Forgiveness is NOT a New Concept

Seems to me I’m hearing a lot about the importance of forgiveness these days.  Nothing wrong with that.  God knows we need to get hold of the concept, practice it, teach it to our children.  But it’s being talked about as if no one ever realized until now just how important it is, and that’s amazing to me.

Forgiveness is as old as Adam and Eve and their first sin against God. He forgave them–but there were consequences.  There always are consequences.

I’m afraid we didn’t do a stellar job of teaching our own kids how to forgive and accept forgiveness, and neither did my parents.  I had to learn it the hard way, after I was all grown up and should have been past the anger and bitterness that accompanies an unforgiving spirit.  Someone has said that withholding forgiveness is like drinking poison and hoping the person who hurt you will die.

There is a ton of bitterness that walks into my office.  People are so hurt, so angry, so bitter.  They are locked in a prison of their own making because, even when they think they have forgiven, they have failed to go past the words “I forgive you,” not making application of those words in their attitudes, actions, and relationships. They often do not understand that failing to truly forgive one person will spill over into all their other relationships like radioactive fallout, slowly eating away at their lives until they find themselves alone and lonely, and not understanding why.

That is when the 100% words come into play. “No one understands me. Everyone is against me. I always get the shaft. I never seem to come out on top. ”

In Ephesians 4:32, Paul wrote, “Be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God, for Christ’s sake, has forgiven you.”

I had to learn that forgiveness was really between God and me, and not necessarily between me and the person(s) who hurt me.  Often, the person against whom we hold bitterness is blithely unaware–or chooses to be unaware–of the pain we suffer.  Confronting the offender is often impossible because he/she is already dead; or the distance is too great.  Perhaps you really don’t want the person in your life, and that’s okay as long as there is very little chance of you ever being together in the same place at the same time.  You don’t have to confront someone face-to-face in order to forgive him. Just understand that as long as you withhold forgiveness, that person is still controlling your emotions.  It simply doesn’t make sense to allow that to continue.

Forgiveness is a process, not an event.  You may finally come to a place of brokenness before God, and you choose to release the offender from the debt. You choose to give up your right to demand justice. You are relieved, released, and rejoicing.  And then, WHAM!  out of nowhere, a memory comes flooding back along with all the emotions, and you’re floundering, drowning in discouragement because you thought you had settled it.

That’s when you have to forgive again, seventy times seven, as long as it takes.  What I have learned is that the more often you learn to quickly forgive again, as time goes on, you will need to forgive less and less because you are practicing forgiveness. After a while, you get pretty good at it.  The painful memories come less frequently, and when they do arise like snakes from under a rock, you kill them before they have a chance to poison you again.

Does forgiving someone mean that he gets away with whatever he did?  Does it mean you have to continue to tolerate abuse?  No, and no. The offender will answer to God unless he seeks forgiveness.  As for tolerating further mistreatment, no, of course not. Abuse is never acceptable.  We all need to establish boundaries that, if crossed, will result in the loss of an active relationship. These boundaries need to be made clear to the person who has invaded your space before, treating you with condescension or cruelty. No one has to accept that.

We do have to accept, however, that some people seem to just be incapable of changing their behaviors, ignoring your boundaries. They are so full of themselves that they cannot–will not–acknowledge that you have a right to set your own boundaries.

You don’t have to accommodate their obtuse arrogance. Stay away. There are toxic people who will drip poison into your heart and mind if they get anywhere near you, and then try to convince you that it’s all your fault. All we can do with those poor folks is pray for them, and stay away from them. Kindly. Not returning spite for spite.

So, there now.  I’ve added–once again–my voice to the many others out there who are trying to embrace, practice, and teach forgiveness as well as seeking forgiveness from those they themselves have hurt.

Remember that we are to be becoming Christlike. He is the best forgiver in the history of the world.

 

A Friday Counseling Session

I’m pretty sure we’ve talked about these two issues before, but it bears repeating. We hear so much untruth over the airwaves, from cyberspace, in self-help books, on TV, and even in our college classrooms these days that it’s easy for us to lose sight of simple truth.

Do you understand that the Snowflake Generation is so weak and helpless because they are completely focused on SELF and FEELINGS?

The other day, I was talking with a lovely young woman who seems to bear the weight of the world on her shoulders.  She has a sorry history, mostly of her own making, and she needs forgiveness.  She needs to understand a couple of important things that the philosophy of self-forgiveness and self-love have completely obscured.

Self-forgiveness. “Well, I know God has forgiven me, BUT  I just can’t forgive myself.”

This is a huge lie, straight from the father of lies.  It is  effective because, as always, Satan wraps his lies in a thin tissue of truth.  Look at it carefully, though. There’s a glaring error.

Yes, God has forgiven me.   However, self-forgiveness is never, ever mentioned in God’s Word. It is a lie and one that has kept people enslaved in their misery over the centuries. Think about it logically.  Think about it biblically.

If you know God has forgiven you, then what more do you need?  is His forgiveness not enough?  Does it fall short?  Can YOU improve on what God has done?  The Bible says, in I John 1:9, that if we confess (agree with God) our sin, He is faithful and just (dependable and fair) to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse (purify) us from ALL  unrighteousness!

To believe you must forgive yourself is to believe that your power is greater than God’s; that forgiveness is not complete, not even by God, until you have forgiven yourself!  How full of pride we are!  No, self-forgiveness is not what you need.  What you need is to believe that God’s forgiveness is complete; what you need is to pray sincerely and ask Him to help you KNOW that you are forgiven, and to keep Satan from whispering his nasty lies in your ear. Rather than being burdened with the need for self-forgiveness, you need to rejoice, dance and sing, praise God with all your heart, that His forgiveness is sufficient and that you are free of the sin that tangled you up and kept you captive.

Here’s the next lie:  “You can’t love others until you love yourself.”  Who is at the center of that nonsense?  YOU.  Self.  Primary person is self. If that’s your focus, you’re going to become a very difficult person for others to love.

When I was a little girl, I learned a song. The words were, “Jesus, and Others, and You, what a wonderful way to spell JOY” (the lyrics will show in the second verse of the video)

 

Jesus said,  in Matt. 22:36-40, that the first and greatest commandment is to love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength. Then He said that the second greatest commandment is to love others as we love ourselves.

What is implicit in that second commandment?  Look at it carefully.  What does Jesus know about us? “Love others  as we love ourselves.”  He knows that it is in our sinful, fallen nature to love ourselves above all else.

Have you ever had a baby?  Then surely, you understand self-love. That adorable precious little infant fusses and cries and sometimes screams his little head off, for what?  So someone else can be cleaned, cuddled, and fed?  Of course not.  All he knows is his own needs and wants, and he demands them regularly. We never lose that tendency to take care of our own needs.  We eat, we groom ourselves, we give in to our desires through addictions, self-indulgence, and self-love.  We take care of ourselves. We love ourselves.  A child doesn’t need to be taught self-love.  He doesn’t need to be taught to say “Mine!”  It comes hard-wired in his little brain. It’s true that as we grow up, we learn (I hope) to take pleasure in doing for others, in caring for others. But the sad truth is that we also get pleasure from giving to others. Self is always lurking there, saying “What about ME?”

So Jesus, because He is God, knows that we love ourselves and that we don’t have to learn to do so.  And He tells us that second only to loving God is our  need to learn to love others in the same way we love ourselves.

Turn your focus outward, not inward. Look at the needs of others, not your own sense of unworthiness (which, by the way, Satan fosters and feeds), and learn to be wise about the psychobabble self-help stuff that’s out there.  Measure it against God’s Word.  Look for the truth, and you will be relieved of the burden of self-forgiveness and self-love.

Realize that the first word in both those lies is SELF.

Sunday Morning Coffee: Depression

It is of particular concern to me when I meet a teen boy or girl who is struggling with depression.  It just makes me so sad to know the battle that is being waged, and how unexpected it is for a lot of kids and their families.

Because I work in a Christian counseling office,  I usually ask  sometime early in our work together about my clients’ spiritual relationship with God. One of the things that confuses them is that they have often been taught that a good Christian doesn’t experience depression. Feelings of strong guilt grow along with the depression, and it’s one of the first things we need to discuss.

It is so damaging, no matter a person’s age, to be told that he just needs to get right with God, just needs to trust the promises of God. The implication, then, is that he is NOT right with God, that he has NOT been trusting God. The feelings of despair will continue to grow if this negative pattern of thinking is not confronted with the truth of God’s Word.

 

It is true that there is always a spiritual piece in depression. David, whose Psalms often reflect the struggle he had with depression, made it clear that he knew when he had sinned against God, and he wept and repented, and sought for restoration.  I am not overlooking the possibility of sin lurking in a person’s heart, but I also know, from walking with my own husband through a terrible depression,  that he did search his heart, begging God to show him if there was some hidden sin.

The truth for a lot of people who experience depression is that they are worn out, body and soul. Exhausted.  Often, their personality type is that of the melancholy, who is an analytical, detail-oriented perfectionist who easily falls into feeling of guilt and even shame when things don’t go perfectly. These thoughts and emotions can lead to insomnia, or to a need to sleep ALL the time.   Slowly, the person’s supply of the “feel-good chemicals” created in the brain and the gut become depleted, and a serious depression follows.

Treatment, to be the most effective, needs to address body, soul, and spirit.  Proper diet, hygiene, exercise, maybe medication, and good talk therapy to help replace the negative thinking patters with  positive, biblically-based thinking all work together to bring the person back to normal.  Done well, therapy gives him tools to recognize  negativity and take steps to turn it around.

It is so important to encourage, not to scold. To focus on positives, not to preach. To use prayer as a positive force, not an opportunity to lecture.

Starting with my husband’s experience, and all during the 17 years since I started working in this field, I’ve seen dozens and dozens of depressed believers who feel they’re the most sinful people on earth. I’m so thankful to have a different understanding of the whole subject now, and to be able to offer help and hope.

I love my job.

 

 

Sidestep

I wrote this one way back in the beginning of my blogging adventure, in May of 2012. I didn’t know how to publicize it back then.  I was looking for it yesterday, and decided to repost it and publicize it today.  I am just as passionate about it now as I was five years ago.  Maybe more. 

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This is a rant.  I don’t care if anyone is offended by it.

I am SO offended by the pain, confusion, misery, and total dysfunction that results from children being exposed way too soon, way too graphically, to sexual behaviors.  I am offended that children who aren’t even in their teens think they have to decided whether they are straight, gay, or “bi.”  I am offended at the angst they suffer when they think they should already know about sex.  When they tell me their friend asked them to “just try it,” like you would try a new flavor of ice cream.

I am offended when these children dissolve into tears in my office because they are, after all, still children.  They have been taught everything they need to know about human sexuality except for the important things:  Love, respect, godliness, commitment, consequences. I am offended that they have been hurt by someone they should have been able to trust; most child sexual abuse is at the hands of a trusted family member or close friend of the family.  I am offended that these children are often told it must have been something they did to cause the abuse; I am offended that they are the ones who feel guilty, while the perpetrator just continues his behavior with not a twinge of conscience.  I am offended that a woman told me she was a promiscuous four-year-old.  Good grief.

I am offended by the man who told his wife that if he had known she’d been molested as a child, he wouldn’t have married her because she was impure.  Not the creep who molested her (her older brother, by the way); it wasn’t his fault; she must have been asking for it.

I am offended that these victims of sexual abuse suffer flashbacks, nightmares, panic attacks, addictions, promiscuity, and self-harm; and yet they are sometimes told by other believers that they just need to get over it and move on with their lives.

I am offended that we have forgotten that Jesus said that anyone who harms one of of these little ones would do better to tie a very large stone around his neck and jump into a deep river.

I tell these hurting people that it was not their fault.  I tell them that when someone touches you sexually, he is touching your soul.  It changes you.  It makes you have to deal with emotions and behaviors that no child is mature enough to understand. It causes terrible confusion and creates a huge sense of unworthiness in the heart of a victim. We process through what happened; we work together for healing and forgiveness.  It’s hard, painful work. No one should try it at home alone.

When the person begins to heal and to understand that God never stopped loving her, there is a change in demeanor. Sometimes they’ll even let me hug them when they leave.  Always, they cry.  A lot.

Until we stop sweeping this horror under the carpet and offer help and healing to the victims, it will continue to grow like the plague it is.  Parents, you cannot be too protective of your children.  Sometimes the perpetrators are the kids they sit next to in school.  Sometimes it’s the babysitter; the friendly old guy next door; an aunt, uncle, or grandparent. Take off the blinders.  Talk with your children.  Know where they are and who they are with. You are their protectors.  Of course, often the parent is the perpetrator.  There are just no words.

“If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land.” II Chronicles 7:14.

Grief and Depression

(This was first posted on Feb. 1, 2013.  Contrary to the first paragraph, it ended up NOT being the final post on depression–a couple more to follow.)

 

I believe this will be the final Friday Depression post.  I’m thinking of moving on to other counseling topics, and I would love your input.  If there is something you’d like to suggest as a future post, please comment here, or on my page, or via Facebook or email.  I really hope you’ll help me out with some ideas.  The response to these Friday posts has been so encouraging to me.  I’d like to continue with something else that will be helpful.

Today, I want to address how depression and grief are closely related. In my practice, I often see widows or widowers who are so deeply grieving that they can hardly function in their daily lives.  They come to counseling hoping to find out what is wrong with them, and when I say, “There is nothing wrong with you.  You are experiencing a normal grief reaction to the deepest loss of your life. Go ahead and grieve, and don’t worry about the people who tell you to get past it now, and move on with your life.  They don’t understand, although they believe they are helping you.  They haven’t experienced your particular path, even if they have themselves lost a spouse.  Each individual has to grieve his own loss in his own way. There is no right way to grieve.  Nobody gets to make the rules for how you deal with your loss.”

Back in the early 1900’s, polio was a greatly-feared plague that crippled and killed children by the score.  Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross worked with polio victims, and witnessed often the deep grief of parents whose precious children were torn from them.  She observed their grief and developed what we now refer to as The Five Stages of Grief, a model to help people understand that what they’re enduring is normal. Here is a chart of these stages of grief, with a sixth stage included:

Shock and denial is the typical reaction to the death of a loved one.  I believe God has provided this reaction as a buffer to help us absorb what has happened.  I remember when my nephew was killed in a drunk driving accident when he was only 23; then, 19 months later, his dad, my only brother, was killed in a one-vehicle rollover.  The  grieving over my nephew was compounded by the fresh shock of his dad’s way-too-early death.  He was almost 49. I live very far away from where they were, so the loss for me wasn’t nearly as difficult as it was for my mom, niece, sister, and sister-in-law. Still, there was a period of time in which the unreality helped me to begin to accept that I would never see them again in this life.

One important observation here is that these stages may or may not come in the order shown on this chart; also, most people cycle through them multiple times during the grieving process,  It’s not a one-size-fits-all deal, nor is it once-and-done.

Anger is a natural part of grieving.  A life has been cut short, and there is absolutely nothing anyone can do to bring it back.  Don’t feel guilty about being angry.  Anger is never called a sin in the Bible; it is how we act out our anger that makes sin a part of the picture.

Bargaining is also normal.  Some have called this “foxhole Christianity,” because of the tendency of soldiers dug into holes in the ground to say, “God, if You’ll just get me out of this alive I promise I’ll serve You for the rest of my life.”  Bargaining is an attempt on our part to make some sense out of what has happened.

And now, depression.  The loss is overwhelming.  Sometimes, it is accompanied by financial instability, which is very frightening for a widow, especially, who has never handled the finances.  The survivor is swamped by loneliness, fear,  dread of the future.  Anxiety comes barging into the person’s life, dominating and controlling like a bully on the school playground.  There is no escape.  Loss of sleep becomes a state of being; hunger goes away, desire for friends and companionship dwindles to nothing.  There is no joy, no future, no purpose, no point in going on.  Deep weeping, sobbing, moaning and fear begin to characterize the person whose life has suddenly been turned upside down.  For many, it means selling a beloved home; moving in with children, or going to an apartment.  The loss of treasured belongings triggers more depression.  It seems as if the pit just keeps getting deeper.  Despair is very black, and very lonely.

That is often the point at which people come to seek professional help.  Sometimes an anti-depression/anti-anxiety medication is indicated and is helpful.  But the most helpful thing I can do for people in this situation is to assure them repeatedly that it is normal.  What they are experiencing is normal, and they are not crazy, insane, losing their minds. It takes time–a lot of time–to process such a fundamental life change.  Sometimes it’s even worse if the marriage was difficult, because now the survivor experiences guilt on top of everything else.

If you are walking this difficult path, or someone in your life has had such a loss, it is important to talk.  It helps the person to repeat the story of what happened.  It may seem like endless repetition to those who listen, but it is therapeutic and even necessary for the person to be able to verbalize this most cataclysmic event.  Patience on the part of others will help the grieving person to heal.  And don’t forget, some day it will be you.

In my experience, it takes up to three years before the most acute grieving is done.  It does slowly get better during this period of time, but there are difficult days that roll around every year that slow down the process.  Birthdays, anniversaries, the date of the death, family holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas, all bring a fresh sense of loss.  This is normal. 

Finally, acceptance of the new normal begins to set in, and the person begins to be able to make plans and carefully enter a new phase of life. Here are some things you can do if you are trying to help a person through the grief process:

1.  Listen.  Endlessly.

2.  Reassure the person that her grief is normal.

3.  Share the tears.  Go ahead and cry with her.  It’s good therapy.

4.  Pray for and with the grieving person.  A broken heart is acutely painful.

5.  Never tell the person, “It’s been six months–a year–two years–you need to put this behind you and get on with your life,”  You are piling guilt onto grief.  Don’t. It’s unkind.

6. Include the grieving person.  If she is a widow, she will be acutely aware of how alone she is now.  If he is a widower, he often just wants to sit at home and fall deeper into depression. You can help.

7.  Watch, learn, and listen.  Someday it will be your turn.

Hope will surface again, especially for the believer who knows she will one day see her loved one again. God is always good. Death is a normal part of life.

King David and Depression

(Since it’s Friday, I have chosen to pull up a post that still, after several years, gets lots of hits.  Originally written and posted in 2014, it shows up nearly every day on my list of ten most-viewed posts. I looked up the stats yesterday and found that over 19,000 people, about 5.5 % of my total readers, have accessed this post.  Maybe not every single one of them read it, but it amazes me how much interest it has engendered over the years. I did a fairly long series on depression in 2017 under my “Friday Counseling Issues” category.  You can find them near the bottom of the right side of the page, listed individually and under “Counseling Issues.” When you find the category, you’ll need to scroll all the way to the bottom and read from the bottom up for continuity. 

David’s story is one of the most dramatic in the Bible.  He didn’t have an easy life, and he often made terrible decisions.  Still he is named “a man after God’s own heart”  (Acts 13:22). He earned that title because he always repented of his sin with great remorse; he always begged God to cleanse him and restore him to His favor (Psalm 139: 23-24).

There are many times in  the Psalms that David wrote in which he declares his great sorrow.  In Psalm 6:6, David says he is weary with his groaning; that all night his bed is swimming in tears. You will easily find other places in Psalms where this experience is repeated. His grief over his sin was great.  His soul was weary with grieving, crying over the state of his disobedience to God, and the terrible results that followed.

Now I want to focus on Psalm 13, which is a little gem describing the steps David took from depression to prayer to victory.  It is a retrospective song, written from the vantage point of age, so that David can be objective about his earlier experiences.  In this Psalm, he was running from King Saul.  He was alone, as yet without the support of his band of mighty men. He was in the northern reaches of Palestine where it was dry, rocky and dusty, and the peopled were unfriendly. In the first two verses we hear five complaints:

1. How long will You forget me, Lord?

2. How long will You hide Your face from me?

3. How long do I have to confer only with myself?

4. How long will I have daily sorrow?

5. How long will Saul have victory over me?

This Psalm has often been called the “how long Psalm,” or even “the howling Psalm.”

Things weren’t going well at all.  Not unlike most of us, when the going got rough David complained and wept, feeling very sorry for himself and even going so far as to accuse God of forgetting about him.  Of course that wasn’t true, but please, haven’t we all felt like that at some point in our lives?  The problem comes when we begin to believe that what we feel must be the truth.  It is never safe to believe that how you feel is the truth.  “Follow your heart” has become a very popular saying, but it is dangerous because our hearts are deceitful and desperately wicked (Jer. 17:9).

In the second set of verses, David apparently starts to get his thinking straight.  He begins praying instead of complaining.  He asks God to hear him and wake him up so he won’t “sleep the sleep of death.”  Anyone who has experienced that craving for deep, oblivious sleep  that never has to end will understand that David is describing an aspect of deep depression. The only thing that seems to bring peace is to sleep so long and so deeply that  the depression is escaped, at least for a time.  In verse four, instead of complaining that Saul is the victor David asks God to have the victory.  Nothing wrong with  praying that God will prevail.

Finally, in the last two verses, David gets it right.  He reveals three important aspects of answered prayer:  Trust in God’s mercy; rejoice in His salvation; sing praises to God for His bountiful dealings.  We are told to pray with  gratitude in Phil. 4:7.  Gratitude goes a long way toward eliminating whining.  If we turn our minds to God’s mercy, goodness, and grace we are much better able to deal with the vicissitudes of life, including depression.

Most important, I believe, is to rejoice in God’s salvation.  Some time ago, I was impressed with a wonderful truth.  In this passage, David says he will “rejoice in THY salvation.”  He didn’t say he would “rejoice in MY salvation.”  Salvation belongs to God.  He provides it for us when we receive His Son as our Savior, but redemption is His.  We cannot lose what we do not own.  We never need to worry that we’ll lose salvation, because the victory is the Lord’s, and no one can take us from His hand. That truth alone should help boost us out of the pit of depression and despair.

As you read through the Psalms, look for David’s descriptions of his soul’s agony.  You will be surprised at how quickly you can identify with this man that most of us see as a great and powerful king.  We forget that man is only man, after all, and that we are subject to our own weaknesses, just as David was.

What Causes Depression: Part Two (reposted from Jan. 4, 2013)

(If you are seeing this thread for the first time, I’d like to suggest you go back to the first part on this post. You can find it here)

Last week we talked a little bit about a possible genetic connection; we also discussed the melancholy personality that is more prone to depression than the other three main personality types.  However, those two things are by no means a complete picture of the causes of depression.  Today, I think I want to talk about trauma and how it can play into depression. I don’t think I’ll be able to cover the whole picture, so hang on.  We may have to finish this one next week.

Let me remind you, if I may, of my own personal journey.  I’ve been taking Effexor for about six weeks now, and my husband tells me there’s no comparison, that I’m getting back to my “normal” self now, whatever that means 🙂  Because he had his own depression journey 16 or more years ago, he’s very sympathetic and supportive.  I’m blessed.  Not all spouses give that kind of support.

So where it started with me is hard to pinpoint, but I suspect the seeds were sown some years ago. I deal with trauma every day that I work in my counseling office.  The trauma can range from the loss of a child through miscarriage, illness, or suicide to divorce or death of a spouse; from a job loss to sexual and or physical abuse at the hands of a stranger or a spouse.  Someone, years ago, made a table of “stress numbers.”  One side was bad stress, like divorce. The other side was “good stress,” like a wedding.  The stress number of each was 100.  Isn’t that interesting?  I do remember, after my own wedding and honeymoon, going through a period of listlessness, complete physical exhaustion.  I had graduated from college one week, and was married the next.  Probably foolish, looking back, but I wasn’t willing to wait one minute longer than I had to.  Was my reaction depression?  I don’t know.  I just remember needing to sleep a lot, and having very little initiative and physical energy.  Maybe I had mono.  That’s something else that has surfaced since I was 50, almost 16 years ago.  My doctor told me that the mono test clearly indicated I’d had it before. Huh.

All right, back to trauma.  You may say, “But I’ve never had any real trauma in my life.”  That may be true, by your own definition.  But there is “Big T” trauma, like loss of a child or spouse, severe physical illness or accident injury, or financial loss.  Then there is “little t” trauma, like the stress of going to college for post-graduate work, or even the daily care of an ill child or parent.

Military veterans are often diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. If they have seen their buddies die horribly, or been severely wounded or, worse, captured and imprisoned, their trauma is severe.  Part of PTSD  is severe depression, often incapacitating enough that it totally changes their lives.

The lesser traumas tend to be cumulative. A part of my family moves far away; I deal daily with the painful problems of my clients; relatives die in auto accidents; my mother lingers painfully for nearly two years before she takes her last breath.  Life is just hard, and  I’m no longer young. The depression creeps up subtly; it doesn’t develop into full-blown pathology overnight.

The accumulation of trauma has affected my entire system, including my brain, which is the source of the “feel good” chemicals we all need in order to maintain a “normal” state of mind.(Since I wrote this four years ago, studies are showing clearly that about 85% of serotonin is actually created in the gut, not the brain)   I use the word normal carefully, because my normal may not be your normal.  That’s an important thought to keep in mind.

So, could I have prevented this at some point?  Maybe.  Maybe if I’d come home from my mother’s funeral and NOT jumped right back into work.  Maybe if I’d grieved more openly when my nephew, and then later my brother, both died within 19 months of each other, instead of keeping it buttoned down tight.  Maybe if I’d taken a vacation somewhere in that two-year period. Maybe if I were better at compartmentalizing. Maybe. . . .but I’ll never know.

One thing I do know is that my faith in God has never wavered, even through another deeply personal loss that I cannot discuss here.  I honestly do not know how people survive such losses without God to sustain them; without His Word to comfort, encourage, and ground them.  I am so thankful that even when I would forget to “take my burdens to the Lord and leave them there,” He always found a way to remind me to do so.

Trauma wears us out; physically, emotionally, intellectually, and spiritually drains us of our energy and will to go on. When the physical body becomes depleted, ALL of it is affected, including the brain. The brain is the source of serotonin, along with several other mood-stabilizing chemicals. Both the brain and the body need time to heal. When we don’t take that time, we can suffer depression.

Fourth Post on Depression

Depression: Why Did This Happen? Will it Come Back?

ON DECEMBER 28, 2012 BY GRANONINE IN COUNSELING ISSUES, DEPRESSION EDIT

There are so many factors that can play into depression.  Today I’m going to cover as much as I can in a reasonable amount of space.  This could well end up being a multiple-part topic.

Let’s look at genetics first.  One of the questions I always ask a new client who presents with depression is, “Who else in your family, in your own generation or your parents’ or grandparents’ generations, has had a “nervous breakdown,” or been given some sort of medication for nerves, such as Valium?”  Almost without fail, there is someone.  Typically, there will be more than one in the family tree who has suffered from depression.

So, is there a “depression gene”?  Honestly, I don’t know.  I found some articles on the subject.  Here is one link you may find interesting.  Just remember, this whole topic is in a very new state of research:

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/40908471/ns/health-mental_health/t/depression-gene-really-exists-new-study-claims/#.UN3FjOTAeSo

What I do know is that some people are more resilient about how they handle stress than others are, and there is a personality type that can “run in the family” that does not handle stress well without some help.  This is why I look for the genetic connection; it helps me understand if there is a generational tendency toward depression, and knowledge helps me know how best to help my client.

What personality type am I talking about?  The Melancholy, according to the study I like best.  There are other studies that call it by different names, but the traits are the same.  Here is one thumbnail sketch:

Much more can be said about this personality.  It is the deepest, richest, most complex and most contradictory of all the four basic temperaments.  Often, the Melancholic is richly gifted in some way.  Many of our most beloved writers, poets, composers, artists and other creative people are/were deeply melancholy.  They are indeed perfectionists, and they are world-class worriers.  While they can be super organized, to the point of OCD, they can also live in utter chaos because they want to be orderly and neat, but they think they have to make that happen all at once.  It’s so overwhelming that they simply walk away from the task and start some other project–or go read a book  Melancholics are sentimental, holding on to relationships even after they are cold and dead. They are almost always the “dumpee” rather than the “dumper” in relationships.  They are deeply introspective, always looking inward to see how they’re measuring up to their own often unrealistic expectations.  That in itself is depressing.  Melancholics are born with a strong sense of guilt, although they’re often not sure what it is they’re guilty of doing/thinking/feeling that is so wrong. They tend to allow people to use them, then complain about how no one appreciates them. “I’ve given up everything for my kids/husband/friend/work and no one appreciates/understand/knows what I’m going through.  No one loves me.  Everyone takes advantage of me.  I’ll never be understood/appreciated/happy.”

It’s a self-fulfilling prophecy.

At the same time, these folks are tremendously generous and others-oriented. Yet, they can be unbelievably critical, narrow, self-righteous, and unforgiving.  Unforgiveness turns to self-pity turns to bitterness turn to depression. Tim LaHaye wrote a wonderful little book many years ago titled How to Win Over Depression.  It’s an excellent resource.  I also like his book on the temperaments.  The latest rewrite that I know of is called Why You Act the Way You Do. I read his first temperament study years ago, and it’s been a most valuable resource ever since.  It’s title is The Spirit-Controlled Temperament. 

All right.  I suspect that’s about enough for this week.  There is a great deal more to say on the how and why of depression, but I guess we have lots of time now that we don’t have to worry about the Mayan Calendar any more!

 

 

 

More on Depression and Medication

Third in the series on depression that I’m recycling from Dec. 2012.

 

There is a third class of antidepressants known as MAO Inhibitors, or MAOI’s.  You can read all about them here: http://pharmacist.hubpages.com/hub/What-Are-MAO-Inhibitors.

As with the others, the targets of this class of medication include serotonin, dopamine, epinephrin–all the so-called “feel-good” chemicals that the brain produces.

The question I’d like to address today is, “If depression can be treated without medication, then why take the pills?  Wouldn’t it be better to get to the root of the problem instead of just masking it?”

There are some assumptions in those questions.  I hear the questions a lot, because unfortunately, there is still stigma attached to taking medication for “nerve problems,”  or “emotional problems.” People of faith worry about depending on medication instead of God, believing that if they could just pray enough, read the Bible enough and deal with whatever their lack of faith is, they’d get better.  What follows is how I answer all that in my office, usually in a first or second visit with someone who is typically depressed, anxious, and embarrassed to be sitting in a “shrink’s” office.  This could take several posts to really get the job done, I’m not sure.  We’ll see!

So, let’s pretend you’re sitting in my office, we’re getting to know each other, and I’m seeing clear indications of depression.  The first thing I’m going to do is reassure you that you’ve made a good choice to find some help; that you certainly are not alone in your misery, and that it WILL get better. About this time, I will point out that there’s a box of tissues sitting right behind you on the back of the little sofa you’re sitting on.

Once you’ve told me your story, or at least enough to get us started, I’m going to ask you about the stressors in your life.  That question always gets me a wide variety of responses, from floods of tears to anger to uproarious–but sad–laughter. The reason I ask that question is that more and more clinical evidence is pointing to the reality that anxiety comes first, then depression.  Anxiety is just another word for fear.  Every single one of us deals with some level of anxiety at some point or points in our lives. It can stem from marital relationships, extended family, an obnoxious neighbor, illness, financial stress, job stress– to just about anything else you can think of. These are anxious times we live in, but that’s nothing new.  The folks who lived through World War I  thought it was Armageddon.  It was supposed to be the war to end all wars.  Those who endured through the Holocaust thought nothing could ever be worse, and then the atom bomb and nuclear warfare became something new to fear.

On a much smaller, but far more personal scale, most of us experience anxiety just in the routine of our daily lives, rarely thinking about the predictions of world-wide disaster.  The disasters at home are far more consuming. So you, sitting in my office, begin to tell me that you can’t sleep, that you often have sweaty, heart-pounding moments when you think you’re going to die; you can’t get a deep breath, you feel buzzy and faint, and then it passes and you’re terrified of the next attack.

Which takes us to a conversation about anxiety, panic attacks, anti-anxiety meds, and whether or not to use those meds. Please understand that not everyone who experiences depression will experience extreme anxiety and panic attacks.  It can be a part of the total picture, but it doesn’t have to be.  Sometimes, people who live with panic attacks have some deep trauma that has never really been addressed.  This can be Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, common among military veterans and victims of childhood sexual abuse and/or rape; victims of natural disasters like tsunamis, hurricanes, and so on.  There are special treatments for this type of problem, including EMDR, which is a specialty of mine.  You can google it to find out more about it.

All right.  Just a quick note about anti-anxiety meds and then we’re done for today.  Here is a list of the most common medications:

• Alprazolam (Xanax) – approved for GAD, panic disorder; used off-label for agoraphobia with social phobia
• Chlordiazepoxide (Librium) – approved for anxiety (in general)
• Clonazepam (Klonopin) – approved for panic disorder; used off label for anxiety (in general)
• Diazepam (Valium) – approved for anxiety (in general)
• Lorazepam (Ativan) – approved for anxiety disorders (in general)
• Oxazepam (Serax) – approved for anxiety (in general)

GAD, by the way, stands for General Anxiety Disorder.   These medications are almost always prescribed “as needed” and can be helpful in calming you down if you suffer from panic attacks. Also, several of the common antidepressants are considered anti-anxiety as well.  Sometimes a physician will prescribe both, suggesting the anti-anxiety be used only when absolutely necessary.

And yes, I know there’s a lot of controversy about all this.  Be patient.  I’ll get there eventually!

About these ads

Amazing!

Every now and then,  someone shares something on Facebook that I just have to share myself.  I’ve already shared the post, but then I went looking for something else that I could easily use here on my blog.

Derek is an autistic savant. Music is his gift; that, and his love of people. He’s gregarious, obviously brilliant, and his story is inspiring.  Please take a look at this video:

As much as we’ve learned about the human brain, I don’t think we’ve even come close to delving into all that it can produce. This man’s gift leaves me amazed.  Because I love music, and because I always dreamed of being able to sit at the piano and make it do my bidding, I am always entranced by stories like this one.

By the way, I never made it much past “average” as a pianist, but that has never destroyed my love  for playing the instrument. These days, my fingers aren’t so limber and I’m a bit of a plodder, so I mostly keep my music  to the confines of my own house.

Still, it doesn’t hurt to dream 🙂

 

P.S.  You don’t have to watch the other stuff on the video. Weird. But don’t miss the rest of Derek’s story once you get past the other stuff 🙂