Integrating depression into spirituality

[StudentMI]

I suffer from depression and several other things. My doctor recently urged me to accept and develop my identity as an adoptee and it got me thinking about faith and depression. How do people integrate the two?

I’ve been interested for several years, even before my conversion, in Leon Bloy. His spiritual ideas seem to have come from a very depressed mindset. I’ve adopted a similar attitude in life. But I am interested how others do this. Any thoughts.

 

[GEddie]

I suffer from depression and several other things. My doctor recently urged me to accept and develop my identity as an adoptee and it got me thinking about faith and depression. How do people integrate the two?

I’ve been interested for several years, even before my conversion, in Leon Bloy. His spiritual ideas seem to have come from a very depressed mindset. I’ve adopted a similar attitude in life. But I am interested how others do this. Any thoughts.

Greetings amigo!

I have been a melancholic since I can remember, although not under a formal treatment for depression.

One thing I have noticed is that in melancholia, our LORD’s sobriquet as the “Man of Sorrows” takes on a whole new meaning.

ICXC NIKA

 

[crenfro]

Hello.

I’ve had chronic depression for years - since I was about 9 years old.

One of the most helpful things the priest told me was to offer up the especially intense depressive episodes for any one who might feel just as I do, or even worse. This works for me.

My doctor recently urged me to accept and develop my identity as an adoptee and it got me thinking about faith and depression. How do people integrate the two?

 

[fhansen]

“Blessed are the poor in spirit…” I don’t think we want to go around cultivating depression but, to be unaffected by this world and its often selfish or me-first values, to be perfectly comfortable in a world where much pain is afflicted by humans upon other humans, to be a winner in the dog-eat-dog game of life, is to accept and become friends with a system or state of affairs that is opposed to love, opposed to gentleness and kindness and those values set forth in 1 Cor 13, for example.

 

[Robert_Sock]

From a psychoanalytic perspective, I believe that repressed painful, emotional memories can give rise to mental illnesses such as depression and anxiety. The problem is how to get to these repressed memories if they are buried deep within the unconscious without having to go through psychoanalytic therapy?

Just this Saturday night I had an experience where such memories just surfaced unexpectedly. It will be interesting to see if these released memories will rid me of my depression and anxiety.

 

[Liturgy_Geek_1]

Just this Saturday night I had an experience where such memories just surfaced unexpectedly. It will be interesting to see if these released memories will rid me of my depression and anxiety.

Well, that didn’t work in my case. I regularly have memories, or what could be called flashbacks, occur and it has not gotten rid of my depression and anxiety.

I believe that my depression and anxiety are the crosses that I have been given to bear. I try to consistently offer my sufferings for the Poor Souls in Purgatory. It gives me peace that some good can come out of what I endure.

 

[Robert_Sock]

Well, that didn’t work in my case. I regularly have memories, or what could be called flashbacks, occur and it has not gotten rid of my depression and anxiety.

I believe that my depression and anxiety are the crosses that I have been given to bear. I try to consistently offer my sufferings for the Poor Souls in Purgatory. It gives me peace that some good can come out of what I endure.

It all depends on which psychological paradigm you wish to follow. The psychoanalytic paradigm assumes very deep and represses thoughts that are very painful and filled with distressing emotions. Usually, it’s assumed that you need much guidance from a specially trained psychoanalyst to access and release them.

 

[Robert_Sock]

I do not know how severe your depression is, but when I get depressed I lay in my bed and offer my depression to God as a sacrifice.