It was late 2015, a couple of years after my sabbatical. I had taken the strange (and, to some minds, reckless) decision to leave my amazing job after nine years on the staff of All Souls, Langham Place.

There were several reasons, but the most pressing was the need for work that offered greater flexibility for managing my health. I had always longed for more time to write, and there was more than enough work to keep me occupied, even part-time, with my responsibilities for developing pastoral training in Europe for Langham Partnership. It did make sense.

Lots of Changes, All at Once

What I hadn’t anticipated was the accumulative effect of all this sudden change. We had to move out of our wonderful church flat in central London, to a new neighborhood in which we knew nobody. I no longer had fixed points in my week, no longer had a clear role within a community, and was no longer on a team that met regularly.

The problem with our Langham team is that we’re spread out all over the globe, and so are never actually all awake at the same time! To complicate matters still further, writing by its very nature is a solitary exercise, which, as one writer friend with similar battles has observed, is not exactly conducive to well-being when battling depression.

So I found myself spiraling out of control as my world seemed to shrink. It was as if so much of the scaffolding that made life livable had been stripped back—and I had only myself to blame. I was the one who had decided to go freelance, after all. Nobody forced me into it.

But I made mistakes with others, not least in unrealistic, and even unfair, expectations of what friendship might look like. I naturally gravitated towards the few I knew who had similar battles, because they at least could understand. Nobody else did. I was desperate for connection with others, longing for companionship in what I was going through.

I didn’t have the words. I just had the pain unmasked, with the nerve endings too close to the surface. It was raw.

A problem was that one of my sabbatical resolutions had been to ditch the mask, or at least try to. I’d begun to recognize its symptoms. I had spent years unwittingly giving the impression that all was well, despite needing help. So it had probably come as something of a shock to colleagues hoping I would return refreshed and renewed.

Spiraling Downward

Instead, I undoubtedly showed less confidence or stability. I was even asked by one well-meaning congregation member why I ‘wasn’t feeling better after my sabbatical’! The irony was that I had taken positive steps by ditching the mask. I just appeared worse than before. It must have been very confusing to those around me. And, to be fair, I didn’t tell anyone that this was what I’d resolved!