Most of us know someone who struggles with depression, if only from a distance. The illness touches more and more people now—young people, even children. We've learned that depression is a genuine medical condition, nothing like the ordinary low mood or fatigue that everyone experiences from time to time. We know how hard it is to help someone recover; it requires real expertise and takes a long time. Yet these people still need affection, respect, and genuine listening—gifts that are never easy to give.
To understand the struggle of depression more fully, to know how to be present with someone who carries it, and to offer whatever small help we can, we share the experience of a friend.
One of the cruelest things about my illness—though it's slowly becoming something rich and useful—is that I can't trust myself. You make a plan and then discover you can't keep it because you're too unwell.
Bit by bit, I'm learning that I can't know how I'll feel an hour from now, let alone tomorrow. I'm beginning to see that I have enough on my plate just living the present moment as fully as I can. And the present is revealing a fullness and richness that I missed for years, always looking ahead with worry, always lost in concern for the future.
That fullness isn't always joy. Often it's pain. But both the joy and the pain feel like part of reality now, part of life itself—something to face rather than escape, as I did for so long.
It's as if my life, flattened onto a gray plane before, is recovering its shape and color moment by moment. And plans, tomorrow, the future? They're slowly shifting from the weight of obligation into the freedom of dreams—things that can only come true if they're possible for me, in my actual condition. Paradoxically, what seemed like not trusting myself has become the opposite: not a me trying desperately to be perfect and all-powerful, but a me learning to live with my real weakness, my illness, my limits—and also with genuine possibilities for good. Everything, every small gesture, no matter how insignificant it may seem, gains value and flavor when it's possible for me to do it.
Rigidity and dogmatism are slowly giving way to softer approaches, where the measure isn't perfection or doctrine but reality and what's possible. Gradually, this illness is teaching me to choose, to see what truly matters.
From Suffering to the Path
Even my suffering, which once felt overwhelming and cosmic ("Stop the world—I want to get off!"), is taking on clearer shape. It's tied to specific situations now. I can understand it. I can talk about it. That makes it less terrifying because it's concrete and defined. Slowly, in a world torn by constant conflict, a possibility of healing emerges. The sensation of great leaps forward followed by terrible crashes disappears, replaced by the clear image of an uphill road. It's exhausting to walk, but there's no more that awful feeling of falling backward or of sudden abysses opening at my feet. It's a path—and increasingly I recognize it as *my* path, different from anyone else's and yet shared by all humanity.
Every Moment, Lived with Patience, Holds Meaning
Everything, every gesture, every moment—however small or unremarkable—takes on sense and substance and contributes its part to restoring color and depth to my life. Imagination is slowly coming back to life, while rushing becomes a trap to avoid. Every moment has its meaning, and when lived fully, it becomes alive and important as one tile in a mosaic where each piece has its place. God has become more and more a God of life, of mercy, of love—always present and close, holding my hand, or in the hardest moments, gathering me in his arms.
Rediscovering a Living and Honest Relationship with Others
As I slowly find myself again—and I need so much silence and solitude, just to be certain it really *is* myself!—I'm rediscovering the beauty of relationship with others. Nothing is taken for granted, but there's the ever-new richness of a life identical to what I feel in myself and yet so different in each person. As my world slowly becomes richer, as its edges become clearer and I become more certain of myself, others no longer overwhelm me or empty me as they once did. Slowly they stand as "others" rather than extensions of myself—as others with whom it's beautiful to be in real dialogue. To give something truly mine, however small, fills me with joy even more than receiving does. It's almost as though it confirms my existence in the most joyful way.
I—who was once so compliant—feel more and more the richness and need for simple, authentic relationships. I have less and less patience for formality.
A Word to Our Readers
If you know of group homes, welcome centers, schools, or initiatives helping disabled people that have struck you as especially good, please tell us about them. We'd be glad to share their story.
Life as a Continuous Gift
And as I slowly learn to receive life and its opportunities as a continuous gift (though how hard it is to recognize painful moments as gifts and opportunities!), gratitude grows in me for those who guide me and stay close on this path. As my trust in myself increases, so does my trust in and gratitude for those who help and follow me—people who feel, in some way, like guardians of the life within me that is slowly growing strong again.
The Need for Stillness to Taste Each Moment
How many times have I said "slowly" and "bit by bit"! Yet two opposite feelings live in me together: on one hand, the sense of a long journey covered in a relatively short time (after so many years of therapy where it seemed nothing was moving, how much has changed recently!); on the other, a need for stillness, for space to feel each sensation, each moment, each thing—to taste it, to truly feel it as mine, with the truth and authenticity of every moment of life, which is precious and cannot be wasted.
Monica, 2002