There’s a debate that keeps resurfacing on the message boards of Beyond Blue: is depression a physiological disorder or a spiritual illness in nature? With prayer and medication, can you live happily drug free? Or is that asking for problems? Is that spiritual emptiness that so many of us feel a symptom of clinical depression, or a sign of a spiritual dryness, or both?
Back on the message board of “Prayer and Depression,” reader Jennifer asks a very important question:

I’m having a very hard time understanding which reality is real. If depression distorts the way we look at God and the way that we feel God looks at us, then how can we know what is real? I feel one way when I’m taking antidepressants and another when I’m not. Which reality is real? Is my natural reality although possibly chemically imbalanced, true reality? I mean God made me who I am and if we did not have antidepressants how would we deal with this? I don’t like living in a deep dark depression but I do not think I like living in a drug-induced alternate reality either. Is there anyone out there having the same problem or who understands the thought I am trying to convey? Is there any advice anyone can offer me?

I like Cleo’s answer to her, although I disagree with him about reaching the middle ground without meds (for people like me with bipolar and other significant mental disorders):

I’ve been told that meds for depression help you from going down hill and not being able to stop yourself. Eventually, and with the help of therapy, diet, and emotional support, one day we can reach that middle ground without the meds. ?Until then don’t fret on what’s real or not, you are real, don’t forget this and you, like most everyone else, is trying to make sense of it all.

And also Beth’s answer:

If staying chemically balanced enables us to stay focused on the only reality, not perception, down here, which is God, then don’t discount their assistance in our lives… by taking a pill, we have a way to experience Joy in Him like others can. It’s not a “battle of realities”; it’s just balance of The Reality, your relationship with the Father. Enjoy, and be free.

Vicky says this:

Medications for depression can help us “balance” our brain chemistry, help with anxiety, anger and sadness, but it is not a panacea. We must also work with our minds and spirits. Behavior modification can help with our anxieties, anger and sadness. God can help us modify our belief systems should they be destructive to our well-being.

On his blog, “The Unrepentant Idealist,” reader Terry Carroll writes this:

I still suffer from depression symptoms, and I’m surprised by the manias that are a more frequent part of my life, right now, than before. But I don’t remember EVER feeling as STRONG and CONFIDENT that there is light at the end of the tunnel. I can’t describe the feeling of being “clean” — my whole being, my BODY, seems to be shouting “Thank You!” for the decision to stop medications. Several people have written me this week, in response to my original posting, to encourage and support me in my decision and to affirm me with their own similar experience.
If you can resist the temptation to reach for the deceptive quick fix that might help you short term but harm you long term, you will emerge a better person for the decision. Of course, only you can make the decision about what you can handle and what you can’t. I never hesitate to take pain killers for headaches, even though I know I am not “curing” a headache, just making the pain go away. I’ve often felt that depression is like an emotional migraine, and if the pain is that intense then whatever it takes to stabilize you and enable you to function is the first order of business. You have to SURVIVE in order to “live another day.”
But give serious thought to the origin and nature of emotional suffering. If the source of your pain is “someone screaming in your face all the time,” the best answer cannot possibly be taking medication to make you deaf or emotionally immune. In this silly example, being deaf or emotionally immune in response to “someone screaming in your face” is to introduce a new pathology to mask another one.
Something potentially wonderful can emerge from the battle with emotional suffering. A depth of compassion is just one of many possible gold nuggets. As I said above, emotional suffering is not always your enemy. It might very well be a friend you just haven’t recognized and weren’t spontaneously inclined to embrace.

On the message board of “The Dark Night and Clinical Depression,” reader Wisdum writes:

How in the Hell can you not be depressed in this world, when everything you try to believe in goes against everything that dwells in your heart. Oh yeah ! The words “de-pressed”, and “re-pressed” are rooted in “pressed” as in – to hold down. To be de-pressed is an innate revolt to free yourself from the bondage of those who would hold you down … “I came to set you free” (Yeshuah). That feeling can, and will result, in all kinds of con-flict and turmoil in your Life, that will manifest itself in pain, anguish, anger, anxiety and suffering. There are all kinds of ways to medicate these problems, drugs, alcohol, sex, work, music, etc. etc. For me the best is God/Love.

On that same board, reader “Frustrated” writes:

For all the compassion and empathy you show for those who experience depression, you do yourself and everyone else a dissservice by not doing the necessary research that would yield more insight into the truth that depression is a real experience but NOT a medical condition with biological causes.
Changes in thoughts and feelings can lead to measurable changes in brain biology. Psychiatry interprets this backwards, as biology driving thoughts and feelings, which robs thoughts and feelings of their meaning and humanity.
“Mental illnesses” — even severe ones — are relational and spiritual. Biological psychiatry is irrelevant

And reader Larry Parker writes this:

Yes, many people with situational depression and even mild unipolar depression can get by without formal medication, or with herbs such as St. John’s Wort and kava kava. And GP’s overprescribe SSRI’s such as Zoloft, Prozac, et al. to people who say “I’m a little down lately” without referring them to a psychiatrist first as they should. And, yes, they can have serious side effects, including withdrawal side effects. (As do many non-psychiatric medications, of course.)
But severe unipolar depression, bipolar disorder, and schizophrenia are of another magnitude altogether. Particularly with bipolar and schizophrenia, people who are unmedicated WILL DO HARMFUL THINGS TO THEMSELVES AND OTHERS. That is documented scientific fact (and documented personal experience).
When people say creative visualization or the laws of attraction are “The Secret” (pun intentional) to bipolar disorder, my response is that if I try to creatively visualize something on a manic jag, I will either hurt myself, someone else — or end up dead as a result.

Before you weigh in on this one, read the next post!