Your Feedback About Depression

Posted on August 20, 2008 
Filed Under Dr. Dobson's Broadcast, Life, Physical Health, Spiritual Life

We’ve struck a nerve. Knew we would with this topic! Comments we received today about the series with Pastor Tommy Nelson about depression:

We really track your input, and thank you for the comments we’re receiving about the programming. Keep talking to us!

Comments

2 Responses to “Your Feedback About Depression”

  1. Renee Bernabe on August 21st, 2008 3:58 pm

    I am a 35 year-old Christian woman. I gave my heart to Jesus at age 3 (a sincere conversion experience that I remember well) and have walked with Him since.

    From my earliest childhood, my father was in the ministry. He taught me to love God and His Word through his wonderful example of devotion to Christ and to our family. My dad was also a survivor of an emotionally-abusive childhood and was so accustomed to depression and anxiety (I’ve since learned) that he never really experienced lasting joy or happiness in the early years of his life.

    When I was a freshman in high school, my dad’s father died of liver disease — the result of decades of alcoholism. This emotional trauma of this event led my dad into such a profound personal crisis that he had to be admitted to a mental health treatment facility. Here, he began a course of intensive talk therapy, was diagnosed with clinical depression and was put on anti-depressants for the first time. Over the course of the next several years, my dad became a new person. He had the same passion for the Lord and love of family and ministry, but now he could laugh and seemed lighter, more joyful.

    We’d always been a communicative family so as my siblings and I got older, my parents talked with us about what my dad had experienced and how he’d been helped. Understanding the “inheritability” of bio-chemical disorders, my dad encouraged me (as the oldest of his kids) to stay alert for signs of depression in myself.

    Though I’d had the benefit of prior warning, I was nonetheless blind-sided when I experienced severe anxiety for the first time at the age of 22. I recovered with the help of my family, cognitive therapy and a positive change in some stressful circumstances. However, at 25, I slid back into a depression so deep that I wanted nothing so much as death. Because I believe deeply in God’s love, faithfulness and sovereignty, ending my life has never been an option, but during those weeks I remember wishing repeatedly that God would end it FOR me. This time, there were no circumstances upon which to pin the crisis. I searched frantically for a cause for what I was experiencing, but could find nothing. Once again, God used family and friends to carry me through. He also led me to a psychiatrist who diagnosed Major Depressive Disorder and prescribed anti-depressants. In about a month, I was myself again.

    Over the years, I’ve tried several times to wean myself off medication. Each time, I’ve sunk back into depression. For now, I’m content to stay on anti-depressants and live with their side-effects because almost anything is preferable to the bone-crushing, skin-crawling, terrifying darkness that I experience without medication. Because of the balance that medication has brought back to my life, I’ve been able to encourage numerous people through their own struggles with this illness – including my younger brother and sister.

    I wanted to share my story as background to what I am about to say. That is, that I have NEVER heard a more precise, comprehensive, detailed description of clinical depression – at least, as I’ve experienced it – than Tommy Nelson’s description of it on your broadcast this week. In fact, I have asked my husband to listen to it (because it’s sometimes difficult for him to understand what I experience) and I plan to tell my father and brother about it as well.

    Thank you so much for providing me with the encouragement and the resource of this broadcast.

  2. Robert Whitehead on August 21st, 2008 7:20 pm

    Thank you so much for having Tommy on your show speaking about depression. As a pastor myself, I have struggled with this and at first felt guilty until the doctor told me that about 90 % of the people in the Northwest is suffering from depression. I don’t know if that is really true but i do know that it took me a while to realize that it was not a spiritual issue but a medical issue. I think many evangelicals consider it a spiritual issue. My dad, another pastor, underwent depression several years ago and then was stabilized and said himself “I always thought this was a spiritual issue but after having gone thourhg it, realize it is not.” I am visiting at his house for a week and he has been diagnosed with depression again. He has had depression for several months now and I was looking on your wev site and called FotF for a counhselor. There was none in his town but while on the site I noticed that the last several days you have been discussing depression. I fixed up my laptop and set it in his lap for him to watch. He is not computer literate, at all so I didn’t know how he would react but He became so interested that he wanted to see and hear all three parts of the program. After hearing them all he has realized that he is not alone and he has started to perk up. It has only been a day since he heard the episode and he has began to smile and laugh again already. Praise the Lord! We now this will be a long process and are willing to wait for the changes. We have already ordered the CD’s and a book mentioned as well. Than you Tommy and Dr. Dobson!!
    Is it possible to load those programs on a portable device to listen as i am on the airplane or in the gym?

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