"Trying out different medications makes you feel like a dartboard. "Depression these days is curable," people told me. "You take antidepressants like people take aspirin for a headache." This is not true. Depression these days is treatable; you take antidepressants like you take radiation for cancer. They sometimes do miraculous things, but none of it is easy and the results are inconsistent."
My wife is visiting her mom and sister this weekend. This is they first time they have met face to face since my sister-in-law told her mom about her struggle with depression. My mother-in-law is a considerate woman but this is not easy.
My wife asked me what she could do to help her mom this weekend. What advice might she give her mom to help her cope with her daughters depression?
Things to try:
1. Listen to her daughter's experience with depression.
2. Indicate you have noticed a change in her behavior.
3. Listen to her daughter without judgment.
4. Ask how her last appointment went.
5. Talk about depression and help find information she needs.
6. Encourage her to find a psychologist, a psychiatrist, and a pastor she trusts. (The trifecta of a good professional mental health network.)
7. Encourage her to exercise, eat well, and become involved in social activities.
8. Keep in touch and encourage close family and friends to do the same.
In hindsight, I have tended to think of myself as a machine rather than a creature of God. I see it taking various forms at various times and seasons of my life but its always there.
I told my body to lift weights and play sports during my teenage years. My body responded well. I became stronger, faster, and a better athlete for the effort. I loved it and enjoyed the experience sports and the competition.
I told my mind to think during my college years. My mind responded well. I learned so much and loved that part of the college experience.
I told myself to work hard well into my adulthood and the paychecks have always been appreciated. As the work become more involved, I enjoyed the challenge.
Emotions have always been a different animal. If I felt like I was in control of a machine, then why did I so often feel so bad. Emotions just don't fit well with machines.
Mind you, I'm a Christian (a pastor to boot). I never actively viewed myself as a machine. This view was just the background to my whole way of life. I confessed the faith while practicing that faith from the point of view of material atheism.
For many reasons, I'm thankful that I am one of God's creation. He made me and knows me. He delights in me because I am His. I can cast all my anxieties upon Him because He is taking care of me.
One of the lingering effects of clinical depression is that I'm no longer the person I once was. I can no longer always push myself physically or emotionally and achieve what I hope. Big goals seem a little farther out of my grasp. I tire more easily also. I need to be cared for by others a little more.
This is hard but not overwhelming.
God has given me a doctor who just last week recommended I lower my SSRI dosage. I'm a little nervous about that but the summer is a lower stress time of the year for me.
God has given me (through my medical doctor) a short list of clinical psychologists specializing in the cognitive behavioral school of psychology. I only need to talk to them and see which one I relate to best (trust) and work on improving some of my coping skills.
God has also given me another Father-confessor. I miss my old one but I'm the one who moved away. He is still my friend. This new Father-confessor has many of the same traits as the old. I think it will go well.
For these gifts I am thankful. It also takes the burden off my wife who tries so hard to take care of me only to find I'm a moving target and dealing with things she doesn't understand. This way she can be my wife rather than doctor, counselor, and pastor.
I believe God made me and all creatures; that He has given me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my reason and all my senses, and still takes care of them.
He also gives me clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, wife and children, land, animals, and all I have. He richly and daily provides me with all that I need to support this body and life.
He defends me against all danger and guards and protects me from all evil. All this He does only out of fatherly, divine goodness and mercy, without any merit or worthiness in me. For all this it is my duty to thank and praise, serve and obey Him.
This is most certainly true.
(Here is a the musical setting for Luther's hymn version of the Apostles' Creed: We all believe in one true God.)
I attended the three part program offered by Doxology: The Lutheran Center for Spiritual Care. I commend to you this video along with my recommendation to pastors and their congregations to attend. I also provided a link to some of their work in the sidebar under Lutheran Resources.
Reverend Richard Eyer introduces a spiritual care deeply rooted in Christianity. It is his relection on 20+ year hospital chaplaincy while, at that time, the director of pastoral care at Columbia Hospital in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
The theme throughout this book is what Martin Luther called the "theology of the cross." He identifies these words as conveying the substance of God's way of caring for us, and Luther encourages pastors to follow this example. "He deserves to be called a theologian," he writes, "who comprehends the visible and manifest things of God through suffering and the cross" and stresses that "God wished to be recognized in suffering." Throughout this book, either explicitly or implicitly, I have drawn my understanding of pastoral care from these words, the theology of the cross.
In part 1, The Context of Pastoral Care Today, Eyer's brings the reader to a greater understanding of the theology of the cross and why it is a needed foundation for true spiritual care for souls in the here and now. He states, The goal of pastoral care under the cross is not to try to eliminate suffering but to point the parishoner to God in the midst of suffering.
A few pertinent quotes are found in chapter 2: Pastor as Cross Bearer. First, he must accept his own weaknesses before he supports others in bearing theirs. This begins with the theology of the cross, the Good News that God works through weakness...Second, he must give attention to his own growth in faith and to his psychological growth. As he becomes more aware of his strengths and weaknesses and gains insight into his own motives, he will realize more than ever that God works through him by grace. What a relief to learn this! God calls the pastor, not to be successful in what he does but to be faithful, regardless of results....This too is the theology of the cross.
In part 2, The Cross in Action: Practical Pastoral Care in Specific Circumstances, Eyer's foucses on the following topics:
Crossing the Years: The Elderly
With the Aid of the Cross: Aids
On the Cross: Dying
At the Foot of the Cross: Mourners
Crossing the Line: Mental Illness
Feeling Crossed Out: Depression
At the Crossroads: Medical Ethics
The rest of this post will focus on chapter 10: Feeling Crossed Out: Depression.
A distinction is made between faith and feeling. The Christian faith does not prevent depression. Here is another quote:
The pastor needs to understand the distinction between feelings and faith. They are not the same thing...The presence of Christ is fulfilled - dramatically for the depressed - in physical form by Christ's body and blood in the bread and wine of Communion and also in the presence of the pastor who gathers with the depressed person in Christ's name. Psychiatry may "sweep and put the house in order" (Luke 11:24-26); but to make it a home, an empty house needs the new furniture of hope which Christ offers and a family of support where two or three gather together in His name.
Rev. Eyer warns the pastor not to play psychiatrist among parishoners but does give some insight into the kinds of depression before he says: Severely depressed people cannot be talked or counselled out of depression....The severely depressed must be directed to get help, since they will not do so on their own. Someone must take charge, preferably a family member, who orders the depressed against all protests to see a doctor. Directed care is necessary; empathy is counter-productive. Depression should be seen as a problem within a limited time frame, with beginning and end, within which the pastor walks with the person through the emptiness to help him visualize God's presence. The pastor does well to do this while the person is also under the psychiatrist's care.
Rev. Richard Eyer's provides a solid foundation for the theory and practice of pastoral care. I recommend this book not only to pastors but also to parishoners who, in the midst of suffering of any kind and afraid God has forsaken them, need true comfort and care for their souls.
I am a Lutheran pastor recently diagnosed with clinical depression. This is an account of my soul's journey to healing.
What is a soul? You do not have a soul, rather you are a soul. You are a soul enfleshed with body, emotion, and mind. All of you is your soul.
Luther's Seal
The red heart with a black cross at the center should remind us that the righteous live by faith in the Crucified One. The heart rests in a white rose, to show that faith gives joy, comfort, and peace. The rose is white, not red, because white is the color of the heavenly spirits and angels. The white rose stands in a field of blue, the color of heaven, to show that joy in the spirit and in faith in this life is only the beginning of future heavenly joy. Surrounding the sky-blue field is a gold ring, to show that happiness and joy in heaven has no end, buts lasts forever, just as gold is the hightest, most noble and precious metal.
O My Soul:
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