Depression

Menageriekeeper,

If you don’t mind, I’m curious as to if you still take the medication or if you were able to stop taking it and still feel well, and how would that happen? Also can the reverse side of depression from use of the drugs have abnormalities?

 

People often times have to be weaned off medications (mind altering or not) because the body gets used to having the outside intervention in chemical production, even when it is perfectly capable of producing those chemicals itself(or in the case of pain killers, the body no longer needs the chemical).

Pulling a person suddenly off a medication designed to affect or replace a body chemical that is used by the brain, gives the body a shock. It's not used to producing that anymore, even though it may be perfectly capable of it. when it is a brain chemical that is being withdrawn, the shock of withdrawel is going to be felt in the brain. Since the brain is the seat of the mind, the thinking part of us is going to be affected. Prozac(which I have used myself in the past) seems to increase the amount of serotonin that is used by the brain for various things including mood regulation. But, serotonin production is affected by a variety of things, including other hormones.

For instance, my first three bouts with depression were caused by hormonal fluctuations associated with the birth of my children. Once everything else settled down in my body, it was capable of regulating the serotonin itself. Key word is cabable. It could do it but it wasn't used to doing it. Kinda like if you have an arm in a cast for a while, when it comes out it is capable of moving and lifting, but since it hasn't been used in a while it isn't used to the activity and must build back up to it. You quit prozac cold turkey then, you're body is not going to be used to producing that much serotonin. It has to build back up to it. While it is doing that, you might have a variety of symptoms, just like that arm is going to feel stiff and sore. Technically, the symptoms are caused by the sudden cessation of medication, but in reality it is simply the body's reaction to not having outside intervention in it's chemical production plant. It doesn't have to be prozac that causes those symptoms, other drugs can do it too.

 

Well, if a broken brain could heal like a bone in a cast and then being stronger eventually work on its own NORMALLY that would be one thing. If that break wasn’t set properly and never worked right again now that’s another. My concern is that if irreversible damage is done by the treatment, then what? And WHO do your trust in (how do you know a doctor really knows what he’s messing with in your life) and when does that trust become a big enough concern to take the gamble? That is a scary decision.

 

Mark,

forgive me, but you are sounding a tad bit like Job's friends.......

"If you are going through all this it MUST mean you have some unresolved sin, or you aren't doing things the way God says to."

Like another lady said, we girls are very tied to our emotions.....our physical health can very easily impact our emotions. I bet the same is true for the guys, but we are the more emotional side of the equation.
God does not deal with every physical ailment and give a cure for it. Yes, Philippians 4 says that God will give us a peace that passes all understanding, I believe that passage is talking about salvation. Depression does not mean that we suddenly are cast into doubts about our salvation. Depression can be an outcome of hormones. Ya know, after my first child was born I cried for an entire day.....didn't know why, just cried. I couldn't talk to anyone without crying. I didn't have to take any meds, because my body regulated itself after that one day....but I can see how some ladies might have to have some additional help. Just like some people get headaches more than others. Some people don't take medication for a headache either, because they aren't very bad, or they prefer not to, whatever. Others do. Either way, its alright.
But depression can lead to some very bad things. IF one's body is the cause of it, and the body needs some help regulating itself, I see no problem with that.

 

Originally posted by Mark Osgatharp:
Never took any medication (other than Nyquil to help sleep sometimes).

Nyquil? Whatever happened to Psalm 4:8?
Mark, if we're going to go by the Scriptures and eschew all medical intervention, then let's go by the Scriptures.

 

Mark, yes there are Scriptures that say what I said.

Yes you implied that anyone suffering from depression is demon possessed. You may not have said it but you implied it.

"Through prayer, soul searching, trust in God and patience I dealt with this. Never went to a doctor. Never went to a psychologist. Never took any medication (other than Nyquil to help sleep sometimes)." Ah...the infamous "I" did...

For someone who deals with this so successfully you should have a little more compassion for people in this struggle. Also...what do you say to people who DO follow those commands and don't want to be depressed but still ARE...because of a physical problem? Come on...what do you say?!

 

Benjamin, my post above answered part of your question, but I'll give a bit more in depth.

Depression and various other mental illnesses are comman in my mother's side of the family. There are few of us that havent' been affected in one way or another.(btw, alzheimer's is considered to be a type of mental disorder)

So I have a genetic predisposition to these kinds of problems. I didn't actually have a problem that required medication till after the birth of my second child. I'm sure I was some depressed after the first one, but didn't recognize it as such because I was physically sick and under a considerable amount of marital stress at the time. On top of that I went back to work almost immediately after she was born. It was such a busy time that I never stopped to think about what I was feeling or why. Even if I had, I wouldn't have attributed it to depression, just stress.

When my son was born, 2 1/2 years later, my life circumstances were different. Our marriage was better and we had worked it out so that I could stay home with the kids instead of working. Much less stress, though I didn't have much adult company for a while after that. (I'm a talker if you haven't figured that out yet. )

So a few weeks after my son was born, I found myself unable to get up to get my daughter something to drink, again. I was way past the new baby in the house upheaval and thought I was getting plenty of rest. But I just couldn't get myself up off that couch to tend my child. I can still feel what I felt that day. I was at a loss, I had the motivation to get up, but I couldn't make myself do it. That wasn't normal, and I knew it.

I was lucky, I had the benefit of knowing exactly how mental illness and depression had affected my mother. She suffered and still does from depression, schizophrenic episodes, addiction(to meds prescribed to help everything the docs thought the problem was but wasn't) and now alzheimer's. Most of my life, I don't remember her moving out of her chair and sleeping when she wasn't sitting.

So I went to the doctor, who knowing the family history promptly put me on prozac. It was fairly new at the time. I stayed on it for a couple of years and was helped immensely. I have a problem "remembering" to take my medicine because of Mother's addiction problems. I just hate to take anything I don't really have to have. So I got to where I was just taking it less and less and I was still fine, so I went off of it altogether. It was a good thing because a few months later I was pregnant again.

Pretty much the same scenario happened with the birth of my third, only this time I took paxil. And went back off it when I got around to thinking I didn't need it anymore(btw, this can be a dangerous thing for mental patients to do and shouldn't be done without the knowledge of your doctor and family. Sometimes you don't see your own symptoms).

I guess I'd been off the paxil for another couple of years when I got to noticing I was awfully angry all the time. It took nothing to set me off into a tirade and I was back to not wanting to talk or move(not moving wasn't as big a problem this time). The doc and I together decided that the problem was probably hormone related and I went back on the paxil, which didn't help. We changed to prozac, now marketed as serafem(or something like that) and has a better reputation for dealing with hormonally caused problems. It worked like a charm.

I've been off it again for at least a couple of years now and haven't had any problems since. However, I know it could come around again.

My mothers problems could be tracked to about a 4 year cycle. Trigger, build up, episode and then recovery and then do it all over again. My brother has similar symptoms to mine, not wanting to talk or move. So far he's been able to go without medication, but it's very hard on him during those times. He usually has way more energy than I do and I'm busy all the time.

I just keep my eyes open for problems, my husband and kids let me know if I'm "off the wall". I think the key to managing any health problem including depression is to know your own body and to be educated in the disease.

 

Does this mean I shouldn't get treated if I have a heart attack, Mark? God's going to keep my heart and my mind right????

It would be nice to take that verse so very literally, that so long as I kept my thoughts on the Lord, that my heart would keep right on beating with no problems. It just doesn't work that way.

Just like you can have a heart attack, you can have a brain attack. It might be a stroke, a chemical problem or simply an injury that clouds the thoughts. Illness of any kind doesn't take away the blessed hope of this passage. That Hope is not constant happiness. That Hope is that we will be pleasing to God if we keep our thoughts on Him. That some day we will learn to be content in spite of our frail bodies and our circumstances. And that we will be kept until that day when we meet out Lord face to face.

 

How can that statement be reconciled with the following Scripture?</font>[/QUOTE]The same as any other medical condition: Seek medical treatment, and pray for strength.

The mistake people, especially Christian, make is that they will seek treatment for a broken physical condition (such as a broken leg), but not a broken mental condition.

Show me where Paul says "unless you have a broken leg". By your reasoning, getting a broken leg set is defying the Lord. That's ridiculous, and is is in defiance of our mandate to not test the Lord our God.

Note that I didn't say it should not be prayed for. The context was very clearly that we should not forgo professional medical treatment in lieu of doing nothing and expecting God to "fix" it.

If I break my leg, and sit home and pray over it, I would be wrong to presume that it will heal. It will heal when I go to the doctor and get is set in a cast. Praying for healing in that light is fine.

 

You can have a terminal illness (cancer)and still have peace. You can also de clinically depressed and find peace. In both cases there are physical symptoms that are still tormenting you.

 

How about "You are all right!"

Everyone here has a valid point, but I think each is only presenting part of the truth of the issue.

First, depression is not like a broken bone or cancer where we can SEE physically what is going on and work with it physically.

The first case of depression we see in the Bible is Cain's, and here is God's response to it:

Then the Lord said to Cain, "Why are you angry? Why is your face dowcast [which was the idiom for depressed]? If you do what is right, will no not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at your door; it desires to have you, but you must master it."

Keep in mind that this depression was in reaction to something, number one, and, number two, it occurred before the built up of mutations had infected the human race with which we must deal today.

So for this kind of 'reaction depression' the Lord's word still holds -- do what is good and don't let the sin that follows close behind master you.

Malcolm Bowden and Dr. Robert Law, following along this line, wrote a book called "Breakdowns are Good for You!" in which they argue that guilt over sin is the primary root of all mental illness and depression and should be treated that way.

While they have a point in a number of cases (that selfishness is the root of most mental illness), I cannot go along with them all the way, not only for some of the reasons stated above, but because of a very interesting experience of my own.

From the time I was quite young and needed to have dental fillings done with the help of local anasthesias, I would end up coming home and within hours be sobbing on my bed. My parents figured it for hypochondria and told me to shape up. Gradually the crying would stop and I would feel normal again.

This never stopped. About ten years ago, and this was in my mid-forties! -- a dentist listened to my tale of woe and said, "But it's quite obvious. You are reacting to the breaking down of the chemicals in your system!" The chemicals themselves, no, but the products of their absorption into my body, yes. It was so bad that there was a time my twenty-one year old son refused to leave my room the day after a rather fierce dental appointment for fear I would commit suicide!

In a day it was gone and I was back to normal -- which is pretty cheerful and upbeat and energetic.

So we know it can work both ways. Selfishness and guilt can lead to depression by CAUSING a chemical inbalance in the system. However a chemical inbalance can be initiated otherwise as well and lead to incredible depression -- hopefully short-lived.

We know the first cause is from the beginning of the human race.

But why the second cause? Because we have something called a genetic load which has built up so incredibly in a few thousand years that there is no one alive today with a 'healthy' genome (genetic package). These people may find themselves easily plunged into depression even when their minds are telling them that is a ridiculous reaction. Do these people need short-term or long-term medical help? Absolutely.

But these people are, medically, very few as well! Most of us become chronically depressed or mentally ill for the very reasons Bowden and Law elucidate: guilt and selfishness. They take their toll on us. We were created to love, and that means putting others ahead of oneself. When we refuse to operate as we were created to operate, the machinery suffers.

Demonic involvement? That is still not impossible, but demons are normally not needed to do what we are quite capable of doing to ourselves.

Hope that helps stop the fighting a little...

 

My children's father suffered a traumatic brain injury when a drunk driver ran a stop sign and hit him (and my children) at 55 MPH, headon.

The head injury resulted in several things. One of them was that his brain stopped producing a hormone called serotonin. Serotonin is a chemical messanger and it controls mood. People who have low levels of serotonin can develop any of the following symptoms: an insensitivity to consequences; impulsive behavior, aggressive behavior, depression, suicide.

My children's father experienced all of the above and worse.

Believe me when I say, a LOT of good Christians were praying for God to help him. We believe that God answered our prayers when the doctors found a combination of neuropsych medications that he was not allergic which allowed him to function more like the man he was prior to the accident.

He is still not the same.

If he ever becomes the same, it will be a medical miracle.

That said. I understand exactly what the original poster was saying. He was NOT saying that God can't provide miracles. He was saying that depression is often (usually) not someone just having a bad attitude. It is a real medical condition. It is a serious medical condition.
So people who think you can just "learn to be happy," are not really understanding the condition.

 

Mark,

There is a big difference in someone who is depressed or sad about some event in their life and someone who suffers from clinical depression, bipolar disorder or schizophrenia. These are all real medical conditions that can't just be "prayed away", while prayer and does play a big role in treating these conditions, and God does sometimes choose to heal some with these conditions, to make a blanket statement that everyone who has these conditions just needs to deal with the sin in their life and "pray it away" is a dangerous statement! I find it very upsetting that many within the Church are so quick to shoot their wounded when it comes to the issue of mental health.

Some Mental Health Links
http://cdp.gospelcom.net/
http://www.outofthedarkness.net/
http://www.christianadhd.com/

 

Wow,

So we do not recognize that God has given us (man) the ability to understand His creation. God has given the wisdom to understand how not only depression, but other types of mental illness effectst the brain and in turn the body. God has allowed the understanding to develope so that we can treat illness and sickness. Has man always used his wisdom properly, no, what we do to the unborn is an abomination. However, if we have the medicene to treat depression then it is wrong of us to not use that resourse that God has given.

Maybe we should define what kind of depression we are speaking of. I do not refer to the blues or just a general shadowy spirit in our life. When I speak of depression I mean the kind of depression that begins to feed on itself and begin a downward spiral that the mind and spirit begin to be effected by. When that happens, although it may have started with a sin or series of sins, medication is needed to bring the person back to a physical realization and ability to go to God and resolve the sin problem. Anyone that says they have overcome such depression without medication has probably not experienced real depression that I am referring to.

If we say that depression can be fixed, cured, or overcome by not seeking medical help, then we truely do not speak with the wisdom of God.

Let's be careful.

 

Amen J. Grubbs, and JSHurley04 . Thanks for a solid, well-balanced answer, and helpful links .
You are right, in many cases Chronic Depression cannot just be "prayed away".
People need to understand that Chronic Depression is not "just the blues", but a treatable mental illness.
I'm not belittling the power of prayer, but God also works thru trained physicians and therapists too
Yes, I suffer from Chronic Depression and I've not only been on my knees, but to a Physician and a Therapist(who happens to be a comitted Christian) as well.

[ September 21, 2005, 04:08 PM: Message edited by: Friend of God ]

 

Mark, I found myself listening to what you said until you had to say this:

"You all can go on believing that psychological clap trap some shrink fed you if you like. I'm going to trust in the Lord and enjoy His peace."

Now...what do you say to the people who DON'T have your experience and are still depressed? Do you say they aren't saved? What?