Understanding Depression

Understanding Depression Part One

Depression is a clinical term for a host of various feelings, behaviors and cognitive problems.  The Bible does not use this term, but the problems of hopelessness, despair, fear, revenge, and bitterness are not isolated terms in scripture. The Bible is a book of hope for man. What would be the state of man without a relationship with the Lord?  The Bible is Gods response to man's despair and alienation caused by his sinful nature.

If anxiety is a state of dread, anticipating the worst to happen and living as if it will occur, then depression is a state of despair, living in the worst that has happened with no recourse for hope. If man is spiritually dead, separated from the very person who created him, filled with a void that has no solution save more sinful acts, how else could Man feel or think or behave but depressed?  One might say that because of Mans separation from God he is not aware of his sin or psychosocial condition. Most people who are depressed do not realize their condition.

They have lived this way for so long it is normative. Or they are in a state of deception that hides their state of mind. One might say that because of sin man does not care about God or his purpose for being alive. If sin is one generalized behavior it could be described as selfishness.  Sinful man cares about his condition. He is too self-preserving not to do so.  Sinful man may give up trying to solve his condition and believe there is no solution. The depressed person cares about his condition, but it usually is seen in forms of anger, resentment toward God, self or others.

The anger is toward mistreatment, unfairness of circumstances, or that one is being punished or forgotten by God. If he did not desire for a change in his condition, he would not feel hopeless in his belief that it cannot change. This desire for change can become quite twisted resulting in behaviors that will end ones despair, such as self destructive acts as suicide, mutilation or addiction, or self defeatism or aggression toward others are means of change or empowerment for the depressed self.

Depressive thinking can be characterized by a central focus on the selfs misery, and how the world unfairly relates to the self. Few people become clinically depressed over the state of the world or the events that happen to others. The core of spiritual depression is a dark force on the self that blackens Gods love from its view.

However, this is not to imply that depression is primarily and always a spiritual weakness. Although no person is spiritual enough to avoid every problem, certainly other clinical aspects of life apply to depression. Depression like any illness or disorder is on a continuum. Short-term depression such as adjustment disorders with depressed mood is behavioral responses to events acting upon the person. This form of depression takes the typical response of sorrow or grief, anger, fear and develops a worse clinical picture through worse mood reactions and longer periods of disturbance beyond the norm.