Do Christians suffer from depression?
Read Dave’s answer
Answer 1
Yes, of course they do. At least some of them do. I can speak from experience.
Towards the end of an intense period of loss spanning 7 years during which I endured the loss of an infant daughter, my first and second marriages, the presence of my children in my home, my job, my dream home in Austin and my financial security, and countless smaller losses, I often found myself in tears with a constantly heavy heart that felt like it was about to break and leave me lifeless. I remember well how physically unbearable the constant, oppressive pain felt. Prayer offered little more than temporary relief, and the scripture that seemed to best reflect my circumstances was the Book of Job, to which I could truly relate.
I clearly remember one morning wandering through my large, empty home - screaming for relief, even praying in my heart for God to take me home if that was his will. But God left me here to endure yet more pain. That day, I went to Temple Square in Salt Lake City to see if the peace I had found there during prior visits might not offer some temporary relief. What I didn’t expect was that the missionary Sisters who approached me and engaged me in a conversation would be the key for me to escape the crushing burden of depression I hadn’t even diagnosed in myself, so powerful was my prejudice that depression was a mental illness and I was a mentally healthy person. I knew I was depressed, but I didn’t know it was clinical depression.
What the Sister told me was that key components of faith are patience, acceptance, and trust in God while he teaches us what we need to learn in life. Then as our conversation ended, she invited me to pray with them, and during the prayer she asked the Lord to bless me to know what I must do this day and every day to find the peace I sought. During that prayer, I felt the Spirit of peace that had somehow left me sometime I couldn’t quite identify specifically during those seven years of loss. But the depression had returned by the time I reached my car.
As I drove home, I saw a billboard that said simply, “Depressed? Call 801–nnn-nnnn to join a clinical study and get help.” I called the number immediately, and fortunately, they could see me that afternoon. As I answered “Yes” repeatedly to one assessment question after, I broke down and was wracked by sobs. The wise psychiatrist asking the questions simply ended the interview and said something about having enough to be able to include me in the study.
To make a long story short, once I had been officially diagnosed with clinical depression, I decided not to participate in the study but instead to seek a prescription for Wellbutrin to accompany the inspired counseling I had found. Within a week of the beginning of treatment, I experienced the first entire day of actual peace, happiness and hope for the future that I had felt in years. And within weeks, I felt myself again, and within months, had met my current wife. Within a year, my life had changed completely.
Some lessons I learned:
- There is nothing shameful about being depressed. It is a natural consequence of the combination of a person’s circumstances, thinking and beliefs particularly our “automatic thoughts,” and our genetic heritage. Although sin can lead to depression, there is nothing sinful about being depressed, and no stigma should ever be attached to depression any more than stigma should be attached to cancer.
- It is as much biological as it is mental. We are complex souls with a spirit and a body, and the spirit influences the body and the body influences the spirit. Thus, overcoming depression requires treatment for the body through medicine as well as treatment for the spirit and mind through counseling to help us re-train our thinking and the assumptions we make about things.
- Literally anyone can suffer from depression. Job certainly did, and there are scriptures that indicate that even Jesus empathically suffered depression, such as: “When Jesus therefore saw her weeping, and the Jews also weeping which came with her, he groaned in the spirit, and was troubled…”
- Faith and spirituality can hasten the healing in overcoming depression, but without the accompanying counseling and prescription for medication, faith and spirituality alone are inadequate, just as faith and spirituality can often be inadequate to treating disease or afflictions. I’m convinced that each condition we suffer is for our learning and growth, and the good Lord expects us to learn all we can and do all we learn in order to overcome our afflictions.
So yes, Christians suffer from depression, and some of us even are able to later rejoice in the profound experience and learning that can come from the suffering.