Depression: A Pilgrimage to New Life Through the Stations of the Cross

Some of you know I have struggled with severe depression for about 5 years. A by-product of the traumatic illness that landed me in the hospital for a few weeks, on life support and a couple of near death experiences to top it all off.

One of the things that can happen in an experience like this, is the loss of elements of the “self.” I don’t really have better words to describe it, all I know is that I was forever changed, in many ways lost, and in some small ways I couldn’t even recognize myself. 

At first I would spend hours trying to return to “normal” to the life I had – to “me.” I discovered it wasn’t possible, no matter how hard I tried. And I couldn’t explain it to anyone without having a sense of being understood. Life was simply watching a movie of myself. The woman I was watching had left months, now years, before, and would not be returning. What was before, had become devoid of content.

Over the last five years I have at times fought for life, consciously choosing life. Other times, there was no fighting needed. When in the grips of deep depression everything there is to do seems like hard work. When I see a voicemail on my phone, all I can think is that there is something else to take care of, something to manage, to be responsible for. And I have nothing left. I am empty.

I see the post office van go by, knowing I will have to eventually go empty my mailbox. Not because I want to but because if I don’t it will inconvenience the mail worker. Or I think “it’s lunchtime, so I probably should make some food,” but I’d have to actually decide on something as I stare blankly into the open refrigerator, then I’d have to get the food out and put it on a plate and cut it up and chew it and swallow it… and it feels like when I was young, plodding through the Stations of the Cross. 

Being raised Catholic, I can remember the Easter ritual praying before the Stations of the Cross. Mostly what I remember are the groups of old ladies, clutching their hankies and rosaries, as they walked silently, slowly and most reverently. Then stopping at each depiction of Jesus’ final walk here on earth. I decided as a child this ritual was clearly for old people, pre-Vatican II time no doubt, and certainly not something for me to carry into adulthood. 

Interestingly, this year it feels like my walk with treatment-resistant, severe depression is not unlike the Stations of the Cross, which may sound odd or even off-putting to some people. The stations began as pilgrimages to Jerusalem in the centuries after Jesus lived. As time passed shrines were built with the depictions of the stations, which meant a believer didn’t need to travel all the way to Jerusalem. In the 17th century, Franciscans built the shrines within the churches, allowing people to meditate on Jesus’ journey in one place, and with others.

Over the millennia, the story of Holy Week, and Jesus’ walk to the cross, has been focused on penance, with prayers spoken and offered to hopefully be saved from sins. Today, however, the stations have brought great meaning and healing by offering hope and new life in the midst of suffering. No self-flagellation or recrimination, instead, for millions, the stations are about connecting to the wounded places within ourselves, those same places that surely Jesus experienced, and finding solace and peace within the dark.  

This year, I’ve decided there’s more to the story to speak, and I return to my roots to find deeper meaning and understanding in an ancient story. If nothing else, the Stations of the Cross depict my ongoing understanding and relationship with the place suffering plays in our lives, mine anyway, and search for “resurrection” to new life. I believe it is part and parcel for what it means to be alive, to grow, and become the best version of myself – to be my most holy self.

Station I: Jesus is condemned

I am sitting in a psychiatrist’s office. At the insistence of my therapist. I hear his voice, but it all sounds like the adults on Peanuts. All I can think is that a vicious predator came into my body just 6 months ago and took my breath, literally, and didn’t ask me – just forced me to surrender the only thing I had… life. Now I sit here, a troubled stranger lingering on a fragile rope that spans a bottomless, dark ravine and I am suspended too far from either side to see anything with clarity. I have felt myself thinking less and feeling less. A kind of nullity.

He asks a lot of questions, I think I am answering them. Words don’t come easily as I try to explain that I’m not lost in the dark, I am becoming the dark. I am living in a place of nothingness, where no one else lives. Every question is a chore. At some point I hear the words “severe clinical depression,” and something about a hospital. He asks more questions to gauge my depression – really it’s to find out how connected, or rather disconnected, I am to life. Depression is the ultimate state of disconnection – it deprives me of the relatedness that is the lifeline of every living being. I can barely recall that just 6 months ago life did actually matter. A few tears leak out, but I am a desert inside so there is little water. He continues his “investigation” to discern next steps to treat this blackness. On his scale of 0-27, I score a 26. 

Station II: Jesus carries his cross

I now have a schedule of appointments every two weeks as the doctor winds his way through possible medications and treatments. In between I see my therapist. I’m sure both are looking for a light to to shine on my path. Everyday is an exercise in telling my heart to beat again. Most nights, in the dark before the dawn, I realize I have fallen asleep, because I wake after a couple hours of restless quiet and I am still here. The sun has risen again, and there is piece of me that is disappointed because it means having to do life. Realizing today isn’t the day to leave. 

I know most everyone has no problem listening to voicemail and returning calls. Most people manage to eat lunch and organize themselves to take a shower and go to work. Most everyone I know may not enjoy running errands, but they are not brought to tears at how overwhelming it is to adopt a mentality of “it’s no big deal” to run simple, mindless errands, and yet I am unable to figure out any way around it.

I feel afraid and lost in my own backyard and I don’t know why, and no one can tell me why. I don’t even know what I am afraid of, but I feel most afraid that maybe today is the day I can’t do it anymore. Every day I persevere, and some days I worry the resiliency meter has finally registered zero. I remember during active addiction, using was simply a slow march to death. I think this is like a slower way of being dead.

Over the months friends have slowly ghosted me, stopped calling or checking in. Maybe it’s too much, I wouldn’t know because the communication has stopped. Others send cheery notes “Call me if you want to talk,” or “I’m here if you need anything.” I know they mean well, but it’s not even remotely helpful. Offerings like “Feel better soon,” and “I’m praying for you,” or “This too shall pass,” only cause more suffering and anxiety. I think they feel consoled.

Every visit to the doctor begins with, “So how are you feeling today?” He may as well be speaking Klingon. He pulls out my file and starts tapping away on his computer, charting my eye movements, how I speak, what I say, and recording my activities for the last two weeks. Of course there is the inevitable conversation around the meds, which change regularly because it turns out I am treatment resistant, and allergic to most of them.

I leave the office, head home, and wait for my mother to call. She also asks how I am doing, to which I have no answer. Even to this day when someone asks me that question, I have little to say. I understand the intention, there’s just no answer because I have no idea, it doesn’t mean anything anymore. I’m guessing my mother feels afraid and helpless for her child. Her own cross. And the days unfold, waiting and wondering. I can only assume there is some place of grace that is like a little heart beating, a little lung breathing.

Station III: Jesus falls for the first time

It’s now 3 months later, not much has changed. Each visit to the doctor and therapist yields nothing. If it’s possible, the world has gotten darker, the desert expanding inside. I am loathe to go into then hospital, I realize the amount of shame I hold around this disease, as well as the prospect of being hospitalized for it. I thought I had hit rock bottom, and then I discovered the basement underneath it. 

Four days in a hospital, endless conversations with psychologists and psychiatrists. It’s noisy all the time, bright lights everywhere, nothing comforting or nurturing. More meds to try out, plus another doctor insisting on another diagnosis, an added bonus to this nightmare. Because one mental illness isn’t sufficient to carry. I’m told my stay here is for my well-being and safety. I can confidently say I experienced neither. Yet I am still here.

Station IV: Jesus meets his mother

I remember lying in the hospital bed months prior, days before the bottom dropped out and I was hovering at death’s door from sepsis. My mother had just arrived from South Carolina, from 2,000 miles away she heard me, she heard my soul reaching out for life, I think even before I did. As she stood next to my bed I leaned into her, quietly weeping, whispering, “I don’t want to die, I don’t want to die.” I don’t know where those words came from. We wound’t know for a few weeks if that would come to be or not.

Station V: Simon helps carry the cross, Station VI: Veronica wipes Jesus’ face

There are a few people who have been steadfast in the last 5 years, who have checked on me, created a space where I felt safe enough to share the load I’ve been carrying. Laughed with me, cried with me, didn’t try to offer advice or suggestions to make things better, or fix what they couldn’t fix. At times I have no idea what I am doing, and where this journey is going. What I do know is that I haven’t done it alone. From laying in a hospital bed having a machine forcing air into me, and seeing my sister glued to the chair next to me 24/7 for days on end reminding me there is life, to my adopted Turkish families who, over the last 5 years, have made me a family member in every way – cared for me without me asking.

I never imagined how this depression pilgrimage would go. Each day is a gift, I don’t always remember that. There are the steadfast few, professionals and loved ones, who remind me I am not alone, and my burden is lightened. Like Veronica, for a moment, each one inserts human connection and light, wiping some darkness away. Without many words, each has planted seeds of new life, reminding me there is no shame in any of this, I’m ok just as I am. “Perfectly” imperfect, not irretrievably broken as I sometimes think. 

Station VII: Jesus falls the second time

Months tick by without even noticing. Some days work gets done so I have a little income, the cat gets fed, the car gets an oil change. Through modern chemistry, meditation, nutrition and other activities I make progress, yet largely I have simply become accustomed to a different reality. I am desperate to fight for life, as it has taken me two years to come back into my body – I think I’ve decided I do want to be here. I know my doctor fights for me too, a pitbull psychiatrist. Like I’m a giant Rubik’s cube and he’s going to solve this treatment-resistant depression DAMMIT! On some visits it’s extremely disheartening to find out something else isn’t an option for me. Other visits all I can do is chuckle. He is tenacious when I can’t be. 

We’ve reached the end of medicines, which isn’t a bad thing really. I’m not opposed to medications, and yet I do believe there are many ways to heal our traumas, the fall out from those experiences. So next up on the menu, really the last thing likely, is Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation (TMS), not only is it covered by insurance, it has shown enormous success for millions of patients. Alas, not for me. The treatment involves once a day for 40 minutes a specific part of the brain is magnetically stimulated, 5 days a week for 7 weeks. I walk into his office for treatment number 8, and the rare side effects are showing, and he has some concern. I return the next day for number 9, and it’s clear I have spiraled into the depths of Dante’s hell. 

He tells me we are going to stop because it seems I am one of the few where the treatments actually work the opposite, helplessly watching me plummet into despair and nothingness. I break down, sobbing, pleading. This can’t be all there is. Once again I am in a place where the idea of not being here sounds peaceful. I know what’s on the other side, and it’s better than this. I don’t know if I can or want to choose life. I realize I am afraid for myself, so into the hospital I go. 

Station VIII: Jesus consoles the women

Few people would think, looking at me, that I live with, manage, suffer from – put in your favorite description – severe depression. There are VERY few, unless you are like me, that truly understand it is a life-threatening illness. I’m not really the despondent type, so you likely wouldn’t notice I’m struggling unless you know me well. I have learned to speak up when I can, with someone who has given me a place and space to say what I need to say, or even better, just sit with me silently. Allowing what is, to just be what it is. Many have stepped away from me, and I imagine it’s for their own well-being. I don’t know, they haven’t said. 

People routinely ask how I am doing, and I’ve learned to ask how much time they have, or how much information they really want to know. I need to know how present someone is, how much discomfort they can really be with. It’s effective for my own well-being, and consoles them.

Station IX: Jesus falls the third time

Sadly, some of the worst things I’ve heard have come from colleagues, other clergy and spiritual leaders. Seems hard to imagine, yet true. Well-meaning, generally caring people, hold mental illness as something to be fixed by “getting out into the sunshine,” or “you just need to get a job,” or “just call me, reach out to me anytime.” Not realizing they are acting from a place that is less than supportive for the person carrying the illness. So man think that when I don’t reach out I am consciously choosing it. What they don’t understand is that when you are falling, the idea of “reaching out” doesn’t even occur.

Our culture tells us, “If I can solve this, if I can straighten it out, if I can help you see the light, know how loved you are… then everyone will be ok.” We are taught at an early age to pull things apart in order to understand them, we diligently work at turning mysteries into puzzles, problems to be solved. We think if we can see all the parts, if we can understand them, then our pain will be lessened. Not so. In fact, the spiritual practice of embracing the mystery of depression is an invitation to STOP pulling things apart, stop trying to understand and rather move into the most alien place of all, the deepest self. Waiting, listening, suffering, gathering what “self” there is for the next leg of the journey. 

I am back at the doctor’s office, which thankfully has gone from every two weeks to every 6-8 weeks. Yet, still not as much relief and healing to have a sense of aliveness. Is this what I can expect from life? In the worst of times, life seems like a series of scattered ‘noises’ which constantly distract me, overwhelm me and suck out of me what little breath I have. But, there is an inner restlessness that cries out just to be quiet – simply quiet. 

He brings forward the last thing he has to perhaps offer that simple quiet I so deeply yearn for. Ketamine infusions. There is a sense that I have reached the end of some road. I can’t be hopeful. It’s too dangerous, too risky. If this doesn’t bring some relief then how do I live day-to-day with this? Can I keep fighting, do I have the resilience, support, or even desire to choose life? 

Station X: Jesus is stripped

I sit in the infusion chair while I am hooked up to the gizmo so they can pump Ketamine into me. Ketamine got its start as an anesthesia medicine in the 1960s. It was used on the battlefields of the Vietnam War. It’s also been studied and used the last 25 years or to treat severe depression for those who respond to nothing else. People like me. Unfortunately insurance does not cover it, so unless you have a benefactor who is willing to cover the hefty bill, you are SOL. I am one of the fortunate few. Once again, I surrender to allowing support. On this pilgrimage I have been stripped of most everything at one point or another, and have learned to stand naked and humble to receive.

Ketamine is called the anti-antidepressant because it doesn’t work like anti-depressants. It is an hallucinogenic, dissociative drug, so having it pumped through my body for 40 minutes means surrendering everything. There is no control while my brain is unhinged, the Pandora’s Box of memories, trauma and unconscious storehouse spilling out, while you are awake, conscious of the nightmare unfolding. The anesthesiologist comes in the room to check on me and all I see is a Dementor attacking me. I have never felt so vulnerable and exposed. There is no escaping, this is the path to recovery. 

I do six treatments, one per week for six weeks. Each treatment more horrific than the one before. And four booster infusions since then. Is this really my life? I’m not really ashamed anymore – saving my life outranks that – but depression remains difficult for me to speak about because the experience is so unspeakable. Yet others’ spirits continue to call me to more openness, more vulnerability, more shared humanity, even — and perhaps especially — when I don’t have words.

Stations XI, XII, XIII, and XIV: Jesus is nailed to the cross. Jesus dies. Jesus is taken down from the cross. Jesus is buried.

It’s not time to write about the rest of the stations. Not in the literal sense anyway. Of course there are daily deaths in life. The Ketamine is doing its thing, as am I. Just had another infusion a few weeks ago, and watching it mingle with my post-COVID body. Almost 5 years have passed since this pilgrimage began. If nothing else, I am more keenly aware than ever before how much my joys and sufferings live side by side, neither lives without the other. I continue to walk, weep, love and carry my cross, allow others to carry it, fall down, rise and breathe into new life, wanting nothing more, or less, than to be who I was created to be. I used to think I knew what that meant, and I suppose I did on one level. No matter what sits at the heart of me, I can never forget that who I am is an act of imagination.

Once again Easter is here, and I am proclaiming I am not a person of the cross, but rather a person of the Empty Tomb, an Alleluia person because I have learned and demonstrated that every step is leading me to new life. In the Stations of the Cross I am reminded that Jesus too has wandered the path of injustice, exhaustion, public rejection, grief – all weighing us down at times. Yet all leading to new light and life. So I am writing this pilgrimage, singing this song, in an effort to make the world whole, at least my corner of it, and in return the world has begun to me make its own again.