Revisiting pain without getting hurt

The rains saw her looking through glass. As she moved and walked, she melted through glass with no cuts, no bruises, finding herself in a pool of tears. Must it always be this way? Must she always find herself in a pool of tears? Must she always cut through glass in melting rain? The more she ran away from the pain, the more she got caught in the pain. The more she escaped from the pain, the more she became a captive of pain.

Trapped in her own pain for years, it had paralyzed her. Though she had no cuts and bruises, she was always stabbed, hacked of painful memories in broken glass. Just like many people who are trapped in their pain, they get stuck in the rain, unable to move, sinking and drowning in their pool of tears. What causes powerful and successful people to be crushed and crumpled in seemingly innocent encounters that can turn out to be painful? Can pain be healed with pain? Can pain be revisited without getting hurt?

Depressive Disorder has become a growing and alarming public mental health problem affecting millions of people. How many millions there are, no one knows, no one wants to know, much more no one cares to know. Depressive disorder becomes alarming when a depressed person inflicts pain on other people. It used to be that suicide is the final breakdown of depressive disorder. These days, people with symptoms of depressive disorder are capable of committing multiple murders and taking their own lives besides.

All this time, science and medicine have looked at depressive disorder darkly. All this time, scientists and medicine men have chosen to ignore the sources of pain and suffering that comes with depressive disorder at a very high price.

Describing it simply, depressive disorder is a syndrome, meaning a group of symptoms of sadness and irritable mood characterized by greater intensity or duration to the point that it paralyzes or interferes in a person’s ability to work, eat, sleep or enjoy once-pleasurable activities.  Sadness in itself is not a disorder. But when a person is unable to overcome sadness over a period of time, then it becomes a disorder.  The person gets stuck in the rain of pain. Because of the functional changes in the nervous system, a person who is clinically depressed is in a neurovegetative condition. This means that the intensity of pain results in diminished participation and decreased activity level.

From men to monsters.

What exactly takes place in brain functions that turns men into monsters, or transforms civilized society into a culture of beasts. The brain, which processes all wisdom, knowledge and understanding, is the same mechanism that processes depressive disorders.

The complex and fascinating nature of the human brain is such that there are over 100 neurochemicals or neurotransmitters circulating and processing emotions. Among the powerful emotion and thought processing neurochemicals or neurotransmitters are norepinephrine, serotonin, dopamine, and acetylcholine. These are also known as black bile, yellow bile, phlegm and blood. These neurotransmitters and neurochemicals are in the form of fluids. A normal, mentally healthy person has just the right amount of neurochemical fluids circulating in his brain to keep him in a state of mental equilibrium such as when he is sad or happy.

Depending on what a person feeds himself that includes food, his lifestyle, the music he listens to, the books he reads, the movies he watches, the television shows he views – all or any of these can upset chemical balance and the circulation of neurotransmitters and neurochemicals. What happens that when a person is sad, the fluids and chemicals that are needed to overcome pain are no longer produced or secreted.

It is said that there are two types of depressive disorders the endogenous and the neurotic. Depression that comes from within the body or genetic in origin is called endogenous, while depression precipitated by the environment that a person belongs to is called neurotic or reactive depression. There are also varying degrees of depressive disorder ranging from major depression meaning the sadness and irritable behavior has taken hold of the person that he is paralyzed by it over a long period of time. There is dysthymia that involves symptoms that are less severe and bipolar disorder also known as manic-depressive illness where periods of depression alternate with periods of elation and increased activity.

Researches have shown that approximately 10 percent of adults, up to eight percent of teens and two percent of preteen children experience some kind of depressive disorder. Figures are highly deceptive. Depression is diagnosed only clinically because there is no laboratory test or X-ray for depression. Untreated it worsens and undertreated, it recurs. Still there are no standard or prescribed treatment protocols for depressive disorder.

From eating to doing.

Unless depressive disorder is seen and diagnosed in God’s eyes, it is difficult to free a person under the bondage of pain. Science, medicine men and psychologists may have simply failed to make the connection between depression and its spiritual, biological and nutritional factors. Or if they have made some links, these connections may have been fragmented and dichotomized. The key to unlock a person from the bondage of depression is in 1 Corinthians 10:31. It can be surmised that the Apostle Paul may have written the powerful verse while going through bouts of depression throughout his ministry and survived and conquered the disorder as he “finished the race.”

Studies have already proven a strong connection between depression and nutrition. That means what you eat or drink can affect the formation and secretion of neurotransmitters and neurochemicals in the brain. It was found that people who are in a junk food diet such as food that are high in processed meat, chocolates, sweet desserts, fried food, refined cereals and high fat dairy products were more likely to report symptoms of depression.

What you feed your mind and your soul is another component. Satan has persuasive and controlling yet subtle ways of manipulating the environment that human beings are exposed to. One only has to look at the culture of vindictiveness and guilt in telenovelas, mesmerizing and hypnotic music and decadent movies. When people are vicariously affected with depressing themes on television or in the beat of the song, neurochemical and neurotransmitter fluids are induced to secrete chemicals that create depression, worsen depression or unable to produce fluids that stop depression. When a person already has relationship problems in the home or at work, the chemical imbalances are aggravated causing the depression to become a full-scale disorder.

Satan does not have to go far to put human beings under his spell and control. He only has to produce decadent movies, television shows or songs and people don’t realize they have been trapped in Satan’s pain. Because depressive disorder is clinical, any treatment for clinical depression is highly vulnerable to error.

Treatment for depression varies from the most cruel and invasive like electroconvulsive therapy where an electric current is passed through the brain to produce controlled convulsions or seizures. There is also the use of anti-depressant medication. Both treatment protocols are done to manipulate neurochemicals and neurotransmitters fluids in the brain. Both treatment protocols also put patients at risk of a relapse or more complications affecting other vital organs such as heart, brain and lung diseases and body functions. Satan succeeds in these medical blunders. Psychotherapy has its limits especially when it leaves out spiritual nutrition.

`The spiritual diet is God’s word. Spiritual nutrition entails bringing the depressed and those around him to see the disorder in God’s eyes and enabling him to live a life transformed in God’s ways. A treatment protocol for depression that is spiritual nutrition based does away with sources of depression like television, rock music and worldly movies. Instead, the depressed patient is exposed to imagery and music that help secrete neurotransmitter and neurochemical fluids in processing and balancing emotions in the brain. Best recorded successful cases of spiritual nutrition as treatment protocol for depressive disorders are King David and Job of the Old Testament and the Apostle Paul in the New Testament.

Moving without a cut from her glass-shattered life, she pulled out of her pool of tears and pain. Seeing her pain in God’s eyes, she saw that her pain was God’s pain. After revisiting the pain, she could now talk about it without being hurt and without cuts and bruises. Where there once was pain, God had rained upon His healing.