One of the blogs that I read on a regular basis is Abraham Piper's blog, 22 Words. Recently he asked the following question on the post 2 questions I have about antidepressants and the physicality of depression
"1. If antidepressants help with a physical malfunction in the brain, how come so many people treat them as a last resort? We don’t attempt to talk away problems in other parts of our body–athlete’s foot, stomach flu, throat cancer, etc.–before we use medication.
2. On the other hand, if depression is a physical malady, why is it diagnosed with conversations in an office rather than tests in a lab?
I’m not trying to make any kind of point with these questions. I’m genuinely curious (and ignorant)."
If you are interested in this discussion, I would recommend that you look through the responses that this post received.
After pondering for a while, I decided to respond (something that I am usually too shy or uncertain to do).
Here is the response that I gave:
"Having lived with depression for 7 years before I was finally diagnosed with Bipolar disorder, I have been through the run of different medications. I guess just through personal experience, I would say that meeting with a Christian counselor and letting spiritual community minister to me and help me through deep emotional struggles like grief and anger with God helped me reach a place of emotional and spiritual healing. At this point, when I knew all other factors were “okay” and found myself still suicidally depressed on a regular basis, we knew it was time to figure out if there was something else wrong with me.
I went on an anti-depressant after a few years of counseling. I think that choosing when to start on an anti-depressant is something you decide upon with a doctor and wise counsel, because I do think that often there are physical factors at work along with emotional struggles. As my physician pointed out, it is a “chicken or the egg” question…did the physical depression cause me to become emotionally distraught with a skewed view of truth, or did my emotional/situational struggles trigger a depression that programmed my brain into a chemical depression? My understanding (though possibly wrong) is that it is possible that if you are situationally depressed for a long enough time, your body actually can become conditioned to that situation, and it turns into a physical issue.
All that to say, I think it would be foolish to not try medication if it seems that counseling alone (and continuing to work with God to align your heart and mind with the truth about who God is and who we are in Christ) does not seem to be working. For me, however, after years of counseling that righted the emotional issues, it still took a correct diagnosis and two medications found through trial and error for me to reach a place where I have been without suicidal thoughts for 8 months now–a major success and reason to praise God for healing through all the various people and means that He used to bring it about.
Anyways, thoughts from one who has recently been through the rigor of being diagnosed with a mental illness. Thanks for your concern and interest in this. It is nice to see Christians trying to understand this and right any misunderstandings that might have been programmed into their brains about how “good Christians” don’t struggle with things like depression or mental illnesses. It’s a lie that keeps many people in captivity, and it’s time to start educating each other with the truth about this situation."
What do you all think? When do you think it is right for someone with depression to start on an anti-depressant? I'm interested in any thoughts you might have, no matter what your background. Let's discuss.
Kayla - Great question, but very tricky question. A couple initial thoughts:
ReplyDeleteFirst, it seems obvious that evangelicals desperately need to get over their unconditional aversion to any kind of medication to combat depression. Such an extreme position is extremely unhelpful and has hurt countless members of Christ's church. There is a stigma associated with mental illness and anti-depressant medications that we must get rid of as soon as possible.
Second, an holistic approach to questions of depression is needed that takes into account all aspects of the person's life. You can't discount physical brain chemistry, but you also can't discount everything else and focus exclusively on brain chemistry.
That's all I have for now, I need to collect my thoughts a bit more before I get into anything more specific, but those seem like important places to begin.