STEVE: “NO, I CAN’T SNAP OUT OF IT

(c)  Copy rights all rights reserved, May 2016





At the beginning of my illness, my family was thrown into utter confusion, but I felt that I'd been thrown into a fight for my very life. The actual disease is simple enough to define, but difficult to describe.  My own type is called major depression, recurrent.  Depending on the school of therapy, major depression is also referred to with the technical names unipolar depression, major affective disorder, and clinical depression.

People talk about being depressed in every context of life.
So the word depression is too broad in meaning to be very useful.  People talk about being depressed in every context of life.  By "depressed" they usually mean that they feel a little "down." Everyone get the "blues," and they describe it as feeling depressed."  So it isn't surprising that these same down feelings come to mind when someone is said to have biological depression .Yeah, they can relate.  They've experienced the same thing. "I got over it. It passes."

You can't pray your way out, just get over it, try positive thinking.
But there is no "getting over it" with major depression.  After awhile the onlookers reevaluate. No, they do not change their opinion that the depressed person has the "blues."  But obviously he or she can't handle emotions as well as they did when they were down." Can someone be so weak emotionally that they have to take medicine to cope? Someone needs to tell this guy to get a life...buck up... try harder... trust God.
The critic mentally throws the depressed person into the "defective" bin.

People were not trying to be cruel about my depression but they did not get it.
In my case as with the most who have depression, people I encountered weren't intentionally being unkind or judgmental.  Nor were they so clueless that they would have berated a man with a broken leg because he couldn't run in a marathon race.

Myths and Misconceptions
But the misconceptions are the reason Robyn and I have been very vocal about my illness.  We want to do our part to dispel the myths.  To this day, I know people who would like to know the "real" cause of my condition.  It is my fault, or was I damaged by someone else?  One man spoke for many when he confronted me with the question, "You, a man of God on "pills?”

Yes, I am a man of God "on pills." I will be on them for the rest of my life.
   
Robyn and Steve Bloem Broken Minds Hope for Healing When You Feel Like You're Losing It.(2005) Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications  pages 24-25


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