Regarding Freeper Obit. TrappedInLiberalHell and Depression

self | Self

[joesbucks]

The problems of depression and despair.

[ican'tbelieveit]

We all eventually die. I know that man desires to live longer and longer, but even the most faithful come to the end of their lives.

[Salvation]

**"coulda shoulda woulda" torment? **

But some people don't realize they are dealing with guilt (rather it is realistic or unrealstic) as they travel through depression.

I think the most important thing for everyone experiencing depression to remember is:

Life is a journey!

[SerpentDove]

>>But the action I took which I feel has given me the deepest comfort, is that I turned to God. I renewed my trust and faith in Him. I study and read the Bible. I found a true measure of love and compassion there. I am learning to give Him my troubles and worries.<<

That's where I'm at with it, too. I have had a strong faith for a long time. When you say, "I am learning" I know what you mean also. It's not a quick-fix, but a process of day-by-day dependence, I'm finding out.

In many ways, my life is much richer with a "thorn in the flesh" than without.

SD

[Lady Jag]

Bump for later read.

[Ladysmith]

When I first crashed, I was a baby Christian and asked my friend who had helped me accept God what was going on. He told me to read the first chapters of Job. The first chapters were very enlightening yet I continued and finished the whole book. In the end, my conclusion was I was now on one wild ride and I needed to learn how to trust God through whatever happened and not turn my back on Him again. Even though it was an incredibly painful time, it was also a time of His healing and care. The memories of how He took care of so many problems simply out of my control fills me with more love and trust for Him than I can ever express.

My greatest joy is talking about my Lord and God! I'm just in heaven right now! :o)

[NeoCaveman]

It is increasingly evident, from this thread, and the Schiavo thread, that self-indulgent people here have no intuitive boundaries. It's all about the Godliness. It's the "let's all bond" over no valid reason pathology.

Consider this my FR Opus. This place is insane.

Bye. I'd like to say I'll miss you but my aim is quite good.

P.S. Why not do an opus thread instead of pissing all over this one?

[snopercod]

I'm just so sick of those Christmas letters touting the family trip to Fiji, the kids being awarded Nobel prizes, and all about the trip across the country in the million-dollar motor home.

A few miles from me, there is a run-down single-wide with trash and abandoned cars scattered all around. Pigs and chickens running free. I am really temped to take a picture and send out photo cards with it. Then add something like, "Pa is out of jail now and has finished fixing up the house. Ma can walk again, so she helps with the garden when she's sober..."

[HairOfTheDog]

P.S. Why not do an opus thread instead of pissing all over this one?

Too many people would see it and he would have to stick to it?

I have been following these threads about TILH.... Just one of the familiar names that we only know a tiny part of.

[NeoCaveman]

Too many people would see it and he would have to stick to it?

True. And he doesn't have the guts to leave.

I have been following these threads about TILH.... Just one of the familiar names that we only know a tiny part of.

He was very witty. It's a damn shame.

[Harmless Teddy Bear]

I have a friend like that. Now that I have my physical strength back, the only reason I don't knock out his teeth is due to great self-control.

Violent aren't we? ~grin.

But seriously, I now tell the perky to go read Job, Jeremiah and Laminations. And then I tell them to come back and tell me that those people were depressed and had troubles because they were out of the will of God, didn't have enough faith or they weren't praying enough.

For me I had spent 7 years working toward a goal only to find out that it wasn't where I was suppose to be. During those seven years I had no problem with major depression. Then I had to do a 180 turn and suddenly I found myself completely adrift in a strange land with no support system and no goals. Not to mention a worthless education, having a degree in theology is not a real valuable commodity in the workforce. Add to that a tendency to second guess myself expect perfection in all I do, moving out of the land of sunshine into the land of gray sky's, with the tendency toward being a depressed anyway and it is no wonder I went off the rails.

Now though I understand what people are going through in a way that I never would have before. So I guess it was a good thing. Painful though. Very painful. And costly.

[TheSpottedOwl]

He knew his condition. He's not a man to be admired. He left a wife alone, not as a victim, but in everyone's eyes going forward as someone who didn't do enough, see enough, feel enough and care enough. "How could she let him do this ... or did she drive him to this? Hmmmmmmm?" She's the forever perp here! Bitch!

What the heck is your problem? He had mental problems. No one is admiring him for committing suicide; rather this thread is about how many people suffer from depression. We want to know why this happens. Suicide is such a tragedy for the survivors. I can't believe you could be this insensitive.

Consider this my FR Opus. This place is insane.

You got it bud.

[RaceBannon]

I am not going to tell you to not see a doctor, but I am going to tell you that I have had many things happen in my life that most people could not stand.

I toughed it out.

Last fall, some things happened that brought me to an understanding of why people commit suicide. I didnt think of it for myself, but I finally realized that I am in absolute lack of control of things inside me, outside me, and around me, and that I had to have a total dependance on God for all things in my life.

When I concentrated on fixing the problems myself, I found myself only occasionally winning, because I cannot change the things around me, only my attitude of myself to the problem I am going through.

What is more dangerous is the apathy you can get to your situation, not just a fearful depression, but an apathy that it does not matter what happens to you at all, for it is all bad.

That is the wrong kind of surrendering.

Another mistake believers make, is trying to be a 'better Christian'.

You CANNOT be a better Christian, that is your flesh. You are kept by the Power of God, not your faith!

Your faith is NOT what saved you, nor is it what keeps you, it is God who keeps you, preserves you, and saves you, and holds you in His hands.

It is NOT you and your trying at all, that is your sinful flesh trying to work out a part of your salvation that you never had any control over. It is worldly, it is the flesh.

It takes a lot for some people to realize that, but when it happens, it is such a blessing to see yourself say to the Lord that you have NOTHING that you can offer Him as a Believer except YOUR DEATH to self and a complete reliance on Him to keep you from falling, and to preserve you!

Most believers say they know this, they quote Romans all the time about dying to self and reckoning themselves dead, but how many actually have done this?

It is something that you can let go of, too, I have learned that, but once you taste the full dependance upon God for all things, you never forget it!

I am going to tell you one important thing: When you are relying upon the medication to change your thought patterns, you are not relying upon what God said. I AM NOT TELLING YOU TO GO COLD TURKEY, now that you have been on these meds, you will go into a major depression, caused by the depletion of the normal chemicals that your body created in the first place that the meds have done for you for a long time now! I know someone who went cold turkey, and then within 2 weeks killed his wife and then himself!

But the answer is NOT found in drugs or in ourselves, it is found in trusting in what God said, and in surrendering to Him, and if it is emotionally painful, it is SUPPOSED to be until we actually get there! I mean that! I was in tears the day I finally caught on, I had been fired from a job due to a false accusation, the unemployment told me my company was right, I had no job, no income, and another personal problem came to light that bothered me and the combination of repeated uemployment, the lying about me, and the personal issue brought me to my knees in a way I never had before.

In that day, I realized that my very breath came from God, my future was in His hands totally, for everything, that I could do nothing to change my situation, to alter it, that there was no fleshly work I could do to alter it, I could not work my way out of it, I could not buy my way out of it, I could not talk my way out of it, I was sunk without the Lord taking charge of my life and all things of my life. In other words, I was right where He was trying to get me all along!

Think of something: Before we had technology, we had to trust God for rain for crops, for protection against hostile Indians, foreign powers, for protection against illnesses, against weather incidents, famines, floods, forest fires...

What did people do? They fell on their faces before God and prayed. They turned to the God of the Bible and cried out to Him, recognizing they had nothing to bring to Him in return, but only to trust in His mercy upon them.

me and you have no clue what that means. We have what can only be described as a blessing in our country, the resources allowed to us by modern medicine, the blessing of flush toilets!

And I mean that. Before all these things, people turned to God when they were distraught, and because many people did this, the more people who knew to turn to God taught their offspring to do so, also, and their neighbor, and the stranger.

It is a failure of Christianity to not have someone see your dillema and tell you these things, but back in the olden days, peole did just that.

In ourt sin sick world of turning to government/psychiatry/Oprah Winfrey, we have lost the idea of what it rreally means to trust God in all things.

If you do decide to go back to trusting God, do NOT stop cold turkey, your brain is not functioning normally now, it is relying on the meds, wean slowly off them if you do, and I mean slowly, your brain does not make the chemicals it used to, it is relying on the meds for that input!

Trusting God does not mean intentionally stepping in front of a truck! :)

I'll pray that you see these things in a Biblical light. :)

[Pan_Yans Wife]

When admitting a past struggle with depression, my pastor's wife cautioned me not to express this openly with them members of my country church.

Her reasoning was that sometimes people will accuse others of having a weak faith, while their human condition leads them into darkness.

I have found that all goodness comes through the Lord. And if God should lead a sufferer of depression to a doctor, for counseling and even medication for treatment, then this too can be a blessing.

And lastly, a chemical imbalance is not the fault of the person who suffers from depression. We do not chastize those who take heart medication, why would we chastize someone whose brain chemistry is out of balance?

[sinkspur]

It's a damn shame.

It IS a shame, but Arne's right: suicide is ultimately a cowardly, selfish act.

The suicide gives no one even the OPPORTUNITY to help. What's more, he won't give up his own self-absorption to see that he doesn't have to kill himself.

Depression is as curable as the common headache. One just has to get out of himself long enough to see it.

[joesbucks]

No, I DO enjoy.

[EagleMamaMT]

I'm going to open up a little bit here, in the interests of perhaps helping others with my own experiences with depression. This is long and I apologize for it, but I hope it will help someone who might be depressed and feeling worthless or helpless:

I was depressed for a lot of years. I remember little of my high school years, beyond attending class and then coming home and climbing into my bed in my dark room. I was able to perform at school, but it was very difficult because I always felt worthless, lonely and scared. Coming home and just getting into bed and sleeping was the way I coped. My parents just thought I was being a difficult teenager and that I would outgrow it. And, for periods of time, I did. This pattern of depressive behavior would wax and wane through my college years and early 20s.

In my 20s, I met a man and I fell totally, deeply in love with him. I was like many young women are, though. I was a total fool for this man. I believed I was so worthless and so insignificant I deserved his cheating and lying and that if I just waited for him long enough, he would one day love me and we'd be happy together. That didn't happen. I became pregnant, and when he found out, he refused to have anything to do with me or our child. This caused me to have a breakdown and I was hospitalized in a psychiatric hospital for a couple of weeks, when I was about 3 months pregnant, to keep me from harming myself or someone else.

I'll be honest. The counseling in the psychiatric hospital didn't help me one bit. The peace and tranquility of the psychiatric hospital, however, helped me to quiet my burned-out mind and to turn back to Jesus for his forgiveness for my sins and to experience His peace and calmness in my mind and soul.

When I left the hospital, I was stronger spiritually and mentally than I ever was in my life. I vowed to work to take care of myself and the baby I was carrying and to put this man out of my mind and my heart. This helped me to withstand some very serious personal blows during my pregnancy - alienation of much of my family over my pregnancy, and very dire financial circumstances being two of those personal blows.

I worked two jobs all during my pregnancy and until my son was almost two years old to provide for us. I never asked my son's father for a dime because of threats he made against our baby's life, while I was pregnant, if I tried to take him to court for child support. I decided I would scratch with the chickens for a living before I took a dime from a monster who would threaten the life of his own baby.

At any rate, I worked very hard for that period of time - only sleeping three or four hours a night and seeing very little of my baby, who was being cared for by my first cousin's wife - a wonderful girl who loved my baby like her own. I thank God every day for LouAnn and what she did for me and my son.

I guess because I was so tired and emotionally burned out, I began to take my eyes off Jesus and how He was wonderfully providing for me and my child, and I began to let depression back into my mind and soul, a little at a time. Finally, one Sunday night, I just couldn't face another day, I thought, and I took a handful of muscle relaxants. I went to bed, not caring - I believed - that I would never wake up. But the Lord cared. My baby began to cry and it was like the curtain of depression was ripped from my mind. I knew I couldn't die and leave him. I was all he had. I was horrified at what I had done and I asked the Lord to help me get help and not die and leave my baby.

I spent a couple of days in the hospital recuperating and crying and praying, and I finally took a long look at myself and my life. I had believed I was doing the right thing by working all the time to provide for my son, but the Lord showed me that I wasn't trusting Him to provide for us beyond what I was physically able to do. By trying to meet all our needs myself, this led to physical exhaustion, which led to escalating depression. I also realized that I WAS worth something. I was a good mother and a good person, not the total screw-up I had always considered myself to be. When I got out of the hospital, I quit one of my jobs and put our future in the Lord's hands.

While I was lying in that hospital, I began to see that depression is a lie. "Depression" is believing the lies you're telling yourself - "I'm worthless, I can't do anything right, I'm never going to climb out of this pit I'm in". If you've ever been depressed, you know all those lies because you've repeated them to yourself a million times.

From that time forward, once I really came to see depression for what it was - a lie I was telling myself - I have never been depressed again.

It's been 15 years, now, since I was hospitalized for that suicide attempt. Since that time, the Lord has given me a perfect, blessed husband and three more sons. He's taken away the self-hatred I used to have and given me a sense of worth - not for who or what I am - but because He loved me so much that He died for me, and He was there to lift me up and protect me when I wasn't capable of seeing any goodness or worth in myself.

If I could say anything to depressed people it's this: Quit lying to yourself and reinforcing your depressive feelings. You're NOT worthless. You're NOT useless. Don't even let those thoughts enter your mind. You have wonderfully and fearfully made, in the image of God. You were bought at a price by Jesus and He will be faithful to you if you'll only ask Him. He can take a depressed troubled mind and make it new and peaceful.

God bless you all. I'm sorry I've written so much here, but I just wanted to tell you all what I've learned at Jesus's mercy seat.

[sinkspur]

When you are relying upon the medication to change your thought patterns, you are not relying upon what God said.

Just what we need. More "Christians" heaping guilt on people who are relying on life-saving medication to overcome clinical depression.

Race, you are part of the problem with your "trust in God alone" nonsense. Someone reading this thread who needs medication should feel absolutely no shame in seeking it. In fact, medication is what God wants them to turn to.

Why act as if God is not telling them to take advantage of the most obvious cure?

[NeoCaveman]

It IS a shame, but Arne's right: suicide is ultimately a cowardly, selfish act.
The suicide gives no one even the OPPORTUNITY to help. What's more, he won't give up his own self-absorption to see that he doesn't have to kill himself.

Have you no shame? The man's widow is on FR.
Heck, I am pissed at him for doing it. But I'll give some compassion instead of hyper judgementalism.

As curable as a headache? What church do you deacon at? The church of Pfizer?

I'll be praying his soul. We still have that OPPORTUNITY to help him.

[sinkspur]

As curable as a headache?

Yep. I know, from personal experience. Antidepressants are a Godsend!

I'm sorry if I offend his widow, but she's likely as angry at what he did to her as the rest of FR is.