Depression Talk

I do not recommend organized religion for anyone with major depression. Organized religion is a church or some faith that has some kind of generally agreed upon doctorine and a heirarchy. Example of organized religion would include Christianity, Islam and Philadelphia Eagles football fans. If however, you have have major depression and find the only comfort in your life is organized religion, then never mind. Skip the rest of this post and go have a cookie. See you tomorrow.

Are They Gone Yet?

Okay, now that we’re alone, let’s get to basics. Spirituality is not the same as religion. Religion is the rules, the regulations and the regalia. Spirituality is your relationship with whatever spirit you have a relationship with. I’m all for spirituality in the life of someone with major depression.

Spirituality can help you to find a personal meaning to the suffering that you are going through, even if that meaning seems to change every fifteen minutes. As someone who’s had major depression for nearly 40 years, I know that you have to do whatever mental or spiritual trick you can to keep you from going over the edge into complete despair and suicide.

The Yardstick

The problem with organized religion for a person suffering from major depression is that it presents a yardstick that you have to measure up to. Everyone in your religion knows this yardstick and mentally measures you up against it every time you meet.

Take, for example, farting. Everybody has to fart. But it’s not considered polite to do in front of God or in the congregation. So, you’re stuck in Church, synagogue or whatever and fart. Now, everyone knows you farted. You’re really emabarrassed. You then get down on yourself because you failed to not fart yet again.

This may seem very silly, but this is how people with major depression think. We have trouble making decisions, so having religion make decisions for you can seem comforting, at first. But we need to make deiciosns for ourselves. The more we do it, the more self-confidence we get.

We don’t like ourselves very much and by looking at the laws of organized religion, we can see exactly why we are such failures. I once had an email exchange to a 12 year old who was thinking of committing suicide because she was “such a bad sinner”. I don’t know what ever happened to her.

Although organized religion can seem to benefit some people, it can do the opposite to those with major depression.