Mental health crises in leadership: let's talk about it

It had been an amazing trip. I loved leading worship and teaching on it, and I’d just had the privilege of teaching on a YWAM school of worship for a week. It had been a wonderful time of people experiencing God in new, vibrant and restorative ways, and now it was time to return home. I was certainly physically tired, but spiritually I had had the joy of functioning in the sweet spot of my gifting.

At exactly the same moment that the plane transitioned from light above the clouds to dark below it, something very similar happened inside me. Somehow the sunshine was turned off, the clear blue skies disappeared, and I was thrown into a fog of depression – a depression that lasted eight years.

For the first couple of weeks, I struggled to function at all. Getting out of bed quickly became the challenge of every day, just as getting to sleep was the challenge of every night. I couldn’t interact with people, couldn’t think clearly, and the simplest of life tasks, like cutting the grass, threw me into panic. I played a computer game, obsessively trying to shut out the emotions and find a world where I had a degree of control over what was happening to me. Some moments I was hyper-connected to things around me, like crying over adverts, and then I’d be unable to emotionally connect with even those I loved the most. 

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After a few weeks of trying to pull myself up by the bootstraps, I was persuaded to go and see a doctor, and he fairly quickly diagnosed that I was suffering from depression. I walked out of the surgery with a prescription for antidepressants and the devastating news that this wasn’t going to be over by next weekend. This was going to take months rather than days.

Alongside the medication, which did dull the emotional pain, I engaged in weekly counselling sessions. I would often turn up having had a couple of better days, we’d discuss the underlying causes of my depression and I’d come out feeling worse than ever. I didn’t particularly notice the progress, but progress was being made. I slowly began to understand the belief systems I was carrying around that were destroying me and started to learn different ways of thinking.

And oh, the guilt of struggling to pray or read the Bible! In fact, one of my close friends, knowing that I loved black leatherbound Bibles, gave one to me as a gift at this time with the most liberating note I’d ever received. ​“I know you’re struggling to read this right now… so just sniff it.”

The recovery was neither swift nor steady. I was off work for 18 months and while I would have a couple of ​‘better’ days, they would often be followed by another crash. They always felt as bad as the first time, but with time I was slowly able to see that progress was being made.

And the God who I thought had abandoned me on the flight into London showed up in some extraordinary moments. One night I was lying on the floor of my lounge unable to sleep and crying with despair. I was telling God that I’d had enough, the pain was too great, that I had tried to hang on to Him over the months but that I could hold on no longer. With resignation I said, ​“God, I can’t hold on to you any more – I’m letting go!”

Immediately I sensed God say, ​“At last!” And in that moment, I realised that it wasn’t about me holding on to God, but about God holding on to me!

This theme of not having to earn God’s approval was one I repeatedly came back to, as well as discovering peace despite my circumstances rather than because of my circumstances. I also learnt that it was OK to fail (still learning that one… who am I kidding, I’m still learning all of them!).

The people who were most helpful to me were those who weren’t in a rush for me to get better. They sat and chatted about normal stuff, or didn’t chat at all. I’m deeply grateful for all those who prayed for me but found people wanting to pray with me more of a challenge. Inevitably, they wanted me to be ​‘healed’, and while I’m grateful for their heart for my wellbeing, I could easily end up performing for their sake.

It was about a year before I felt the first rays of hope that maybe, just maybe, God was bringing me through this and about eight years before I felt I was largely recovered and had developed some effective coping mechanisms. I’ve certainly been changed by the experience. I’m much less driven, am kinder to myself and others, process frustration and anger far more healthily, and have discovered as a heart experience, how much God loves me.

He can’t help it, I’m His favourite.