When It’s So Dark, You Can’t Find The Light……

My Own Battle With Depression

Being powerful doesn’t mean we don’t struggle. It doesn’t mean we can always just snap ourself out of difficulties, or challenges. It does mean we do whatever we can, to change things. But when we’re struggling to even do that, it means we admit it, and get some help. There was a time in my life when the darkness was so bad, I could not find the light. I remember what it is liked to be so depressed I didn’t want to live.

My first experience with depression happened when I was a single mother. I was doing everything by myself, with my son. Days of no sleep, fear and worry plagued me. But then it got really bad and I sank into a darkness I had never known before. I lost a lot of weight and was not myself. My bubbly happy state turned to exhaustion and just wanting to stay in bed all day. Eventually, I wanted to die, it got so bad. I’m so grateful that my family helped me through this dark time. It has given me a real compassion for people who struggle.

When I got real sick a few years ago, I again hit a place of really bad darkness. But now, I was a different person. Healed spiritually, encouraging others, and even talking to people about how to overcome anxiety, worry and depression, it was different than last time. Initially, I didn’t think it was depression. But I would later discover, that is exactly what it was. Something was just not right for me. I knew that I had to get some help. As I discussed how I was feeling with my naturpathic doctor and neurosurgeon, I explained that I wasn’t down, didn’t feel like I would hurt myself or anyone else, but I had absolutely NO desire to do anything. My pain was so bad, worse than even I knew my neck or back could cause, and I could not seem to find the light like I usually did. All I felt all day was like I was in a constant state of numbness and I really didn’t even care. That’s when I knew I had to get some help. When I didn’t even care if things changed, I didn’t care if I did anything to change things, that’s when I knew, it’s time to ask for help. 

To be in a state of not caring, and being so numb I didn’t even want to do anything but sleep was definitely not normal for me. I remember explaining that I felt like I was ‘floating’ through my day. Doing what I had to and then looking forward to my bed every night. Only thing is, I was crawling into bed by 5pm some days, as soon as I got home from work. My doctors were super helpful and we did some blood and other tests. Instantly the problem was revealed, my levels were so off, my doctor looked at me and said she was shocked I was actually doing as well as I was. She proceeded to give me some alternative medications and some other traditional medications to help, along with helping my hormones. Within just a few weeks, my energy started to come back, my pep was kicking back in and I no longer had a desire to stay in bed all day. 

You really don’t know how sick you are, sometimes, until you get well.

It hit me right then and there, just how dark things had really gotten. Because the energy I got back felt so good, so free and so fresh. I could see and live in the light again. It was then that I realized how dark it had really gotten. 

Funny, isn’t it? One case I was really depressed and wanted to die. I was sad all the time, angry even and trying to control everything, as a young woman. Later in my life, when depression came back, it wasn’t sadness, or a desire to die, I just had no ambition or desire to do anything. Numbness with darkness is how depression showed up this time. Depression has many faces. Please DO NOT EVER tell someone they are not depressed, if they say they are, just because you don’t think they ‘look it’. 

In the Christian world, and with many people who are athletes, CEOs and people who strive to be there best, we can be sidetracked and misled even, thinking that ‘powerful people’ don’t get depressed. The truth of the matter is, they do. EVEN when everything is going great! And the powerful thing to do, is to get some help. It’s a POWERFUL thing to say, “I just can’t seem to find the light anymore, it’s so dark.” It’s a POWERFUL thing to say, “I am really struggling, I have no desire and am completely numb. Please help me.”

Because I influence so many people, and I understand it would be easy for others to think that Sandi is always up, always happy, and never struggles, I wanted to reach out today to encourage ALL of you to be powerful. To encourage you HOW to rise above, when the light has gone out. There are times when we might need medication. We might need our hormones checked. We might have something clinically wrong that is  taking our light away. It goes beyond how we think, we feel, or we can pray our way through. For me, it was a combination of leaky gut, I was not absorbing my nutrients, I had been recovering from a serious pathogenic bacteria, and my hormones were way out of whack. The HAPPY hormones had gone south and I was just not myself. Numb.

If you’re there today, hear me now, please. There is NO SHAME in feeling depressed. We all have blue days. We all have bad days or weeks and sometimes, even months! But if your light has gone out for too long, or you just can’t seem to bounce back, please, find a good doctor, get some blood work, possibly hormones and even allergy tests done. YOU deserve to be powerful. I know you want that. If my story can help someone to get help today, that would mean the world to me.

Being powerful means, that when we can’t find our way back into the light, we can’t pray, meditate or think our way there, we ASK FOR HELP.

I love you!

Sandi Krakowski