Observing the Stems of Depression

There is much to learn from people who experience their lowest valley in life....depression. Most adults that experience this undesirable life chapter share common characteristics that brought them here..........

1. Lack of constructive criticism and mentoring through childhood has a way of opening the door to ISSUES. Sometimes [and for some it's a lot of times] parents mistakenly miss warning signs of their child's inability to understand offenses, hurts and trauma. Children are most vulnerable to the consequences of these [potentially spirit breaking] situations because they lack years of life experience that they would typically have by adulthood. Observant, sensitive and "good" parents take every opportunity to help their children verbally express and constructively work through moments of frustration, hurt, bewilderment, trauma, anger...etc. There are a myriad of situations that bring these on. Many children are suppressed in their need to verbalize. They are suppressed by Mom and/or Dad's inability [for whatever reason] to listen. Through the years this can develop into a ticking time bomb of anger and bitterness on top of the already existing unresolved issues. Once in a while this ticking time bomb might be sparked sporadically until one day it literally explodes.
2. Psychological and emotional childhood traumas are often times not addressed by the very adults that children are the closest to. It is selfishly assumed that the "kid" will get over it and assume life as usual. The loss of a parent, sibling, or best friend by any means shatters a child's world into millions of pieces. The level of trauma is possibly the same as unexplained rejection from [a] parent[s] or any other significant authoritative figure they once held very tight heart strings with.
3. Some deep wounds of unresolve don't have their roots stemming from childhood. Some, instead, had their start later in life. None-the-less, they are deep and need to be resolved before they start to literally wear on the body.
4. The psyche runs into survival mode wanting desperately to take control of their environment. Often times the chosen method of gaining control is to selfishly manipulate social situations. This is basically their cry for help. But because they don't fully understand and/or know how to get what they really long for, this is all they know to do. Unfortunately, the type of manipulation carried out desires the results that do not benefit. The desired attention is achieved but gets the hurting individual absolutely no where because the other parties that give the attention don't fully understand where it's really all coming from. Lack of understanding always equals to more lack of satisfaction. The vicious cycle continues as it creates more unresolve.
5. Every human being has within them some level of insecurity. It's part of who we all are as....well, fallible human beings. But for those that later make or break through depression, the level of insecurity is unusually high. Some [more than others] seek to satisfy their insecurities from others [friends and family members]. Without realizing it, they expect so much more and create a heavy burden on others to satisfy their insecurities. What they fail to realize is that this method of relying on fellow fallible friends and family members [for what's apparently void in their life] is destined to fail. No other human being has the [literally] perfect ability to meet all the needs of others, much less the [extra] needs developed by the higher level of insecurity. It just doesn't work that way. Never has and never will.
6. Hospital Psyche wards don't typically contribute to resolve. They serve as nothing more than a holding tank for the depression. Some of the broken are lucky and have the privilege of participating in some level of individual or group therapy. Unless these hurting individuals are mentored and taught how to literally let go and move on successfully, nothing is truly accomplished and they go back out eventually into the world still as hurt, frustrated, angry, bitter and insecure as before. Maybe more because what they thought would be helpful in their desperate time of need only turned out to be a disappointment.
7. Medications for depression serve as nothing more than a band aid on an open wound and just can't seem to help. Drugs have never been proven in History, in the present and [therefore most likely] not in the future that they actually help [the hurting, the angry, the bitter...etc] get to the heart of the matter....and over themselves so that they can truly move on and enjoy the good things God/life has to offer. Infact, prescribed "mental drugs" have proven to be a far greater risk than the proposed and marketed benefit[s].
8. So much concentration is put on still trying to understand the hurt, feeling insecure, relying on others to fill the void...etc. that the good [and great] things in life are often over looked and unappreciated. Memorable family moments and milestones can practically go unnoticed. Healthy family and social bonding doesn't happen as often as they should.....infact, they rarely do.
9. Unresolve into adulthood and into marriage produces offspring that are poisoned by bitterness and insecurities [unless no offspring is brought into the world]. Thus the ongoing and vicious cycle is not easily broken until one smart cookie sees it, catches it and breaks the family trend. This can prove to be incredibly challenging for some.

Deep cut unresolve that is not addressed and healed by hospitalization and meds [NEVER by meds] are nothing more than scabbed over wounds. The scabs never come off to reveal the healed psychological and emotional skin. Therefore it stays vulnerable to an ongoing onslaught of hurt, anger and bitterness and increasing insecurity until it finally breaks. There is but only one Healer and one Physician that can fix it all. All He needs is permission to reopen the wound[s] so that they can be properly healed. Only He can replenish what was depleted for so long and provide security, resolve and healing.

In a recent discussion I found myself in disagreement over an intriguing conclusion: The comment was made that quite possibly one can allow themselves to be driven so far into the [physical and mental] consequential effects of depression and insecurity that they lose [all] where-with-all to decide whether or not to allow themselves to go further down their depressive mode. I am in absolute disagreement....after having witnessed the triumphs of some.