what to do.

I turned to my daughter and said ‘can you be a really brave little girl and look after your baby brother? Mummy has to go and find someone with a phone.  She bravely nodded ‘yes’.

I locked the car and prayed that no-one would find the children in the car.

I went a few doors up to the Nursing Home and told them I needed to use their phone to ring roadside assistance.  They wouldn’t even let me come inside the building!  But they passed me a phone through the window so I could make the phone call.  I thanked them and ran back to my car, hoping that the kids were fine.  They were.

The operator at roadside assistance said that someone would be there within about 45 minutes.

We would just have to wait.

It was freezing cold in the car, but I put both kids on my lap, covered us all with a big jacket and waited for help to come.

It was during this 45 minutes wait that I realised that I had a choice about how I could respond here.  I absolutely love the preacher, Joyce Meyer, and in the past week, she had preached about how God would give us His peace despite our circumstances.  God reminded me of these timely messages.

I chose to be at peace – despite my daughter still struggling to breathe, despite the fact that our car had broken down, despite the fact that my husband was passed out drunk when I really needed him.

I could choose how to respond – and I chose peace.

I cuddled the children and helped them get back to sleep while I calmly waited for roadside assistance.

I prayed and prayed, but I continued to choose to be at peace and calm.

The level of peace I felt was unbelievable.  That’s why the Bible calls God’s peace “the peace that passes understanding”.  It is a peace that looks to be impossible given the situation.

God is faithful.

Approximately 45 minutes later, the roadside assistance man came and jump-started my car.

I quickly drove to the hospital and just as I got to the main emergency entrance, where the ambulances drive in and my car died again in the middle of the emergency drive way.  No ambulances or other vehicles could get in or out because my car was in the way.

I just left the car in the middle of the driveway and took the children into the emergency room.

To my surprise, my daughter had actually improved while all this was going on.  Her breathing was much better.  By the time we got to see a doctor, they gave her some oxygen but said that she should be fine.  They said that with things like this, the cold night air can actually help!

Meanwhile, some staff from the hospital came and pushed my car off the driveway so that ambulances could still get in and out.

It was about 2.00am by now.  I knew I would have to get roadside assistance out again to get my car started again, so I used a public phone at the hospital to call for them to come out again. 

I then tried to ring my husband.  I rang and rang and rang, trying to get hold of him to let him know what was happening and that I could use his help.  He didn’t answer – no doubt he was too drunk to get to the phone.

Another hour later, roadside assistance came again, but the technician was a horrible man and he started yelling at me for not ‘servicing’ my battery.  Apparently, with these kinds of batteries, you had to regularly top them up with water.  I had never heard of such a thing.  Plus it was a really, really old, bomb of a car.  I had endless battery problems and breakdowns, but couldn’t afford to buy anything better.  I told the technician that I didn’t know I had to put water in the battery regularly.  He kept yelling at me.

I knew I just had to stay calm and ‘hold my tongue’, even though he was behaving like a bully.  Here I was, stuck in the driveway of a hospital at 2.00am in the morning, with two small children and this was the second break down I’d had for the night.

He should have had empathy for the plight I was in – but he didn’t.  I kept my mouth shut, while he replaced the battery.  I thanked him very much for his help and began driving home.

It was now that I started feeling angry at my husband.  He didn’t have to work the next day – but I did!  I could feel myself getting angrier and angrier, but once again, I remembered that I could choose to hold my temper and stay at peace.

We finally got home about 2.30am in the morning.  I woke my husband up to tell him what had happened, but he couldn’t care less.  He was just annoyed that I had woken him up.  All I had wanted was a little bit of empathy – just an arm around me telling me he was sorry for what I’d been through, but I didn’t get that.  He went straight back to sleep.  I tucked the kids back in bed and they went back to sleep.  I went to bed and contemplated the night’s events.

It was truly miraculous that God had kept me at peace in the most stressful of circumstances.

I thanked God for this peace and his strength and went to sleep.

“And the peace of God which is beyond our understanding, will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.”  Phillipians 4:7 (The Bible)

You can have peace despite the most stressful circumstances

My journey out of a deep depression

My journey out of a deep depression

by | Jun 17, 2020 | Faith Blog, Mental Health

In January of this year, my husband and I were in more pain than we’ve been in for many, many years.  Our pain was so intense.  It was a physical force, attacking our mind and body in continuous blows day and night.

I had forgotten how bad depression felt –
really bad depression.

My husband had lost his job on the last day of work before the Xmas break.  It was totally unexpected – a real shock.  His boss kept saying ‘don’t take it personally’, but how can you not take it personally?

If it’s not personal, then why me?  Why now? 

He was an excellent employee.  He didn’t have a single sick day in his first 12 months on the job.  He always got to work early.  He worked at late as required – overnight when necessary.  Even though lunch breaks were almost unheard of, he never complained.

So it seemed really, really unfair.

Now this, by itself, could have easily led to depression – or at least shock and sadness, but the bigger problem, we’d had hard (and sometimes) devastating things happen to us for years.

We were battle weary.  Enough was enough.

Every time something goes wrong, my husband gets angry at God.  I don’t.  I keep trusting God – until this time.

My husband was in the depths of despair and so was I.  Seeing the pain that he had been through over and over and over again was unbearable – I couldn’t bear to see his pain any more.  I “lost it”. 

I started screaming at God “I hate you.  I hate you”. 

Something I have never felt or said before.  I broke down and sobbed floods of tears in my anguish.

I lost my faith that God was good.

How could God be good – when He let so many bad things happen to people.  I had never felt this way before.

When I lost my faith in God, that’s when the really serious depression really hit.

The physical and emotional pain was palpable.  It was unbearable.

Down, down, down we went into a world that only had depression – nothing else.

Thankfully, I realised that it was my “thinking” that was really making me depression worse.

The more I thought “poor us”, “my poor husband”, “God isn’t good” or “God doesn’t care about us”, the more depressed I got.  My faith in God had always brought me through hard times in the past.

Thankfully, I had the realisation that it was my thoughts that were dragging me down.

I also realised that no longer trusting in God was also dragging me down.

So I did two things:

  1. I finally made a decision to change my thoughts; AND
  2. I decided to deliberately put my faith in God again.

I didn’t feel like trusting God.  I felt that He had really let us down, but I was DESPERATE to feel better.  I had hit my rock bottom and I could not physically stand to feel that depth of pain anymore.

To my surprise, just changing these two things started helping me to feel better quite quickly.

Not fully better straight away, but just a step or two better.

Enough to help me to keep moving forward.

Slowly but surely, I climbed out of the deep depression.

I started deliberately thinking of all the things I was grateful for

– simple things like having clean drinking water and being able to have a hot shower any time I felt like it with just with a turn of a tap.  I was grateful that I have arms and legs that work – many people don’t.

I started also started to remind myself of the ways I had seen God work in the past.

I recalled Romans 8:28 “All things work together for good, to them that love God”.

I had seen this come true many times in my life.  Hard, hard things in the past that I could see God worked out for my good in the end.

I continued to slowly climb out of the deep depression.

I started reading the Bible again and found scriptures like these ones:

Psalms 86: 4 “Bring joy to your servant, Lord, for I put my trust in you.”

Romans 15:13 “May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him.”

And my favourite in Proverbs 3: 5 and 6 “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways submit to Him and He will make your paths straight”.

This reminded me to stop try to work it all out myself.  Stop asking ‘why’.

Just choose to trust God – no matter what the circumstances looked like.

It probably took about a week, but I slowly returned to some semblance of normality through choosing the trust God and to be grateful on purpose.

Don’t get me wrong.  I’m not saying this is a magic pill for clinical depression.  I’ve been on medication for depression for half my life and it has been a tremendous help.  But it’s helpful realising that it’s more than just medication. 

When you are in a deep depression, it can help to:

1) choose to be grateful and

2) choose to trust your Creator.

Try it – and see how it goes.

I would love to hear your stories in the comments below.

Can you relate to my story?

What are some things that have helped you crawl out of a deep depression?

 

 

My journey back from a deep depression in 2020

How to stay calm and positive during Coronavirus

How to stay calm and positive during Coronavirus

by | Mar 29, 2020 | Mental Health

 We all have a magical superpower – the power of our Mind.

By harnessing this superpower, we are able to overcome anything and to change the entire direction of our lives.

Over the last 30 years, neuroscientific research is showing that every thought we have causes neurochemical changes in our brain.  Our body is physically reacting, literally changing in response to the thoughts that run through our minds.

Negative thoughts cause one type of change in our brain chemistry (producing anxiety and depression) and positive thoughts create other types of change in our brain chemistry (producing a sense of calm and peace).

What this means is that we have far more control over our State of Mind and even our physical health, than we ever realised before.  We have a choice about what signals our genes receive.

Our thoughts form our attitude – our general outlook on life and it is our attitude that determines the course of our life – even more than our DNA does.

Our DNA may have given us genes that make us predisposed to certain types of physical or mental illness and even certain ways of thinking and seeing the world, but we have the power to switch these genes on or off, through the way we think and through the way we choose to live our lives.

You can’t change what has happened in the past, which shaped the brain you have today and caused certain genes to be switched on or off, but you do have the power to re-program your brain for the future, through the way you choose to think from now on.

We all have an internal dialogue that runs through our minds every waking hour of the day.  Sometimes we are aware of this dialogue and sometimes we are not.

To harness the power of our mind, it is essential that we learn to start taking notice of this internal dialogue and take control over it.

We can choose what to think.

One practice, which is simple to implement and has been found to have measurable benefits in our brains and bodies is to simply:

  1. Start taking notice of the internal dialogue that is running through your brain.
  2. Write down what you are thinking – the more specific the better.
  3. Write down an ‘opposite’ statement.  A positive thought that will replace the negative thought.
  4. When you hear yourself running the old, negative dialogue, say ‘NO’ to yourself and choose to think the new, positive thought instead.  We believe our own voice more than anyone else’s.  Sometimes it can be helpful to say the ‘NO’ out loud and then say the positive statement out loud as well.
  5. Repeat the positive statement as often as needed (the more times the better).

As you start to think positive thoughts on purpose,
these thoughts literally begin to re-wire your brain.

Our previous negative thought patterns have become like large freeways in our brain.  As you choose to think positive statements over and over instead of negative ones, the brain starts to form a new, positive road and the old negative road begins to get smaller.

This is how you form a new habit of thinking more positively.

In relation to the Corona Virus pandemic that is sweeping the world, you can decrease your anxiety and increase your sense of peace, even though the future is so uncertain. For example:

Example 1

Negative Thought

  • I’m worried I’m going to get the Corona Virus

Positive Thought

  • I am taking care of my body to stay as healthy as I can.  It is unlikely that I will get the Corona Virus.
  • A higher proportion of Australians have been tested than any other country on earth.
  • 99% of Australians tested for the Corona Virus have come back negative.
  • Most people who get Corona Virus have just travelled overseas or been in direct contact with someone with the virus.  I have not travelled overseas recently and to the best of my knowledge, I have not been in direct contact with someone who has Corona Virus.
  • I am obeying the government rules about isolation and social distancing. 
    This significantly reduces my chance of catching this virus.
  • Worrying doesn’t achieve anything except to make me feel stressed and depressed.
  • I will choose to remain positive as this will give me the best possible mindset to think clearly and get through this.

Example 2

Negative Thought

  • What if I get sick and die?

Positive Thought

  • Many people who contract the Corona Virus only have mild symptoms.
  • Most people who contract Corona Virus make a full recovery.
  • It’s true that I don’t know what the future holds, but worrying about it will not help.  Instead, I am going to think about positive things on purpose and trust that I will be OK.

Example 3

Negative Thought

  • I am worried that we are running out of medical supplies.

Positive Thought

  • Many manufacturing companies have stopped producing their usual products and are instead manufacturing the medical supplies we need.

Example 4

Negative Thought

  • I have lost my job and/or I have no money

Positive Thought

  • The Government is working hard to ensure that government benefits are available for people like me.
  • There are many charities in Australia that help people with no money – they give them food and clothes and sometimes help to pay for bills.
  • I am choosing not to be embarrassed to admit that I need help.  It is what it is. I’m going to be brave and ask for the help I need.
  • Going through this gives me empathy for other people in need.
  • I am not alone.  Many people are in the same position as me.  We will get through this.
  • We are all in this together.  We will look after each other.

Example 5

Negative Thought

  • How will the world ever recover?

Positive Thought

  • I know that the world will recover because it has always recovered from calamities in the past.  Think about World War 1 and 2 or the Global Crisis in 2008. 
    It was hard at the time, but the world did recover.
  • I will recover.  I will be OK.

Try doing this over the next 7 days

What types of negative thoughts did you realise you were thinking?

What type of positive thoughts did you choose instead?

What effect did this have on your mind and your body?

Did you find that you started to calm down and were able to think a little clearer?

Did you notice that your anxiety reduced a little?

Remember, you are in control of your mind. 

It is your superpower.

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