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Journey out of depression Part 1 (Part 2)
When the human spirit is suppressed
According to the World Health Organisation, depressive disorders are on the increase worldwide and affect about 121 million people. The WHO predicts that by 2020 it will be the second leading cause of health impairment worldwide. (www.who.int/mental_health).
It is thought that up to ten per cent of Europeans and Americans suffer from depression. How can this problem be handled? What treatment options are available to sufferers? How can friends and relatives help? The first of a two-part article begins with examination of the most important causes and shows practical steps to deal with depression.
A person with depression often sinks into a bottomless pit and loses all joy and motivation. He has no energy to think or make decisions and finds it difficult to concentrate or remember. Incapable even of experiencing real pain, his life has paled into insignificance and lost its meaning. His inner perception and outer reality are separated by a dense grey veil, laden with anxiety about being incapable of achievement. Somebody in this oppressive psychological state feels alienated. Also his surroundings in our modern pleasure-seeking society show little sympathy for depressive conditions. We are reluctant to deal with the possible causes or to accord the sufferer the right attention.
Experiencing low mood or being out of sorts is not socially approved of among young people today. In order to maintain an appearance of "fun and joy" many rely on stimulants like "ecstasy" rather than risk attracting unfavorable attention.
Many who adopt a wholesome approach to life, and are even spiritually oriented, often feel completely helpless when faced with another`s depressive illness. They confidently believe, for example, that such psychological disturbances are redemptions of karma and urge the sufferer to "strive for spiritual knowledge" or "make greater efforts" rather than take medication; but that is as far as their advice goes.
Experts, too, have problems in identifying the key causes of depressive illnesses and cannot explain satisfactorily their frightening increase in recent years.
Endogenous and exogenous depressions
Psychiatrists have long differentiated between two basic types of depression, the endogenous and exogenous forms. The basis for this differentiation lies in the recognition that the principal cause of the deflated mood is in some cases a physical predisposition (endogenous), which is absent in other cases.
This suggests that endogenous depression is caused by chemical disturbances in the brain and that a deficiency of certain neurotransmitters might be the decisive factor. Neurotransmitters relay information from cell to cell. The production of these messenger chemicals is light dependent and only commences fully in daylight. This is why the characteristic symptom of endogenous depression is a "morning low". There is evidence of a hereditary disposition to this disorder. Therefore significant improvements are achieved by adequate therapies operating on the physical level. These include the use of psychiatric medications such as anti-depressants, which must be adjusted to the particular personal situation of the patient. Other successful methods include light therapy and sleep deprivation.
Treatment should not be confined to just medication. Supporting psychotherapy can help the patient to take charge of his situation. It can enable him to accept the "dark phases" and encourage him during his "light phases" to make progress in his inner development.
It is different with exogenous ( or "reactive") depressions which have no physical cause, but rather have a specific origin to which the patient reacts, such as personal failure, the loss of a loved one or other apparent blows of fate. In such cases it is primarily the soul that is affected, which is why psychiatric drugs are of little value. Here it is a case of examining the background to find why a person is resigned to fate, is giving up on life's struggle, no longer sees a future and lacks strength to live rather than merely exist. Important strands can be recognized in the web which forms the basis of exogenous depression, and from these a start can be made to therapy. For example, a person or things may be idolized to the extent that all emotional resources are exhausted. The phrase "I could not live without you" is exemplified so that, should the "idol" be lost, a vacuum is formed in which the depression flourishes. This danger looms all the more if a human being clings to something material yet has no firm hold on the spiritual or lacks a feeling of security in some basic trust, which makes life worth living.
The clear differentiation between endogenous and exogenous depression has in recent years been called into question, because aspects of both can naturally be intermingled. Above all, the traditional differentiation cannot explain the dramatic increase in depressions. On the one hand, it is known that across generations about the same percentage of the population is affected by endogenous depression. On the other hand, there are no clues to the striking increase in exogenous, emotionally conditioned depressions.
The physical causes of depression, which are inherited, act independently of any external events. In war times, with the added psychological pressures, endogenous depressions are as frequent as in times of peace. However, in war time, there is no noticeable increase of exogenous depressions either. It could be said that the indulgent dependence on material things in our affluent society over the last century also increases the danger of depressive illness. At the same time, one must accept that the ever improving living conditions and the material and social safety net in which individuals are embedded today should lead to a decline in reactive depressions.
What then is the reason for the evident increase in depressive symptoms?
The spiritual dimension
This riddle can be solved conclusively if it is recognized that being human requires more than the apparently automatic cooperation of body and soul.
The reasons for the escalation of depressive illness may be attributed to the predominance of passivity. Even in young people, feelings of senselessness and hopelessness often come to the fore and dismal anxieties about the future are frequently linked to despondence and weariness. But all these moods do not readily fit the endogenous or exogenous, physical or mental model. They are caused neither by the physiological and bio-chemical state of the human body nor can they be explained as psychological reactions to an external threat. For what possible reason could a young person living in affluence and security react with hopelessness and anxiety about the future?
Such a psychological state is not caused by external factors; the root causes lie deeper and can be found by viewing the human being in its entirety. Our innermost core, the self or ego, the primordial human personality, is spirit; the soul body and the physical body are merely cloaks for it. (These concepts are explained in detail in the work "In the Light of Truth" The Grail Message by Abd-Ru-Shin.) The two bodies do not work together automatically, without "guidance"; rather, they jointly serve the higher placed spiritual entity. "Serving" implies that body and soul do not fulfil an end in itself, but benefit a higher purpose, namely the development of the spirit, which should go from an unconscious to a conscious state. To make headway on this road and do justice to its intrinsic nature, which expresses itself in an unquenchable longing for knowledge, light and truth, the spirit must remain in constant movement, striving from one goal to the next, and experiencing mutual satisfaction as well as further encouragement from the significance of its activity.
But when, owing to a wrong inner adjustment, the spiritual striving toward consciousness is blocked, this "suppression" can appear - in the truest sense of the word - as depression. The liveliness of the spirit, which normally glows through body and soul, remains inhibited, and attempts to master this self-alienation by intellectual will power often end in even more depressive brooding.
While in the case of the endogenous depression the natural harmony of body, soul and spirit is disturbed foremost by physical blockages and with exogenous depression psychological slips are decisive, an additional third and important kind of depression must be mentioned which points to the spiritual. Many typical social phenomena of our time, from the escape of youngsters in alcohol, drugs or else sects to widespread leisure frustration, show that our recognition of the purpose of life has been lost, and we cultivate a lifestyle at odds with and seriously frustrating to the bearings and goal of our core being, the spirit.
From loss of meaning to depression
How do doubts about the meaning of life, which are probably an inseparable aspect of any materialistic world view, become morbid?
This question is usually beyond the scope of scientific research, because scientists by and large ignore the spiritual dimension of being human. This dimension urges us to search for meaning in our lives. It connects and elevates body and soul, but is hardly to be approached by scientific method.
One notable exception is the so-called Logotherapy founded by Victor Frankl. It places the spirituality of man at the centre of all therapy and speaks of the so-called "noogenic depression" (nous = spirit). Victor Frankl explains that this can be "traced back originally to some spiritual frustration, which arises through loss of meaning. (Victor E.Frankl: Theory and Therapy of Neurosis, Muenchen, 1993). Modern society has prepared a fertile for this. Our way of life, therefore, creates a favourable climate for profound frustrations. When such conditions in society meet with a person's psychological weakness as, for instance, a tendency towards addiction, chronic anxiety or the lack of will power, then an identity crisis can easily grow into a sturdy noogenic depression. A significant proportion of all depressions can be attributed to the lack of spiritual activity which is particularly cultivated by our spiritually disoriented life style. Therein also lies the reason for the striking increase in these illnesses in recent times.
How to handle depression?
It should have become clear from the explanations so far that sweeping judgements are inappropriate. Depression forces us to take a close look, because it is important to know by what in the first place is the spiritual in the person being oppressed. Thus even symptoms of endogenous depression, which is initially treated on the physical level, require in every case the specific support of the spiritual in order to achieve lasting results. But how do we support in this context? Not by making demands like "just pull yourself together!" Somebody going through a depressive episode simply cannot do this because the spiritual power necessary for it is restrained. It is as if the spirit were immured and unable to express itself.
Neither is it very helpful to give tips to mental connections such as "you must recognize the meaning for your suffering!" On the contrary, it hinders the depressed person because the vague feelings of guilt, which are typical of depression, inevitably results in the inability to discriminate, leading to distorted judgements. The self-awareness concentrates only on all that is culpable, bad and destructive; all latent abilities and opportunities are overlooked.
It is difficult for somebody who does not know depression from his own experience to put himself into the position of a longstanding sufferer of this debilitating disease, which not infrequently can even lead to suicide. There are, however, some basic points which should be observed in dealing with sufferers.
This applies to depressives as to all other so-called mental illnesses: It is not the spirit, not the human being himself which is ill or disturbed, but for whatever reason, the shackling of natural ability. The depressive symptoms, therefore, belong to the sufferer's illness, not to himself. Logotherapy puts it this way: The humanity in the human being stands above the illness in the human being. Everything the human being possesses- body and soul, mind and emotions- can fall ill, but never the spirit, which is the human being itself. The patient's mind is naturally dominated by thoughts of his affliction so that he identifies himself with it. Instead of permitting and fostering this identification with the illness, his aim must be to distance himself from it. Only when the patient himself confronts the illness can he separate himself from it and gain insights which will lead him onwards.
Because depression often runs in phases and the sufferer is practically unreachable in such a phase, it is important to use the healthy intervals, perhaps to build confidence or to learn to cope with the illness. It may be a case of making it clear to the one affected that every human being is permitted to be ill. While he should take his depression seriously as an illness, he should not doubt his whole personality and his value as a human being. Episodes of depression are like clouds which conceal the sun. Yet behind them the sun is always shining. They move away and the warming light is seen again. It is about enduring courageously under these clouds in the confidence that the light will shine again, without any self-judgment (which in such situations can only be harmful).
Depressives generally require great forbearance and a lot of understanding, because they cannot by their illness react towards others as they would like to. Any reproaches are to be avoided; they are completely uncalled for, if one is trying to help. Sometimes an unavoidable episode of endogenous depression is reinforced and artificially extended through the pain experienced, through anxiety that it will recur frequently, through self-accusations about one's won inability or through "despair about the despair". Here the reaction to a depression causes further unnecessary and avoidable episodes.
The general measures must naturally be followed by treatments that precisely address the personal situation of the one affected and his spiritual development. Depression frequently demands skilled therapeutic intervention if dramatic developments are to be avoided. But they always require the greatest possible human devotion.
Susanne Barknowitz
Part 2 now available
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