Pull Yourself Up By Your Bootstraps

The phrase “pull yourself up by your bootstraps” has to do with the idea that you can succeed without the help of others. We have some activities at our youth camp that challenge teens to depend on others for help. We find there are so many independent individuals with strong  personalities that don’t want to depend on anyone. If someone is going through a hard time, so often they are reluctant to ask for help.

I recently heard a speaker who was a very upbeat, productive, effective, Type A individual.  He explained that he always thought people who struggled with depression were weak, until he was diagnosed with clinical depression himself.

For me, as a young, strong, optimistic person who had never experienced a deep depression, the thought of those that did and, furthermore, needed medication, puzzled me. I certainly had times where I was stressed, struggled, went through some significant lows, yet I was always able to deal with these feelings and overcome them. If I could, they should. For those who couldn’t, I thought un-empathetically, “Get over it!” I could certainly understand those that had lost a loved one or maybe had a tragedy hit their life struggling with depression, but for those that had no such devastating circumstances to validate depression, I just didn’t see it. Growing up, my mother had been hospitalized for her mental health, and I had heard of other people that had these issues, yet it all seemed a mystery to me. Until I experienced it myself.

Judgment calls are quite easy to make about something we’ve never experienced; or, if we have had an experience similar in nature to someone else, to assume we know what they have been through and what worked for us will easily work for them.

I am confident the Word of God has answers and hope for all we deal with, but there are struggles, experiences, anxieties, troubles that aren’t easily explained away or understood by those who have never had those experiences themselves. Having gone through depression has changed my perspective to always want to show compassion to those who are hurting, without assuming I understand or dismissing their pain. I have found that encouraging them to ask for help, to seek to depend on Christ, and, in gentleness, offering them Biblical hope goes a long ways to supporting those who are struggling.