SOME THOUGHTS ON DEPRESSION
I have suffered from clinical depression and anxiety for more
than thirty years. I am thankful to say
that medication has been very successful in my situation. Nevertheless there have been some very dark
days.
With the tragic death of Robin Williams on everybody’s mind,
I have decided that without going into all the details of my experiences which
included thoughts of suicide and hospitalization, now is the time to put some thoughts
on paper that have proved very helpful to me over the years.
The most important thing to me has been to remember that DEPRESSION LIES. It
tells us that life is not worth living; it’s never going to get any better; the
pain is never going to go away; nobody cares if I live or die; it’s just not
worth the effort; I can’t face another day; I’m not worth anything to anyone. You name it. Whatever it is that causes you
to despair or give up that is the depression speaking.
Dennis Miller recently said that it is as though you come to
a corner in the road and you just can’t get round that corner. Where you are is the dark place and you find
it impossible to see what is really around that corner except more of the
darkness. That is when you come to the place when there seems to be no way
out. But remember, depression lies!
For me it has been the conscious work of many years to
distinguish between what is the real me talking and controlling my life and what
is the depression taking over. On my
good days I worked at recognizing the real me as the basis of what I really
am. Then when depression controlled my
thinking, I gradually learned to recognize that the chemicals in my brain were
taking over. There are two sides to this
person that I am, and I’m NOT talking about a ‘split personality.’ There is the ‘me’ that I remember as the
person I want to be and have been in the past, and the ‘me’ that is distorted by my brain chemicals making me someone I’m not. You see, depression lies.
The brain is an organ of the body, just as is the heart, the
pancreas or the liver. We know that
organs can develop health issues that affect the whole body. We have no problem treating diabetes with a
chemical to bring that organ back into balance.
So it is with the brain. The
brain chemicals can be brought back into balance. However it is not always a quick or easy fix
to find the right mix and amount of the chemicals. It requires the expertise and understanding
of a psychiatrist and patience and trust in him. It is simply amazing how far medicine has
come in the last thirty years in identifying what part brain chemicals play in
keeping us balanced.
Yes, I mentioned that dreaded word psychiatrist, which for
those of us in the older generation has a stigma attached to it. Today, a cognitive psychiatrist doesn’t have
you go back into your childhood and try weird things. He takes you as you are now, and first begins
by finding the right medication (chemical mix) to bring the organ of your brain
back into its normal balance. It is then
that he works with you on changing the faulty thinking and behaviors that may
have contributed to your depression.
Just as anger and bitterness can make you a different person if only
temporarily, often an over emphasis on certain events, circumstances of your
life and the way you deal with difficulties become personal habits which
contribute to the imbalance of chemicals.
For those of us who are believing Christians, the idea of
tampering with our brain chemicals and who we are, just cuts right across our
beliefs. Yet we must remember that we
are who God made us to be. There is a
normal you and me – the normal person with good and bad. Yet each is created
very differently from one another, though we are also tainted with sin. We are who we are because that is how God
created us and allowed us to become. But
just as Christians are not exempt from illnesses such as diabetes, nor are we
exempt from real life circumstances such as abuse, physical deformities,
accidents, and more, yet it pleased God
in these last years to give us medical treatments that were never
dreamed possible a couple of generations ago.
Most of us don’t hesitate to take advantage of these modern day medical
miracles such as insulin, vaccinations, knee replacements, heart medication
etc. So having established that God
knows who we are and what we are really like (the basic ‘me’ if you like) we
can prayerfully and with God-given wisdom find a psychiatrist who respects our
faith or even has faith such as ours who we can trust; not as we trust God, but
as we have trusted doctors all our lives.
An especial thought here for Christians who suffer from
depression. More than likely you will be
tempted to think in your suffering that God doesn’t care, that he has closed
the door. But he hasn’t. He is still
there and He still loves you. Somehow
you must hang on to the thought that God is good all the time – all the time
God is good! Remember, depression lies.
I realize that this
subject raises all kinds of questions that I am not qualified to answer. I’m not a doctor. I have just shared with you what I have
learned along the way – and left out much more.
Many readers will disagree with me, but I ‘m not prepared to get into an
argument on this topic because it is based on my experience.
I know that some
Christians will differ with me and wish that I had said so much more,
especially about the work of the Holy Spirit, but now is not the time and place
for me to do that. I know that God has
worked in me and used me through this illness – for His glory.
I don’t intend these thoughts to be only for
Christians. God loves everyone whether
or not they believe in Him. The blessings, especially medical ones, that He has
allowed to be discovered in this world, are available to all and that includes
those who suffer and those who don’t believe as I do.
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