How Depression Became the Doorway Back to My Soul

In 2021, I hit a two-year wall in my battle with postpartum depression. I had heard of it before … the sadness, the fog, the exhaustion that follows motherhood, but actually living it flipped my entire life upside down. It was more than just feeling low; it was like losing connection to the person I once knew myself to be.

Every day felt like walking through molasses. I smiled because I was supposed to, not because I felt joy. I kept moving because I felt everyone was watching. But my body felt like it was carrying an invisible weight no one else could see. And even as I pushed through that heaviness never left.

That weight began to morph. It showed up as intrusive thoughts, impulsive decisions, and quiet moments of self-sabotage that I tried to hide behind my everyday life. Music became my mirror, and Cranes in the Sky by Solange felt like it was written just for me. She sang about trying to drink it away, work it away, sex it away and I understood every word. I was doing the same thing, trying to escape the pain instead of facing it.

But escape only led me deeper into the dark. I reached a point where I couldn’t outrun myself anymore. The silence turned into statements that I would be better off dead and the only voice that could reach me was God’s. That’s when I realized I wasn’t just tired. My authentic soul was buried under the weight of everything I had been through.

I remember the month everything finally hit a head. Big revelations surfaced about what I had ignored, and tears covered the floor. For the first time in a long time, I stopped trying to run from myself and sat in the truth of how lost I felt. That moment became the beginning of my soul surrender.

I didn’t have the strength to pray eloquently. I just poured out my heart and said, “God, I can’t do this anymore.” Despite my belief that I disappointed God, he was always there — in the mess, in the silence, in the middle of the weight. And He didn’t tell me to do more; He simply asked me to let go.

Healing started quietly in my small decisions to release mental control, to recognize I needed help, and to stop pretending I was okay. It looked like unlearning previous survival methods while still being unsure how to move forward. God began showing me that I was buried in illusion of expectations, shame, and unprocessed pain. The depression wasn’t who I truly was but a divine signal that my soul was suffocating beneath the weight I’d refused to face.

Once I began to trust enough to loosen my grip and stop rushing my process, slowly the weight began to lift. Not because everything changed overnight, but because I did. I gave myself space to stop identifying with the pain and started aligning with the purpose being revealed. Looking back now, I see that moment in time for what it truly was & that’s an invitation to lay down what was obviously meant to be handed back.

The heaviness we feel is often a major sign that we’re carrying things we were never meant to hold alone. For me, it was the expectations of being perfect, the pressure to always be strong, and the guilt of not feeling grateful enough. All of it layered over me until I couldn’t recognize my own reflection.

Healing, I’ve learned, isn’t about how fast you get through it or how much you can handle. It’s about learning when to release what no longer belongs to you. It’s about surrendering the urge to be okay and allowing peace to find you in your truth.

I’m still balancing this walk on a daily basis. I yet have moments where the weight tries to return through worry, shame, or self-doubt. But now, I know how to recognize it. I know how to breathe through it, hand it over, and remind myself: I was never meant to carry this.

So if your life has started to feel heavy, maybe it’s not that you’re doing it wrong. Maybe it’s just time to take the unnecessary armor off and trust that you don’t have to carry what God already promised to carry for you.

I was allowed to be light again and so are you. You’re allowed to rest inside your own journey, holding onto the promise of Jeremiah 29:11.

✨ For more on this reflection, listen to this week’s episode of Soul Said So, “I Was Wearing the Weight of It,” where I share how I learned to stop performing my healing and start living from peace instead of pain.