Clinical depression is a serious medical condition \u2014 and if you or a loved one suffers from it, you need to get help. Today, I want to talk about another aspect of depression: the role that our beliefs can play in our moods. As someone who\u2019s suffered from depression, I can tell you, it\u2019s complicated. In addition to infelicitous brain chemistry, it can also be a product of our personal circumstances and the beliefs through which we interpret those circumstances.<\/p>\n
Let me be clear from the start: People can believe all the right things and it still might not be enough, as the tragic story of Matthew Warren illustrates. Why this is the case is something that we will not understand this side of eternity.<\/p>\n
But this is not the same thing as saying that our beliefs are immaterial when it comes to depression and suicide. Therapists treating people for anxiety and depression often use what\u2019s known as \u201ccognitive behavioral therapy,\u201d which starts from the assumption that the illnesses are due, in part, to \u201cmaladaptive thinking.\u201d<\/p>\n
Anyone who has struggled with depression knows what \u201cmaladaptive thinking\u201d feels like: a \u201ctape\u201d of sorts running in your head filled with largely untrue messages of helplessness and hopelessness. Since people believe that what they think is true, the thoughts influence our actions and our moods. Overcoming depression requires turning the tape off, which is easier said than done.<\/p>\n
If untrue thoughts play a role in depression, doesn\u2019t it stand to reason that we should be concerned about the cultural messages and trends that can shape the content of those thoughts?<\/p>\n
Obviously, brain chemistry and our personal history are more influential, but it would be unwise to ignore the impact of culture.<\/p>\n
Case in point: at the recent Emmy Awards, comedian Sarah Silverman half-jokingly told the audience \u201cwe\u2019re all just made of molecules and we\u2019re all hurling through space right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
It\u2019s hard to imagine a more succinct summary of the nihilism and materialism that dominates cultural discourse. Hardly a week goes by without a story telling us that \u201cscience\u201d has found that qualities that make us human \u2014 love, altruism, the appreciation of beauty \u2014 are just molecules doing their thing in our heads.<\/p>\n
This kind of thinking reduces human existence to, as Shakespeare famously put it, \u201ca tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury signifying nothing.\u201d It makes \u201cnot to be,\u201d to reference Shakespeare again, a reasonable response to the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune and the sea of troubles.<\/p>\n
What it doesn\u2019t do is give us a reason to choose life even in the midst of pain.<\/p>\n
For that you need hope. A good friend of mine who also suffers from depression has taken to praying certain Psalms when he feels what Churchill called \u201cthe black dog on my shoulder.\u201d For instance, such as Psalms 42 and 43 with their refrain \u201cWhy, my soul, are you downcast? Why so disturbed within me?\u201c and the Psalm which our Lord prayed on the cross, Psalm 22, which opens with the great cry of abandonment, \u201cMy God, my God, why have you forsaken me?\u201d<\/p>\n
He prays them because, while they do not deny the pain, they don\u2019t let pain have the last word. We are told to \u201cHope in God; for I shall again praise him,\u201d and also \u201cI will live for the LORD; my descendants will serve you.\u201d<\/p>\n
This is what hope looks like. It\u2019s the tape we all need running in our heads.<\/p>\n
________<\/p>\n
Copyright (c) 2014 Prison Fellowship Ministries. Reprinted with permission. “BreakPoint” is a radio ministry of Prison Fellowship Ministries.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Clinical depression is a serious medical condition \u2014 and if you or a loved one suffers from it, you need to get help. Today, I want to talk about another aspect of depression: the role that our beliefs can play in our moods. As someone who\u2019s suffered from depression, I can tell you, it\u2019s complicated. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4804,66,1379,4805,1262,1374,4806,1015,731],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5482"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5482"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5482\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5482"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5482"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.churchedge.com\/illustrations\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5482"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}