TL;DR
No, I am not.
***
September 12 was supposed to be day where there is a heightened sense of awareness about depression and a somewhat large campaign was mobilised to get people talking about it. And September 13 was apparently programmer day but that is another story altogether.
While as far as I am aware of my current mental state and that I do not fall in the category of clinical depression, the question that was posed during September 12 was something worth pondering about. And what I find is that the answer to that question, at least over the past few years, has been a steadily and increasingly been...no.
I struggle with a lot of things, things in the past, regrets of the even further past coming back to haunt me again. And I am really struggling. I drop in and out of being an OK person and a mild state of depression where I want to avoid a large group of people. Which makes it even harder considering that most of the people that I am trying to avoid are people that I used to be able to see them eye-to-eye, laugh and joke and talk pretty much everything under the sun. Now it takes so much mental effort just to be in a public space with them in it.
I am reminded of my own personal studies on 2 Corinthians recently and the line "My grace is sufficient for you" is something that I holding on fast to because there is nothing else that I can hold on to. Even though Paul was going through physical suffering when he penned those lines, I'm sure the same thing goes for someone going through emotional suffering. Someone who is still looking for answers or waiting on an answer.
I will wait upon the Lord.
***
I can't say that I was not a little angry/annoyed when I heard this on the way back home today. There was a context and somewhere in that context the question came up to "How do you deal with being single and all?". Now perhaps I am reading to much into it but when I heard that, the default expectation was that everyone should be attached or at least recently attached and someone has to think twice about being single especially when said person is approaching the big three-oh. There was a little irony in the context of the story but that shall be another story.
Until now, I have yet to be a part of a community of Christians that holds true equal regard and support to people who are relationships and those who are not. The default position is we need to hook up this person with someone else if someone isn't already attached. That or we just do the following, "Interested in anyone?" "No." "Oh. That's cool". Given the recent sermon at church today, it seems that we are far from holding these two groups of people with equal regard.
Some people are struggling with issues of singleness and our response is like parents consoling kids who got a D in an exam, that it is not the grade that you expect them to get but hey, at least you didn't fail. Or worse, give some kind of divine-laced answer of there are plenty of fish in the sea and you are bound to catch one. Nice idea but still wrong.
It would somewhat cool if I did burst out in outrage but I didn't. I'd still like to give the benefit of the doubt that it was totally not intended. But whether or not it was intended at that point in time or not, I'd say it is still very evident in how people look at singleness today. And I am very very annoyed at that.
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hey man,
everyone has their struggles... you're not alone in being "not ok".
as you persevere in "forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead", hope that things will get better.
perhaps if things are really that bad, consider seeking pastoral counselling? but it's a risky venture, in the sense that sometimes you may not have a good fit with the counsellor. i've one friend who had to try out a few counsellors before finding one who actually helped rather than hindered his emotional state...
Thanks for dropping in again, things have been better. I know that I am not alone in being "not OK", just that it is hard when you don't get the sense that other people are not in the same boat as me.
Yeah, finding a counsellors right now is a little hard considering that I am in the middle of transitioning to a new church. That might take a little more time but I think things are alright for now.