Depression does not have to come with a death certificate

It seems depression has become as common as the cold. You don’t have to look far to realize the devastating tolls on our communities and societies. Most experts agree out of 39,000 suicides, completed each year, many are driven by misdiagnosed depression.

Depression is real. Untreated depression is deadly business, like any business it requires purposeful and intentional care to avoid bankruptcy.

Need I remind anyone about the Robin Williams tragedy as it continues receiving bigger-than-life media coverage? Such a tremendous loss of life. His drug and alcohol struggles were no secret, but his battle with major depression, or as I refer to it “clinical depression,” was kept from the public until after his death.

Why? Why all the secrecy and resistance associated with depression?

Most of us know the stigma being labeled “clinically depressed” carries. It seems, in many cases, you’re branded damaged goods and your credibility is forever crashed. No wonder half of the people struggling with depression in the U.S., according to National Institute of Health, didn’t receive any form of treatment.

Maybe that explains why the World Health Organization determined depression the second-leading cause of disability in the Modern World. Then, the disease model describes depression, in its various forms, as if more genetic or biochemical in nature; requiring a pharmaceutical approach. Maybe that’s why people silently suffer opposed to reaching out for help. Besides, who wants to be labeled chemically imbalanced? In addition to possibly being placed on psychotropic drugs for the rest of their life, which can have side effects.

What if there’s hope? What if depression doesn’t have to be a death sentence? Functional approaches exist. Empowering anyone to experience measured improvements from most depressive episodes. In fact, there’s a plethora of researched studies demonstrating Cognitive Behavior Therapy’s effectiveness in producing sustainable solutions.

I know the truth about depression. It’s treatable. You see I spent the majority of my adult life silently suffering. What good comes from passing through a depressive dark night of the soul? It created a midcourse correction in my life; sending me back to school to become a counselor.

Pragmatic answers are being offered and CBT continues proving effective treating depression issues at all levels. Nutrition plays a growing part in long-term treatment, addressing fat deficiencies in Westernized diets as a viable part of the solution, impelling mental clarity many say they’ve never know before.

In addition, Temperament Therapy, a faith-based approach encouraging trilateral forgiveness, is also instrumental. For all us doubting Thomases, I found this quote in www.religioustolerance.org: “Those who attend church frequently are four times less likely to commit suicide than those who never attend.”

Faith is a factor in depression. The good news is depression is treatable, often requiring eclectically embracing a smourgus board of sustainable solutions.

If more people engaged in the conversation, the common myths and leprous disease mentality would begin shifting making room for more solution focused ideologies; capable of addressing conditions, uncovering repressed concerns, perpetuating core issues.

What’s the bottom line? Ninety percent of suicidal people are depressed. Out of those who actually get help, 90 percent never harm themselves.

Depression isn’t a death sentence. It’s a treatable condition. What if how we understand and treat people experiencing depression changed? More people likely would reach out for help. What if we stopped stigmatizing depression as a mental defect and start treating it as a cognitive condition?

That would require we stop feeling sympathetic and start acting empathetic. That requires getting involved. What if that’s necessary to remove the stigmas and start reducing the almost 40,000 unnecessary annual deaths? Then being depressed would no longer be a death sentence.