One of the worst aspects of depression is the mind numbing confusion and bewilderment that accompanies it. Many, not aware that they suffer from clinical depression, have no idea what is causing the huge list of troubling physical, mental, emotional and spiritual symptoms. I have pages and pages of diary entries where I tried to work out what was causing these symptoms.

2nd Jan ?90 ? I often wished Jesus had given me a book, a manual, all on me. It?s so hard - we go through these things that we?ve never gone through before, and we don?t know what?s happening and don?t know what to do.

28th Feb ?90 ?
Every day is a nightmare?I just want to hide.
It relents for a day, then its back in full force.
Feeling disturbed, pain, anger, distress and grief soon follow.
It feels like there are little knives inside my chest and jaw, and they cut, cut, cut?
I can?t believe this is happening to me.
I wake disturbed, I go to work disturbed, all day, everyday, disturbed.
What?s happened to me? Where has it come from?

Even when we are diagnosed with depression, the sad fact is that it is often not explained to us in sufficient detail. Even though I was told, ?You?re depressed,? I was given so little information about depression that when I examined my life and all that was wrong with me, I concluded that I was an aberration - a freak - and I despised myself.

12th April ?90 (after being diagnosed with depression) ?
What is this storm that rages within me?
Why won?t it abate, why won?t it subside?
It comes in like a storm, and devours me.
And it won?t go away. It?s nearly four months now.
Four months of doing nothing, just hiding and hiding and waiting


Understanding Depression Brings Relief

Knowledge and understanding on its own has the power to end this hideous phase of bewilderment and confusion. ?Give me understanding, and I will keep your law and obey it with all my heart.? Psalm 119:34

We can understand depression when we learn:
a) What symptoms depression can cause, and
b) How depression causes those symptoms.

When someone who is suffering from depression realizes that their symptoms are a normal and common reaction to a malfunctioning nervous system, they feel a great sense of relief. Understanding how their malfunctioning nervous system causes those symptoms brings further relief. Suddenly, we no longer view ourselves as a freak. Doctor Claire Weekes writes in ?Self Help for Your Nerves?, ?These symptoms are not peculiar to you, but are well known to many like you.? (1)

Learning this is one of the first steps towards recovery. (In the next article, I will discuss some simple steps that can help to end those symptoms.)


Symptoms Depression Can Cause

This is a list of some of depression?s symptoms. I suffered from most of these while depressed.

Physical
Aching jaw
Aching shoulders
Difficulty in breathing
Dizziness
Fatigue
Headaches
Heart-burn
Insomnia
Loss of appetite
Missed heart beats
Nausea
Palpitating heart
Prickling sensation in the limbs (feels like something crawling or biting beneath the skin)
Racing heart
Self-harm
Sharp chest pains
Stomach tension

Mental
Fearful thoughts
Mental churning
Obsessive fearful thoughts
Sluggish thinking

Emotional
Anger
Bewilderment
Crying fits
Fear of the symptoms outstrips the fear of depression?s original cause
Feel depressed
Feeling alone
Irritability
Loss of interest in life
Low self esteem
Panic attacks
Self-hatred
Suicidal Thoughts
Transitory elation
Withdrawal from relationships

Spiritual
Anger towards God
Anger towards Satan
Compulsive repentance
Feeling abandoned by God
Guilt
Unable to feel God?s presence

The first time I saw a comprehensive list of depression?s symptoms like the above was in late July 1990, when I started reading ?Self Help for Your Nerves.? You can hear the relief shining through every word that I wrote in my diary, as below:

28th July 1990 -
This book, ?Self Help for Your Nerves,? goes on to?describe EVERY single thing I have been suffering from for the past eight months, and even back for the five or so months prior to that. I had no idea all of the strange things in my mind, body, and emotions, were ALL interlinked and caused by the same thing! And it even says how I've been sitting and wondering what happened to me, and wondering if I?ll ever be the same again? The book explains every thing, right down to obsessive thoughts, and that people who've developed this thing have probably been stuck with it for weeks, months, and one guy even had it for ten years.


How Depression Causes those Symptoms

If we are suffering from depression, our nervous system malfunctions and becomes over sensitised. A fearful thought that a healthy mind would have dismissed out of hand, can become a ?sticky? thought - one that becomes obsessive. It is common to be convinced that our fears will come to pass. In my case, I could not differentiate between fear and reality. Dr Weekes wrote, ?A sudden or prolonged state of stress may sensitise adrenalin-releasing nerves to produce the symptoms of stress in an exaggerated, alarming way.? (2)

As the first of the symptoms I listed above start plaguing us, we unwittingly become our own worst enemy by reacting in one of the following ways. After an attack or a symptom fades away, we are so afraid that it will return that a minor trigger in the future is all that is necessary to bring it back. Another reaction is flight - we try to flee the symptom. However, the harder we run from it, the more we fear it, and the more powerful it becomes. The third reaction is to fight the symptom. Although this reaction feels more positive that fear or flight, it also makes the symptoms worse.

Why does fear, fleeing, or fighting the symptoms make them worse?

Doctor Weekes calls it a ?fear-adrenalin-fear cycle.? Quite simply, all three reactions cause more negative adrenalin to flow, and it is the adrenalin that causes the symptoms. The cycle is vicious. The more we fear, flee or fight, the worse we become, as the additional adrenalin produced prolongs symptoms and produces new, even more alarming ones. Soon we become terrified, thinking, ?What else is going to happen to me??

The good news is that the cycle can be stopped.

The first step in stopping the cycle is to recognise that the disturbing physical, mental, emotional and spiritual sensations we are experienced are caused by the cycle. Just knowing the truth of what is wrong with us brings such a sense of relief, a significant step in the journey of recovering from depression. Understanding this brings huge relief, as you can see from my diary below:

28th July 1990 -
...for the last 8 months, as always, I've reacted to what was wrong with me in the same way. I have been scared of it, and feared all the many side effects and things that were going wrong with my mind, body, and emotions. And my other reaction has been to fight it. (I've even literally said that I wished this "thing" had a physical body, so I could beat the daylights out of it.) And now I learn from this book that these two reactions are the wrong reactions, because they both only make it worse. Basically, my nerves have fallen apart, and have been manufacturing too much adrenalin. When the symptoms come, I have feared and fought, and these have produced more adrenalin, which made me fear or fight more, and it just got worse and worse and worse. Its a Catch-22 situation, a merry go round?Thank you Jesus, Heavenly Father, Holy Spirit, for being faithful, for hearing and answering my prayers, and for showing me what's wrong with me.

?Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." John 8:32

In my next article, I will discuss in detail simple to follow steps that show us how to be free of the fear-adrenalin-fear cycle.

(1) ?Self Help for Your Nerves,? Doctor Claire Weekes, Angus & Robertston Publishers, 1989, p18.
(2) ?Self Help for Your Nerves,? Doctor Claire Weekes, Angus & Robertston Publishers, 1989, p6.

All verses from NIV.

In my article 'Understanding Depression' I discussed how depression causes what Doctor Weekes calls a ?fear-adrenalin-fear cycle,? where the fear, flight or fight reaction to depression causes more adrenalin to flow. This adrenalin is what causes depression?s symptoms. In addition, the more we fear, flee or fight, the worse we become, as the additional adrenalin produced prolongs symptoms and produces new, even more alarming ones.

I mentioned how the first step in stopping the cycle is to recognize that it is this cycle that causes the disturbing physical, mental, emotional and spiritual sensations.

In this article, I outline a system that can begin to slow and eventually stop the flow of fear related adrenalin. Although the system is simple and presented quite clearly in God?s word, it is so ?unnatural? that it does not occur to us if lost in a state of anxiety. (The natural reaction to depression is to fear, flee or fight the symptoms.)

Prior to putting into practice the technique that stops the cycle, Dr Weekes says we should face the various symptoms, and ?examine each carefully, to analyze and describe it to yourself?Now that you have faced and examined it, is it so terrible?? (1) That is, although the symptoms feel unbearable, we can put up with them.


How to Break the Fear, Flight, and Fight Cycle:
1. Accept each of depression?s symptoms as being part of our life, instead of fearing, fighting or fleeing them
2. Learn to live with the symptoms as part of our life, as if they were background music
3. Let time pass while trusting that God is in control (2)

Our first reaction to these steps could be, ?But I don?t WANT to learn to live with these disturbing sensations - I want them to go away!?

And there lies the irony of it all. It is only when we accept those sensations, learn to live with them, and let time pass, that the flow of adrenalin begins to diminish. And as the flow of adrenalin diminishes, the symptoms lose their intensity, shorten in duration, and slowly begin to disappear. Accepting them instead of fearing or fighting them is the way to make them go away.

The Bible has many scriptures that illustrate this technique.

Verses for Acceptance:
Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. James 1:2-3

Be joyful always; pray continually; give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus. 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18


Verse for Learning to Live with the Symptoms:
Philippians 4:12-13 ?I have learned the secret of being content in any and every situation, whether well fed or hungry, whether living in plenty or in want.?


Verses for Letting Time Pass while Trusting that God is in Control:
?Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God; trust also in me.? John 14:1

Blessed is the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. James 1:12

?Therefore I tell you, do not worry about your life, what you will eat or drink; or about your body, what you will wear?Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?? Matthew 6:25,27

Trust in the LORD with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. Proverbs 3:5.

Speaking for myself, I knew the Bible verses that told me not to fear, that I should be content, and that I should rejoice in the midst of my sufferings, yet trying to put them into practice through sheer will power alone did not work. However, once I understood that by putting those verses into practice I would break the fear-adrenalin-fear cycle, those verses suddenly came alive to me.


Letting Time Pass

Less me stress that breaking the flow of adrenalin does not happen overnight. However, my life is a testimony to the fact that it does happen. Dr Claire Weekes says, ?Accept it [the symptom] as something that will be with you for some time yet ? in fact while you recover ? but something that will eventually leave you if you are prepared to let time pass and not anxiously watch the churning during its passing. But do not make the mistake of thinking that it will go as soon as you cease to fear it. Your nervous system is still tired and will take time to heal, just as a broken leg takes time.? (3)

It is important that we keep ourselves busy as we let time pass while waiting to heal. We should go out of our way to find constructive activities that interest us and get lost in them. Physical exercise, such as swimming, aerobics, circuit, walking or jogging, can also be of great help.

Within a month of my reading ?Self Help for Your Nerves,? a significant number of my symptoms, especially the physical ones, had diminished or ceased altogether. Over the next six months, I joined a new church, became a musician in a home group, started teaching Sunday School, and engaged in normal social activities again. Some of the symptoms took longer to fade away, but by reacting to them in the correct way, they no longer had the same power or intensity ? I no longer feared them. Some symptoms, especially those that required I retrain my thought processes, lasted longer, but in time, they too faded away.

While in the midst of depression, we think we have no future and no hope. But in Christ, we always have hope and a future. 1 Corinthians 2:9 "No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him."

Hope enters our lives again when we know that it is only a matter of time (whether weeks or months, or in the case of some symptoms, years) for our nervous system to recover from this cycle. When I read ?Self Help for your Nerves,? hope flooded through me, as you can see from this diary entry:

28th July 1990 -
This book has taught me how to react so that the merry go round will be stopped. And it?s teaching me how to react whenever it strikes again in the future.


The Importance of Surrender

To recover from depression we need to surrender every aspect of our life, including our desires and will, to Jesus. Romans 8:28 assures us that God is trustworthy. ?And we know that in all things God works for the good of those who love him, who have been called according to his purpose.?

At the end of World War Two, the Allies demanded that Germany surrender to them unconditionally. That meant the Allies set all of the terms of the surrender and that Germany could not make any demands of its own. We sing, ?All to Jesus, I surrender,? but do we really surrender everything? (I am pointing a finger at myself here too!) For when suffering comes along, instead of surrendering all of our will to Him, we typically react by fearing, fleeing or fighting - because we do not want to be where we are. Yet, by reacting like this, we make the suffering worse as this causes more adrenalin to flow.

When we accept what we are going instead of fearing, fleeing or fighting it, when we learn to live with it, and let time pass, we can find rest again. "Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest." Matthew 11:28.


(1) ?Self Help for Your Nerves,? Doctor Claire Weekes, Angus & Robertston Publishers, 1989, p21.
(2) ?Self Help for Your Nerves,? Doctor Claire Weekes, Angus & Robertston Publishers, 1989, p19. Note, Dr Weekes includes 'floating' as a step in the treatment technique, whereas I wrote 'learn to live with it.' In my case I found the 'floating' concept hard to grasp, but easily related to that step (or my interpretation of it) when I thought of it as 'learning to live with it.'
(3) ?Self Help for Your Nerves,? Doctor Claire Weekes, Angus & Robertston Publishers, 1989, p22.

All verses from NIV.