Depression
Tuesday, 24 June, 2003
These are the notes I took during a seminar on clinical depression at the AFES girls' weekend away at Otford. Apparently one in four people suffer from clinical depression and there are twice as many women sufferers than men.
What is it?
There are four kinds of depression:
- Post-natal depression: This occurs due to hormonal change in the mother's body after having a child coupled with the stress of motherhood;
- Manic depression/bi-polar disorder: This is characterised by extreme highs and extreme lows. It can be controlled (eg. by medication) but it can't be fixed permanently;
- Situational/reactive depression: Certain situations will cause depression in a person and it isn't necessarily treated with medication. To cure it, remove the cause or, if the cause cannot be removed, learn to cope;
- Endogenetic depression: If your parents suffered from depression, you are more susceptible to depression, inheriting their genes.
Factors that bring it on
- environmental;
- physiological (chemical imbalance, hormones);
- psychological (tied to genetics, family upbringing, models of handling stress);
- a mixture of the above.
Symptoms
- strange behaviour (eg. teary all the time);
- unhealthy sleep patterns (awake at the 2 am hour);
- lack of motivation;
- lack of significance/identity/value;
- change in ways of relating to people (isolating/agitated/needy);
- unhealthy eating patterns;
- self-destructive;
- lack of sexual desire;
- can't enjoy the things in life;
- can't handle responsibility;
- can't think clearly (or as fast as he/she used to);
- sometimes can't finish sentences;
- memory not good;
- distant from God;
- feeling guilty all the time;
- can't pray;
- less reading of the Bible;
- irrational;
- things get blown totally out of proportion;
- paranoia;
- self-centred: everything is read through the lens of the individual.
What it looks like
Depression will affect everything in a person's life: work, home, car, friends, etc. Depression is the mourning of a loss of something. It is a normal to identify loss and appropriate to mourn through it, but if you get stuck, that's depression.
What do we do?
The body of Christ is called upon to love and serve others. Here are some helpful things we can do to help our fellow brothers and sisters who suffer from depression:
- Help them get to a doctor. This is hard because they may not think that they have a problem but that they just need to snap out of it. Suggest a visit to the doctor to check their iron level and go with them if they're afraid of the stigma of having a mental illness. Make sure that the doctor is a good one. The doctor will check them out for the physical symptoms of depression so it's good to send them to a GP first.
- Remember you are not the doctor. You cannot heal them or solve their problems for them. You taking on the role of a doctor inhibits them from going to see one. Your role can be helping the person to understand the doctor's words/advice properly but you should never try to be the doctor.
- Be yourself. The heart of what a person with depression wants is to know they are loved. They never think they are good enough. They become a burden and they keep pushing people away. This can be very frustrating for the people around them because they are so negative all the time. When you talk to them, you can have the same conversation over and over and over again but sometimes they need that even though you find it trying. Identify your own vulnerability to depression. Is it going to be helpful to spend lots of time with someone who is depressed? (People who've had it before are magnets for others who have it but sometimes can't cope with it).
- Community: The body of Christ's responsibility is to help, eg. set up a rotation roster to look after the baby and free up the mother to go have some fun by herself. Bible Study groups in particularly need to get into this—even if it's just in the little things like sending cards, popping 'round to visit, helping him/her to feel love. This is hard because our lives are so busy.
Some simple things to help people
Help them set purposeful and fun goals: “What are you going to do today?” (wash up/sit in the sun/treat yourself to a nice morning tea). Try to understand who they are and what they have enjoyed and what they will enjoy again. The drugs will remove the inhibitor in the brain but it does not solve the problem of building up neuro-transmitters; only time and activity can. The closer you are to the person, the harder you should push. Say afterwards, “That was really good, wasn't it.” Help the other person to rethink their attitudes towards stuff.
Give them the option and then help them with the option. Help them to get out of bed and into the sun. Encourage them to do exercise. Persevere in encouraging them to do these things.
Help them to think about things in a different way that isn't so negative. Is there another way of thinking about it? “What does your doctor say?” (This is called cognitive therapy.)
Spiritually
- If the depressed person is a mature Christian, they are less likely to struggle in their relationship with God. Often depressed people will not pray because they don't think they're worthwhile to come to God so offer to pray for them and with them. When depressed, a person's ability to make decisions is kind of stuffed so you need to assess where they are and how much Bible reading they can cope with (a couple of verses? a whole chapter?) Talk through the positives; they feel guilty about everything and they need to know they are forgiven and that Jesus' death covers everything. Tell them, “When you're better, you will need to work out if you need to change.” Out of Bible reading, prayer and fellowship, what do they find hard and why? Work out what's scary and overwhelming for them and think through the options of what else they could do.
- They usually struggle with forgiveness and being spiritually weak. Keep saying, “You are not weak; you are just sick.” Keep reinforcing the positives—again and again and again. It's not so much the answer than the manner in which you answer.
- Keep a record of their progress; ask them to rate each day on a scale of 1 to 10.
- People with depression need to be “hugged”—maybe not physically but spiritually. They need to feel that God is touching them.
- Admit your mistakes and persevere. Make sure you apologise.
- If you find you must rebuke them for ungodly behaviour, phrase it with compassion as though you understand what brought it about.
Further reading
Current:
Bible: Isaiah (ESV) 28/09/2010
seen: Tropic Thunder 26/09/2010
seen: The Life of Mammals 24/09/2010
seen: What a Girl Wants 19/09/2010
seen: Jerry Maguire 19/09/2010
seen: The Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants 06/09/2010
seen: Tomorrow Never Dies 05/09/2010
seen: Nanny McPhee 28/08/2010
read: Mercury (Hope Larson) 27/08/2010
read: Spellcheckers Vol 1 (Jamie S Rich, Nicolas Hitori de, Joelle Jones) 16/08/2010
read: Solipsistic Pop Vol 2 (Solipsistic Pop) 16/08/2010
read: Chiggers (Hope Larson) 15/08/2010
seen: Josie and the Pussycats 14/08/2010
seen: Mr & Mrs Smith 14/08/2010
seen: Step Up 2 13/08/2010
Blinks:
How to recalibrate the home button on your iPhone.
Unsolicited manuscripts accepted by Pan Macmillan with certain conditions.
Thought Balloon is a group blog in which the writers tackle a new theme every week? month? with one-page scripts. This URL is for their Phonogram ones.
How to sew a zipper on a knitted garment.
Issues organised by tale.
Online magazine that publishes fairy tales that are not reworkings of old tales.
Journal that publishes fairy tale writing.
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Other comments
Very helpful. Thanks for posting that up.
Churchill’s life: Churchill’s ‘black dog’
Winston Churchill was haunted by his father’s decline throughout his life. In April 1904 while speaking in Parliament Winston began to hesitate, lost for words. Then he stopped speaking and became confused, fumbled with his notes and sat down. He covered his face with his hands and muttered ‘I thank the honourable members for having listened to me’. Many older members remembered the painful halting and eventually incoherent speeches of his father and thought that his son may be suffering the same terrible collapse. However his condition was not serious: one medical expert diagnosed that he had ‘overdone his nervous system’ and that the loss of memory ‘was the result of defective cerebration’. The following year Churchill was taken ill and there were rumours that he had suffered a nervous collapse. Again he recovered but the ‘black dog’, as he referred to his bouts of depression, were to reoccur for the rest of his life, particularly at times of stress.
In the light of this lifelong history depression it is easy to understand both his sensitivity about his diction and his later need to have spare dentures available: the potential non-availability of a spare denture would have been a source of considerable anxiety.