The Biggest Pain

If you have been depressed, what is/was/has been the most difficult symptom, side effect or manifestation of the depression?

If you have walked with someone you love through depression, which part of their depression is the thing that was most difficult for you?

Either way, is there any particular aspect of depression which seems to be dangerous? I suppose with this question, I’m pondering what the specific thing is in depression that leads some people to consider taking their own life as an answer.

I keep thinking I have things I want to write about depression, and instead I just keep coming up with more questions and ponderables. I do have thoughts that aren’t questions, but because I think about so many things both linearly and from lots of different angles (each one in a linear sort of way), I quickly get bogged down by all the different details and have a hard time organizing them enough in my mind to transfer them to written words. So, for the time being, I find trying to write down all my varied thoughts on depression to be, well, depressing.

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Interacting with Depression

How do you think about depression?

Is it something to be:

Managed?

Brought under control?

Endured?

Survived?

Treated?

Something else?

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Prayer for a hurting young man

…with a little help from Van Gogh (thanks, Wikipedia) to paint a picture of how a friend’s friend has been feeling lately:

And the prayer, prayed on behalf of this young man, borrowed from Viktor Frankl (quoted in his biography, When Life Calls Out to Us):

God, you have stricken me with mind;
So help me now to bear this life.

I’m thinking about stepping into the mud a bit, with a few posts on depression. I’ve avoided this topic for a while, because I hate the way the intensity on the subject seems to breed misunderstanding and get in the way of productive, helpful discussion.

I reread much of the book of Job this morning, the way I sometimes like to read it (only reading Job’s words, and cheering him on for his courage in proclaiming both his despair and his innocence, in the face of well-meaning friends, who kept getting it all wrong).  And that rereading, combined with concern over my friend’s friend, has stirred up my desire to wrestle with the topic of depression, again.

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