Caroline H.
Photography by Luther Bells
If you’re reading this, I hope you find freedom in forgetting yourself.
The world today tells you to take hold of your life and prove yourself each day by constructing an identity and accomplishing great things. But my journey with mental health has shown me the opposite: true freedom comes from forgetting yourself, turning your focus outward, and serving others in love.
From a young age, I had an innate expectation of myself to be perfect. These feelings escalated, and I was diagnosed with severe depression and anxiety in 6th grade. In the years to follow, I was met with three distinct seasons of depression in middle school, high school, and college. Though these seasons differed in ways, they were all marked by an overwhelming awareness of myself as I let others and myself determine my identity. I was feeling hopeless, purposeless, and did not see value in myself. Through support from my family, counselor, and medication, God carried me through these seasons. As these seasons ebbed and flowed, I allowed anxiety and depression to define me and believed that I would never be fully freed.
During my second semester at Clemson, I fell back into depression and anxiety. In these four months, each day was a struggle to find strength. I distinctly remember waking up each morning, and my first conscious thought was a prayer for God to sustain me because I knew I could not get through the day on my own. I learned to make every breath I took a surrender to Him in constant dependence. In those four months, God’s grace changed my heart at its root. I initially felt crushed and hopeless in my own efforts to control my identity, but when I turned my eyes from myself to Him, His love, and to those around me, I experienced true freedom. 1 Peter 5:7 and 2 Corinthians 12:9 were two verses that I began to learn to live out: 1 Peter 5:6-7 says, “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time He may exalt you, casting all your anxieties on him, because He cares for you.”
2 Corinthians 12:9 says, “But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me.”
If the only thing to come from this suffering was the best friend I found in Jesus, I would do it over again one hundred times. As I handed Him my anxieties one by one, my fear of man and the pressure to keep my life under control faded. I learned to live in light of Christ’s love, growing less focused on my abilities and how I was perceived. Since my identity wasn’t in my weakness but in Jesus’s grace, love, and salvation, I lifted my gaze from myself and focused on serving those around me. I realized my worth does not depend on my actions, bringing a restful self-forgetfulness. The world insists that finding ourselves brings freedom, but I have learned that losing sight of myself is where true freedom lives. When I stopped obsessing over my inadequacy and began loving and serving others, I found peace. By resting in the identity Christ has given me, rather than constructing my own, I gained freedom. Jesus’s death and resurrection allow me to exchange weakness for His strength and love and share abundantly what I have received.
I always thought that anxiety and depression would be a part of my life and who I am. It is only by Jesus Christ that I have been transformed and redeemed. This life is turbulent, but God is steady, and He has taught me to live not by my feelings, but by the steady truth of who He is. A Long Obedience In The Same Direction says this about depression when commenting on Psalm 125: “Neither our feelings of depression nor the facts of suffering nor the possibilities of defection are evidence that God has abandoned us. There is nothing more certain than that He will accomplish His salvation in our lives and perfect His will in our histories.” I praise Him for this hope.
I challenge you to find ways, big and small, to serve those around you simply for the joy
that is found in selflessness. I hope you learn to live in the freedom of forgetting yourself.
Caroline H., Clemson University
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