medication for depression: part one

what a funny thing to blog about you might be saying to yourself but this is something i teach about constantly in my job as a psychotherapist (therapist for short) (social worker by trade) (it does get confusing since there are so many names for just being a plain old counselor which is what i am!). i thought you might like to be edumicated too but if not, just skip this one! (yes, it's been a while since i've used a made up word, just trying to throw you off a bit today!)

most folks don't understand medication for depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses - even those with the illnesses themselves. unfortunately, in some christian circles too the thinking is that a person should just pray about their problems, focus more on Christ, meditate more on the scriptures and the like and medication would not be necessary. end of discussion.

one example i use in my teaching at work is to take the problem of vision and the need for eye glasses. now that i'm over 50 i have to wear "readers" so i can use my own glasses as a teaching tool. let's say i can't see very well. ok. apply the same logic as above to seeing better. i'm going to pray about it. ask God to help me read and see better. i'm going to set my mind according to philippians 4:8 on things that are right, pure, of good repute. i'm going to set my mind on things above, not on earth below. but that's still not going to help me to see the words on the page any better. i still need my glasses because i have a vision problem that needs correcting. part of my body has a problem.

another example we (psycho)therapists use is diabetes. you wouldn't tell a diabetic to pray about his blood sugar levels and take himself off glucophage for type 2 diabetes or off insulin if he's type 1. no! of course not. because he has a body problem, he needs the meds for his problem.

so it is with depression.  if you have diagnosable, clinical depression then you have what i call a "body problem." it brings to mind one of the rhymes in my children's book "the bible-time nursery rhyme book," emily hunter, 1981.

God gave me a body house.

It's mine to keep and prize.

I look out from my body house

Through my two window eyes.

that's only part of the rhyme and then the verse attached to it is proverbs 20:12, 

"the hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them." 

if i have a body problem, if i have a chemical imbalance that leads me to have a lack of neurotransmitters then it needs correcting with medication.  i'll have problems with the following:  keeping my mood stable, keeping my emotions in check so that i'm not crying too much or too little (feeling no emotions), issues with sleeping adequately (maybe sleeping too little or too much), issues with appetite (eating too little or too much), feeling tired all the time, thinking mostly negative, hopeless thoughts about life (sometimes to the point of having suicidal thoughts), lacking energy that is within normal range (we could debate normal 'til the cows come home), feeling worthless about myself, difficulty concentrating and being motivated to do my ADL's (activities of daily living).  if i'm having these problems and they've been going on for some time now (i'd say more than a month) and nothing seems to be helping, then i might have a body problem since God gave us a body house! if you look at this list all together, doesn't it look like a list of physical ailments? then why oh why do we accuse ourselves and each other of having a spiritual problem instead? it's difficult to explain in a short blog post but i want to give you a bit of an idea of what i'm talking about. 

look for part two in tomorrow's post!