A Doctor’s Depression
How God Became My Healer
During my year in the ICU as I trained as a trauma surgeon, the threat of tragedy loomed daily. Every morning, I would tweak ventilator settings and titrate drips in desperate attempts to keep people alive. When all efforts failed, the afternoon would find me in a conference room, walking a tearful family through horrific news. My voice would crack as I explained the limits of our science, outlined the grim details of dying, and offered meager words of condolence. During the worst weeks, these meetings occurred three to four times a day.
Yet, even with the heaviness and grief these days in the ICU imposed, my greatest challenge awaited me on the nightly drive home. Every evening, I’d pass an exit for a highway leading to the mountains. I knew that down that road, miles away, a bridge spanned the Connecticut River. And every night, I’d fight the impulse to take that exit, drive to that bridge, and throw myself over the railing.
When Living Feels Like Dying
As a doctor, when depression first took its furtive hold of me, I knew what was happening. In medical school, I studied the signs and symptoms of the disorder. I understood the complicated interplay of neurobiology, life events, and mood, and I could remember specific patients I’d interviewed who left the hospital with renewed smiles after treatment. I knew the help I needed and how to access it.
Still, all that knowledge didn’t lessen the pain. Living felt like dying. I’d lost the capacity for delight, and the things that once thrilled my heart — a sunrise glowing on the horizon or a favorite song — lost their power. Daily, I struggled to complete the mundane tasks of getting out of bed and driving to work. Daily, I wrangled with a deep, gnawing emptiness and despaired over the words that repeated in my mind like a terrible refrain: nothing matters.
Although I knew remedies for depression, I had no antidote for these words. At the time, I didn’t believe God existed. And without him, indeed, nothing mattered.
Confronted with Evil
This first — and worst — episode of depression was a fundamentally spiritual struggle. Depression runs in my family, and as one who tends to brood, I’ve always had a personality ripe for it. Yet it was a moment of existential crisis in the ER, about a year before my time in the ICU, that dragged me from melancholy into unrelenting darkness.
One evening during my residency, I cared for three teenagers who’d all been assaulted — one with a baseball bat, one with a knife, and one with a bullet. I fought to save all of them and failed each time. As I staggered out of the room of the last boy, my already flimsy belief in God blew apart like autumn leaves in a buffeting wind. How could God allow such evil? I thought. With no foundation in Scripture and no understanding of the gospel, I had no answers for such a troubling question. The next morning, I drove into the mountains, stood on that bridge arcing over the Connecticut River, and tried to pray. When no words floated into my head in response, I decided God was silent because he didn’t exist.
Thereafter, depression dug its claws into my heart. I discerned no purpose in life, no meaning, and no hope. Everything seemed awash in gray, as if someone had siphoned away all joy and color. A withheld sob perpetually tightened my chest. The smallest of routines felt arduous, even agonizing. And every day, while I drifted through care for the dying, I dreamed of returning to the bridge in the mountains and giving up my own life.
Great Is Thy Faithfulness
Although I’d rejected God, he stayed faithful to me in lovely brushstrokes of grace. Every night when I fought the impulse to take that exit toward the river, he brought my loving husband, Scott, to mind. Although despondency clouded my thinking, I still had enough clarity to know my suicide would shatter him. And so, every evening when the exit sign tempted me, God reminded me of the kind, selfless husband who awaited me — and I would draw a breath and steer home.
Then, when I was at my lowest and life seemed a never-ending shadow, God gave me what my broken soul needed most: himself.
I was caring for a gentleman with a severe brain injury in the ICU, whom neurologists thought would never walk, talk, eat, or smile again. Against all our predictions and knowledge, he made a full recovery in response to a prayer in Jesus’s name. I still can’t explain this healing medically, but I know that, through it, God alerted me to his presence and sovereign power.
“Faith has provided me with an anchor, a safe harbor in which to weather the storm.”
I dove into study of religious texts and finally, at Scott’s urging, turned to the Bible — where a reading of Romans 5:1–8 reduced me to tears. For over a year, questions of suffering had jettisoned my hope. Now, through an ancient book that sat neglected on my shelf for years, I encountered the living, almighty God whose steadfast love never ceases (Lamentations 3:23–24) and who works through suffering — even through the suffering of his beloved Son — for our good and his glory (Romans 8:28).
For so long, I had denied God and wallowed in darkness. But God never released his hold on me (Ephesians 2:1–9). In his faithfulness, by his exquisite love and grace, he drew me gently into his light.
Hope to Endure
My recovery from depression wasn’t instantaneous. Just as the illness crept upon me insidiously, so also the climb out of the gloom was long and painstaking. Even after God brought me to himself, I needed an antidepressant to muster the energy and clarity to do the next thing. Scott’s patience and support were essential, as was the guidance of a pastor when I eventually wandered into a church. Gradually, ploddingly, with professional help, much love from friends, and a steady diet of God’s word, the light dawned again. And when it did, how I rejoiced at God’s mercy!
As so often happens in depression, the light did not always stay. Depression is often a recurring illness, with further episodes lurking down the path, waiting to pounce. I struggled through the darkness again after the birth of my daughter, when my own antibodies attacked my thyroid gland. Another time, it descended without clear warning or provocation, seizing me while I watched my kids clambering through a wooden castle at a playground. Both times, the symptoms were just as debilitating as the first, and the joylessness just as painful. Becoming a Christian didn’t cure me of my depression or grant me immunity against it ever occurring again.
Yet faith has provided me with an anchor, a safe harbor in which to weather the storm. When I’m depressed, God’s presence feels remote, but thanks to truths revealed in Scripture, I know, despite my diseased perception, that he is with me (Isaiah 41:10; Matthew 28:20). I know he will never leave me or forsake me (Deuteronomy 31:6). I know he has carried me through such shadowy valleys before and has promised to remain by my side, guiding me back toward the light (Psalm 23:4). Such promises and assurances of God’s love are lifelines when misery clouds the vision and darkens the heart.
Dear friend, if the bleakness of depression envelops you, cling to God’s word. Earmark Psalms that reveal his mercy, his sovereignty, and his steadfast love and faithfulness. Return to them as the deer returns to the clear, cool stream (Psalm 42:1).
Know that you are not alone. Help is available. A return to the light is possible. If the darkness so enshrouds you that you contemplate taking your own life, tell someone, and with their help call the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline at 988, day or night. Other avenues for help include your primary doctor, the emergency room, or Christian counseling sites such as Anchored Hope or the Christian Counseling and Educational Foundation.
When depression enshrouds you, and even when you cannot discern a way forward, know that hope in him endures (1 Peter 1:3–5) and that in Christ nothing — not even the throes of depression — can tear you away from his love (Romans 8:38–39).
