Why Are We in the “Greater Depression”

# on 08 Sep 2008
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21 Responses to “Why Are We in the “Greater Depression””

1. Carrie on 08 Sep 2008 at 1:01 pm #

   Michael I don’t know?

   I wonder though…

   Often times depression is diagnoised as a chemical disorder so I wonder if there is some link to the food we are eating or air we are breathing or …well I dunno? I wonder if that is somehow a factor?

   I don’t read enough about this stuff to know if this aspect has been researched. So there may be an anwer to that already?

   Anyway, all I know is, depression sucks.

   Good post Michael, thank you.

2. Tyler on 08 Sep 2008 at 2:56 pm #

   Along the lines of diagnosis, I wonder if statistics have been influenced heavily by our ability to measure and diagnosis depression as our technology has increased. I wouldn’t go so far as to say that such considerations completely undermine the apparent reality of increased depression in the world…but…perhaps it should be a consideration…

   I often wonder whether or not the same concept could be applied to global warming statistics…

3. singer saved by grace on 08 Sep 2008 at 3:56 pm #

   Satan?

4. Brian Peterson on 08 Sep 2008 at 5:12 pm #

   I think certain individuals have a proclivity toward being downcast. I
   don’t think this has changed at all throughout human history. But let’s
   be frank, the notion that “chemical imbalances” are scientifically verifiable
   and established is fallacious. To my knowledge, there is no research that
   supports the popular notion that chemical imbalances are what causes
   clinical depression. Even non-Christians have sounded the clarion call
   that this pseudo term is too widely used and not helpful.

   Could it be that this business is very lucrative and some folks have
   seized upon a human condition (being downcast) to build a big empire?

   Before I was saved I was diagnosed with a myriad of mental illnesses:
   Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD), Depression, Generalized Anxiety
   Disorder (GAD). I was popping tons of pills into my mouth daily. I know
   from experience that they did not do a bit of good. I had a “soul issue”
   that a pill or a psychiatrist could not remedy. I needed Christ, the bread of
   life. What about Christians who still struggle (as I still do at times)?
   Usually, the answer is still “keep seeking Christ”, “wrestle with God” over
   this.

   Another thing to remember: being downcast or sad is exceedingly
   common. There’s no need to feel guilty about it. But, I typically would
   not recommend pills to anyone who has not already begun taking
   psychiatric medication.

5. Apostate2000 on 08 Sep 2008 at 8:47 pm #

   I’ll give it a shot.

   The obvious answer someone might give is: the lack of faith in God in the culture at large, specifically the God of the Bible would result in increasing numbers of depression.

   I would only agree to this answer in part. If we look at other cultures around the world that are not Christian or are not foundationally Christian such as Hindu or Muslim cultures (I would not place the French here…well, yet) I doubt we would see depression on the rise. The reason for this is the nature of faith.

   Any faith in any god will bring one a sense of hope, or a perceived ability to control the uncontrollable, such as, for example, a Native American rain dance, or touching a specific idol to increase the chances of pregnancy etc. All faith in supernatural forces has a soothing effect on the believer; it is a balm to the drudgery and pain of life. So lack of belief in the God of the Bible would not cause the increase, because any belief in any type of god would halt the tide of depression.

   The USA is a very religious place. I recently heard a statistic that Americans profess to believe in God or some sort of higher power is in the high ninety percent range.

   If we believe in God, what then is our problem?

   It is in what we have done to the idea and practice of faith. Faith has been separated from the intellectual or rational side of man. Or rather, we have taken the rationality from faith and turned it into merely a felt thing. Some might argue “Didn’t you just say that faith is a balm to life, so isn’t THAT a feeling thing?” The only way that faith can operate on that level is, whatever someone has faith in must be really believed. The reason that belief gives hope is that the believer can count on the object of his belief.

   Imagine a worried mother over a sick child. The mother does all that she can to care for the infant. She gives her warmth, medicine, comfort, everything she can think of to make her child well. None of those things give the mother any degree of peace until she finds a full-proof way of dealing with an uncontrollable situation. That way is through faith, real faith, an absolute belief in something that she sees as real that may heal her child.

   The western world is losing faith in faith. We say we believe, but will not act on our faith. Faith has become merely an identifier, or spiritual high, instead of something to be relied on. Until we return to a better view of faith I think we are doomed to see more and more depression. A faith that is not really believed is worthless and leads to a kind of permanent cognitive dissonance. Like feeling strongly about Jesus’ grace yet not accepting the reality that He lives.

   If we can bring reality back to faith, or as Paul said (paraphrase) stand ready to give reason for the hope that is in us, that just might be the solution to the growing problem of depression.

6. Cadis on 08 Sep 2008 at 9:13 pm #

   I think one reason is that we expect to be happier than ever. We expect that the doctors can cure us, and our loved ones,of everything. We expext to live long with less pain. The things we think are intolerable used to be expected.

   Here is a poem from a cross stitch sampler from 1832 sewn by a 10 yr old. (hangs in my hallway)

   Fragrant the rose is, but it fades in time.
   the violets sweet but quickly past thier prime
   white lilies had thier head and soon decay.
   and whiter snow in minutes melts away.
   such and so withering are our early joys which time and sickness speedily destroys.

   This 10 yr old spent at least a year stitching this intricate piece, looking at, and contemplating that poem. Someone was educating her, bracing her. Depressing? building up tolerance?
   I don’t know, but you were wondering about what was different, this is one thing

7. Alden on 08 Sep 2008 at 10:36 pm #

   I agree with Cadis; I think that many of us experience a sense of cognitive dissonance between what we expect and reality. With all of our technological advances, why is the average work-week longer now than 30 years ago? Also, many of the medicinal “cures” we have cause other problems. Anti-depressants can cause suicidal thoughts. Sleep aids can cause personality changes and depression.

   Also, I wonder a lot about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs; does solving basic problems and living at the “self-actualization” level cause more problems?

   While I like my indoor plumbing, my laptop and my cell phone, I wonder if we’re more dissatisfied with life than were medieval folks?

8. Ranger on 08 Sep 2008 at 10:44 pm #

   Are the cases greater now, or did we simply not diagnose the cases in previous generations? Is it possible that we are overdiagnosing now?

   I don’t know…those are very interesting statistics though.

9. postmodern puritan on 08 Sep 2008 at 11:35 pm #

   People who are starving or physically ill don’t have the capacity or energy to ponder much beyond how to live to the next day.

   In well-developed countries those lower level needs are met, enabling us to have the capacity and energy to pursue higher level needs. The problem is those needs can only be fulfilled by a rightful understanding of God, which is sorely lacking.

   So here we are, at the top of the pyramid, more time on our hands, money in our pockets, and education in our brains. Our inclination has not been handicapped, but rather had fuel added to its fire. As our opportunities grow, as do our degree of sinfulness. In short, we have a whole lot more rope to hang ourselves with.

10. C. Barton on 09 Sep 2008 at 9:43 am #

    I think that the prevailing attitudes and culture in the US are at least partly to blame. We are literally immersed in vanity and materialism every day, without so much as a peep from many Christians who are “Lights in a perverse and darkened world . . .”. Instead, the new synthetic church is dumbing down all of the vital spiritual principles which preserve us.
    We’re sold sex without intimacy; intimacy without commitment; commitment without sacrifice; sacrifice without suffering.
    OUR SOULS ARE STARVING!!!
    If I let children plan the dinner menu (just anecdotal, I know your kids are wiser than this) we would have a very tasy and equally empty meal, leaving us all sick and hungry in two hours.
    “And the fruit of the Holy Spirit is . . .” = all the good stuff we really need.
    I’ve been depressed, angry, sad, lonely, and suffered incredible attacks on my soul: I had to look at the possibility that being happy is more than just avoiding pain and generating “good” feelings all the time.
    Spiritual joy is present underneath all of this, and can bear us up no matter how we “feel” or no matter what our situation.
    Yes, I want the Spirit, and make it a double!

11. Dr Mike on 09 Sep 2008 at 10:39 am #

    There are more than a few reasons for the increase reflected in the statistics and no single answer includes all the factors. But here are a few to keep in mind:

    1. The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is, among other things, a political and financial product. It is based on observations, not hard science. It assumes, for example, that if depressed people are suicidal, then the depression is causative.

    We don’t really know that: perhaps the underlying suicidal feelings are instead the cause of the depression. There’s more than one right answer in a universe of mystery.

    2. Family doctors are overworked and time-crunched. The easy thing to do is prescribe a relatively benign SSRI or SNRI and get people out of the office. Remember: the more patients your doctor sees in a day, the more money he makes. Medicine is a business, first and foremost.

    I have no way of proving this, but I suspect that if the diagnosis of depression were left solely in the hands of psychiatrists, there would be fewer people on antidepressants.

    3. As a culture, we have suffered very little; as a subculture, Christians have suffered so little that we have labeled being “downcast” as evidence of sin in a person’s life. Suffering builds character; the lack of suffering provides no furnace in which character can be cast.

    As an addendum, let me say that current research indicates that depression is not caused by a chemical imbalance (in fact, it never really was - but that’s another story).

    Neurologically it now seems that depression results when the brain is unable to heal or regenerate neurons. SSRIs and the like enable the brain to begin healing and reproducing again. It is similar to what causes Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s.

12. clearblue on 09 Sep 2008 at 12:09 pm #

    I read somewhere in a Christian book (by a scientist or doctor) that most depression is basically narcissistic self-pity. I suspect there are also chemical causes of depression as well, treated by drugs, but I know that in times when I have been depressed (very rare) it has basically been wallowing in self-centred thinking.

    In other words, depression is a function of how hedonistic our society has become, and so is unsurprisingly on the increase. Depression is a form of sinful thinking (Mk. 7:21).

13. Pauline on 09 Sep 2008 at 1:26 pm #

    I agree with Caden in #6 and Alden in #7 and postmodern puritan in #9.

    There is certainly a spiritual aspect to it, but that doesn’t preclude there also
    being a physical aspect. My husband’s observation - from seeing and trying
    to help me in my struggle with depression over 19 years of marriage - is that
    attitudes and behavior cause it, but changing attitudes and behavior doesn’t
    always make the depression simply go away. His specialty isn’t medicine
    (though as a research scientist he worked for a pharmaceutical company),
    but his thought there is a physical component to it, both as a cause and a
    result, so treatment needs to address both spiritual/emotional and physical.

    After our second child was born, he insisted I finally see a doctor, and she
    both prescribed medication and referred me to a psychologist, who worked
    primarily on me on interacting more with other people. The medicine doesn’t
    make me feel particularly different, but he says I smile and laugh a lot more.
    And last summer when I started feeling depressed again, it finally occurred to
    me that I had cut back the dosage of my medication two months earlier, to
    see if I could wean myself off it (with my doctor’s approval). Apparently not.
    (Though he did switch me to a different medication to try to minimize side
    effects.)

    One definite physical cause, and one which could help explain much of the
    increased incidence of depression, is sleep deprivation. Both children and
    adults stay up too late, playing or watching TV or being in too many
    activities. We’ve gotten used to not getting enough sleep, and feel like we’re
    functioning OK, but it shows up in higher rates of depression (as well as
    accidents at work and on the road). I was amazed, one summer, how my
    depression “miraculously” lifted when I got a good night’s sleep every night
    for two or three weeks. Unfortunately, I still have trouble getting to bed on
    time on a regular basis, as a parent, because the only time I get to myself
    is after the boys are in bed (and, with my husband’s current night shift job,
    he has left for work - a schedule which unfortunately my body seems to be
    trying to match, as I find myself wide awake much later than I used to).

14. Pyre006 on 10 Sep 2008 at 4:28 am #

    Lots of good points have been made. Another factor, I think, is that people seem to be devalued. We go to a store and the service is lousy, you call some technical support line and they put you on hold, we go to work and are treated like slaves, because the people in charge know that there are plenty of customers and employees to take our place. If we don’t like something and complain; who cares? We’re just numbers and there are a hundred more people waiting in line to take our place.

    Also, as for Christians with depression, which I think I am one, I wonder if it is the sense that you only have the option of being the perfect, self-righteous jerk or being an unspiritual louse. Someone wrote above that they thought depression was treated as if it were a sign of sinfulness, but it sometimes seems to me that some Christians can make everything, including joy itself, seem like sin; as if feeling rotten was a sign of being righteous. Similar to when Jesus said not to put on a sad face when we fast. Also, as someone else said above, with less time to think of our basic physical needs, there is more time to think about other things, and some will look at their imperfections, coupled with the church’s (sometime) ability to make people feel more guilty than forgiven (not that making people aware of their sins is a bad thing, but I think it goes best when it is followed up with the solution rather than just the sickness), and more like they are on probation with an angry God, then people lose hope, because they aren’t perfect, but they see others who seem to have no trouble with their relationship with God. Also, as was touched upon in one of Michael’s earlier articles, the church doesn’t seem to present itself as a safe haven for people to present their problems, imperfections, confusion or struggles; instead it seems that you have to dress up (in clothes that are far more dignified than what you wear the rest of the week, as if God will not recognize us, I guess) and pretend that you’re this perfect person with no problems; and God help you if you let something out into the open.

    Sorry for the long post and I didn’t mean that as a rant or anything; it was really more of a stream of thought.

15. ronquiggins on 10 Sep 2008 at 1:35 pm #

    C Barton (#10) & clearblue(#12) have it right. We are a narcissistic society focused on ourselves resulting in a wrong view of God and His sovereignty (and glory) resulting in a yearning within that cannot be satisfied w/o reliance upon the truth of His Word. Most of the rest is fluff.

    Having stated this — depresses me!!

16. C. Barton on 10 Sep 2008 at 3:26 pm #

    Ouch! Pyre006, to follow ronquiggins style, you hit a really important point! If the God and the Church are the “Go-to” people for life’s big questions, then why do I feel like a stranger or an unwelcome bum when I step inside? I though accusation, belittlement, and guilt were the tactics of the-other-guy (pointy tail, red horns)?
    Jesus’ work on the cross saves us from sin AND GUILT, so we should be happy to be in church, right? If we colud see plainly how much God loves us and with what kind of love, we would drop everything in the world and RUN to Him with open arms! Why can’t we as Christians be that kind of inspiration to others??
    If you had a problem with stealing, or adulterous temptations, or any other kind of embarrasing problem, would you feel confident that the church would handle it in the anointed love and truthful discipline of Christ? To be honest, I’m not so sure, but I don’t get out much.
    On the other hand, total focus on ourselves just gets us looking in the wrong direction for our solutions, too.
    Remember, the world at large doesn’t have a clue about God’s supernatural power to console and heal us, and to make us grow spiritually from the inside out. They have a lot of clever formulas and philosophies, but the best medicine for us, I believe, is the simplicity that is in Christ.

17. christine tang on 11 Sep 2008 at 1:36 pm #

    i just listened to pastor tommy nelson share on focus on the family his own recent battle with clinical depression. it is real and often happens to those who have been very successful.

    we need to be more understanding of what depression is and isn’t so that we can help those who struggle with it.

    i encourage all of you to listen to the 3-part broadcast at http://www.focusonthefamily.com. the dates for the broadcast were august 18, 19, 20.

    he also shared at DTS chapel on 3.27.07.

    please listen to these broadcasts.

18. take our living rooms back « brandon clements on 11 Sep 2008 at 11:39 pm #

    [...] wastes 45.625 solid twenty-four hour days a year watching TV. That is terribly sad. Its no wonder so many Americans are depressed–a plastic box that lights up makes for a terrible friend. Come on America–don’t [...]

19. Ron on 13 Sep 2008 at 8:21 pm #

    I am truely amazed; you folks have just left God out!

    You have accepted the heathan worlds view of the spirit of man, a spirit that is not going to function according to God’s Holy plan - without Him.

    I’m sure Michael is leading us up to this, but it sure sounds like - that you-all have bought the psychological world’s perscription!

    Haven’t you ever heard of “Christian Counseling” i.e. Wayne Mack and Jay E. Adams?

20. Brian on 16 Sep 2008 at 3:22 pm #

    posting blind - Depression is a near pandemic levels for a variety of reasons - we’re not reading our bibles, we’re trying to do too much - we move a lot we tend to have few friends - have have several jobs at once - we live in a microwave (instant) society - we’re in too much debt, we follow a poor diet and don’t excerise that much - The list goes on and on really. Just a few ideas.

21. Ruben on 16 Sep 2008 at 4:49 pm #

    When I visit my home country, the Philippines, I see people living fuller lives
    than we do in the U.S. There are plenty of celebrations, friends and family
    stay connected, elders are cherished, children are treasured, people spend
    the time and money to enjoy the good things in life. Maybe the way we live
    our lives in the developed world causes us to be depressed?

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