LIVING WITH FAITH AND DEPRESSION
From The Old Man and the Sea:
“The punishment of the hook is nothing. The punishment of hunger, and that he is against something that he does not comprehend, is everything.”
Charles Spurgeon puts it this way:
“There is a kind of mental darkness, in which you are disturbed, perplexed, worried, troubled – not, perhaps, about anything tangible.”
And a doctor might put it this way: generalized anxiety disorder.
Brennan Manning, in The Ragamuffin Gospel, for the self-loathing Christian among us (which goes hand-in-hand with nearly every mental health condition).
“Would you like to know this moment how Jesus feels about you? Bernard Bush says this is the way you will know: If you love yourself intensely and freely, then your feelings about yourself correspond perfectly to the sentiments of Jesus.”
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a. Bustle has a great list of things anxious folks should look for in a spouse. Outside of marrying Lexapro, here are the 9 things.
b. TOP 10 evidence-based supplements for anxiety.
c. Study: Depression is the #1 predictor of substance abuse in pregnancy. Not income, not education. Depression.
d. Study: Women living near fracking activity are more likely to develop depression and anxiety during their pregnancy.
e. Study: Lower cardiorespiratory fitness linked to greater risk for anxiety and depression.
f. Cortisol in the hair might help diagnose teen depression. And speaking of which, up to 18% of preteens, tragically, have suicidal thoughts.
g. Good overview of the major mental disorders.
“Depression of spirit is no index of declining grace.” — Charles Spurgeon (quoted in Eswine’s Spurgeon’s Sorrows).
Finally…
The incomparable Neil Hannon.
Devil’s Den was one of the most notorious spots of carnage during the Battle of Gettysburg.
It was also where a Confederate soldier’s body, bearing this prayer, was found.
I asked God for strength, that I might achieve.
I was made weak, that I might learn humbly to obey.
I asked for health, that I might do greater things.
I was given infirmity, that I might do better things.
I asked for riches, that I might be happy.
I was given poverty, that I might be wise.
I asked for power that I might have the praise of men.
I was given weakness, that I might feel the need of God.
I asked for all things, that I might enjoy life.
I was given life, that I might enjoy all things.
I got nothing that I asked for but got everything I had hoped for.
Almost despite myself, my unspoken prayers were answered.
I am, among all people, most richly blessed.
It can be terrifying that God knows everything about us, but in the Meaning of Marriage, Tim Keller tells us the flip side.
“To be loved but not known is comforting but superficial.
To be known and not loved is our greatest fear.
But to be fully known and truly loved is, well, a lot like being loved by God.”
A fascinating new study (of mice) in the journal Neuropharmacology shows why the compound Resveratrol might help depression and anxiety.
A lot of it hinges on the stress model of depression.
When your body gets stressed, it releases glucocorticoids. Over time, that stress can damage neurons in the hippocampus. That can lead to depression and anxiety.
So if that’s a big way depression and anxiety happen, a key is this: how do we stop, or reverse, that chain of events?
Scientists found that resveratrol could be helpful by studying rodents, who respond to stress the same way we do by releasing something called corticosterone.
That release produces (bad) cell lesions in the rodent brains and higher levels of an enzyme that’s implicated in the development of depression and anxiety.
The great thing is that giving the little rodents resveratrol reversed the levels of that enzyme, and consequently, reduced depressive and anxious symptoms in the mice.
Hooray!
Medical News Today, though, notes that it’s way too early to get to excited.
Despite Dr. Xu’s excitement, there is little evidence of resveratrol’s ability to fight depression in humans. Although evidence of its effects in animal models is growing, data from clinical trials are lacking.
However, any step toward a new understanding of the chemical ins and outs of depression and anxiety is beneficial.
You can find resveratrol in red wine, red grapes, and berries, but also in supplements.
WebMd has a great list of its potential non-mental health benefits.
Early research suggests taking high doses could help lower your bad cholesterol, might help protect nerve cells from the damage that can lead to the Alzheimers, could help fight diabetes, and possibly limit the spread of cancer cells.
Of course, the research is very early, but it certainly seems worth checking out (after talking to your doctor).
The WSJ has a good look at classic anxiety symptoms in men: Anger/Irritability, trouble sleeping, muscle aches, substance abuse.
Women, on the other hand, are more likely to verbally worry and say, “I’m anxious.”
So we often assume women are the anxious worriers, while men are the solid, strong quiet types. But researchers suggest men could be as prone to anxiety as women.
Yes, statistics suggest about 20% of men will have some kind of anxiety disorder during their life, as opposed to 33% of women.
However, there’s the obvious caveat to that disparity.
Researchers think that societal pressures and internal attitudes make men far less likely to admit and get help for their anxiety than women, which leads to significant underreporting.
One clue is that male suicide mortality rates are higher, and interestingly, research has shown that anxiety is a stronger predictor of suicide than depression. Particularly, anxiety mixed with conduct problems and substance abuse.
So the reasonable (though not empiric) inference is that if there are more fatal suicides among men than women, they might be more anxious than statistics suggest.
Of course, women attempt suicide, at a higher rate, so it’s a tricky thing to untangle.
But the point is that, whether you measure these things as either fatal or attempted suicide, the true rate of anxiety between the two genders are probably pretty comparable.
There’s a pretty sizable stigma for men with depression, but there’s an enormous one for men with anxiety.
Anecdotally, I know so many guys who might acknowledge they have depression, but would never say, “I’m a worrier,” or “I’m anxious.” It just seems too weak.
Personally, as well, it’s been so much harder for me to say, “I worry a lot” than “I’m depressed.”
A lot of cool guys we admire (the artists, writers, singers etc) have battled depression, so it seems manly enough. But we rarely read about men with anxiety.
Things are slowly changing, though.
Here’s a quick list of current male celebrities who’ve spoken about their anxiety.
Stephen Colbert (panic attacks), actor Clark Gregg (panic attacks), Ryan Reynolds (severe anxiety), Carson Daly (Generalized Anxiety Disorder –GAD), Michael Phelps (depression and anxiety), basketball player Royce White (GAD), tennis player Mardy Fish (“severe anxiety disorder”), basketball player Kevin Love (panic attacks, anxiety).
Milan Kundera, in his novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
“She realized that she belonged among the weak, in the camp of the weak, in the country of the weak, and that she had to be faithful to them precisely because they were weak and gasped for breath in the middle of sentences.
…. We might also call vertigo the intoxication of the weak. Aware of his weakness, a man decides to give in rather than stand up to it. He is drunk with weakness, wishes to grow even weaker, wishes to fall down in the middle of the main square in front of everybody, wishes to be down, lower than down.”
Obviously, not a Christian novel; obviously a brilliant one, and obviously, a sentiment we’ve all felt.
This isn’t specifically about depression or anxiety, but considering we’ve just learned that food allergies raise your risk for mental illness, it has huge implications for depression/anxiety/OCD etc.,
Basically, researchers from Boston Children’s Hospital and Brigham and Women’s Hospital looked at a boatload of infants with and without food allergies.
After studying fecal samples over a period of 30 months, they were able to figure out that the infants with food allergies were missing a crucial set of gut bacteria that seemed to be protective. Thus, they were developing food allergies.
So how to fix that?
Well, researchers took the study to, of course, mice.
They found that administering these protective gut bacteria to mice who had allergic reactions suppressed the allergic reaction.
In other words, for all intents and purposes, the injection of these bacteria “cured” them of that allergic reaction.
As the study’s lead author, Dr. Lynn Bry, concluded:
“We’ve identified the microbes that are associated with protection and ones that are associated with food allergies in patients…
If we administer defined consortia representing the protective microbes as a therapeutic, not only can we prevent food allergies from happening, but we can reverse existing food allergies in preclinical models.
With these microbes, we are resetting the immune system.”
Crazy!
The really great part is that researchers think this could work on humans and have already begun kicking human trials into gear with the hopes something could be available in the coming five years.
These trials will investigate fecal transplants targeting peanut allergies, as well as specifically generated probiotic mixes for pediatric food allergies.
Currently, our available treatment for food allergies is mostly avoidance, and if this new treatment worked, it would change (and save) so many lives.
Not just from a physical perspective, but a mental perspective, as well. It’s well-established that food allergies can wreak havoc on a person’s mental health.
Dietrich Bonhoeffer, in Life Together, with a good word for the depressive recluse and the Church Events 7 Days A Week-Er.
“One who wants fellowship without solitude plunges into the void of words and feelings, and one who seeks solitude without fellowship perishes in the abyss of vanity, self-infatuation, and despair.”