“What is the most important thing you can do for a depressed husband, father, or son? Without a doubt it is to communicate love and acceptance to them with all the power you can muster, and to avoid blaming them or being judgmental about their depression. Your loved one has not chosen to be depressed. If he could, he would gladly give it up. Disappointing as this truth may be, try to accept his depression in your life with grace.” (Unmasking Male Depression by Archibald Hart, pp. 227)

After my last post on male depression I have been receiving a steady stream of questions from people about what to do if a male they know is depressed (their husband, father, son, friend, etc.). Keep in mind that there is no correct way to go about being with, or communicating with someone who is depressed. Each person’s experience of depression is very unique to them (though there are very similar characteristics that we could extrapolate). So take the pressure off of yourself to try and fix the situation, because it’s not something you can fix.

One of the places to begin is in how we communicate with a male who is depressed. And again for guidance I lean on some of the suggestions of Archibald Hart. He states that it is helpful to keep some of these guidelines in mind:

• “Listen to more than words. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is to pay too much attention to what is said, and not to what is meant. Depressed men can say some pretty nasty things. They can be mean in what they say, but they don’t necessarily mean what they say.”

• “Make time to talk. A depressed man will want to draw back into his shell. He will certainly not be the one to initiate talking–so be prepared to do it. Set aside a particular time so that he won’t be taken by surprise (say over dinner), then allow him not to talk if that is what he wants.”

• “Try to listen more than talk. Perhaps the most important thing you can do for your depressed loved one is listen. Romans 12:5 tells us to ‘weep with them that weep’ and listening is as good as, if not better than, our biggest tears.”

• “Try to reflect back what he is saying. Often what someone says or doesn’t say is not what they really want to say.”

• Be sensitive to how his ego has been affected. The male ego is a powerful thing. It will have already been damaged by the depression, so don’t damage it anymore.”

One of the communication skills that I like to experiment in therapy with couples can be helpful in a situation such as this. First, mark a time on the schedule where you both agree to talk. For the person who wants to talk this scheduling alleviates some anxiety, confusion, and wondering about whether or not time to talk will ever take place. And for the man who is reticent about talking, it frees him up from being hounded to talk, and from being surprised by an impromptu talk at the wrong moment. Second, put time constraints on the conversation. For example, bring a timer to the conversation and set it for 15 minutes. Knowing how long the talk will be may relieve the pressure a depressed man feels about talking. It also keeps a boundary around the conversation so that it doesn’t start to “rabbit trail” in a variety of non-helpful and even painful directions. Third, in the allotted time given (better to start small, 5-15 minutes and build when he is ready to talk more), use the space to allow him to talk about how he is feeling (say 2-3 minutes). And then reflect back what you heard (say 2-3 minutes). And then allow him to affirm whether or not you understood him correctly (2-3 minutes). Done. No trying to solve the depression for him. No trying to fix it for him. See this short time of connection as a building block to future health.

In closing, I am going to cite some statements by Archibald Hart concerning what are helpful and not helpful things to say to a depressed man:

“The Best Things You Can Say To The Depressed Man In Your Life” (pp. 231)

• “I love you and always will because you are important to me.”

• “I can’t really feel what you are feeling, but I want to understand.”

• “The best I can offer you right now is to be your friend.”

• “You don’t have to apologize for the way you feel, because I know you can’t really control it.”

• “You are not alone in this; I will stay by you until it’s over.”

• “This won’t last forever, and when it’s over we’ll sing God’s praises together.”

• “God isn’t causing this. He wants to help you bear it.”

• “Some of God’s greatest servants have also suffered from depression–and God helped them through it.”

Those are some things that Hart feels would be helpful things to say. Again, you know the depressed man in your life better than anyone, so you will need to weigh those statements and take in to consideration if they would be helpful or not. Depending where I was in a depression, I would find some of the statements above helpful, and others not so much.

Hart continues:

“The Worst Things You Can Say To The Depressed Man In Your Life” (pp. 235)

• “Get your life together; you are a man and can control yourself if you try.”

• “God isn’t pleased with your life at the moment. Maybe you have unforgiven sin.”

• “Stop feeling so sorry for yourself and just try a little harder.”

• “I don’t know how much more of this I can take. You are driving me crazy.”

• “Remember that there are many people in this world who are worse off than you.”

• “I’m beginning to think that it was a mistake for me to marry you.”

• “You should stop seeing those quacks and taking those pills because they’re changing your brain.”

• “Believe me, I know how you feel because I was depressed once and I didn’t make a meal of it.”

I pretty much can’t imagine where any of the statements above would be helpful at any time.

If you are a man suffering from depression I encourage you to get help from a professional counselor. And if you know a male suffering from depression, I encourage you to walk alongside of that person during this difficult journey and to help them get the resources and professional help that they need.

Taken from   rhett smiht’s blog which is located   HERE.

Taken from  Confessions Of A Bad Christian  which is located   HERE.

Why me Lord? I suspect that most of us have cried out to God with that question. And I would also guess that ninety-nine percent of the time we are asking God why some trial or affliction has come our way that we feel is undeserved.

The same question has been asked throughout history. “Why me Lord? Why me?”

A song by Kris Kristofferson cycled up on the iPod today and reminded me of a better perspective. I have loved Kristofferson’s song “Why Me?” since I was a young believer and, if you do the math, you realize that I am not so young a believer anymore. The truth is I am still trying to apply the wisdom of these lyrics.

Why me Lord, what have I ever done
To deserve even one
Of the pleasures I’ve known
Tell me Lord, what did I ever done
That was worth loving you
Or the kindness you’ve shown

So true. What have I done to deserve even one of His blessings? I did not deserve forgiveness. That was a gift of grace from a loving God. I did not deserve to be born in the United States into incredible comfort, religious freedom and opportunity. I did not deserve to be born healthy and semi-intelligent when others live with chronic affliction and mental illness. Those things were blessings that I received without complaining to my Creator.

The why me Lord question we so often ask should have an entirely different focus.

Why me Lord? What have I done to deserve your blessing?

It is true that some seem to suffer a disproportionate amount of affliction and difficulty. It doesn’t seem fair. The theology that faithful Christians will experience nonstop prosperity, perfect health and green lights at every intersection is a lie from the pit of Hell. Suffering is a part of the process that God uses to refine our faith and ultimately to glorify Him.

My high school basketball coach was a winner and a great teacher. I remember Coach Tom Cuppett yelling at me. A lot. It seemed I could never do anything right. We would run a play and the whistle would blow. “Burchett….what are you doing?” Then he would grab me and the other forwards and walk us through what was supposed to happen. After my senior season Coach Cuppett called me in to his office.

“I have to let you in on something. Remember how I always yelled at you and walked you through the plays?” He asked.
I responded with a smile. “Pretty hard to forget that you can’t do anything right.”
“The truth is that most of the time it was Jimmy (not real name) who messed up and not you. He couldn’t take the criticism and you could. So I yelled at you and then grabbed him and walked him through the plays with you so he would learn without losing his confidence.”
“It would have been nice to know why I was the target so often.”
“I couldn’t tell you at the time. But I trusted you to keep going. And you did. Your ability to handle adversity made him and our team better.”

The lesson never left. I trusted a good coach and accepted what I had to endure to achieve our goal of winning. Later I found out that I had gained honor is his eyes by trusting him even when things didn’t seem “fair”. How much more so can I trust a God who loved me enough to offer grace when I was completely without merit? What if that trial is given to me because God deems me able to remain steadfast and through that faithfulness He will be glorified? What if I get called into God’s office someday and find out that He gave me the gift of trials to reflect His glory and now my rewards will far exceed that temporary pain? If I can trust an earthly coach then I can certainly trust my Heavenly Father with all of me.

Kristofferson writes about what many of us regret.

Lord help me Jesus, I’ve wasted it so
Help me Jesus I know what I am
Now that I know that I’ve need you so
Help me Jesus, my soul’s in your hand

That is the amazing thing about our God of redemption and second chances. It is never too late to start trusting and living in His grace. It starts with believing your real identity. Henri Nouwen says it well.

“You can deal with an enormous amount of success as well as an enormous amount of failure without losing your identity, because your identity is that you are the beloved. Long before your father and mother, your brothers and sisters, your teachers, your church, or any people touched you in a loving as well as in a wounding way-long before you were rejected by some person or praised by somebody else-that voice has been there always. “I have loved you with an everlasting love.” That love is there before you were born and will be there after you die.”

Paul wrote this to the Church at Ephesus.

Even before he made the world, God loved us and chose us in Christ to be holy and without fault in his eyes. God decided in advance to adopt us into his own family by bringing us to himself through Jesus Christ. This is what he wanted to do, and it gave him great pleasure. So we praise God for the glorious grace he has poured out on us who belong to his dear Son.He is so rich in kindness and grace that he purchased our freedom with the blood of his Son and forgave our sins. He has showered his kindness on us, along with all wisdom and understanding.  (Ephesians 1, NLT)

Believing that makes it possible to ask “why me” in a very different way.

Taken from theology for women  which is located   HERE.

I read an article recently that discussed ministering to those with Asperger’s Syndrome.

“The name comes from a pediatrician in Vienna, Hans Asperger, who in the 1940’s discovered that certain children have a unique set of character traits.  He began to study them, and he noticed they had some of the following characteristics in common:

-they tend to have a low EQ, meaning they lack certain social skills
-they prefer to be alone
-they are very intelligent (“little professors” he called them)
-they see things in black and white, meaning they take things very literally
-they do not easily process information
-they miss subtleties, do not easily intuit
-they are very sensitive to sounds, textures
-they have an odd sense of humor—quirky fits here
-they do not easily read faces, tend to avoid eye contact
-they are not so sensitive to feelings—they do not easily empathize
-they can melt down if given too many tasks at once

I immediately thought of my son, who is distinctly different from his brother and most of his preschool and elementary school peers in how he processes information. My son is not on the most extreme end of the Asperger’s Spectrum, yet, he’s there. I read these attributes to my husband as well, and we laughed. It explains a lot in our family.

My husband is by far my best resource in parenting my little Aspie because my little guy is in many ways just a smaller version of my big guy. The big thing we’ve talked about is accepting simply that he processes things differently than many other kids. And different is not bad.

Different: unusual, not common, not in step with the norm

Bad: of poor or inferior quality; defective; deficient; inadequate or below standard; morally reprehensible

This has been a very important point for me to get. DIFFERENT is not the same as BAD. Unusual is not the same as defective or morally wrong. Because I have a very different personality than my son, I value the norm. If I walk into a room of people in a social situation, I try to assess what is already going on and join in or support it if I can. And that can be a good thing—maybe I’m being polite and empathetic. It can also be a bad thing—maybe I’m insecure and trying to please people. Maybe I am proud and want them to think well of me. When my son walks in a room and is oblivious of others, it’s not necessarily wrong, but it is very different from me.

Once I fortify myself against the “different is bad” mentality that others project onto me and that my own personality tempts me to believe, then I can deal with my son’s strengths and weaknesses at a healthy level. What are the strengths of his personality spiritually speaking? What are the weaknesses?

The strengths I have come to recognize easily enough. He isn’t easily pressured by his peers. I wouldn’t mind so much if he looked around his 1st grade classroom and tried to blend in a bit better. But I recognize that long term, this will serve him very well. He won’t be hogtied emotionally like I was by the way others look at him. His personality traits will protect him, at least somewhat, from the kind of negative peer pressure that debilitated me when I was in junior high and high school. If he thinks he should or should not do something, he won’t be easily persuaded by the opinion of others. That is an awesome gift, and I admire it greatly after having struggled with that myself.

But his personality comes with weaknesses too. He often lacks empathy. And he can lock in so hard on a project that people become meaningless to him. I can’t just TELL him to be considerate, because it’s not intuitive for him. I have to model it and truly, proactively disciple him in it. I can’t just tell him the Golden Rule. I have to explain it in detail and then help him evaluate specific situations again and again in light of it.

The places we are focusing right now are the Greatest Command and the Golden Rule. People are more important than projects. That doesn’t mean that projects aren’t good or that he shouldn’t have opportunity to focus on his projects. We give him a lot of room there. But when the rubber meets the road, people are more important than projects. Our first priority is loving God. Our second is to love our neighbor as ourself. Which leads very nicely into the Golden Rule – how do YOU want to be treated, son? Ok. Then love your brother and treat him the way you want him to treat you.

I have learned so much in this journey with my son, yet I still can get very discouraged. It helps me to think how far we’ve already come – to think back on our miserable first year of preschool. I had experienced enough playdates with friends in the first 2 years of my son’s life to know he wasn’t exactly developmentally on target. But when we hit preschool, it was starkly obvious. There were 12 kids in the classroom—eleven 2-3 year olds remarkably similar in their ability to interact with peers and grown ups and one, my son, who was very, very different. The teachers helped me much that first year, patiently modeling for him again and again how to interact with other kids and grown ups, how to understand their expressions and repair with them when he had hurt them. And patiently modeling for ME how to redirect him and help him build the social skills that came normally for other kids but which he could not intuit for himself. They pointed me toward speech therapy, where a therapist modeled for me how to help him make eye contact and take turns in communication. In the five years since then, he and I have both come a long, long way.

It’s hard to water seeds and wait for fruit with our children, and it’s certainly hard when discipling a child with aspie tendencies. The exhortations in Scripture to persevere and endure are precious to me in this journey. Stay engaged. Repeat instruction as necessary. And never give up. Different is not bad, and it’s OK that I have to teach this son things that come naturally to many other kids.

1 Corinthians 13:7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

James 1 2 Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds, 3 because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance. 4 Let perseverance finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.

I came across this article through NAMI and found it quite fascinating.  Read the story of a man who has battled mental illness, been a therapist, and now is a singer songwriter.  I’ve added a video to conclude the article.  This man’s talent is amazing!   Allan    P.S.  I ran this article initially in April of 2010 and because of constant interest I am running it again.

Singer-songwriter William Fitzsimmons now finds himself on the brink of underground neo-folk stardom after working as a mental health therapist. Fitzsimmons was born and raised in a Pittsburgh home filled with music by his parents, both blind. William’s childhood surroundings were vivid with sounds to replace what eyes could not see. The house teemed with pianos, guitars, trombones, talking birds, classical records, family sing-a-longs, bedtime stories and the bellowing of a pipe organ, built by his father.

For many years, music was merely a hobby for Fitzsimmons while he worked with individuals living with mental illness. Today, William’s vocation rests “somewhere between a singing therapist and a counselor who writes songs.” Media, fans and critics liken him to musicians such as Iron and Wine, Sufjan Stevens and Elliott Smith, but it’s safe to say that fans of Band of Horses, Amos Lee, Damien Rice and even Jason Mraz or David Gray would enjoy Fitzsimmons’ work. His songs have been featured on Grey’s Anatomy and Army Wives.

NAMI: You’ve said that music is a healing experience, but you’ve also said, “Music is music and it’s not supposed to be a panacea for people’s wounds.” This is a bit of a contradiction. Where would you take a stand on that if you had to?

WF: Music can be very healing. Some people approach music as a cure-all, whereas I tend to see healing as much more of holistic thing. There are some situations in which a song is a wonderful, curative thing. There are some situations in which a song is a wonderful, curative thing but people still need a friend, counseling or pharmacology. I’ve come across people who are so steeped in art they think it can cure. I think it’s good for unlocking problems but not necessarily curing them.

NAMI: What are you working on now?

I’m writing a record that’s a musical collection about the mental illnesses listed in the DSM IV. It should be out in the fall of 2010.

NAMI: Tell us about your background in mental health.

WF: I graduated with a B.A. in psychology and then worked as a mental health technician in the psychiatric ward at Cooper Hospital in Camden, N.J., to see if I wanted to stay in the field. After that, I went to graduate school at Geneva College for mental health counseling. I think people who have an interest in psychology are trying to figure something out about themselves, too—a little bit of self-discovery. I knew that I had some unfinished business. That very first class I took in psychology drew me in—I wanted to investigate illness. I am a consumer; I was diagnosed with OCD back in college, and I fall into that small 5 or 10 percent of anorexics that are men. I had an outbreak in high school and one since, and I have anxiety disorders.

NAMI: What are your views on mental health practices such as medication and involuntary treatment?

WF: I grew accustomed to medication in the ward, and the education I had was not opposed to medicines. I’m a fan, [laughs] can I put it that way?—when medicine is used responsibly and when a clinician takes the time to assess whether it’s going to be helpful for treatment.

As far as involuntary treatment is concerned, I have friends who worked in forced treatment. It’s sort of cliché, but I think that people can only really be helped if they’re ready. Obviously if people have really debilitating illnesses and they can’t take care of themselves, well, they can’t really consent to treatment if they’re not lucid. You’d like to think that there’s an involved family and community. One of the themes I’ve struggled with is change. Do people ever really change? Obviously they can. I don’t know. Autonomy is the highest possible goal if it can be achieved.

NAMI: Did you see a lot of co-occurring disorders?

WF: Yes, my experiences working in Pennsylvania and New Jersey showed they were present in both urban and rural settings. But the city had higher rates of substance abuse. We saw a very high rate of co-morbidity and self-medicating.

NAMI: You also said working with people who live with mental illness was “rewarding like nothing else.” Can you elaborate?

WF: I slept a little better when I was working in psychology because you feel like you’re making a more direct impact on people’s lives—nobody can tell you that you’re not working when you go to your job. Now that I write songs and sell records, it feels like I’m cheating a little bit. I try to inject them with a therapeutic quality so even if I’m not sitting one-on-one with a person, hopefully I’m giving them something.

NAMI: You said you’re not sure a person can ever really change; does that internal conflict come from the theme of history repeating itself that comes through on your records?

WF: Yeah, I think so. I’m projecting that issue I have with change onto everyone else, whether it’s due to some psychiatric problem I’ve had or not. Whenever you mess up, you question whether of not you’ve made any progress at all. I was trying to not end up like my dad.

NAMI: What are some milestones you experienced as a mental health professional?

The unfortunate part of inpatient treatment is that you see people at their worst—during the acute part of an illness—which is rough. But we were very pleased to see people pop in, clean and sober, to say “hi” and “thank you.” When you saw someone again, however, and they were making mistakes like stopping their medication, it was sad. There was one woman in particular that lived with borderline personality disorder, which I experienced as extremely resistant to change. She worked with one of our psychiatrists for years and made marked improvements. That was great to see.

NAMI: Will you return to that profession?

WF: Yeah. I don’t know in what way or when. I’m not really a coincidence guy so I don’t think I would have spent as much time and money on education as I did just to leave it behind forever.

NAMI: Did you see any common threads when treating people who live with mental illness?

WF: The people who get better always seemed to have some sort of hope.

William Fitzsimmons dedicated an unreleased remix of “Goodmorning“ from his Sparrow and the Crow album exclusively to users at www.strengthofus.org, NAMI’s social networking site for youth and young adults. “Goodmorning” will be released on the upcoming remix EP Derivatives. To hear more of William’s music, or learn about his tour dates and for other information, visit www.williamfitzsimmons.com.

Filed under: Christian Counseling, Christianity, Mental Illness, OCD- Obsessive- Compulsive Disorder ]]>