So many things have helped me to emotionally heal from depression including ongoing counseling, numerous books, EMDR therapy and more. Be looking for blog posts on these things because it is too much to include here. But if I had to narrow it down to what helped me most, it would all revolve around identifying three main issues. All of which, in various ways, I am still processing through.
First, it was recognizing that my depression was directly linked to abuse from my past. I have gone into greater detail and you can read my story here.
You can also read about what helped me here.
Second, I later realized that toxic ways of relating and lack of boundaries played a huge role in my daily stress. These often piled up and contributed to depression. Lines often blurred between what I thought was my responsibility and what was others. This lead to unnecessary stress from things like not being able to say no or discern what I should be doing with my time. It also meant that I often wasn’t honest with people about what I truly desired or thought. Being polite often won out over my heart’s desires. It took me a long time to understand that this is basically dishonesty. Imagine my surprise when God spoke to me from His word while on a retreat I took due to burnout and the verse that stuck out to me was, “Put off falsehood…” Not exactly the word of encouragement I was expecting on this time alone with the Lord to recoup. But I am so grateful for God’s kindness in showing me my error I was blind to. Shortly after that retreat, I heard about the books Emotionally Healthy Spirituality by Peter Scazzero and also by his wife, Emotionally Healthy Woman. God used these books to open my eyes and move me towards healing. Counseling solidified the principles and truths God taught me in those two books.
Third, God is setting me free from the bondage of obsessing about my weight and my eating disorder tendency.
Years of trying to lose weight and thinking about it constantly left me empty and unfulfilled. No matter what weight I happened to be, I was unhappy. For years I was in denial that my fixation on my weight was even a problem.
But how do you turn from something that is so ingrained in you because you have been doing it since the age of eleven?
I decided to take a step of faith. But more on this later…