I’ve been pretty quiet lately. Other than a random blog post here and there, I haven’t been writing. Not even in my journal. The last entry was the middle of January 2016. And until yesterday, I hadn’t really realized it.
But as I sat in her office for the first time in a couple of years, my counselor asked me, “How is your writing?”
Nonexistent was my answer.
But the thing is, it’s not just my writing that has been quiet. I have been quiet. I have been silently suffering for months. I have been making it through the days as well as I could, doing what had to be done, but not much more. And other than a random text here and there to a few key people on the really bad days, I have just kept silent.
Why? I’m not sure. I knew the depression was there. I knew it kept cycling lower. I knew it was starting to cripple me in certain ways. But I just suffered in silence. Maybe because I know that people depend on me to be the one who has everything under control. Maybe because I know that even if I am struggling, life goes on and I have to push through. Maybe because I know other people who are in a much worse place than I am. Maybe because I’m too proud and embarrassed that I am human. The list could go on and on.
But the thing is, silence only feeds the darkness. The longer I kept silent and held onto what was happening, the darker things got for me.
Last week I went to dinner with a friend, and for some reason I spoke out the truth of where I have been lately. And the next morning as I started the day, I felt brighter than I had in months. And then I let someone else in, and voila! More brightness. And then I went back to my counselor and let her in, and things got a little brighter.
The darkness comes on slowly, and the light creeps back in slowly as well. But the thing about light is – it always conquers the dark. John 1:5 says, “The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it.” You can’t bring darkness into light, because dark cannot dispel light. But bring a lamp into a dark room and the darkness disappears.
The same is true when we give light to our darkness. When we speak out what is happening inside of us, that reality becomes exposed to light. The more we speak, the more the light shines. The more light shines, the less power the darkness has over us.
So I am going to commit to start writing again: here and in my journal. I am choosing to expose what was in the dark to the light through the words that I write. Stay tuned as I come out of the darkness.
I would qualify that it CAN be helpful to share….if sharing is met with some kind of kindness. If met with ridicule or a quick fix attitude then it can be more hurtful to share than to just keep quiet. My opinion and experience….just sayin’
I would agree, and mourn the fact that this has been your experience, as I am sure it has been the experience of others. It is very difficult to find people to whom you feel you can open up in the first place. But to encounter anything less than empathy for pouring out your heart, the pain deepens.