The Low Down on Depression

[00:00:01] When the world is closing in on me and it gets so heavy. [00:00:09] Hey there. Welcome to Grace and Grit podcast, and I'm your host, Shanna Williams. So what is this all about? [00:00:19] Grace and Grit is a faith filled journey designed to empower you with spiritual strength and resilience. Each episode, we're going to delve into biblical topics, offering insights and teachings to help you overcome life's mental and emotional challenges. We're going to use scripture. I'm going to tell you stories. It's going to be a blast. I can't wait to see you today. [00:00:50] Hello. [00:00:52] Welcome back. And I'm so excited to get to talk to you today and spend a little time with you, sharing what's on my heart this week. And first of all, I just want to say I have a new podcasting microphone that I am so excited about. My friend Shelly Wilson gave it to me. And such a blessing. Such a blessing, guys, because I was using like a $22 microphone off Amazon, and it always would fall over while I was talking. I would have to, like, put something on it, on the tripod part to hold it down, so it would drive me insane. [00:01:30] So this one is really nice. And so I am so excited and I'm so grateful. And, you know, it's just kind of a little bit because last week I talked about love notes from the Lord, and this was just like a little love note from him because it really made me feel like you're supposed to be doing this. Like he was saying, yes, I want you to do this, because, I mean, it was just so random that she gave me the podcasting microphone. How we even got on the topic was crazy. So anyway, yay. Yay, Jesus. [00:02:04] So I am wanting to talk to you today from my heart about a topic that I have dealt with the better part of my life. [00:02:15] And I want to talk to you about depression. And I think I'm going to call this, this episode the low down on depression. [00:02:24] Oh, yeah. I mean, so I don't even, you know, it's like, where do you even start, start with something like this, because this is such a broad topic and it's such a misunderstood topic, especially in the church. And I, first of all want to say, if you're a person who struggles with depression, whether it be sick, cyclical depression and you've been diagnosed with some kind of depressive disorder or you're a person who just gets the blues, maybe you're in the middle of it right now, but you've never really had it before. So I think that hopefully, this episode can apply to both kinds of people. Now, I will tell you, I am a cyclical person when it comes to depression. [00:03:13] My personality tends to easily fall into it. And I want to talk about personality versus some other reasons we could be depressed and things like that. Just because you have a tendency to fall into that kind of issue with depression doesn't mean that you have to live there, you have to stay there, or you have to own it. So I definitely want to say that because, you know, life in the spirit is love, joy, and peace. It's that kind of a life. I mean, so a lot of times, as a Christian, you know, we can fall into these times and seasons of our life. Or, like I said, it could be an ongoing struggle where you just wake up and you are. You're just down and you have no idea why. I. Or you could have a reason. [00:04:05] For me, it was a little bit of both. You know, I think really, it started for me in my teenage years, and if you haven't heard my story, I'll tell you really quickly. [00:04:19] I was born with some facial bone structure deformities and so. And I was born with a lazy eye and had to have surgery on that. However, the bone structure of my face was not something that really, I think at the time, I mean, this would have been like, you know, I was born in the late seventies, so that that was not a time when people. Doctors said, hey, let's. Let's reconstruct your face. Or especially, you know, living in East Texas. That's just not something the doctors around here really presented to my parents as even an option. They basically said, hey, there's nothing wrong with her. She. [00:05:00] She won't. She won't have any mental retardation or anything like that. She won't be blind. [00:05:07] She just was born with a partially closed skull. And that sounds great, right? Well, and it is unthinkful because there are some children who are blind or who their brains can't expand because the skull is fused together too much and they could die, or they can, like I said, be mentally handicapped. So that wasn't the case for me. Mine is really just cosmetic. [00:05:35] And so I really didn't know or understand that. I knew I looked different, and I knew that my nose was crooked and I knew my face wasn't straight, you know, very, very early on, especially. Especially, like, when I got into kindergarten and elementary school. But really, I think in my teenage years is when it became. I became so self conscious of it that it really started to create a self hatred in me, and that kind of led to depression. I mean, and I was angry with God and I had to work through it. I mean, and that may not sound like a big deal to some people, but, you know, to a girl in our culture, our appearance is so much of who we are, and we live in a culture that's wrapped up in appearance. That's pretty much all anybody cares about. And, you know, you can say things like, oh, all that matters is the inside. Well, yes, that does matter. And you get to a point in life where you don't really care so much about the outside, right? But when you're a child, you do, and you feel different and you feel alienated and you feel. [00:06:47] I literally felt like an alien. I felt like I was never good enough to be around other people. I wouldn't look them in the eyes. [00:06:54] I would just, you know, as I got older, just kind of got more and more steeped in that self hatred. And it took me, and I'm a Christian in the middle of all this, so. But it took me years to get to a place where I could love myself. [00:07:11] And even after that point, it created, it unfortunately created issues that I still deal with. [00:07:21] I still deal with feeling inferior to other people. [00:07:26] It's not even that I'm thinking about my face anymore. It's just that because that happened to me at such a young, pivotal age in my life, it kind of built, it built within me some unhealthy thought patterns about myself. And it isn't until the Lord brings my attention to it or he brings people into my life that are like, why do you feel so unworthy? And I'm like, I don't. And they're like, but, you know, you're acting like you feel unworthy, like you're not confident. [00:07:58] And so anyway, that led me into years of depression. And. [00:08:04] And I, you know, I didn't really get counseling or anything until I got in my late thirties, mid, mid thirties, maybe. [00:08:15] And I wasn't even really getting counseling for that because, you know, I mean, we listen again, we live in a world, really in the church, where counseling or taking antidepressants or getting help, Washington considered it was almost like, well, you're just a weak christian because you're having to get help. And I really want to dispel that lie because God cares about you and other people care about you. And those are lies of the enemy telling you that you are weak and you shouldn't get help. That's him trying to alienate you, isolate you. So that he can tear you down even further. And. And now I think we're losing some of that stigma that it's wrong to take antidepressants or it's wrong to get help if you need it. So, antidepressants, let me talk about that a little bit, and then I'll go into, like, counseling, and I'll go into some other thoughts I have about this whole topic. [00:09:17] So, antidepressants have their place. And, you know, I'm not a doctor. I can't. I can't tell you whether or not you should take them. But I will tell you that if you ever get the chance to study the way the brain works, you'll see that you really need that chemical reaction that happens in the brain, that the nerve synapses, that dopamine and serotonin can travel between nerves. And a lot of times with some people, there's issues, and they're not. They're not creating enough of it in their gut, in their bodies. And I'll talk about why that could be. [00:09:57] And so because they don't have the right amount, they're not able to send that across to the nerve synapse in their brain. So. And so that can lead to general anxiety disorder or depression or both. They usually run hand in hand. So it could literally be a. [00:10:16] A physical situation. [00:10:19] All right, so there's the physical part of depression that it really could be physical. Now, what brought it to that point could have been spiritual. Could have been, you know, trauma. Right? So I want to also dismiss or dispel, not dismiss, but dispel this idea that everything is. [00:10:41] Is always spiritual or everything is always physical. Maybe it's both. You know? So, you know, here's the thing. When you study the brain trauma, years of trauma can change the brain. It changes the way the brain works, and the brain doesn't function the way it needs to. And also, when we believe lies for years and years and years, it literally damages our brain and the way that it connects to itself and the way that. The way that it interacts with the nerves between each other. And then you also have this imbalance of serotonin and dopamine. [00:11:20] And that could be. Here's another thing that can cause this is the way that you eat. And I think that as christians, we're just always taught that it's spiritual. And it. And don't get me wrong, I'm going to talk about the spiritual in a minute, but it could be that you are eating junk. And this is where I have to look at myself, because I've done this. I have lived in a place where. [00:11:49] And I can tell when I do it, if I eat a bunch of junk food, I will. I will. The next day or even that day, I will feel down in the dumps. I will feel depressed. I will feel hopeless. I will feel like, why even bother? My life's never gonna change. This is all there is. I mean, and I will think that it's spiritual. I will think it's some kind of demonic attack. But it very well could have been that I ate terrible, because that stuff, it's trash, and it goes through your gut, and your serotonin and your dopamine is made in your gut. So if you're not giving your body what it needs, it can't produce what it needs. And you probably are dealing with gut problems like, you're probably dealing with. [00:12:32] You have. You know what's going on. Your gut is not healthy. You have not good bacteria. [00:12:38] You have things out of control, out of whack, and they're just really are like, hey, let's just only want sugar, and let's only crave sugar. And that's where so much of our cravings are coming from, is what is living in our gut that's unhealthy that we need to deal with. [00:12:53] There's so much. I can't even go into detail, and I don't even know all the scientific words, but I just can tell you that this is true because I've experienced this. I've counseled people who struggle with depression, and I've said, okay, are you eating good? No. Are you exercising? No. That's another thing that you can do to alleviate depression, and it really, really does work. There is an endorphin release, especially when you get up into that higher level of working out where you're. [00:13:25] You are kind of almost in that hit zone or in the higher zone of cardio, and you will release endorphins, and you'll feel amazing. And it is, like, the best antidepressant ever. And so I would encourage you to start with your. With your diet and evaluate. What are you eating? Are you eating a bunch of processed foods? Are you eating tons of sugar? Are you living off junk? Are you eating any fruits and vegetables? Are you taking any supplements to help fill those gaps in? I mean, I know this sounds like really elementary, but I'm serious. Like, it's so important and then counseling. So I want to talk about counseling and how important it is. There's been so many studies done, and it has shown, you know, because I was, I took a lot of psychology classes and I've got a specific kind of certification in Christianity therapy. I am not a licensed professional counselor, but I do have a specific type of certification from a place called Theropon Institute. And I've really studied and counseled a lot of people who struggle with anxiety and depression, and I help them figure out what's going on. Why is this happening? So when you're getting into this type of stuff, counseling, I cannot tell you how amazing it can be. And one of the things that I do is called belief therapy. And what I've done with people, and I've been through this as well, is you work with someone, another believer who's trained to do this, and you can really figure out kind of what is underneath everything that's causing it. And usually it's because you've believed a lie. [00:15:19] Because here's the thing, Satan is the father of all lies. Lies bring death. [00:15:25] Satan came to steal, kill and destroy, is what Jesus said. But he said, I've come to give you life and to give you an abundance of life, which means there's just so much life you can't even, you know, you can't even control it. It's just abundant living. It's everywhere. Your whole life is full of it. But Satan came to completely decimate and destroy your life. So how is he doing? How is he going to do that? He's probably going to do that. Bye. Telling you lies and then convincing you that those lies are truth. Okay, so when we believe lies, it literally affects our brain. It changes the way our brain operates. [00:16:04] And it looks like death in the brain. I know there's an amazing neuroscientist and she talks about this a lot. And I just blanked out on her name. I'm sure you guys know her name, but she's a, talks about how the brain looks when someone is severely depressed versus how it looks when someone is extremely healthy mentally and emotionally and all that. So people who are depressed or have anxiety or have a lot of emotional trauma, when they look at the nerves and they look at the structures in the brain, these thoughts, these places where thoughts are stored look like dead trees. [00:16:45] But when you look at the one, the healthy person, there's like trees that are alive and full of branches that are healthy. Is this not insane? And is this not really what it feels like? You know, when you're in it, it's death. Depression is death because it is absolutely sent from Satan. But he does it by feeding you lies. But you are the one that decides whether something is the truth or something is the lie. Right? And the only way we can know the difference between a truth and a lie is to know what our father says is true, which is why we have scripture, which is why we have each other as the body of Christ so that we can, you know, we can work together. And if we see one of our brothers or sisters is believing lies, and they're the falling into depression, they're falling into anxiety, they're falling into self hatred. They're going back to some old addictions because they don't know what to do. All these things we have the ability to say, hey, what you're believing is a lie. And I'm telling you, like, the minute you stop believing lies and you start accepting what God says is truth, everything changes. [00:18:07] Life begins to happen. [00:18:09] Because God's word is truth. He is absolutely pure truth. There is nothing. And that's the lie the enemy tells us, is that can you really trust that what God's telling you is true? Okay, so, for instance, one of the lies that I get hit with a lot is, okay, God's just holding out on you. And the things that you're wanting to do with your life, the dreams that you have, they're not really from him. And the rest of your life, you're just going to be stuck doing things that really don't make you happy. You're just going to be disappointed the rest of your life because you never did accomplish the things that you thought you were supposed to do. That's the lie I'm told all the time. And I have to choose every day. I have to get back into a place and a posture where I can hear God and I can let him minister to my brokenness. And, yeah, I mean, there are things I'm severely disappointed about. Things have not gone the way I've wanted them to go many times. But I'm not the only one you have, too. I'm sure you've had tons of disappointments, and you could just say, you know what? Maybe God's not that good. Maybe. [00:19:19] Maybe he doesn't really have anything else for me. Maybe my life is pretty much over. Maybe I've done all the things I'm supposed to do, and I'm just gonna walk away and I'm just gonna go live in a hole somewhere. [00:19:29] You know what? Those are all lies, and you know it. You know it's a lie, but it's hard when you feel stuck in it. So counseling back to that counseling will help you, because sometimes you can't pull yourself up out of that pit. You need someone to give you their hand to pull you up. And that's what a counselor can do. That's what a trusted friend can do. Has a great ear and has a gift to counsel. I mean, actually, the Holy Spirit, Jesus calls him the great counselor. [00:19:58] And so someone who's full of the Holy Spirit can be a fantastic counselor. So I just want to encourage you. Don't stay alone in your depression. If you are struggling and you're believing lies and you're thinking, no one cares about me, there's nothing left for me to do, my life is over, this is as good as it gets. I want to challenge you right now to stop what you're doing, pause this podcast, and reach out to someone that you know loves you. Because I'm telling you, those are lies. And if you keep allowing them in your life, guess what's going to happen? The enemy is not going to just stop where he is. He wants to take you all the way to complete destruction. Right? Complete destruction. And that's so not what God has for you. And that's. No, that's not what he has for me either. I'm in this with you. I get it. Right, so you have, you know, cleaning up your diet, getting some exercise, getting some sunlight, for crying out loud. Maybe even try some grounding. I mean, there's so much scientific evidence that grounding really works because it helps the magnetic field that we're in. There's something that it does. [00:21:13] I don't know, you all research this stuff some more natural ways to deal with depression. So there is medication. And I want to just say that there just came a time in my life that I got so tired of having to constantly pick myself up. [00:21:38] You know, when you're okay, it's easier to pick yourself up if you start to fall. But when you go through something so hard and devastating like I did few years ago, it gets to where, it gets to where you just can't pick yourself up every day and you have to work and you have to be a mother or whatever. So you're still having to do all these things, but you're so severely, like you're on autopilot, you're a zombie, and you don't know what else to do. And so I will tell you, I got on a specific antidepressant a few years ago and it really definitely has helped me, definitely keeps me more stable, I'll be honest with you. And that's when I knew, okay, I genuinely have a chemical imbalance. [00:22:27] I definitely do. Now, my goal is to get off of this. My goal is to fix my gut, and that's what I'm working on right now. My goal is to get healthier so that I can get off of antidepressants because I don't want to take them, you know, and I believe that I can. I believe that if I'll change my lifestyle, especially what I eat and exercise and all that, and getting some sunlight, then I can fix this. God can fix my body. My body will heal itself, and my brain is part of my body. So sometimes it's as easy as what I just said it is. Changing your diet, you know, getting some exercise, getting some sunlight, maybe getting some counseling, you may have to get on antidepressants to help you, but, and that's between you and, and God and your doctor, right? [00:23:16] I'm not a doctor. I can't. I can't diagnose. I can't tell you what to do. I can just tell you what I've done. And so now let's go to the spiritual aspect and only have, like, four minutes left. [00:23:28] I can't believe I've talked this long about depression, but this isn't, this is something I think I have a masters in. So there are times in my life where, because this was a weak spot for me, the enemy has wholeheartedly come after me with depression and probably brought like, 14,000 demons with him to try to bring me down. There are definitely demonic presences, demonic principalities, demons, that this is their specialty, is to keep people depressed. And, you know, sometimes it is spiritual. Sometimes you'll get hit with something so hard that it almost kind of overtakes you and takes your breath away. And so I definitely am a person who believes in that as well. I don't dismiss that at all. But in those are the kind of situations where I think you might need some deliverance, you might need it because it could be that you've invited that demonic entity, or whatever you want to call it, that demon, into your home. You've partnered with it, you've agreed with it. And so because you've done that, it's like, oh, I've got a home here. I'm just going to hang out and keep spitting out all these lies and trying to bring her or him down. I mean, that's what they do. And so I think in those kind of situations, you're talking about deliverance, you're talking about needing to get other people involved. Probably you don't have to, but I think it'd be better. It might be a spiritual cleanse that you need to do in your home. It might be fasting, praying. It might be declaring scriptures over your home and over your mind, over your heart every day until it lifts. I don't know. You need to just seek the Lord about that. But there are situations where I believe it becomes very spiritual. So that is a lot. And I just covered about, I don't know, 50,000 topics pertaining to depression in 25 minutes. But I just want to let you know that you're not a bad person if you struggle with depression or you feel depressed right now. [00:25:46] Get the help that you need. Please get the help that you need. [00:25:52] There's no reason for you to go through it alone. The Lord doesn't want you to do that. The enemy wants you to stay isolated, but not him. He wants you to be a part of the body where there's life, where the blood flows. I mean, where the blood flows, the body heals. So you have to be around the body of Christ where the blood is if you want to be healed. So do whatever you want with that. [00:26:13] I'm glad I got to spend some time with you this week, sharing my heart. As always, please feel free to share this podcast. I want to help as many people as I can that struggle with this because I absolutely know what this feels like. Please make sure you subscribe to my podcast on whatever platform you are listening to. [00:26:33] And as always, God bless you, and I will see you guys next week.