Think about it, Mary and Joseph had every reason to be depressed. Both of them were outcasts from their families and local communities, all for believing a story about a virgin birth told to them by an angel. And then there was the issue of Mary becoming pregnant. In today's diagnosis-laden society, such a story would not be believed by anyone and there would be much pressure to have the couple see a psychotherapist and get a prescription from a doctor. Others may have pressured Mary to consider an abortion. Another factor in their risk for depression is that the society of Mary and Joseph's era was a communal society. Everything was done together as a large extended family and everyone knew everything about everybody else as in the movie Fiddler on the Roof. So a once proud and upcoming carpenter now is accused of intimacy with a virgin and a young girl, probably about age 12, is labeled a prostitute by her betrothed. One can only image the pillow talk of Mary and Joseph's parents. Not your happy Christmas family by any means.
The root causes of depression are varied and extensive. Some have suggested that our biology has much to do with the frequency and severity of depressive episodes. Medicines do help to manage the symptoms of depression and offer many a form of freedom from an unbearable burden. The burden of depression can be thought of as a massive weight on the soul. A person who suffers from clinical depression has dark cloudy days, most days, for most if not all of those days. It is as if you can see a brighter place just over the next hill but when you walk toward the hill to the light the hill keeps moving farther away from you. As if relief from depression is always just outside of your reach. It makes no sense because a person should be able to reason their way out of depression, right? It is not easy and to many such a logical process is impossible.
It is useful to examine the process of how people function when it comes to using our reason or our emotions, or both, to resolve depression. Dr. Marsha Linehan (1993) suggested that we use two primary spheres of cognitive functioning in approaching a task presented to us. Such tasks can include the process of experiencing and working through depression. Dr. Linehan offered that humans use a “logical/reasonable mind” and an “emotional mind” to process experiences. She further offered that these spheres overlap and that within the overlap of logic and emotion wisdom can be found. Dr. Linehan is suggesting a balance between emotion and logic is useful to accomplish human tasks. However, conflict can also be found within the overlap of logic and emotions. So what could Mary and Joseph have gained from learning about balancing logic and emotions.
A main problem for Mary and Joseph was that what was happening to them was not logical in any conceivable manner. The couple knew that they had not known each other in a Biblical sense and yet Mary's belly continued to grow. This was illogical. Yet, the emotional realties surrounding the rejection of their story by friends and family caused severe distress and risked the overwhelming onslaught of hopelessness. But Mary and Joseph did have hope, a hope based on the reality of their separate encounters with the angel. Hope, not in their present situation which was difficult and at times depressing, but hope for their future, the future of their soon to be born son, and the future of humanity. The ability to identify future things to hope for or new beginnings to arrive is the stuff through which depression can be fought and potentially defeated.
A mother who loses an infant to Sudden Infant Death Syndrome (SIDS) or a father who loses a teenage child through a tragic car accident will have great difficulty in their ability to find hope. Hope is not on their horizon for likely a long time. However, this does not mean that hope cannot rise from the ashes of what was before. It is logical to assume that after an appropriate period of mourning a person should be able to rise above their grief and reconstruct a life that is forever hobbled by a tragedy. It is not possible to turn back the clock, so what is left. Some would offer that finding purpose in the midst of despair offers a path toward finding hope. Not hope for the past but for the future, as with Mary and Joseph. A challenge that faces a person mired in depression is to find a way to get out of the depressive loop, a loop of repeating remembering of the tragedy or series of events that forced the person into a depressed state. It is illogical to think that a person would choose to remain in a depressed state by continuing to recall depressing events, but this is where the “emotional mind” can take a person suffering from depression. The longing in a depressed person to return to life before the tragedy is real. So to is the risk for blaming oneself for not doing enough to prevent the tragedy. If only the SIDS mother had remained awake through the night the baby would not have died. If only the father of the now dead teenager had driven his child to the football game, his child would not have died. These are not logical thoughts but they are emotionally driven thoughts, feelings of longing for relationship with the child or person they have lost.
It is not useful to denigrate such feelings because they are a present reality to the person and often all that is available to them in the depths of severe depression. It is useful for loving family members or friends to be available to the depressed person, to listen to them without judgment and without trying to “fix” them. There is no official time clock on how long it takes for a person to recovery from a major loss such as a death. What is important is to provide a safe and psychologically healthy environment for a person to work through their grief. Yes, there will be those dark hours of the night where the tears of remembrance are one's only company. Yet, Mary and Joseph's child let us know that He would remember those tears, listening to the grieving without judgment, only understanding. Psalms 56.8 reads that “You [God] keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” The hope that Mary and Joseph had, their hope for their future, is available to everyone today. The message of Mary and Joseph is that they reached beyond themselves to God through the angel's messages to find hope. So also is it for the person suffering from severe depression. To find a way to reach beyond their private world of grief, to get it out in the open by talking it over with a safe person. To find, over time, a context for their loss that includes both the past and it's happy moments and a future, with its happy moments. Life, sadly, is not always fair. People do experience losses and death will arrive at every person's door. Yet, we do have the ability to choose how we will live. Will we remain focused on our losses or will we try to build upon our losses to make ourselves into stronger and healthier people, able to offer hope to others from the hope we have learned about as we have experienced our own losses.
History is full of people who experienced significant and chronic losses only to persevere and find a new purpose from out of the ashes of great loss. Mahatma Ghandi experienced great personal loss in his effort to pursue a life of non-violence for all. Mother Teresa experienced tragedy and loss every day in her mission of hope and service to the “untouchables” of India. Dr. Martin Luther King experienced great loss being persecuted and eventually killed by racist tormentors fighting against his struggle for racial equality. Each of these beautiful people found a way to look past their personal loss in the moment, past their battles with feelings of depression, to find a purpose that was greater than their current grief. To honor a loved one lost is to find a way to continue the expression of the hopes and dreams of the person now departed. An infant who died had their world before them, a world of discovery, a world of promise and hope. A soldier who died also had their world before them but chose to risk their life so others could live freely. Choosing to find a world outside of the chains of depression is like trying to define the future. There are no guarantees that the future will always be good and without loss. But, if a person makes the choice to not risk looking outside of their depressed world, they may never learn of the possibility that goodness and a better life are just around the corner.
The old proverb, nothing ventured, nothing gained, is a relevant concept for working through depression. Yet, working through and finding freedom from depression requires support and new perspectives on the tragedy, and the context of the loss. I am not suggesting that a quick fix or a magic phrase will bring immediate relief from severe depression. A deep wound takes a long time to heal. And, similar to the healing of a wound of the skin, the healing occurs from the outside downward into the inner recesses of the emotional tear. A grieving widow learns to put on a happy face rather quickly but the inner sorrow remains. This phenomenon of outward to inner healing of depression is where the support of a structured program of psychotherapy can be useful, reaching out to a safe person. The therapist is a neutral third-party, with training to help the person find alternative ways to think about and process the loss. The therapist will also be able to identify the differences between logical and emotional thinking to help the person sort through what are emotional factors and what is reasonable given the situation. One of the most important factors in working through depression is to find a way to find hope. Perhaps hope is only a shadowy mist at first, fleeting and fragile. But given time hope can develop into the substance of things unseen, sufficient to change mountains of grief into pastures of safety and plenty. Mary and Joseph's immediate loss and likely feelings of depression were changed to feelings of joy and feelings of hope through the birth of their child. So to can the suffering of depression be transformed into honor for the lost and hope for the future through reaching out and getting needed help. The sun may come out today rather than tomorrow, but one has to reach out.
Dr. Love
References
Linehan, Marsha M. (1993). Cognitive behavioural Treatment for Borderline Personality Disorder. New York: Guilford Publications. ISBN: 0898621836.
Linehan, Marsha M. (1993). Skills Training Manual for Treating Borderline Personality Disorder. New York: Guilford Publications. ISBN: 0898620341.
