Dealing with Depression | Rapp Report Weekly 0027 | Striving for Eternity

All right. All right. Well, welcome to another rap report. This week we're going to talk about, well, a topic most people don't want to talk about in the church, actually not even outside of the church, but yet many people struggle with it alone.

We're going to talk about the topic of depression. So you're really going to want to stay tuned. Even if you think you're not suffering from depression, you're going to find that many people in your church do.

Welcome to The Rap Report with Andrew Rapaport, where we provide biblical interpretations and applications. This is a ministry of Striving for Eternity and the Christian Podcast Community. For more content or to request a speaker for your church, go to strivingforeternity .org.

All right. Well, welcome back to The Rap Report. We've had some special guests on. You guys have been listening. We've had conversations about the role of the pastor with Gabe Hughes. This week we had a special episode that was supposed to drop a couple of weeks ago, dropped midweek.

We gave you an extra with Pastor Josh Bice. And so now we have someone who's not a pastor, but is going to have a lot of good information. And I want to introduce to you, to my listeners, Amy, and we already talked, I'm going to probably get the name wrong, but I'm going to try.

Amy Mantravada.

Okay. Correct me. You started so strong. It's Mantravadi. Mantravadi. That's what it is. But you got the first part right. Usually that's what trips people up.

Yeah. Well, so Amy and I, and Amy, did you recognize the voice, by the way, on the intro? No, I did not. Oh, well, that was one John Wilkinson. Oh. And so you know that name. Yeah. Now bringing that name up, I think, don't you and I have a little beef, I think, right?

We should at least. You and I are honorary members of the council. That is correct. And yet, have you been invited to, they've been having meetings again. Have you been invited?

So a few months back, John Wilkinson did say to me, hey, you haven't been coming to the council meetings, or you go to Kavaged. And I forget, I probably gave him some lame excuse, like I've got a bunch of stuff going on.

But yeah, I haven't heard since then. And Brian Forbes, who's also in my Reformed Baptist discussion group, hasn't mentioned anything about it. So yeah, I'm not really feeling the love so much these days.

Yeah.

Yeah. I think the council's in session, but they don't want their honorary members to be there. Maybe it's council members only.

Well, I am a council member, because when I was on, I told them that at the beginning of Star Wars, Episode Three, Revenge of the Sith, when Anakin is asked to be on the Jedi Council, they only give him sort of a pseudo position on the council.

They won't make him the rank of master. And that's when everything bad that happened in that movie started happening, and he turned into Darth Vader. So I was made an honorary member of the council, but they still haven't really incorporated me and acknowledged my talents.

So I could be... Bad things are ready to happen for the council, huh?

You know, I'm being tempted by the dark side daily. I don't think anyone can predict what will happen.

Yeah. And for folks who are not familiar with the council, the council used to be a council of Google Plus. They used to do a live video after Matt and I would do our show, and then they would turn it into a podcast.

And Amy and I used to get on there every once in a while, and it was just a free-for-all discussion on different topics. Usually on Sunday nights, they take wherever Matt and I left off, and it would be a free-for-all.

And like where Matt and I were a controlled environment, theirs was not. And folks who are regular listeners know Vincent and John, their regular voices here, and they're two of the members of the council that started that.

And so Amy and I used to like to get in there. We haven't been in a while, but they are recording again. And I don't think they're podcasting it, but they are doing it, I think, on Discord. And so that's where I think I first heard of you, was in the council.

And so let's start off, for folks who don't know you, you have a book out, at least one that I remember. And it was, I don't know if he, I know you were, I think, working on a second, but there are chronicles, right?

The Chronicles of Maude was the period.

So this is a series of historical fiction novels that I've been writing about a real person. Her name was Empress Maude, or sometimes called Empress Matilda. She lived in England and for a while in Germany during the 12th century, which is around the period of the Crusades.

So she is noted for being the first, and this is a spoiler alert, so put it on mute if you don't want to hear. She's noted for being the first woman to ever make a claim to the throne of England in her own right.

So that's part of what makes her so interesting to history, that she fought a decade-long civil war with her cousin for the throne of England. But I became interested in her after I discovered that I was descended from her.

I did a lot of research in my genealogy and I had never heard of her when I found her name in my line, but then I did some research and said, wow, she's got such a fascinating life. So I'm writing a series of three novels that tell the story of her life from her perspective.

And the first one was released almost a year ago now. It's available as an ebook on Amazon, or you can have a hard copy printed. And then I've completed the draft of the second one. I have someone set to edit that next month, and then we'll see what happens from there.

And then I'm sort of working a little here, a little there on the third one. So yeah, that's the main kind of writing that I do. And then I've also done, I have a blog that I run and I've sucked away from that for most of this year to focus on the novels, but I write about various Christian topics on the blog.

And I'm going to link that in the show notes. As long as people can spell your last name, they can easily get to it, but it's basically just yourname .com. Amy Martavadi?

A-M-Y-M-A-N-T-A-V-A-D-I. M-A-T-A-V-A-D-I .com.

I was just trying to make sure I got the pronunciation right. It's okay.

You'll get it in the new heavens and the new earth. Yes.

I'm waiting for that. So you have some blog articles out there. So what I would like to do, I'll play a commercial after that, I want to talk about the topic of depression. It's something that you and I both have struggled with.

And I think there's a lot more people in the church that struggle with it than most know. So I want to discuss that after this commercial.

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Okay, and if I was smart, I would have had my copy of that book right here so I could show it. But oh no, I don't. Yeah, Amy's going to show off her book. I have my books over my shoulder, but I don't have that one.

I did contribute to that one. You can also get that book if you're interested at the Striving for Eternity store at strivingforeternity .org. So Amy, this is a topic, depression. It's one that most people don't really like to talk about and I've noticed that in the church, at least what I've noticed in being in church many years, in seminary and counseling classes, we'll discuss it.

But I don't see much discussed outside of counseling sessions type of thing within the church unless the pastor struggles with it. That's the only time I've seen it. And yet, when we look through history, I mean, you can look at almost any of the greats that you think of, Martin Luther, Calvin, even Charles Spurgeon, struggled greatly with depression.

And I talked about this a little bit with Gabe Hughes when I had him on as far as pastors with burnout, how you can suffer with depressions. Of course, he of course was just saying how great his church was and he doesn't suffer from any of that.

And the rest of us that have pastored and are just like being jealous because we didn't experience that. But give a little bit of your background as much as you want to share so folks understand your background and I'm going to share a little bit of mine as well so they understand why we're bringing this up and how it affects folks.

Well, my background in terms of depression is when I was in college, I went through a period of ill health and a difficult time losing a member of my family. It was the first time I'd lost someone that closely related to me.

And sort of out of that period, I began to struggle a lot with both depression and anxiety. And I know we're focusing on depression in this podcast, but one thing I usually say is depression and anxiety tend to be pretty closely linked.

It's quite common to see people have aspects of both of them. So that's why I mentioned both depression and anxiety. But I really struggled for a period there in college. And fortunately, I had some very good friends that were able to help me through that period.

And also, my family was very supportive of me during that period. I had a lot of people praying for me. And so I was able to sort of make it through that first initial difficulty. And since then, I mean, that was more than a decade ago now, I've had significant periods where I've been relatively normal and not had much of a struggle.

But particularly if I have some big life transition, or a particularly stressful period, I do tend to experience symptoms of depression and anxiety once again. And particularly last year, I was going through a lot of physical difficulties.

I had a condition that they were not able to diagnose right away. So I was going to all these different specialists having various tests. And it was a pretty stressful experience. And I was spending a lot of time just at home feeling sick, you know, just laying on the couch that I couldn't do really anything else.

And as part of that period, I began to really have a significant struggle with depression again, probably, I, you know, it's hard to compare because, you know, it never is exactly the same. But I would say probably this past year has been my most significant period of depression.

I've had more difficult anxiety in the past, but in terms of the depression, this is probably been my most difficult year. So that's sort of my background that I've had with that in terms of my general background.

I grew up in a Christian family in Michigan, I went to a Christian college, Taylor University in Indiana, I did my grad school in the UK. And I then went to live for a while in Washington, DC, where I met my husband, the Air Force transferred him to Ohio.

And so he retired from the Air Force, but we're still here in Ohio. And I work from home doing my writing.

That's what I'm up to now. So now, and I want to definitely get to later on in the show, some of the things that helped you through the depression. For my background, and I know you and I didn't talk about this so much, but my background, most of my depression came out of ministry related things, where it sounds like yours is more from anxiety, mine was ministry related.

My first depression that I went into was I was in a church for about, well, actually when it started, I was there about nine months after it began, and had been there for half a dozen plus years. And just, I knew every single person that was in that church as they came in and discipled many of them.

And we brought in a pastor who wasn't qualified for ministry. And I picked up on that, unfortunately, kind of quick. And when I tried to work with him on things I saw, he went into immediate damage control and started to go after me so that no one would hear anything that I would say.

It was very interesting. I mean, I learned a lot from him in a bad way, but he immediately said, used the argument of being divisive. And that way, if you actually say anything, it proves his point, which was very creative.

It's great politically. But what ended up happening was I had to leave the church to prevent a split because the only choice that I felt I had was to stay in the church and cause a split. And I love the church too much, you know, I believe too much in the unity of the church to allow myself being the reason that there'd be a split.

So I chose to leave the church as hard as it was. And then I made a decision that I wasn't going to really say anything bad or, you know, I didn't want to say anything that would cause problems in the church or possibly give others a reason to think there's issues.

And it was a period of loneliness. I mean, I went from being involved in these people's lives every week on a regular basis to no contact at all. And I went through a good year or two of depression after that.

And I had come out of that and we'll talk later on how that occurred, but I came out of that and I wouldn't say deep depression. I was kind of just always kind of bobbing up and down in it. But after that, I got into another church situation, similar thing where I had to leave.

And when I left, it was just this, just again, not having anybody to do so much. My life is discipling others and there was no one there. And the fact that I could leave and people weren't trying to reach out to find out why was I think the thing that hurt the most.

People I poured my life into, but they didn't seem as interested sometimes to pour it back. And for some that did, I was so tentative to not want to say anything that I was kind of on it. I put a hedge up.

And I, because of the counseling that I have and because of the training that I have from my seminary, I knew what I needed to do. And yet going through it has actually helped me more with counseling people in depression because knowing the thing you need to do and doing it are two very different things.

And so, you know, one of the things I want to talk about is you and I both kind of struggle with it from our different perspectives. What are some ways if you're in church, well, let me ask this first.

Do you think there's more people in church that struggle with depression than let on?

I think there's no question that there are a lot more people struggling with this than we would think because it's part of the nature of depression that it's a very isolating condition. It's a condition that can make people feel guilty and ashamed and particularly in the church when people feel that, you know, they're supposed to be happy, have a joy in their faith.

And, you know, they come into a church service where the songs we sing are all very happy and upbeat, which is great. I mean, we should be happy and upbeat about our faith, but there can be a subtle pressure on people who are experiencing great pain to not vocalize that for fear of sort of bringing other people down.

I know when I've been struggling with depression, I've been very hesitant to talk to other people about it for various reasons. Sometimes because you fear some of the comments you might get from people that are not very well informed.

Sometimes because even to talk about it is difficult. And yeah, there are just different, it's a condition that sort of causes you to almost self-sabotage because one of the things that causes depression is isolation and loneliness.

And it sounds like that's something you've experienced in your life when you were cut off from the community you were a part of that was likely part of the reason that you were experiencing this depression.

And unfortunately, when you have depression, you also sometimes don't feel like going out, don't feel like participating in social functions, you know, or you don't, you're afraid to open up to other people for various reasons.

So you end up in a way sabotaging yourself because what you really need is community and fellowship, but fear of allowing people to see your vulnerability, allowing them to see that you don't have it, you know, quote unquote, all together, that you're not the perfect spiritual example, happy all the time that people are expecting, it can cause you to cut yourself off further, which only makes the condition worse.

So this is something we need to be aware of in the church. It's a condition from the statistics I've seen, women are slightly more likely or a bit more likely than men to get depression, but they're more likely than men to seek out some kind of treatment, whether that be medical or counseling.

And there can be, I think there's still in our culture is a bit of a stigma because depression is seen as a mental illness, as opposed to a physical illness. There is a stigma that surrounds that. And unfortunately, that sometimes keeps people from pursuing the help that they need and makes it makes the situation worse than it would be if they had been able to seek some kind of assistance.

And in my case, in my second case, it was harder when I'm in a church and I'm now as a pastor or one of the pastors, you know, pastor's not supposed to struggle with this. And then I'd read, I would read of guys like Spurgeon and he would talk about a deep depression and you're like, oh, he struggled with this too.

And it is I mean, the loneliness you brought up, the fact that it is self sabotaging, I don't think people recognize that. I mean, I knew enough to know that I needed the fellowship. I needed to find ways to to have fellowship.

I knew one of the first things I did was tell my wife. I mean, I could recognize I was going into a depression. I would tell her and tell her what I would actually counsel her how to counsel me, which is so in that case is a little different because, you know, not everyone has a background in counseling.

The the thing, though, I think we can spot people, even though, like you said, Peale, try to put on that happy face. There are signs I think we can see with folks that could be struggling with it if we're getting involved in people's lives.

That's a different issue that we have in the church, right, is people aren't getting involved in others lives enough to be able to notice it. And I told you before we went on air, I had come to the church that I'm at right now.

When I had gotten there and I used to be I used to be in leadership there many, many years ago, I got married in this church and I left and ended up pastoring at some other churches. And now I've come back and coming back to the church.

I was there maybe two, three months, I believe, teaching in the Wednesday night Bible study. And there's a guy that was coming on a regular basis and hadn't seen him for a while and come to find out he had committed suicide.

And, you know, I remember when that happened, I at first I was like, why didn't I recognize the signs? And I realized why I didn't know him well enough. I had just started coming back to the church. I didn't know everybody well enough that was new to me, at least.

And but there are these things happen in church. And I think there are signs that those of us who are close to others could could if they're paying attention spot. So let's talk, what are some of the signs that you would notice if someone that is struggling?

And I'm going to broaden it not just to depression, but you mentioned anxiety. First, what are some signs of anxiety? And then what are some signs that could be leading to depression that you've noticed?

Well, probably an important thing to say starting out is that even if you do everything right, it may not always be possible to correctly spot when someone is having depression or anxiety because people don't always that they can put on a very brave face and they're very desirous of not appearing to have any vulnerabilities.

So because of that, they don't always give you a lot of opportunities to spot the signs. But I do think that you've hit on something important, and this would be the first recommendation I would give that there has to be some kind of pre-existing relationship with people.

If you're expecting that people you just sort of say hi to in the hall once a week, that you're going to be able to spot when they're having a difficulty with this, probably not. If you have, on the other hand, made the kinds of commitment that it takes to develop a real deep friendship with someone, not only will you be more aware of their behaviors and therefore be more aware of something seems off, but also they will feel much more comfortable opening up to you if they're going through a difficulty.

I also think it's important for churches to acknowledge suffering. And there are different ways you can do that. But we know there are some churches and various denominations, maybe in particular, but it could pop up anywhere where they sort of give this impression that if you are doing everything right, then of course, God's going to bless you.

Of course, good things are going to happen to you. And that if things are going wrong, it must be because you sinned. It must be because you don't have faith. And this kind of thinking can, you know, we usually if it's big and glaring and obvious, we notice it.

But sometimes it can come in in more subtle ways. And the fact, like I said, that we don't usually have a lot of songs that we sing that acknowledge the broken state of our world. If you look at the Psalms, which is really, you know, the hymn book of the Bible, there are so many songs that are songs of lament and that acknowledge the suffering that we have in.

This world. I was going to say, you're clearly not a Presbyterian who reads out of the Psalter.

Well, it's true that I do not go to a Presbyterian or even a church that identifies as Reformed. But I think whether and I'm not looking to get in a debate over whether we do.

Exclusive Psalms or not. Yeah, but you bring up the point the Psalms are very much.

Yeah. And I think our our hymns should at least reflect if you choose to use hymns or worship choruses, they should be in line with the kind of emotional states we're seeing in the Psalms where we have.

Yes, we do have the joyous Psalms, which are so important, where we remember the blessings that the Lord has given us, but also where we acknowledge the suffering. And sometimes if you go to a church where you never hear suffering, not usually mentioned in sermons, it's just, you know, constantly upbeat and, you know, there's no acknowledgement of the difficulties that godly people can face in their lives.

That's another thing that can make you hesitant to want to shatter the veneer that your church has put up. But in terms of, I would say, signs that someone might be experiencing a difficulty would be people who start disconnecting themselves from social activities.

That could be a sign of various problematic things, but one of them could be depression or anxiety. Sometimes people I've known who have been experiencing depression or anxiety, they may be at, you may be at a social function with them, but they just seem to be a little bit disconnected, almost like they're not quite in a daze, but just kind of checked out.

And that can be because they're having a lot of internal turmoil. But again, as I say, it's, you know, you might not, because we've seen all these cases of, you know, someone like, well, to pick an example, Robin Williams, who has whatever you would see of interviewed or talking to anyone, and they would always say, oh, he was so happy and upbeat.

And then they find out he actually was very depressed underneath a lot of that. So I really do think relationships and building close friendships, and creating a situation in which people feel like they can be open about what they're going through, is important.

To give another example, a couple years ago, I had two good friends who both experienced miscarriages. And this is the kind of event that often is a trigger for depression. And to see the different ways that they reacted to that was very, it was very helpful for me to see that because one of them, she wanted to go onto social media, tell everybody what she was experiencing, ask for their prayer, and then go back even months or a year after the fact to come back and note that it was the anniversary of this terrible event that had happened.

The other friend said absolutely nothing at all. I only found out through the grapevine. And I had to make a point a few months later of coming up to her and saying, are you doing okay? It's been a few months now.

How are you feeling? Because our tendency is if it's out of sight, it's out of mind. And people go through something difficult like a job loss or a death in the family or a chronic illness. And at first, we're very responsive in praying for them and helping them and keeping them in our minds.

But as time goes by, we tend to forget about what they're suffering or to assume they must be over it. And oftentimes that can be the danger zone when we're no longer being as proactive and praying for people or offering to help them or being intentional in speaking to them.

So I think we need to keep that in mind as well, not just assume it's been some time. So they must be better because oftentimes depression can last for a very long time.

And this is one of the things whenever I'm having to help people through grief, especially as you mentioned, some of the things, loss of a family member, I usually will mention it's really the two to three month period afterwards that is the most crucial time.

And so it's helpful. You've given some things to for us as church members. If we have other church members going through a job loss, going through a loss of a loved one, that's a big one. Miscarriages, loss of a child is huge regardless of the age.

I've seen many parents who go into depressions because they lose a child, even if the child's an adult. Because it's just like this mindset we have that we shouldn't outlive our children. And so we end up seeing there's trigger things that we should look for.

You brought up the thing, I mean, one of the things I noticed that people have stopped coming to church. We want to reach out to them, not just because, hey, why are you not coming to church? Like it's about church, but that's usually an indicator of something else.

Or if they were always going to church functions and now they're not showing up to all of them. And it's really important when going through, if you're struggling with depression, to make sure you go to those functions.

Make sure you go where people are because really, Amy, you mentioned this earlier. It's that community that's needed, a big part of it, that helps us out of it if we're going to talk about it. And most people don't want to because of either the stigmas, because they think no one can help them.

I mean, one of the things I find about depression, not just what I've gone through, but people I've counseled. Depression is something that always seems to put you in a past event. You're not living in the present.

You really aren't living for the future. It's one of the first things I was taught in counseling with depression is the very first thing that you have to do with someone is give them hope. Hope that there's going to be a future, hope they're going to make it through this.

Because so much of the depression is to want to be in the past, to dwell on a past event. I noticed that people who are struggling with it and folks are listening and they start noticing these things about themselves, not only dwelling on a past event, but the desire to be alone, the desire to be in darkness.

I know people that will close their shades and just want to be in a dark house. And just really cut themselves off from everybody and everything. And that's that, like you mentioned earlier, that is probably the worst thing to do because it's cutting off the very thing, the lifeline that we need, which is the church for those of us that are Christians, we need to be doing the one another's.

I'm doing a, just this past week, we did our daily podcast, which is that two minute podcast. We recently did one on just being spiritually depressed. But this week we're dealing with why show up to church.

And one of the things I'm dealing with this week or dealt with this week, I should say, is the fact that there's all these one another's, 60 one another's in the epistles. These are what the church does.

We love one another. We bear one another's burdens. We edify one another. We exhort one another. We lift one another up. All of these things. But we can't do that if a, we're not seeking those people who may be struggling.

And if we're struggling, we're not seeking the people who need it to help us. I really think that if you look at James, a lot of people have differing views on this. But in James, where he talks about if you're sick, I think the word actually should be weak.

If you're so weak, like there is a point where you could be so depressed you can't even pray. And he says, call the elders to pray for you. There is a time where you need somebody else to come alongside us and lift us up in prayer, but also in practical things.

Like you're saying, Amy, just being there would be one. I find often for women who lose loved ones, something like meals. Not just immediately after, but months after. Because even something like cooking can be a difficult thing for someone who does the bulk of the cooking.

I have found cases where people, they don't eat right now because they don't feel like cooking. They don't want to do anything. They won't curl up in a ball on their bed or on the couch and do nothing or just sit and watch TV.

So, what are some other things that you see as, and I want to get into the issue of medical in a bit. But other than the medical, what are some things you see that are helpful to help others to come through this?

You talked about having friends in your past that helped you through your depression. What are some other things that could help and how did your friends help you?

Yeah, it's a good thing to consider because depression, it's essentially as if someone was able to take all the joy and the hope and the meaning out of your body somehow, if that was possible. That's what it feels like when you're depressed.

It's sort of a condition, not only being, you know, feeling despairing emotionally, but also just feeling that there isn't a point. And you can feel overwhelmed by the smallest task. And I know many times when I felt very depressed, I sort of wake up in the morning and say, okay, why am I going to get out of bed today?

What's the point? You could start to feel that way. And sometimes making decisions or doing small things like cleaning the house or cooking a meal can start to feel overwhelming. So I'm reminded of something Dietrich Bonhoeffer wrote in his book, Life Together, which was about Christian community.

And he talked about that sometimes the word of God is stronger when it comes from your fellow Christian than it is in yourself. And he wasn't meaning that it's different coming from them, but there are times when we're very low in spirit where, you know, it's hard for us to really, for those spiritual truths to sink into us as we read them in Scripture.

But sometimes if we have, you know, a brother or a sister in Christ who comes up and just reminds us of the simple truth, you know, God loves you and, you know, you're part of our congregation. You're part of his body and we're praying for you and reminds you of your hope that you have in Christ.

Sometimes to have someone who comes into your life and speaks that truth into you can be very powerful. And it does become difficult because, of course, you don't want to just smother a person. But sometimes you do have to be a little proactive in dealing with a person with depression because they're not necessarily going to take the initiative.

I remember sometimes when I felt depressed, I felt almost as if I were toxic to other people. Like if I spent time, you know, trying to, you know, engage in friendship with other people that maybe the depression I was struggling with would start to affect them and drag them down.

So there are all kinds of reasons that a person would be hesitant to reach out to others. And that's when you need to, you know, demonstrate to the person that you're willing to, for that point in the relationship, to be more the giver than the receiver.

Usually we want our friendships to be kind of an ideal mix where we're both giving and receiving. But sometimes when you have someone in a very dark time, you have to be a giver to them and not giver to them for a while.

And that can be overwhelming sometimes. I've had times in my life where someone is going through a struggle and I'm giving a lot to them emotionally. And it becomes such a weight on me to be the person who's trying to, you know, kind of hold them up.

And that's when you say you need more than just one person. And you need even if you're the one who's supporting someone else, maybe you need someone to support you. So there are lots of things to consider.

But I would say, yes, definitely practical things. Let them know if they haven't been coming to church. You know, it could be for a totally benign reason that they haven't been coming. But just, you know, think of it as if you had a member of your family who all of a sudden started not coming to family events.

You would probably call them and say, hey, we noticed you weren't here. You know, what's going on? Is everything OK? And I think we should have that same frame of mind about our church family that, you know, and sometimes it can become more difficult the bigger the church is.