Reflections on Overcoming Clinical Depression
by Jim Kenaston

This is in response to a case of clinical depression that a friend recently shared with me. In reflecting on my own experience with such a time of great difficulty, I would define the severity of clinical depression as one in which a person has been hospitalized under psychiatric care, either voluntarily or involuntarily.

My first of three experiences with clinical depression occurred in 1978, following a car accident, after which I was in shock and unable to sleep for many days on end. Over time, sleep deprivation has its effects, including one where a person’s mind will play horrible tricks on itself (delusional thinking, paranoia, etc.) This was my only experience of being involuntarily committed to a psychiatric ward, though given the overwhelming challenge my parents had with me at the time, I can understand their having chosen this path forward (among few viable alternatives).

During such a time of (in my case) manic depression, a person can say and do things that he or she will find to be terribly embarrassing and will come to greatly regret. Thankfully, and once I’d hit “rock bottom,” I realized at the time that I could not “pull myself up by the bootstraps” and fix myself. My parents did well to trust the professional help that was available to us, as my state of mind was far beyond anything they were prepared to handle themselves. I believe such help has greatly improved since I had my episodes with debilitating insomnia and clinical depression during the 1970s and 1980s.

Diagnosis of the specific nature of the problem can take some time. It wasn’t until my second bout with bi-polar mood disorder that lithium was prescribed as the preferred treatment. A subsequent and final bout with clinical depression occurred when I was in my late 20s and during an especially stressful time for me. At that point I had tried to set aside use of this medication, though the timing of my attempt was ill-advised. I then stayed on it for another 20 years before I was able to set it aside while under a psychiatrist’s care.

It's important to note that lithium has the negative side-effect of compromising one’s kidney function. I’m thankful that I was eventually able to discontinue using it while otherwise maintaining stability in my life. By then I had entered stage 3 of chronic kidney disease. Since having gotten off lithium, and with no alternative medications prescribed (as they all have side-effects that one would want to avoid), my kidney function has improved, though significant damage had been done. Nonetheless, I’m thankful that use of lithium helped carry me through the mental health challenges of my younger years.

By way of further reflection, I’d suggest that through our lives we all have some combination of psychological, social, spiritual, and/or physical challenges to balance and manage. The physical challenges can include chemical balance issues within one’s brain. With proper diagnosis and medication, this latter area can be the easiest to isolate and treat, thereby making the others somewhat more manageable. (My sense is that our culture tends to over-medicate. While there’s a time and context when psychiatric medications can be helpful, ultimately, I believe it’s best for us to deal with the person who is there, hard as that may be. A goal might be to get to a point where we can deal with that person, as opposed to one for whom the reality of the task is greatly masked by all the medications we’ve put them on.)

As for the spiritual component, my hope is in the grace offered to all repentant sinners in Christ. He has the capacity to redeem our lives for His kingdom purposes, giving them meaning beyond anything we can construct for ourselves. His redeeming work in our hearts has implications for the psychological and social aspects of our lives as well.

But to focus on the habits and patterns that we can cultivate to help us move beyond experiences of clinical depression (or any form of encroaching depression), I've found the following common-sense practices to be most helpful:

• Building into one’s life regular and predictable patterns of healthy and wholesome behavior, including:
• A consistent night’s sleep at regular hours
• Maintaining a healthy diet
• Maintaining a healthy exercise routine
• Seeking positive mental inputs (edifying music, books and films - even something as simple as enjoying a few daily comics can be a good start - something that we can look forward to on a regular basis) while avoiding negative inputs (what I would term as toxic music and lyrics, degenerate books or films, etc.)
• Living a life of moral accountability within a Christian fellowship
• Finding positive ways of contributing to the life of others (volunteering where there are needs that one can readily help meet is a good place to start, which helps us get our mind off of ourselves.)

To expand on this latter idea, and as those who seek to follow Christ and find our identity in Him, I think we do well to seek further validation of His role or specific calling for us by exploring areas of service where we can be of genuine help to others. This places us within His will, as opposed to seeking our identity in ideological causes or in our most base physical appetites (such as in a sexual appetite, which has sadly become more of a norm for the current generation).

As for the changes I’ve seen in my own life over time, I’m thankful that I was eventually able to set aside the medication that helped me through my most turbulent years, given their long-term negative side effects. Perhaps God simply used the aging process to help stabilize me beyond a time when I most needed to be medicated. He may also have used, at the bidding of wise mentors, the positive behavior patterns I’d built into my life toward accomplishing this same purpose. Most likely, each of these factors were at play.

In any event, it’s a great blessing to have survived those difficult years and to be living an active and productive life now, and one where I can offer some notes on the process as I’ve experienced it. I’d add to this that we do well to thank God for the forgiveness we have in Christ when we fail to live up to even our own self-imposed standards (not to mention His). However we may fail along the way, I think we do well to continue looking to Christ to light our way forward. Proverbs 24:16 may be instructive in that regard: “for though the righteous fall seven times, they rise again, but the wicked stumble when calamity strikes.” Looking to Christ and His righteousness points us in the right direction.

I believe it’s also best that we avoid treating any one episode or issue in our life as the sole focus of our identity. While an episode of clinical depression may be a part of one’s experience, we can choose to find our identity in Christ above all else. A battle with depression happens to be part of my own story, but it certainly doesn’t characterize my life in its entirely. God can use any such experience toward accomplishing His larger good purposes for our lives. He welcomes us to allow Him to weave our story into His larger redemptive narrative for this world.

Lastly, I believe that episodes of clinical depression impact more than just an individual within a given family. They impact parents and siblings, and where an older person battling depression has a family, it will impact their spouse and children as well. In my case, I had the benefit and blessing of parents who took a long view and sought to encourage me forward as best they could. They didn’t spend the rest of their lives reminding me of my worst moments, but they sought to equip me to move forward and thrive, despite the stark realities of my past. I'll always thank God for how they chose to respond to such a difficult time in their own lives.

It's a blessing that God grants us the grace of moving on from one season of our lives to another. His ultimate earthly calling for those who trust in Christ is to build His kingdom by reflecting His character to the world. It's also an aspect of His grace that He's willing to do that through so many broken vessels as each of us are. This is part of why He seeks to redeem our lives from whatever pit we had dug for ourselves, so that we can live in His love and grace, reflecting that love and grace toward others as we abide in Him.