This entire article from Newsweek is well worth reading. It has me thinking quite hard about medication and our emotional states. Here are a few excerpts:
Students tell him [NYU professor, Jerome Wakefield] that their parents are pressuring them to seek counseling and other medical intervention—”some Zoloft, dear?”—for their sadness, and the kids want no part of it. “Can you talk to them for me?” they ask Wakefield. Rather than “listening to Prozac,” they want to listen to their hearts, not have them chemically silenced.
And further down:
By labeling appropriate sadness pathological, “we have attached a stigma to being sad,” says Wakefield, “with the result that depression tends to elicit hostility and rejection” with an undercurrent of ” ‘Get over it; take a pill.’ The normal range of human emotion is not being tolerated.” And insisting that sadness requires treatment may interfere with the natural healing process. “We don’t know how drugs react with normal sadness and its functions, such as reconstituting your life out of the pain,” says Wakefield.
Do you think Christians should embrace pain and sadness? Or at always stay positive and happy? Should Christians medicate their happiness/sadness or are these natural God-given states? Other thoughts?
[HT: the tireless TitusOneNine]
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February 8, 2008 at 15:50
Check out the movie Garden State. If you can get past the parts that are questionable and the language it hits at that question of a medically induced coma to life.
February 8, 2008 at 16:22
I think that any kind of chronic pain should be addressed when a person feels that it affects the quality of their lives, sadness and depression included. It’s a judgement call – I think, not a religious or ethical issue. Depressed people have more trouble than other people with people and with themselves, and if, once proximate causes are ruled out, their emotions weigh on them and seem not to lift or improve with good luck, experience, and talk therapy, drugs are appropriate.
Most of the time though, I think that sadness or feeling withdrawn is symptomatic of something important in life rather than merely in the neurobiology of a person, and respecting life means allowing one another to be depressed sometimes. Sometimes, the discomfort that other people’s unhappiness causes us (and our feelings towards them) need to be addressed, and prayed upon, as much or even moreso than the sad or depressed person’s problems. So much of life goes well or poorly based on taking the time to check in with ourselves before offering others “help”.
February 8, 2008 at 19:27
I believe that the reason most people take medication for depression is because of sin or guilt in their life that they are trying to cover up and brush away. The Lord does not want us to be permeated with sadness; some of the fruits of the spirit are love, JOY, and peace! I believe that doctors are trying to make sadness/depression a disease instead of saying what it truly is: Man’s sickening depravity. Men were created to love, honor, worship and obey the Lord, and when we go against God’s design, we are going to experience these symptoms: “sadness”, “guilt”, “depression” People need to wake up and realize they are being DOPED! My parents believed this lie, and gave my sister all sorts of medication to try to calm her down and make her life more stable. She has since then turned away from my parents, is living in sin against the Lord, and is a very unhappy person. I have seen the effects…I have been a witness to the pain and suffering…and I do not believe that drugs is the answer. The Bible says in Ecclesiastes 3,
1 There is a time for everything,
and a season for every activity under heaven:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,
3 a time to kill and a time to heal,
a time to tear down and a time to build,
4 a time to weep and a time to laugh,
a time to mourn and a time to dance,
There is a time for everything, so just know that while you may be suffering today, there is another season to be had. Pray and seek the Lord. Ask if there is anything in your life that needs to change. Search your heart. If you do not feel convicted, then praise the Lord! He is Almighty, and He hears your prayers and yearns to be in communion with you! Blessings to you!
February 9, 2008 at 07:22
Medication for emotions is a discussion that needs to take place – being sad is NOT a sickness to be cured. When my beloved husband of 14 years died, I was often advised to get antidepressants “to get over it” – there is no getting over loss, there is getting through it with God’s help. While I accept that some people have medical issues causing depression that should be appropriately treated it seems that far too much emphasis is put on not totally experiencing our lives. Sadness, loneliness and occasional feelings of being separate are part of the entire experience. Those who are Christians are aliens in this land – this is NOT our home. Whew -this article pushed my button didn’t it?
February 9, 2008 at 12:05
Since you have casually made Zoloft the only “bad guy” in this discussion, let me share my family’s experience with the drug. Even though our presenting issues weren’t depression, I think our story can provide a little perspective.
In the past, I was a vocal and committed “no drugging” parent. Actually, I still am, but when my family began dealing with clinically diagnosed OCD (obsessive compulsive disorder), I had to modify my views. One of our children, now a young adult, went through many years of uncontrollable dark and depressing thoughts, feelings of contamination, and repetitive behaviors, much of it repressed or hidden from others out of personal shame. We did what we could, but it took a while to recognize that it was OCD. That child learned how to cope without drug intervention, and is now an exceptional person and published author.
Another child, now in late teens, began experiencing even more severe symptoms, especially with contamination rituals. Reluctantly, after consultation with both local and nationally recognized Christian psychologists, we started that child on Zoloft. It helped control, but did not eliminate, the OCD symptoms. That child didn’t want to be “drugged” and tried going off the drug for a while, but went back on voluntarily when symptoms became too strong again.
OCD is still an ongoing issue that will take more than a drug to overcome, but Zoloft gives this child a better chance to get control and gain victory over a mental condition that involuntarily controls life at every level. Our goal is not long term drug dependence, but short term drug intervention, when the OCD is at its highest, and long term self-control and coping strategies.
Although we are not afraid to talk about our experiences with OCD publicly, we don’t publicize the use of Zoloft. It has been stigmatized, even by such casual comments as the one in your post, to the point to where something that helps our child cope with and overcome a difficult (and often misunderstood) mental disorder, also hurts if it becomes known they are “drugged.”
These young people are intelligent, creative, excpetional, and involved in many activities. Zoloft is just a way to help one of them enjoy these years instead of just battling an invisible monster. Even though I still would prefer to avoid drugs at all costs, I will concede that some depressions are, indeed, clinical, and medication can help. I can say that by experience.
February 9, 2008 at 19:11
My experience with this topic is still ongoing.I am currently on a few drugs to stiefle my disorders, and I am thankful the option is there for us.
But we do need to be responsible with this new optin of medicating ourselves. God gave us a brain to use and dicover, and that means that someday will come that what we call a miracle will, and can easily be a,”miracle drug.”
God works through anything. A Father can realize his obligations as a parent, but not to its fullest without the child present. And I would not be able to post htis comment without my meds. But the most important thing to remember is if it’s not a cure, we must find the cure through Gods devine intervention, wether it be therapy to uncover the underlying problems like in my case, or keep praying for a miracle, and accept it for what it is if it comes in pill form!
I believe God does absolve problems through miracles as we typically see them, but just as Jesus could not be accepted as a physical kimg of Jews back then, we must learn from our mistakes and be willing accept a miracle, no matter how it shows up in your life. But remeber, BE RESPONSIBLE!
February 10, 2008 at 00:35
Sarah, I appreciate your thoughts, and your encouragement to seek spiritual solutions. Your idealism is commendable, but it is not well-informed. While I, too, would agree that Christians should assiduously avoid drugs in the case of the occasional bout of melancholy, I do not agree that all depression can simply be dismissed as the sour fruit of sin.
You seem unwilling to accept that our fallenness as human beings can result in brain malfunctions, chemical imbalances, and mental abnormalities. Physical disease and illness is a result of the fall, not just of personal sin, and we trust doctors to medicate and treat us to make us better physically. Yet any attmpt to treat mental or emotional issues with that same confidence becomes a lack of faith. That is over-spiritualization.
If someone is depressed because of a physical condition, it is unmerciful to confront them with their need to confess their sins if that is not the cause, and if there is a drug that might help them overcome their illness. Sometimes, of course, unconfessed or besetting sin might be the problem, and confession is the solution. That’s fine, but don’t throw the baby of a God-provided medicine or drug out with the bathwater of suspicion due to abuse of that medicine by some, or of spiritual myopia in accounting for the effects of the fall on the least understood and most fragile part of our fallen bodies.
February 10, 2008 at 01:48
Anti-depressants? I wanted to keep my job, so when offered, I took the medication and voila! I could work calmly instead of weeping and grieving for 35 minutes in the parking lot every morning. I sold my soul. I got off of them for 6 months. However, during more stress at work, in order to keep my job, I took the medication again. This time I had a horrendous reaction that was diagnosed as bipolar II. Whoops. That cost $100,000 approximately; I was off work for almost a year. Now my choices are limited and I don’t work any more. Please don’t judge me. I only ask that you consider this information in your own decisions.
February 11, 2008 at 00:09
I have to tell you, I surprised to hear the rationale for your conclusion that depression is the result of “sin”, Sarah – that seems to cast those of us who deal with sadness or depression in our lives as contaminated: I think at heart we all know that feeling as if sad people are sickened by sin is the LAST type of attitude to have around them, and the least likely to bring about real charity, understanding, and grace in someone Else’s life.
Depression (and really unhealthy coping mechanisms, which cause people LOTS of personal problems) run all through my family, and I certainly inherited some of that.
It has always made me feel demeaned and very confused when others would look down on me as if I were a bad person because they didn’t understand why I couldn’t just ‘get over it’ and do and act and feel fine. Other peoples’ sense of self-righteousness about extremely intimate things (sadness and sex immediately come to mind) motivate them to cause others a lot of extra pain. Please, please remember that even if you live alongside somebody and you know how they act and what they like and think lowly of them for how they seem, you really DON’T know what it’s like to be them, and you really don’t know how they feel, or why they do the things they do.
February 11, 2008 at 23:57
Alana Yorba:: Thank you for being open about it. I don’t think anyone here would judge you.
I don’t currently take any medications for anything but really have wondered if I should. No one can ever really get inside my mind anyway.
February 13, 2008 at 10:22
Sadness is not depression. Sadness is a normal response to sad events. Depression is a disease resulting from altered brain chemistry (deficiency in serotonin). This condition can be medically tested, according to my doctor, but the test is not routinely done because it’s too expensive, so the diagnosis is made on the basis of symptoms instead. Some people are genetically predisposed to depression, and this predisposition can be “triggered” by events in one’s life. Once an individual has experienced a major episode of depression, he or she is more likely to experience another one when they experience a new “trigger.” Repeated episodes of depression have a degenerative effect on the brain which can be seen in brain scans, and depression gets harder and harder to treat as one gets older and has experienced this degenerative effect through several episodes of depression.
Suggesting that a person should not be treated for depression because of its supposed spiritual effects makes about as much sense as suggesting one should focus on acquiring spiritual capital from bronchitis or cancer, instead of getting oneself to the doctor. Life is hard, Zoloft or no, and to redeem the bad experiences of life we need God. Zoloft can’t take the place of God for depression, but then neither can antibiotics for the flu. The point is that that’s not what they do nor what they claim to do.
Second, medications such as Zoloft don’t “make you happy” or extinguish emotions. They restore a normal level of serotonin in the brain. How people experience this varies a lot, and depends in the individual personality and on how they felt about the medication to begin with.
It infuriates me that myths about depression and its treatment are still being circulated, especially by those in a position to influence young people like Wakefield. Of course, young people just experiencing the excitement and anxieties of life away from home aren’t going to want to have their feelings squashed. For someone in a position of authority to tell young people who are experiencing serious depression or other mental illnesses that being treated for this disease will destroy their personality or emotions, is erroneous, irresponsible, and dangerous.
Some good reading on this subject, and the source of a lot of my information, are Listening to Prozac and Against Depression by Peter D. Kramer.