You can have it back

A friend of mine recently lost his job. This isn’t a surprise to me as his life has been slowly deteriorating. I’m worried for him. He rarely answers the phone when I call him. Sometimes I’m relieved when I get his voicemail. Our conversations are like pulling teeth. Very one sided. I ask questions and get back one word replies. What do you do for someone who is depressed?

This is the end of the story, but not the whole story. For the past 2 years he’s been doing well. New job with advancement opportunities. He liked the people and the work environment. He arrived early and stayed late. He received a few promotions along the way. He was finally able to make ends meet and have something left over. A year ago he met a young woman. She invited him to her Church. He met more people there, started to read the Bible, and found peace in prayer. He attended Bible study and Church regularly. He saw a different future than he’d ever imagined for himself. This was life as it’s supposed to be… we do recover!!

Time moves forward and inexperience starts to rear it’s head. Work advancement leads to more stress. The deeper the feelings in the relationship the higher level of anxiety both he and his partner start to exhibit. High emotions made both hearts fragile leading to arguments. The arguments turned to fights which eventually ended the relationship. There isn’t any specific event that someone could point to for a reason. My friend was inconsolable.

He continued going to Church and Bible study each week. He prayed every day to ask God for strength. Depression took over. He started showing up late for work. He went from sadness to anger throughout the day. I encouraged him to come back to meetings. He had health insurance so I also encouraged him to seek outside help through therapy. Everything was too much. He thought of using. He would spend full weekends at my house and sleep almost the entire time. He was confused and angry. Our conversations often ran in circles. He would start crying at the drop of the hat. He couldn’t move forward. He had no energy. No hope. These were not easy conversations. My heart broke for him.

About 2 weeks ago he was involved in a screaming match with a vendor who makes deliveries to his place of work. Last week he was let go from his job over the incident. I’ve since pleaded with him to seek outside help or go back to meetings… anything to try to halt this downward spiral. He doesn’t have much money in reserve. Unemployment isn’t enough to pay all the bills. He’s stopped answering my calls and texts. I’m completely powerless. Sigh. 

It took a lot out of me to write the above. I wanted this post to be about recovery. I wanted to write that just as he built a life before he can build the same thing for himself again. Starting over certainly isn’t on the list of life’s easy things to do, but it’s possible. We can have anything we need through hard work and enough time. Don’t stand there and looking up at the summit. Get started. Get dirty. Go! Climb the mountain. You’ve done it before. You will be able to do it again. 

I hope you're okay. I'm worried about you. Don't give up. Please.

God bless.