My latest Kindle ebook, Dark Nights of the Soul: Reflections on Faith and the Depressed Brain, is still available for free, but only for today. Here is another except. This is a chapter that exposes the voice a clinically depressed person is likely to hear in their brain. Understanding this voice is, I believe, is the most important factor in recovering from depression.
If you want the book, this is the last day you can get it for free.
Posted October 28, 2016
Do you have a voice in your head? If you have clinical
depression, you probably do. A lot of people claim they don’t. In fact, they
think hearing voices is a sign of mental illness. Personally, I don’t believe
them. I think everyone has a voice or even voices in their heads. And those who
say they don’t are either lying or in denial. Then again, I’ve already admitted
to having a mental illness, so maybe I’m the wrong person to ask.
I don’t know how the voices in normal brains talk. However,
if you have clinical depression, that voice in your head is your worst enemy.
It’s the opposite of a motivational speaker. It tries to convince you you’re
worthless and no good to anyone. If you pray or try to live by faith, the Voice
tries to convince you the reason your life sucks is God is against you, not for
you. “God hates me. God has given up on me, and I don’t blame Him. I’m like the
tree that bore no fruit, so God has cut me off. I’m cursed. And there is no God
anyway, so why do I care?”
If you know that voice, let me tell you something it doesn’t
want you to know. That voice is a liar. This is not something I believe. I know it. Let me tell you how.
Medication And The Voice In My Head
Taking medication for depression is still controversial for
some people of faith. When a psychiatrist first recommended it for me, I had
some reservations. However, he had just told me I tested high for depression in
every possible way, so I took his advice. Sometimes I have wondered if it was
really working, especially at times when I have been sad, moody, anxious, just
fill in the blank with any negative emotion.
I can still say, though, that medication does make a difference for me. I know because a couple of times I have changed medications. When you change from one antidepressant (AD) medication to another, you first have to wean yourself off of your current med. That usually lasts two to four weeks. Then you can start the new one. It can take several days for the new medication to start taking effect. During that transition, those depressed thoughts you had forgotten about can come back, along with other possible side effects.
The first time I switched medications, I had suicidal
thoughts. I can’t say it was the first time (for suicidal thoughts, I mean),
but it was more frequent and intense than ever. Is the new med not working? I
wondered.
My doctor said it was a low dose and suggested trying a
“medium” dose. Within a few days, the suicidal thoughts stopped. That medium
dose worked for me. But without talking
to my doctor, I might have thought it was the wrong medication.
The second time I switched meds was more recent. Bad
thoughts came but in a different way. Instead of feeling depressed in the way
we usually think of (deep and persistent sadness, suicidal thoughts, etc.), it
came in a way I had forgotten about: anger. I was angry much of the day. Angry
at family and friends over past slights that my balanced brain had forgiven
long ago. Angry at people for the downward spiral the world seems to be in.
Unreasonably angry. But when the new medicine kicked in, I was back to being
happy. And I am proud to say I did not take my anger out on anyone.
The Decision
Why did I not act out my anger or my suicidal thoughts during those times? Before I started transitioning medications, I made a crucial decision. Until I know if the new med is good for me and until I get my brain normalized again with either the new or return to the old, I will not believe that voice in my head.
I got the idea from the movie A Beautiful Mind. Russell
Crowe plays Nobel Prize-winning mathematician John Forbes Nash, Jr., who was
found to be paranoid schizophrenic. He had more than just a voice in his head.
He had full-on hallucinations of three people telling him all kinds of
conspiracies. When he was diagnosed and got medication, the hallucinations
disappeared. However, he was having difficulty with the side effects. He told
his wife and doctor he wanted to go off the medication.
But those imaginary people will come back.
Yes, but this time he will know they are not real, and he
will absolutely refuse to believe them. It was not easy. Those hallucinations
had a life of their own. They tried really hard to convince him to listen to
them. But he remained resolute. You are
not real. I won’t listen to you. I won’t believe anything you say.
Because of past experience with depression, I knew I needed
to reject, ignore, and otherwise neutralize those thoughts temporarily. Let’s
review what happened in these two instances.
- I stopped one AD medication.
- The Voice in my head that fuels my depression went from being a
surly kitten to a roaring tiger.
- When the new AD medication kicked in, the Voice calmed down, the
bad thoughts sunk back to a manageable level, and happy thoughts returned.
What is going on? I’ve talked about the chemical imbalances
that exist in a clinically depressed brain. It is a medical condition where
your brain does not get normal levels of “happy chemicals,” so the “stress
chemicals” overwhelm it. Medication helps your brain produce and absorb more
happy chemicals. When your brain chemistry is balanced, your emotional state
can get back to normal–in a good way.
The Revelation
That last experience changing meds really drove something
home for me. The Voice in my head did not bother me when I was on meds. But
when I was in that transition phase, the Voice came back with a vengeance. Now
that I am on meds again, the Voice is gone. And that’s when it hit me like a
revelation of Biblical proportions:
That voice in my head is the product of a chemically imbalanced brain.
If you have that
Voice, too, let that sink in. That Voice in your head that tells you,
“I’m no good. I’ll never get anything right. I’m a burden to everyone who loves
me,” or even worse, “No one loves me. I might as well kill myself.” Or maybe
you have that angry voice, like I experienced. And you believe it, don’t you? It is the product of a chemically imbalanced
brain.
The problem is not so much the voice itself but that we
believe it so readily. In thinking about this, I was amazed at how anything we
hear inside our head, we just believe it. We don’t question it; we don’t evaluate it. We just accept whatever it
says, even when it has no basis in reality.
“Everyone hates me.”
Oh really? There are 7.5 billion people in the world, and
every single one of them hates you? Unless you’re Hitler, that’s not possible.
Maybe you just meant everyone in your school or in your town. But still, how
many people is that, a few hundred? A few thousand? A few hundred thousand or a
few million if it’s a major city? How could every one of them hate you? Simple logic should tell you that’s not even
possible. But you believe it. Why? Because it comes from your head, so it must
be true, right? Wrong!
That Voice Is A Liar
Are you telling me I’m lying to myself?
That’s exactly what I’m telling you! That voice in your head is the product of a chemically imbalanced brain.
My angry voice said things to me like, “They always
disrespect me. They never listen to me. They’re idiots. They don’t care about
me, so screw ‘em all.” (That’s as politely as I can say it). And again, it was
the product of a chemically imbalanced brain.
And bottom line: Don’t believe a chemically imbalanced brain, even if it’s your own. You’re just as likely to get the truth from a Magic 8-Ball. If it is telling the truth, that’s purely by accident.
{Don’t ask me. I’m a ball.}
I suppose this begs the question, If you can’t believe your own mind, what can you believe? How do you know
what the truth is? There is no simple answer to that, and anyone who
tells you there is is setting you up for failure. But I will reiterate the four
principles I gave you in the introduction.
- God is for your recovery and healing, not against it.
- God will not kick you when you’re down.
- Some kinds of faith are good for recovery, and some are bad.
Make sure you know the difference.
- With the right help–spiritually, psychologically, emotionally,
and perhaps medically–you can live a happy and fulfilling life. You just need
to learn how to stop your depressed brain from sabotaging it.
That’s all the truth you need for now.
Grace and Peace to You.
P.S. You can download the book to your Kindle device or app with this link.
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David Anderson 