Some people rip through life as if their hair were on fire. Others sit fearfully on the sidelines hoping not to catch sparks. Then there are those who don’t care one way or the other. They say, “Bring it on . . . or not . . . whatever.”
Many people don’t fight external hair fires or indifference to life. Instead, they are the silent majority who trudge through their days with an internal pain carefully hidden behind cheerful competence. However, known only to the mask holder is the fear of mask slippage. Such slippage threatens to reveal deep shame, fear of rejection, and horror at being truly seen. Actually, those responses may be indicators of an undiagnosed depression: the sense that somehow “I can’t make life work. I feel desperate and not sure I even care about anything anymore.”
Here is the good news about mask slippage. When the mask slips or drops, there is no more pretending you have your ducks in a row. There is the freedom to admit you never liked those ducks anyway. In fact, you don’t care if you ever see them again. In case you see yourself in any of these descriptions and would love to not only find relief from your pain but also gain an understanding of that pain, I suggest you read Hope Prevails by Dr. Michelle Bengtson.
The book title is your first clue to the book’s message. There is always hope in spite of the degree of inner pain you are experiencing.
Dr. Bengtson is a board certified neuropsychologist. Although a highly trained and specialized doctor in brain-behavior relationships, she makes this vulnerable and compelling opening statement in her book: “I see patients in my office every week with mental health disorders, including depression. I diagnose their condition and make treatment recommendations. Yet all my education and experience didn’t protect me from succumbing to this devastating condition myself.”
She goes on to say, “I’ve written this book because I’ve been there.” When someone of Dr. Bengtson’s professional stature and training tells me depression can hit and debilitate anyone at anytime, I take notice. I also take heart. She says, “I’m writing today from where I stand, the other side of depression’s valley. I encourage you to persevere. You will not always feel this way. There are brighter days ahead.”
There are many fine, worthy, and insightful books about depression, but in my view, Dr. Bengtson’s trumps them all. She does not underestimate the value of medication, therapy, exercise, and wise food choices. But in her words, “Only when I started to understand what depression does to us spiritually, as well as what it cannot do, . . . did I finally begin to experience the chains of depression falling off.”
Each chapter of the book concludes with a recommended playlist of music that was uplifting and encouraging to her. She believes that listening to praise and worship music helped her hold on when her grip was shaky.
To those of us frail human beings who suffer from a shaky grip, or to those who seriously fear not making it through life, God says he will never leave us. We will make it. This book will underscore that biblical truth over and over again. Our first step of making it to the other side of the valley of depression may well be falling into the competent and compassionately written words of this God-honoring book: Hope Prevails.
Marilyn Meberg
Women of Faith speaker and author of Constantly Craving