Depression and taking charge

 Biblical man substack

Some men turn their depression into a stage.

They get online and bleed all over the place for attention.

“Woe is me.”

“Bad hand of cards.”

“Pray for me, I’m really struggling.”

I don’t have time for that.

Depression is real.

But it’s not a brand.

It’s not a personality.

It’s an enemy. A tactic. A weapon.

And weapons are meant to be fought, not cuddled.

I’ve dealt with that gray weight most of my life.

Some days it creeps in like fog.

Some days it hits like a cattle stampede—no warning, just hooves on your chest from the moment you wake up.

If you’ve read me any length of time, you’ve seen me reference the “onslaught days.” Days where everything breaks at once, where your mind turns on you, where hell leans on every crack in your armor.

I’m not going to call that “my mental health journey.”

I call it what it is: war.

Louis L’Amour never wrote books about men journaling their feelings and waiting for someone to rescue them. He wrote about men who got knocked in the teeth, spat blood, and got back in the saddle anyway.

That’s the ethic I want my grandson to see.

Sometimes the enemy doesn’t just come straight at your brain. Sometimes he wears faces and bank accounts.

There are two people who know exactly who they are.

You gave what was supposed to be help for my grandson.

Then you filed chargebacks on it like cowards.

You didn’t ask a question.

You didn’t send an email.

You went around the front door and knifed from behind.

Same pattern now with Gumroad.

Buy. Consume. File chargeback.

That’s not confusion. That’s character.

So I did what any man on the frontier would do when he sees the pattern:

You’re blocked.

The gate is closed.

That’s not rage. That’s a boundary. And it’s final.

I’m not writing this to make you feel bad.

I’m writing this so other men know: you are allowed to draw a hard line and keep walking.

Depression loves this kind of thing.

It loves betrayal.

It loves loss.

It loves dirty hits from people who said they were “with you” until the refund window opened.

The enemy knows your soft spots. He knows how to stack the hits so it all feels personal and pointless and heavy.

You wake up already tired.

The bank account takes a hit.

The inbox has poison in it.

The mind starts whispering, “What’s even the point? Quit. Shut it down. Go quiet.”

This is where modern Christianity hands you a couch and a tissue box and calls it “self-care.”

The Bible hands you armor.

“Put on the whole armour of God, that ye may be able to stand against the wiles of the devil.”

— Ephesians 6:11 (KJV)

“Stand,” He says. Not “understand.”

Not “process.”

Not “rebrand your struggle.”

Stand.

I’m fond of westerns because they understand something this generation does not:

Hard times don’t excuse you.

They expose you.

On the frontier, storms didn’t care about your feelings. Rustlers didn’t slow down if you were “having a rough mental health day.” There were men who rode anyway, bled anyway, did their job anyway.

L’Amour’s men aren’t perfect. They get blindsided, betrayed, shot at by people they trusted.

But they always do one thing:

They get back up.

“Tombstone” has its own ethic.

“I’m your huckleberry” is not a cute meme. It’s a man saying, “If this fight has to happen, I’m the one who will take it.”

That’s how I want to face depression.

Not as a helpless patient.

As a man on the line who already decided: If a fight has to happen, I’ll be there for it.

So no, I’m not writing this for sympathy.

I’m not interested in you feeling sorry for me because two people decided to act like cowards and use chargebacks as weapons.

I’m interested in this:

My grandson seeing a man who takes hits and keeps building.

Other men realizing depression doesn’t have to turn them into professional victims.

Grifters learning that there are still households where betrayal has consequences.

The enemy realizing that, stack the hits how you want, the work continues.

Some days I feel like hell scraped across gravel. I still have to write. Still have to teach. Still have to answer my kids’ questions. Still have to build this thing the Lord put in my hands.

That is not because I’m strong.

It’s because I don’t have the luxury of folding.

Men are watching.

My family is watching.

My grandson is watching.

If he grows up and all he ever sees is a grandfather who collapses when it gets hard, I’ve preached him a louder sermon than any study I’ll ever write.

If he grows up and sees a man who gets knocked down, blocks some people, buries some days in silence, and still shows back up the next morning with his Bible open and his hands on the plow…

That’s a different sermon.

Depression can show up when it wants.

So can cowards and grifters.

I’ll be here.

Standing.