REALLY struggling/depression
I'm finding myself completely stuck in a vicious cycle without the means to break free.
First, even if YOU can't understand why, please just take it as a given that I am currently unable to truly believe God loves me. There's a long story about childhood abuse and the devastation left in its wake that I won't go into here. (My post history will include discussions about marital abuse, and I may have touched on my issues with my dad in those, I don't remember.)
But my dilemma is this: most days I'm just stuck sitting around, mostly trying not to cry, with a feeling of deep despair in the pit of my stomach. But because of my inability to really know that God loves me, I can't just pray. That would be the obvious easy solution, but it's one that is just out of arm's reach for me.
Which leads to more despair, more feelings of distance from God (after all, I'm a pathetic unlovable mess, right?), and the cycle goes on.
I'm sure this is all spiritual warfare. I did recently discover Francis Chan's book, BELOVED, and I've been listening to the audio version repeatedly for the last couple of weeks. While I'm listening, I can just almost make out a bit of sunlight trying to cut through the clouds of my depression, but whenever I need to get up and actively DO SOMETHING around the house, before too long, I'm back to being fully depressed and I just sit around again and mope.
The guilt of not being able to successfully "adult" and take care of my responsibilities is crushing me. (I'm so far behind on correcting my kids's homeschool work, they are just gaming on their computers because I can't pull myself together enough to do my job!!)
I'm a woman in my 50's who should be able to accomplish more during my day than playing Animal Crossing on my switch while listening to an audio book and then making dinner for my kids only because they need me to while I've literally spent the entire day dreading having to do it at all.
I think in analogies, so advising me to "just pray about it" feels like this: I have two broken legs. Being told to "just pray" is like asking me to get myself to the hospital despite having both legs broken. It feels like the problem itself gets in the way of getting to the solution. Does that make sense?
Posted Jan 13, 2026, 11:54 PM UTC