1/27/2009

Depression = selfishness?

I have a sincere question that I would really like people to answer to. Can being depressed also mean your selfish? I'm reading a book The Awakening and I was discussing it in class, but I just wanted to have a bit more insight to what you guys think. It can be a Christian view or a secular view, any view would be fine. Thanks, I'm outs.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's kind of a mixed question. It can make the behaviour of the depressed person appear to be selfish, because they no longer care about anything, therefore they don't care about other people. However, they aren't choosing to be inconsiderate, because they have a mental disorder - they aren't in full control of their behaviour. The apathy is partly what makes it so difficult to recover from depression because you really are just... blank, everything feels like a void. Depersonalisation was the worst thing I experienced though. Everything feels sort of surreal and fake, like you could tear through everything like paper, and when people talk to you it's as if you're hearing it through glass. It's pretty scary.

So umm... I dunno if all of that was helpful or not. In short I don't think being depressed means you are a selfish person; it's a disorder, the behaviour of the person suffering from it does not reflect that person. Tada!

stephsharpe said...

Yeah I agree with you. I just want to hear arguments either against that or for it. I'm writing a paper and I just wanted to get more ideas for it.

David Schell said...

Hey, Steph!

Sorry i missed your comments previously on my blog; I don't have mine set to email me when something happens and I'd kinda stopped watching that blog for a while, but when I hopped on statcounter, I saw a referral from your blog and I was like hmm... so I had to check yours out, and then I signed in and there was that comment from like... last year lol! So sorry for the no-reply. :D

Anyhow, I kinda have to agree with Dawn, in one way. In another way, though, I've gotta add to what she said, because I've been in that place where sins just seem to pile and stack up on top of each other and snowball and you're like man, I'm depressed, depression isn't good, and on top of that, I'm being selfish IN my depression, and that's a sin, so I'm going to become even MORE depressed because not only am I depressed but I'm SINNING on top of that so if depression is a sin, you're sinning even more by becoming more depressed because you're sinning and because of that you just become more and more depressed.. and therefore (if it's selfish) become more and more sinful and it's a horrible rotten vicious cycle!

I don't know if that makes sense because it's 6:50am and I just got up. It's just... a vicious cycle. A really vicious cycle. And interrupting the vicious cycle by crying out to God is really the only way to break it. Thinking of it as selfishness (true or untrue) only makes things worse.

I have personal experience with that. It stinks. It's a way the devil likes to keep us locked up in little cages away from God and away from each other, which is why I love I James 5:17 - "...confess your sins to one another, and pray for one another so that you may be healed." And of course, if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

So this confession business breaks down the cages we're hiding in because we're afraid of God because we've believed satan's lies about who God is and we've believed the lies that WE are worse than everyone else and they'd hate us if they knew who we REALLY were.

But (I have experience with this also!) if we obey the word, we find that God is altogether merciful, and when other believers find out, they're TICKED with the devil for holding us hostage so so long and so tightly.

Just IMHO.