Depression

Just like in a previous blog talking about the different types of anxiety, there are different types of depression; mild and severe depression.  Mild is temporary usually caused by something like the death of a loved one or a medical condition which once treated the depression goes away.  Severe depression is chronic (ongoing/persistent).  There are several titles, if you will, for depression.  You might hear it referred to as clinical depression, major depression, or major depressive disorder.  They all mean the same thing.

Most of us who have severe depression do not want others to know it.  The stigma of depression makes us want to keep it hidden.  There are different stigmas placed on groups of people such as ethnicity, racial, criminals, and people with certain diseases.  Severe depression does not just go away over time.  Most of us diagnosed with this need counseling and/or medication.  However, it can be managed.  We can manage it with those things.  Also knowing where it comes from and why we have it can give us some power and control.  It can help us manage our depression and help us understand we are not "abnormal" and we have nothing to be ashamed of.  Being diagnosed with severe depression is no different than being diagnosed with hypertension.  Our brain is an organ just like our heart and sometimes different organs in our body need help to make them function correctly.

When you go to doctor to get help with any medical problem, they always ask questions.  This helps them decide which avenue they need to take to come to a diagnosis and a plan for treatment.  It is the same with depression because, again, it is a medical condition NOT a mental condition.  Some of the questions you might be asked are:

*  Do you feel sad, empty, or tearful a lot?
*  Do you have decreased interest in activities?
*  Have you had significant weight gain, weight loss, and/or increased or decreased appetite?
*  Have you had insomnia or an increased desire to sleep more?
*  Have you had loss of energy or feel fatigued often?
*  Do you have feelings of worthlessness or excessive feelings of guilt?
*  Have you been having difficulty making decisions or trouble concentrating?
*  Have you been having recurrent thoughts of death or suicide or a suicide attempt?

If you can answer yes to at least 5 of the above questions with the symptoms lasting most of the day or all day for over a two-week period, you could be diagnosed with severe depression.

It is not easy to answer these questions especially if you answer yes to them.  We don't want to admit it to ourselves, but you can get help!!!!  Just like you would get help for hypertension, a sinus infection, diabetes, etc., severe depression can be treated as well.  Please consider this for yourself or forward it to someone who it could help.

On a side note, the above is medical information you could find on the internet or by going to your physician, but I would like to say one thing that was personally freeing for me.  Christians can have depression too.  My pastor said 'God loves you and does not want you to feel this way'.  My pastor believes and I believe as well, God has provided us with physicians who can help us get well or manage our illness.  Why not use everything in our arsenal to get better whether it is medication, counseling, prayer, etc.  Use them all so you can get better and live the life you are meant to live!

If you have any questions or just need to talk, please email me personally at sandy@walkinitthru.com.

If blessings were raindrops, how wet would you get?

I heard this saying on a Christian radio station and it really caught my attention.  If blessings were raindrops, how wet would you get?  I started really contemplating and visualizing this concept.  How wet would you get?  I bet most of us would be wetter than we think.  There are probably many people who think blessings are only big and/or tangible things.  While that can be the case, I believe we have so many blessings that may seem small or insignificant until we don't have them. 

For instance, if you are a healthy person i.e. no chronic illnesses or body pains, you don't think much about it until it happens to you.  Then if it happens to you, you realize how good you had it because now those things have altered your life.  Perhaps, you had a good job and life was going great, then the economy changes and you had to rearrange your lifestyle; perhaps getting rid of cable TV, internet, cut back on going out to eat, etc.  We take for granted getting home safely until someone rams into you out of nowhere. 

I think, myself included, when we pray and thank God for our health, our job, our family, etc., we sometimes make our thankfulness so broad and say it almost as a habit that we don't really think about how big of a blessing it is.  Therefore, many of us take a lot of things for granted.  

Let's make a list of blessings that may not seem big but really are blessings:

* a family who loves you

* parents or loved ones who are still alive

* an air conditioner or heater in your car or even having a car 

* the ability to afford getting you hair cut and fixed

* having a roof over your head 

* the ability to see or hear

* the ability to read

* the opportunity to have a child

* having food on your table even if it is a peanut butter sandwich

* the ability to walk or run

* a pillow and a blanket

I could go on and on.  Think about your life.  Ask yourself "if I didn't have this or that would I still be blessed"?  How wet would you really be if your blessings were raindrops?