Offering Hope with Depression...That Stubborn Darkness

An interview between author Edward Welch and president of New Growth Press, Karen Jacklin Teears

Karen: Karen: With the holiday season upon us, I'm reminded that for many, this time of year can be difficult. Everywhere I turn, I seem to read more about depression. Are you seeing increasing numbers of people struggling with depression in your counseling practice?

Ed: Depression is epidemic. When people try to trace out its history, even over the past century, it is probably five to ten times more prevalent now than it was sixty to eighty years ago. There seems to be no doubt that the experience people call "depression" is multiplying in daunting increments, and there's no reason to believe that our society has yet reached its plateau for this increase.

Karen: Why do you think depression is more prevalent now as opposed to ten years ago?

Ed: The reason why depression is on the increase is unknown, but I think we can say that something more than our physiology is changing. The whole experience of depression is complex; it is more than medication alone can address. Quite frankly, depression needs to be addressed from a spiritual vantage point. For example, some people suggest that one reason depression is on the rise is because there's nothing bigger than us anymore. All we have...is us. In today's society, there's no functioning extended family unit to surround us. All we have is ourselves, and one particular researcher says that the "self" was never intended to carry the weight of that burden. Simply put, we humans were created with a need for something or someone "more" than ourselves, which leads back to the cure, which is relationship with God.

Karen: In my own life, I've had times when I've thought that something must be wrong with my faith, that somehow if I was having a more consistent quiet time, or reading my Bible in more depth, that my suffering should or would be lessened. Can you speak to many who may share that misconception?

Ed: Very few in the Christian church actually teach that it is normal for the Christian to struggle with this kind of dark emotion. While not many will come right out and say it, believers still get the sense that to personally experience such emptiness, heaviness, and isolation is sinful. There is something wrong with us if we experience such anti-happy feelings. We observe other seemingly happy Christians who seem to be normal and then we, very disturbingly, don't see even a hint of that kind of happiness in ourselves. So we ask the question, "Is there something wrong with me?" Scripture says that the human experience is a varied one. Extremely difficult events and depressing passages must be traversed in every human life. Scripture certainly expands our definition of emotional normalcy and places depression within it. At the same time, I think Scripture also encourages us to ask a question when we're depressed: "Why are you so downcast, O my soul?"

Karen: It seems that one of the most difficult aspects of depression is the isolation that accompanies it.

Ed: There is a rule with all suffering: The more intense the suffering, the greater the sense of isolation-isolation from God and from other people. With God, we have some sense that God knows us and understands us through Jesus' own earthly experience as a man. In regard to other people, however, what compounds the danger of isolation during depression is the sense that nobody could ever understand the pain we are going through. Abraham Lincoln spoke about that when he said, "If I could break this (feeling of depression) into millions of little pieces, there would not be one happy face on earth if each person took one of them." Right from he beginning, the experience of isolation is one of depression's most dangerous elements.

Karen: What are some of the unique challenges associated with treating depression?

Ed: One challenge to helping people who struggle with a stubborn depression is that, at some point, depressed individuals have to become a little suspicious of what their depression is telling them. Their depression says everything is wretched. It shouts, "No one loves me; even God himself is distant from me." That's the loud and clear voice of depression. At some point - and this demands incredible humility - a depressed person must choose to say (and believe), "If there is a difference between what I feel and what God says, I will believe the things God says to me even over the things I feel." That choice demands great maturity coupled with persevering skill and humility.

One common response of depressed individuals is that they can't imagine anything good ever happening again. Normally our emotions can go up and down; at this moment I can imagine really difficult things and really good things. The person who is depressed cannot imagine anything with a good outcome. Even when someone close tells them genuinely and meaningfully, "I love you," it doesn't cut through the pain. With the depressed person, there's always this inner doubt raging war with truth. They might say, "I hear your words, but I can't imagine that you would love me." This inability to identify "good" is one of the most troubling features of depression for the hurting person. It's also one of the frustrations for those who love them, because you want your love and your words to build them up. Instead, even the most caring sentiments seem to hit a wall and fall flat.

Karen: Why is depression so closely associated with a sense of hopelessness?

Ed: Depression has sometimes been called the "hopelessness disease" because if there is any single core feeling to it, it's an overriding sense of hopelessness. Everyone who has been depressed resonates with this. They say, "Yes, that's what I experienced!" Again, a key component of hopelessness is not even being able to imagine things getting better. It's an eternal sadness. One way God comes close to the depressed person is by way of the Psalms. God says, "I want you to speak to me from your heart." Now that seems like a very easy task, doesn't it? To simply speak? But for the depressed person, it's very hard to find words because the emotions are so severe, so crippling. Also, to speak to another person demands a certain smidgen of hope. The depressed person has to believe that there is a reason for it, a purpose behind it. That is one of the things God does to gently surprise the depressed person. He says first, "Speak to me from your heart. Just speak these things. Put words to the feelings, and if you don't have words, search through the Psalms and I'll even give you the words to say." That's just one way the Lord pierces through the armor of sadness we have around us.

Karen: As a counselor, what would you say are some key characteristics of those who are depressed but eventually overcome it?

Ed: The people I know who struggle with depression and have persevered with me through the counseling process are my heroes. These are people who struggle every single day, but they continue to get out of bed daily simply out of this weak obedience to Christ. I find it heroic that they are able to do those things. One thing depressed people sometimes don't realize is how incredibly heroic and spiritually powerful they are. As part of my counseling task, I am blessed to be able to point out ways that I have been unusually blessed by them. That doesn't mean that they are going to believe me, but I'm going to point it out all the same. In some ways, I want to be their eyes. I want to see for them that God really is on the move. I might be able to see that more keenly than they can at those times.

To trust another person when you're depressed, to allow yourself to speak of your pain to another individual, is without question a huge risk. The depressed person fully believes that no one understands his pain, so sharing this deep agony involves the very real risk is that he is going to be proven right: no one does "get it"; he truly is alone in his suffering. This risk is common not only to the depressed, but to everyone who has gone through deep suffering of any kind. Everyone who has gone through deep suffering has had people who ultimately said hurtful things to them.

Karen: How important is it to convey to a depressed person that you are there for the duration?

Ed: As a counselor and a friend in the context of the church, there have been times when I've had to press people to confront their depression and their need for faithful support. This happens when they try to dismiss their problem and themselves by saying, "I'm a lost cause. There's no hope for me. I don't want you to do anything." They're trying to shoo me away early on because they feel unworthy to have anybody walk along with them. One way we can bless the depressed person is to say, "I'm with this in you. I'm going to persevere with you. I am going to pray. I'm not going to quit." Now, obviously, we can't say that unless we are committed to doing such a thing. But that is one of the great ways to bless a depressed person-to persevere as a brother or sister through the entire process.

Karen:Why is this topic of depression so compelling to you personally?

Ed: I grew up with a father who struggled with depression, so my interest in it goes back to my childhood years. He was hospitalized probably a handful of times as we were growing up. We didn't have a word for it at the time. As you can imagine, it was sort of hush-hush. The common refrain was, "Daddy's sick and he'll be away for a while." My mother said he was one of the first persons ever to receive electro-shock treatments. I think he was in his late teens, early twenties, when he experienced that. So I had an opportunity to see depression long before I became a counselor, long before I was able to write a book on it, and here's what I observed. My father was a person who, without question, loved Jesus. But I would find that day after day, his guilt was utterly oppressive. He felt he could never do enough. In his own mind, he was always a failure. He thought he was a failure at work, before his family, and before the Lord. I can remember even when I was younger, trying to affirm him in the ways children do-nothing very sophisticated. Even at the time, it felt like my words didn't penetrate. He didn't hear them. It was as if he was sealed off in some way. So I've seen the stubbornness of depression at close hand with my father's life.

Karen:Give us some insight into what family members might be feeling as they attempt to support their depressed loved one.

Ed: As we receive grace to walk alongside the person who's depressed, and to do so for the long term, one thing we have to remember is that we're not the only ones walking with that person. Sometimes outsiders view depression as if it's contagious. Typically, family members will come with great enthusiasm, words of encouragement, comfort, "come-on-you-can-do-it, we're-in-this together, we-really-do-love-you" sentiments. But at some point, when they recognize that their words don't seem to matter, they begin to withdraw. Obviously, this choice will exacerbate the sense of isolation that the depressed person already experiences and fears. One of the primary challenges for the family is to learn how to persevere in moving forward and viewing the depressed person just like everybody else. If we have a depressed person in our family, we move toward him or her and seek to say, "How do I love that person today? What's the wisest way to love that person today?"

Karen:How does suicide play into the depressed person's experience?

Ed: When you talk about depression, one of the hardest topics to talk about is the hopelessness that can lead to suicide. Most people I know who struggle with depression would never have dreamed about wanting to end their life before they got depressed. But once depression set in, all of a sudden, questions of their own death start flying through their minds and sometimes settling into their minds. I have been a counselor for more than twenty-five years. In that time, I have seen a number of people whose suicidal tendencies were very strong. I've been part of groups of people who tried to protect them by creating a boundary between themselves and the taking of their own life. There was one time when I wasn't successful in intervening. This was a young woman, and it's still painful to recall. If you've ever been in a situation like that - where no matter what you did, no matter how much you loved, no matter how effectively you might have tried to help that particular person, she still takes her own life - it is shattering to those who survive. For years, my question to myself was, "What could I have done differently? What more could I have done"? As wrenching as it was for me, who wasn't even a family member, how much more did the members of her family struggle with those same questions? There again, you see that depression is about a particular person and a particular person's experience, but it affects the much larger community, like all suffering does.

Karen:Can you offer us some practical ways to best love a depressed person?

Ed: In Depression: A Stubborn Darkness, there are all kinds of landmarks, signposts, and specific strategies people can use to love those who are struggling with depression. I've used them all. In my experience, what the Lord uses more than anything else is just a, "I'm in this with you and I ain't leaving," type of stubborn love. It's that simple. You tell the person, "Your depression, your anger, your hopelessness are not going to push me away no matter how hard you try. I'm not going anywhere." That's not a technique in the strictest sense, but it's effective. When I've walked with people who have been depressed, they might later say, "To tell you the truth, I don't remember much of what Ed said. But I knew he was there and he was walking with me in the midst of it." It doesn't help a counselor's self-esteem to hear that what we say isn't remembered, but the truth is, if we've succeeded in standing with a hurting person and helped him grow stronger in Christ, we've done our job.

In some ways, I would like to find one breakthrough moment that works for everybody when they're depressed, but I haven't. Yet, knowing the way God often works, we wouldn't anticipate any one strategy to work. If we thought we could put a solution in a box, put it all in the system, we would try to do it in our own strength, and there would be no calling out to the Lord. For those people who love the depressed person, there would be no helplessness, no calling out to the Lord to minister to their loved one either, in the kind of desperate neediness the Lord so treasures. So we can see why God doesn't give us a package or a system that always works by human standards. What I find, however, is that God does break through. It can be through someone getting together with another person for lunch. It can be through someone showing up at another person's home and just helping with things around the house. There may be somebody who makes a passing comment in church such as, "I just want you to know I pray for you every single day." It's so like the Lord to take very ordinary expressions of love and use them to begin to break through to depression.

Edward T. Welch is the author of such best-selling titles as: Depression: A Stubborn Darkness; Addictions:A Banquet in the Grave; Blame It On the Brain; and When People Are Big and God Is Small. He received a Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology (Neuropsychology) from the University of Utah, and a M.Div. from the Biblical Theological Seminary in Hatfield, Pa. Welch is a licensed psychologist and works as a counselor, faculty member, and director of the School of Biblical Counseling at the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation in Glenside, Pa. His written work and speaking ministry, which are characterized by sound biblical exposition paired with dynamic practical application, are in great demand by today's church. Ed is married to Sheri and has two amazing daughters. He is also the glad owner of a growing guitar collection and competes in the Master's swim event, where he happily placed fourth in the country.

Karen Jacklin Teears is president of New Growth Press, the official publisher for the Christian Counseling & Educational Foundation. She can be reached at karen@newgrowthpress.com

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