Inside A Depressed World

CEBU, Philippines - Depression is a serious, treacherous disorder. For those who have loved ones with symptoms or diagnosed with clinical depression, it can be devastating. It can ruin just about everything. When it comes, it comes without warning. By the time it’s there you will find yourself in the midst of shattered glass with cuts and bruises in pain too overwhelming. Each day you tread a life in jagged edges of broken glass.

You just cannot tell a person to snap out of depression. That person will snap. A depressed loved one just cannot “snap out of the problem” by sheer force of will. You have to get into his world and together get out of it.

What is depression? To put it plainly, depression is a disorder where a person is persistently sad, irritable or in an apathetic mood. That person generally withdraws from family and friends because depression makes it difficult for a person to connect on a deep emotional level with anyone, even with the person he loves the most. Depressed people also tend to be critical and moody and so they tend to say hurtful things or lash out in anger.

Hiding the problem won’t make the depression go away. It will only make the problem worse because it will keep the depressed person from seeking treatment.

Depression knows no age, gender, time or social status and it can engulf anyone. What makes depression serious is because depression clouds judgment and distorts thinking. It can make a person believe that death is the only release from the pain he is feeling. The risk that a person will commit suicide owing to depression is real.

The other devastating thing about depression is that it becomes a family epidemic. When members of the family don’t know it is depression or don’t understand its symptoms, depression becomes an epidemic. It can contaminate other family members who may not have been depressed. Those “contaminated” or “infected” may seek their own way out and so will not help the depressed person in the family to whom it started.

Unlike malfunctions in the vital organs which can be treated with medication, therapy or surgery and viral infections which it can be treated with vaccines, depression is a disease where the virus is the self. The virus is unseen and is not easily understood. The cure is the person himself.

Your oxygen mask first.

Getting a depressed person into treatment can be difficult. Depression drains energy and motivation. But then it is family and friends who are often the first line of defense in the fight against depression. Those closest to the person with depression are also the ones who can influence and motivate the person to seek help. There is a caveat here: if you have to take care or support a loved one who is depressed, you have to take care of yourself first. Meaning, you must not be depressed yourself because you are the source of emotional support.

One of the most important things in supporting someone with depression is to give that person unconditional love. This involves being compassionate and patient. It is because you have to know what is going on in his head and heart before you can even think with what to do with his head and his heart. The best thing to do is just to get inside his world and heal him from within. When a depressed person is hostile and moody, bear in mind that it is not the person you love speaking but the depression in him controlling.

There’s a natural impulse to want to fix the problems of a depressed person you love. But you cannot control a loved one’s depression. You can only control how well you take care of yourself. It is just as important for you to stay healthy as it is for the depressed person to get treatment. It’s like putting on your own oxygen mask first before you assist anyone who is depressed. Make sure your own health and happiness are stable before you try to help a depressed person.

Researchers, psychiatrists and psychologists are at a loss as to what really causes depression. Mostly depression begins with the environment a person is, like his family and how he was reared. No vaccine or therapy is as effective for depression as spiritual healing. That healing will have to come by sharing the love of Christ with the person who is depressed. The person who helps the depressed must have a deep communion with God first for that person to give unconditional love and support.

During my shattered state at helping a depressed loved one, I made the Christ in me prevail, got inside his depressed world and together we healed our way out. On our way out though, we had to tread shards of broken glass precariously together.