What offers the best hope for depression?

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

What does this dog need... Cold hearted advice from an unbelieving atheist?

False hope from a Christian?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

again being looked into as a "forgotten epidemic" by people who are looking and reading the history of it. Billions, maybe a trillion dollars is at stake by those making money in drugs, so don't expect an easy journey searching for the truth.
Brave Search

OK... but that doesn't really support your claim that pellaga is "a kind of depression". Do you have a citation for that claim?

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Just what would the specific false hope be then ?

How would I, an atheist, know?

 

[Larniavc]

Tea is good, usually, for most people.
Sympathy can be good or not so good.

Yeah, but it’s not an intervention with an evidence base as an effective treatment for depression.

 

[Larniavc]

Just what would the specific false hope be then ?

“Don’t worry, doggo. You may live in a horrid cage now, but when you are dead you will live in a fantastic farm, upstate. But only if you stop barking and behave”.

 

[Tranquil Bondservant]

I've had it 4 times from the ages of 13-25 due to severe PTSD. Sometimes I had it for a year, sometimes 2 and sometimes somewhere in between, so in effect at the age of 27 now I've essentially spent over 1/3 of my life in depression lol. Also because of the PTSD I currently have OCD as well which is lovely side-effect. There was one episode that I distinctly remember where I had anxiety so bad I was physically screaming and crying in my bed unable to do anything else. Anxiety and depression are inherently linked and can both cause one another. I've been in and out of therapy for over a decade and in fact going to my last therapist who was an Atheist (I was at the time too) is what initially set me on the path back to Christ. Or rather Christ used him to draw me back to Himself. The medications work, they're built to. But they're only crutches. PTSD is something that affects you forever as the event (or events) that cause it are often indelible. The only thing that reduced my anxiety apart from the SSRI's I was taking was the worry-pad technique. It allows you to desensitise your triggers while not increasing their intensity/sensitivity by avoiding them (which is the weird thing about trigger warnings now, it only makes anxiety or w/e worse because it trains your body & mind to avoid the thing) but even that would only last for at most 3ish months or so before I had to start doing it again.

I even had depression after I became a Christian, so technically it's 5 times I've had it but it was much shorter (6 months ish) so I don't include it lol. That was the weirdest experience, having the source of all hope on one hand and yet your body physically doing all it can to feel the opposite on the other. When I was 25 The Lord healed the debilitating anxiety through trusting in Him. I still exhibit behaviours from essentially being in fight or flight nearly every day for over a decade though the emotional effects/pain/distress of it are pretty much entirely gone. I'm literally a new man, not just because I'm a new creation in Christ but because I'm a person now who doesn't think about death, suicide, vengeance or revenge every waking second of the day. When I do think about these things they're entirely transformed because of the love of Christ, it's a miracle that I pray and ask for the blessings of those who caused the PTSD. Nobody or nothing else can do this but the power of God and His loving-kindness.

A correct coherent perspective which can only be found in God is the only key or door to the permanent healing of anxiety & depression and the destruction caused by both. The hope found in The Triune God drives out all despair, though it may take time to learn and feel this throughout your being (it wasn't instantaneous for me but looking back it was fast). Every other solution is temporary. Life is meaningless without Him as everything you are or do will fade into nothingness if you’re not in Him. Just by the fact that there’s permanency when you’re in Christ means that your life will inherently and passively have meaning and purpose. Whether you live or die you will remain and there’s nothing the world can do to take that away from you. That's just one thing, The Lord loves you with a love that due to the corruption of our flesh we can't even fathom. He's not a capricious genie that heals you and answers your prayers due to whim but a real person, a real being, a real loving Father who cares for you. He does these things from His immense love.

So to answer the question of the thread, it's The One who will be with you for eternity. The One who remains faithful to you irregardless of your current disposition. The only One who is able to deliver you from all things and loves you enough to do it.

 

[FrumiousBandersnatch]

Not a claim at all. An observation of what once was.

Observed by whom? i.e. what is your source for this observation?

 

[MehGuy]

As someone who considers themselves to live with daily depression... as an atheist I put hope in science someday finding a cure. For the now... I do think if someone has the mind for it... spirituality can be very helpful.

I strongly believe my father would have probably killed himself long ago if he didn't find Christianity (he was an atheist in his younger days). While I don't personally have any faith in it.. I do see it helping some people... and I do think my father would be worse off if he suddenly lost his faith.

 

[doubtingmerle]

I think both can be beneficial for depression but I didn’t vote for that choice feeling I wasn’t completely happy with the wording of it.

Understood. I wish I had worded the options better.