A treatise on depression (the first of many)

** Writer’s note: for at least 3 years I have wanted to pen some of the thoughts that were resultant from my struggles with depression in the past. I have literally thousands of notes scrawled all over the place from during and after those periods of depression all representing bits and pieces of the over all understanding of life, pain, happiness and meaning. The subject matter and the thought in it’s entirety was always too large for me to sit down and write about. I have managed to begin to collect and make these thoughts tangible though, the full account will only come out in time in numerous writings, but here for a start (I am pleased to have made) is the first. Regard it for what it is, beware of the presuppositions you encounter it with in your own mind and read it to the end or parts of it will be misunderstood.** 

What to do with my life… a question that makes my heart faint and threatens my happiness within seconds of beginning to stroll down the path the thought takes me on. I write from feelings of anxiety and fear that I must battle fervently for the sake of my happiness which I owe to to God and myself as a Christian. One of the rules of being a Christian that people forget concerns happiness. We are obliged and we have a duty to be happy or at least not unhappy, or rather a better word would be ‘joyful’ despite any circumstances and irrespective of our surroundings. There is a story related through a letter from Paul the apostle to the church in ….. of a group of christians who are said to have rejoiced in their persecutions. Their homes were ransacked and they were saddened and hurt by it but remained joyful.

There is an interesting duality here in the underlying life of a true christian. Christianity recognises that there can be sadness alongside joy. I have not come across any other teaching or philosophy that recognises this as yet besides those of christianity. I have experienced this duality of emotion for myself and this gives me confidence in my belief in it’s truth because I can not deny my own personal experience, knowing that I am not delusional or psychotic as some might suggest in offense of these assertions. There have been times when I have been sad and not at all joyful. At these times it would seem that there was none of the duality of which I speak – only a double portion of sadness perhaps, something deeper than mere sadness in fact: depression; despair; despondency. These feelings I would argue are unGodly feelings not acceptable to God. What this means then is that times of real depression (psychologically recognised depression) are also times of sinfulness in the person who is depressed. This thought needs patience and tact to deal with though for what needs to be understood is that being depressed is not usually the abject fault of the person who is depressed. In fact it is usually mostly the exact opposite and the very core and poison of depression is this; the state of being unable to change one’s own fate and the feeling that one could not have avoided it. The feeling of helplessness; the inability to pull oneself out of one’s own shadow of despair or to have avoided the initiation or continuation of it’s vicious cycle.

These thoughts come from someone who has been clinically depressed and recovered twice in his life time. Once as a sub-10 year old and once as a 21- year old. Here is what I believe in light of what I have said thus far stated clearly before I explain myself more precisely:

I believe that it is sinful to become depressed and it is a sinful way of life to live in depression and hence one should realise one’s deserved fate: to face judgement for this sinfulness.

but…

…and here is the definitive and most important point following this assertion: details forthright, God forgives those who surrender to the realisation of their guilt and who repent and he gives them the power to change their lifestyle and world such that they may find freedom from the depression they have acknowledged their guilt for.

Let me attempt to build upon and clarify these above remarks. I believe that the perfect person (who would be a perfect christian) would be able to fend off and avoid depression despite their circumstances and the events that may afflict them. Even with depression – a disease that seems to attack and take over a life with almost no fault of the person being afflicted, the person does have some ownership in the situation. Though this ownership may be very small – if they had spent their entire life being perfect, praying continuously, preparing their mind and heart tirelessly in all they did and had they been setting their mind on the things above (God and His consciousness of reality – this being the knowledge that all will turn out for good in the end), if they had done this, no matter their situation they would not have fallen into depression.

The first step out of depression for an imperfect person then is the realisation that one has some ownership in one’s situation. The realisation and acceptance that “I am guilty and this is partly my fault” is important and difficult and possibly very painful. The second and more important step out of depression is realising that this is ok and normal – that it is a worldwide truth that is true of every human being that has ever been. The depressed person should realise that to have ownership in this failure to be joyful is part of who they are as a human being, just like everyone else. This step leads to the next step which sets the first wrungs of the ladder out of the ditch of depression in place because the next step is very good news. The news is that the very one who set the standard (God) by which one must judge oneself a failure has long ago set out a plan to forgive the failure and sin of depression as well as bring the depressed person out of the depression they have ownership in through this forgiveness. This is possible because this forgiveness is that which provides opportunity for the one who does the forgiving (God) to provide the power needed to break free from the clutches of the depth and darkness of depression. Since it is God who set the standard by which one must condemn oneself – God himself is only free to help one out of depression once the crime and sin of falling into and living in depression as been forgiven and eradicated.

Freedom from deserved guilt is the first step on the ladder out of depression.

So I found that my realisation and acceptance of responsibility for my part in finding myself in my sorry state of depression became the very mechanism by which God’s forgiveness could rescue me from my depression and sin. In Paul the Apostle’s letter to the Roman church he speaks of this paradox when he talks of how the law came first to point out the sin which only gave more life to sin, being hidden beforehand… but it was only after this stage had been set that Grace, which could only come once the life of sin was brought to light through the law, could take its place in the centre of this stage and put the imposter (that is sin personified) to death and bring the life of forgiveness and positive change (redemption) to the forefront.

So if depression is ungodly, what about sadness? Does christianity disallow one from feeling certain emotions? No it does not, but a dichotomous duality (a duality that consists specifically of two different components) must exist. If there is sadness, there must also be some happiness or joy as well to parallel it. Part of being a christian then is to not let oneself fall into depression, and if one does, to fight and work hard to get out of it and attain joy within the duality again. A christian should strive to keep a sense of joy as one of the feelings in their duality of emotional existence. The other feeling can be anything as long as it is justified within the scope of the teachings of Jesus. Sadness at one’s home being ransacked or destroyed. Anger at the injustice of losing a loved one. (as a side-note, some emotions that are difficult to justify within the scope of Jesus’ teachings: fear; jealousy). These are all ok and good to feel. Part of being a mature human being and part of being what God intended us to be is to feel, to not become a Stoic or a robot. We must have hearts that bleed but countenances that are joyful. 

** Writers note: if you have read this far, my congratulations and thanks. This has become one of my longer writings and longer than I prefer for this medium (blog) so I have ended it here. More will come at a later stage. Peace.**

Jack Figure (aka Jeremy)