Psychologists and psychiatrists are experts in diagnosing depression, based on the symptoms. Typically, a depressed person is melancholy, either loses his appetite or overeats, and in some cases, he will not feel like spending time with people. This hermit-type symptom of depression is usually attributed simply to the person being in the blues so much that he just is not in the condition to socialize, which is actually understandable.
But do you know there is an underlying cause why depressed people prefer to hide away from people? If you have ever felt that way, you might recall some of the thoughts that crossed your mind that led you to want to stay away from people. Possible causes would be that you kept getting hurt and frustrated by other people, or that you yourself, during your whole depressed phase, only kept lashing out at other people anyway that you decided staying away would keep you from continuing to hurt the ones you love.
In this case, there is actually a deeper root behind your depression. Could it be that behind your strong façade, you are struggling with condemnation?
The difficult thing about condemnation is that it can come at us from all directions. This means that it can come when other people condemn us for something we did, but it can also come from within us: that is, self-condemnation. It is a natural tendency for people to be conscious of the good and bad things we do; any child who has grown enough to have a conscience undergoes this thought process. Am I doing the right thing? Am in hurting anyone? And no matter how “hard” we build ourselves up to look in front of other people, deep inside, we are bothered by the wrong things we do.
This is why many depressed people go as far as to slash their wrists or do other things to hurt themselves: unconsciously, they think that they’ve done so many wrong things that they deserve the pain, they deserve the punishment. In a similar vein, depressed people who shy away from other people believe that they are better off all by themselves, as they would only wind up hurting everyone else anyway.
But hiding away is never the complete answer. You can stay away from people all you want, but if you still wallow in your depression and condemnation, it will be like a big, dark cell. This is partly the reason why many depressed people find freedom in believing in a God who forgives, and who actually took the punishment upon Himself so that people do not have to be trapped in condemnation.
Although this is a difficult truth to believe, Christians who have gone through depression attest to the faster way they have recovered from depression once they understood that they were forgiven completely. Some who have even developed mental breakdowns have testified to becoming well when they developed this way of thinking. This inherent need for forgiveness among human beings is not something that can be reasoned away, after all. Of course, sceptics would wonder about the reality of this release from condemnation that Christians claim, as to them, it does not seem possible that there could be a God so loving who would come down and take the punishment for people instead of punishing them for their own mistakes and failures.
Whatever you choose to believe, understand that dealing with depression is not limited only to medication or physical aspects of your life. What you think about yourself, about what you deserve, and about the way you treat other people, ultimately affects how you feel on the overall. And whether you like it or not, this will undoubtedly contribute to your chances of getting over your depression, as well as how fast that journey will be. Perhaps believing in a Divine Being who made a way for you to be free might work for you, so it might be worth a shot. After all, you have one life to live, and you can live it to the max!
