Adventist Radio London. Inspiration for the song we Welcome the Talking Point with Ray
you Angeler discussing the hot topics and answering your questions, Saturdays five to seven
pm on Adventist Radio London. It's talking Point, it's talking Point, it's
talking Point, it's talking point, real conversations you need to have. Good
afternoon, good afternoon, good afternoon. Yes, it's talking Point and those
real conversations you need to have. Welcome. But it's five o'clock on a
Saturday evening. Sabbath is over, We've closed Sabbath and I hope you've had
a wonderful day and you are ready for our show today. We're here from
five till seven and hopefully you will stay with us for the whole show.
I am joined as usual by my co host co host Okay, yes,
what come on and get my sponsor tooth in, my co host Zenya,
who is on Zoom today. I'm unstudied by myself today. He say,
how are you doing? I am doing well? How are you? How's
everybody doing? I hope you had a good sabbath, a good week,
and welcome to talking for you. Wonderful, wonderful and as hopefully you've been
listening over the last couple of weeks, because we've actually got a series to
start off our new year in January, and it is a series called Bringing
Down Strongholds. So we have our guests with us. One of our resident
therapists and practitioners, alisonder Wuku. I think he is online with us now,
Yes she is. Hi Alison, how are you doing. I'm good?
Thank you, Hi, Hi Angela, Hi singer. How are you?
He love to be good and thank you for joining us again. How
are you? I'm good. I'll get cool. So we've been looking over
we've been looking at the idea of bringing down Strongholds, and we're going to
do a bit of a recap of what we've been gone, what we've gone
through so far, and we've got another deep topic that we're going to be
looking at today again. What we'd like to do on talking point is to
hear your voices. We're talking about the topic. We'd love to hear what
you have to say as well. So if you want to join in the
conversation, there's various ways you can join us, one of which is actually
we actually have a zoom call going on at the moment. So if you
actually wanted to be part of the program and the show in that way,
do join us on zoom. The ID for that is seven seven one nine
three eight six two o nine, So you can join our zoom call feeling
that you can email us at studio at Adventistradio dot London, or you can
text us on eight triple two eight write hope and then you're mess or you
can WhatsApp as on seven four five nine six four two eight nine eight.
So there's various ways that you can join in our conversation today and yeah,
let us know your thoughts, any questions or what you'd like to contribute.
So thank you for joining us for talking point. Let's get our show started
with a word of prayer. Let's pray, Father God, I want to
thank you for blessing us with another Sabbath day, Dear Lord, and whatever
we did, I hope that your name was praised and people were blessed,
that people were blessed today. I thank you for allowing us this platform that
we can share a word and share a message and set share some important information,
Dear Lord, and I pray that it will be useful and helpful for
those who are listening. I thank you for everyone who is listening to us,
whether they join now or maybe later on in the show, and I
pray that they'll be blessed. I pray for our myself, Zenya and Allison
who's on the call today, on the show today day, and we also
think of Pedro who's not well today and isn't joining us today. I thank
you for hearing and answering all our prayers. Of the amazing things you're going
to do. This is my prayer, Amen, so as I said,
and I'm joined by Zenya and Allison. Unfortunately, Pedro is not well today.
There's a lot of gems going around, and I think between us we've
caught various things. I still haven't really shifted my cold which i've had for
the which I had just before just after Christmas. A lot of things going
around, So Pedro get better soon. Sometimes when we catch, when we
get things, this is our body is telling us to slow down and stop
for a little while, So hopefully you'll be it's too easy for a little
while. So yeah, Sanya, how are you and how has your week
been? Well? Let me first off say rebuke, rebuke, rebuke and
trying to stay well. I think I've had my portion. I think we
all have, really. I think byself and Pedro we were out sort of
before Christmas. You sort of post Christmas, still struggling, and as you
said, there's so many gems and bugs and variants and all sorts around.
I think we still need to persist with the advice that we had so many
moons ago about washing our hands and you know, doing what we need to
do to stay well, vitamins, et cetera, et cetera. Because yeah,
and the cold weather doesn't help, and then we're going to be transitioning
to a BOMBI fifteen degrees or they are about next week, so I know
it's going from what it is, yeah, the other extreme. So oh
boy, yeah, keep warm, keep well guys, And yeah, for
me this week preparing, I am about to start a radio program on another
station. Also trying to make connections with some stations in the Caribbean, so
really trying to launch my radio ministry as it were. And I'm just praying
for God's blessing and that all will go well. And yeah, it's a
lot, but sometimes you just have to step out in faith, yes,
looking forward to what God has in store for me this year. That's cool.
Thank you? Cool? And what about you? Okay, sorry,
well I'll get to Alison first and then i'll chuse me. Allison, how
was your week being? My week's been been good. Basic, basic.
My week's always basically goes by very quickly. But yeah, it's been it's
been good, and I'm really cool to god. You know, that's what
you'd mentioned, if I remember rightly, that you'd launched a book, a
book book of yours and new book has come out. Are you doing any
sort of promotional stuff around that? I I published it last week. I
have apart from social media, just pushing it on social media. I haven't
at the time to do a formal launch. That's going to be later on
in a couple of months time or something. But yeah, it's good to
get the book out. It's called Relating for Success, and it's on encouraging
positive relationships in organizations. So please have a look. It's on Amazon.
I just asked, sorry, very quickly. Do you do a lot of
work with organizations as well? Do you do? I do through my organization,
So I do work for an organization that works with various large organizations on
mental health and well being, So yes, I do, and just workshops
and training programs, presentations that sort of thing out wonderful, cool, cool,
sounds good, sounds good, so you've heard it first, so I
do do take a look on that and do support Allison's work and hand ministry
there. As for me, my wake has been busy here as always,
It's been a fairly okay week though, I mean I've been incredibly tired.
I've had I had a couple of days off, and I say days off.
I actually attended two funeral services this week, very different in terms of
how they were, the presentations and stuff, but definitely you know, really
lovely send offs. So shout out to my good friend Marlon whose mother had
passed away. It was really nice send off and it really nice sort of
you know, see him and a few other people. And then on the
that was Tuesday, and then the Wednesday, I attended the funeral of garfld
Macintosh, who attends Balam. Again an amazing send off for him, you
know, and I know his wife sort of gave a bit of a testimony
at church today to sort of share how people really were touched and blessed by
the service. Itself, whether it's by the words, the music, and
you know, just hearing about the work that Garfielder did. So again,
condilences to both of those families and their friends for that. So it was
kind of a bit of a mixedweek in that respect, but generally it's been
fine. It's funny as you were saying about, you know, people are
being sick and what have you, and it's really important to keep, you
know, keep ourselves look after ourselves. I did a recording with the int
G crew and my topic was which I shouldn't really share, but I was
talking about self care and I think it's really important that we do continue to
look after ourselves and yeah, make sure we're taking care. So, as
I said before, we are going to be talking continuing with our series bringing
Down Strongholds, and this week we are dealing with the topic of depression.
So I'm going to play a piece of music now and to play a song
which kind of is kind of our theme song for this series really, but
the lyrics do kind of really do leak into what we've been talking about over
the last couple of weeks. And this is Bobby Mason Pray on Farmy of
Juno was paralyzed by feel. When they heard of my multitude was quickly drawn.
But else they prayed for elivenment. The drivel would be again. For
when we call upon the Lord we saw in all the heaven, For you,
who the Lord is looking for, real for this will tear of those
mighty strong holds down. Stay oneds for this season where the battery is what
Very soon you'll win the victory ray. When time you'll face the lands for
worshiping Alrd. It seemed there was no hope at all for what would be
so. But when we stand on holding around, our smallest prayer is heard
instead alone our circumstance, All lordd pray on before you are who the Lord
is looking for, to real for the swell tear of those by the strong
holds down. Say your needs, what this is where the lady is working.
Very soon you'll mend the victory ray. When your questions go on,
answer and your prayers may see an say they don't seem to make a difference,
They don't seem to make a change. Just reach the short God no
short needs, and he hears each time you break, your prayers are reaching
heaven and the answers on the way for you who the Lord isn't looking for?
Where tear the piety is turning hols down stairs? What he says a
man the metally is one. There's no sties for you to be that steeping
to fund the prayer, please very seal limit of the keep we Yes,
pray on for you are who the Lord is looking for. Yes, there's
lyrics, definitely do speak to the topic that we're dealing with. Pray on
for the Lord, for you are the lord he is looking for. Sorry,
we're having a few technical difficulty in the studio right now, so I'm
just making sure everything's really on right now. Hopefully everybody can still hear us,
and I'm back with the zoom call. Okay. So, as I
mentioned before, we are talking of doing our series with Alison and a Wiku
bringing down Strongholds. So we are in part three and today's topic we are
looking at depression, deepig depression. Now again, mental health is definitely a
topic that has always her. Mental health issues have always been around and but
I think we are starting to talk a lot more about them and definitely something
to Oh, we are having a lot of technical difficulties here I'm gonna play
another piece of music. This is Tasha Cobb's break Every Chain, see where
I can actually fix what's going on. So it's sit back, enjoy this
track, break every Chain because again this fits in really nicely with our theme
as well. And I we'll be back right after this. Darius Pal in
the name Geesisa, Diarius Pal in the name Geeza, there is power and
the name geeesus to break every chain, break every chain, break every change,
to break every chain, break every chain, break every name there is
Come on, name Geesu, Come on you declare, there is the name
Jesus. There is power. There is in the name the name. We
know where it is to break and breakage Chang dray average train, come on
said to break upach, break up with change, break up your cha,
bring at red chest. There's an old army? Why said? No?
There's a nomy? Why there's in no army? Why no? To break
at check way up rich Chard, break at bred Chet, to brag up
it chame wrack up rich Chad? Why got brich say there's an army?
There's a a mody Bria god No never than h got shot Richie? Why
Richie? Wake up? Brecht, the ash, the shot bag a children.
Some laws of your boy says he go shooting, Donna choose a walking
the chains of rocket up the chill on the ship. The chain of rocking
the ship is a U shap the chase shame you are You struggling to cope
with life. Conflict, bereavement, fear, relationship, anger, depression,
negative thoughts, trauma and uncertainty can all cause emotional imbalance. Don't struggle alone.
CCS, your trusted confidential counseling service, is here for you. Call
our listening line on zero double three zero one double three two nine four five,
our office line for appointments on zero two zero double seven two three eight
zero five zero, or visit our website www dot CCS Counseling dot org dot
UK. Our counselors speak various languages. CCS a shoulder to lean on.
We are here to listen. Okay, we are back and as Cornerstone says,
we are here to listen and in for us, we are here to
talk as well. So hopefully I apologize for any technical difties we're having today,
but hopefully we're back now and back on. So just before the piece
of music, I was just explaining about our series bringing Down Strongholds. So
I'm going to hand over to Alison, who's sharing with us today, just
to kind of recap what we've gone over the last two weeks, if that's
okay, and then we can go into our topic about depression and I'll share
a few statistics about that. It's been of an opening as well. So
Allison, tell us a little bit about what we've covered so far in our
series. Okay, just by by word of recap. We've been talking about
bringing down strongholds, and we've been looking We started with an introduction a couple
of weeks ago, looking at what strongholds are, how they come about,
and how they kind of take hold and hold can hold us captive, and
you know the kind of cycle of beliefs, maladaptive beliefs and negative thoughts,
negative emotions, and negative behaviors that can keep us in that cycle. We
talked about. We compared the strongholds as add to a fortified tower with very
high hold, of high walls of fortress and captive thoughts, and bringing down
these strongholds is really a spiritual thing, and we need spiritual weapons to bring
down the strongholds. So we have been relying on a text which is taken
from Second Corinthians ten three to five, which states, though we walk through
the though we walk in the flesh, we do not war against the flesh
for the weapons of our warfare, and not cannot help but Mighty in God
for pulling down strongholds, casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself
against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of
Christ. So we are looking at how we bring down the strongholds. And
the main reason we are doing this is because we want to live life more
abundantly. Christ said in John ten, I have come that they may have
life and have it more abundantly. So abundant living is about having good mental,
emotional, physical, and spiritual health. And so we've been looking at
how we bring down these stronghold from a spiritual and Christian perspective. We've looked
at worry here and anxiety last week, and today we're going to be looking
at how we bring down the stronghold of depression. Wonderful, thank you.
Now, I know there was a lot of lot of information that we have
covered defuty comics and you know, we talked about anxiety fore and worry and
actually how easy we can kind of let our thoughts overtake us and you know,
give they we start to think about something, we ruminate on that and
how it moves forward. Say, before we go into talking about depression,
is there anything that you want to kind of highlight or anything you want to
bring back that you've taken from what we talked about so far? Well,
yes, thank you. There were a few nuggets, golden nuggets if you
were, if you will, from what has been shed already, and one
of them that stuck out for me was Allison, you mentioned that thoughts are
just thoughts, and that resonated with me. Thoughts are just thoughts, but
can become strongholds. So they start as thoughts, and what we are not
to do is let our thoughts take over. We are to control our thoughts
and our thoughts, not to control us, And that I think resonated with
me and so many others. I think at this point I can also share
that I got feedback from some of our listeners. This one lady in particular
said that she had listened to the program and she was so grateful because it
spurred her to make a couple of calls. She'd been avoiding her creditors,
worrying, stressing all sorts, and at the end of the program, she
I think found the courage or decided that, you know what, she just
has to go and make the call. Whatever comes out of it, she
needs to take action, and she did and was able to make arrangements that
suited her. So she you know, she was singing our praises and Allison,
she's you know, saying how grateful she is for what you've shared so
far, and she is also listening in today. Oh that's amazing, thank
you. Yeah, I did. Actually, as you said about feedback,
I did as well. Something it was I speak somebody and again, you
know, thought the program was amazing and definitely they've learnt a lot, so
that's really really good to hear. And as she said, then, yeah,
sometimes, you know, we can worry about things, and I remember
I remember rightly sort of putting a quote saying, you know, worrying is
like walking around with an umbrella waiting for it to rain. Sometimes we can
stop ourselves from doing something because of you know, the fear that things are
going to be possibly much worse. So we think they are, but actually
sometimes when we actually stop worrying, as it were, And I said,
just said them done, but actually then yeah, and do something, you
know, things can be solved so much easier and quicker, et cetera.
So yeah, really I think that's the hypothetical worry am I am? I
right? I was taking I know, that's amazing. So that's cool.
So we're moving on to this week dealing with depression, and I was kind
of looking at this now again, depression is another of those words I'm going
to say that sort of the mental health lingo as it were, that's often
used and sometimes I often find sort of us possibly and correctly, but you
know, it's a very probably one of the most prevalent mental health disorders.
And I know I'm not going to go into too much because you're maybe just
covering some of this, but I wanted to kind of look at some of
the statistics about depression and I was looking I came across a study by an
organization called Champion Health and they were saying that it affects one in six adults
in the UK, and it's often associated with other mental health disorders, sometimes
issues loardliness, etc. Women are twice as likely to experience depression than men.
However, fifteen percent of women receive treatment compared to only nine percent of
men. And maybe you can unpack that for us elstiness or why that possibly
is the case. The rates of depression are significantly higher than they were prior
to the pandemic, and we do know that due to the pandemic, mental
health difficulties and issues were on the rise. And you know, it was
saying that seventeen percent of adults in the UK experienced some form of depression around
that summer of twenty twenty one, compared to only just ten percent before the
pandemic. So it's definitely a public health issue and it presents so many challenges
for different organizations, and obviously for this company, they were looking at the
workplace especially, so the impact of that as well. So it's definitely definitely
a good topic for us to be looking at. So I'm going to hand
over to you, Allison, to kind of unpack that and why depression has
become such a stronghold for many people's lives. Okay, thank you so much,
Angela, So thank you for also that introduction and the statistics behind depression
just to put things in context. So, yeah, this is a public
health issue. So what is depression. Let's start with you know, looking
at what depression is. Depression is actually a mood disorder. It's when we
feel consistently low, which causes a negative impact on our daily life for at
least two weeks. So it's not just having a bad day or just you
know, something's gone wrong and we don't feel too good today. It's got
to be persistent for at least two weeks. It leads to disability. It's
a major contributor of like global disease and illness. So depression is normally co
morbid with other things other either physical health issues or mental health issues, maybe
anxiety, low self esteem, eating disorders, you name it. And there
are different types of depression that people experience. So like last week we looked
at different types of anxiety disorders, there are also different types of depression.
So in terms of types of depression, I'm just going to quickly run through
what the common depressive disorders are. I'm not going to test anybody. At
the end of this is that and you will not remember all of them.
This is just so that people are aware that there are different types of depression
that people suffer from. So we have what we call major depression, and
this is quite common. This is also known as clinical depression or unipolar depression,
and this is when you feel sad, you feel down, you feel
miserable most of the time. You kind of the things that you enjoy doing,
you no longer enjoy doing those things. You lose interest in the things
that you normally enjoy doing, and you know, it's it can be persistent,
and it can be chronic for some people. And under kind of major
depression, you can have what we call melancholia, which will look at in
a minute. You can have psychotic or antiinatal or postonatal depression. And normally,
when you go to see the GP and you say, well, you
know, I've been feeling quite low, it's been going on for a period
of time, they will normally give you a questionnaire to feel in. Maybe
some people have come across that. It's called the PHQ nine questionnaire, and
it's got nine questions and it just kind of looks at your mood, how
you felt over the past couple of weeks, sleeping, eating, general activities.
And you know, there's a skill of zero to three, and that
way they're determine whether your depression is mild, or whether it's moderate, or
whether it's severe. So when people have major depression, normally the GP or
normally a mental health practitioner will try to determine the severity of the depression.
So we have, I said, under major depression, we have melancholia,
and this is really severe depression, and this normally does come with physical symptoms,
so you might this might cause you to kind of move more slowly than
you normally kind of move. You feel sad, you feel down, you
feel miserable, and you may not be able to enjoy it anything. You
may not be able to find pleasure in anything. This numbness that you feel,
which is persistent for at least a couple of weeks, is kind of
one of the main features of melancholia. So it's quite debilitating, not great.
And then we have psychotic depression, and this is really where you feel
so low but you lose touch with reality or sometimes people experience psychosis. And
you know, when we talk about psychosis, we're talking about hallucinations. Maybe
you're seeing or hearing things that are not actually there in reality, or people
might have delusions which is normally a false belief, so you believe something that
nobody else believes, and this could be something good or it could be something
bad. For example, you think you're being watched, you're being followed,
but that's really not happening. It's there's a strong belief maybe that something big
is going to happen, but you know that's that's not the case. And
also we have under psychotic depression, we have paranoia, which is where you
feel like you know everyone's against you and you believe that other people might make
you fall ill or like cause bad things to happen to you, so you
feel paranoid all the time. So those are the kind of symptoms of psychotic
depression. And then, like I said, we have antiinatal and postonatal depression,
and normally this is depression that's happening during pregnancy or in the first year
after somebody's had a baby, so we with under postnatal depression. We can
have kind of also we can have antenatal or prenatal depression, which is happening
during pregnancy, or very natal depression, which is happening any time during pregnancy
or in the first year after the child has been born. We also have
what we call dys themic disorder, which is long term depression which will last
for at least two years. The symptoms are quite similar to major depression,
but a bit less severe than major so you might feel quite low, quite
sad, but it doesn't feel as debilitating as major depression. And then a
lot of people would have heard of bipolar disorder, and this is when we
experience periods of feeling sad, feeling low, kind of losing motivation. But
then those are kind of happening with periods or other periods of mania where we
feel high and we feel like characteristically active and motivated and do things that are
kind of really out of character. Somebody who has bipolar will have at least
a period of kind of wanting to spend a lot of money, going shopping
excessively, having a lot of energy, doing things that they wouldn't normally do,
find it very very difficult to focus on tasks, will feel really good
at times, have lots of energy, lots of thoughts, lots of idea.
Would feel frustrated and irritable, and then all of a sudden there will
be a day the feel sad, the field demotivated, You don't feel like
talking to anybody, don't feel like doing things that they would normally do.
So that's bipolar. And then we have psyclothemic disorder, which also is similar
to bipolar, but it's not as severe and it's long term lasts typically for
a period of at least two years. And then we also have seasonal effective
disorder order. This actually is a mood disorder, just depending on the seasons.
So normally when we have the longer nights and the shorter days when the
weather changes, some people experience a lack of energy, maybe sleep too much,
maybe you know, eat too much, prey for things like carbohydrates,
just don't feel motivated, feel quite low. So those are the major kind
of general types of depression that we have there, so you know, quite
a few different types of depressive disorder, but normally, you know the in
summary, the common kind of symptoms are that we have low mood most of
the day, We feel kind of disinterested in doing the things that we would
normally do. There's changes in our weight, either we gain quite a bit
of weight or we lose quite a bit of weight. We have difficulties sleeping,
we feel fatigue, loss of energy, we don't feel worthy, we
feel quite worthless, and we feel guilty, might feel feel a lot of
guilt and shame. And if we find it very difficult to kind of make
decisions, find it difficult to concentrate, and when it gets really severe,
for a lot of people, people will have recurring thoughts of suicide, taking
their own lives, death, you know, that sort of thing, preoccupied
with thinking about death, dying, taking their own lives. So, depression
is quite an extensive mental health issue, and a lot of people out there
are suffering one type of depressive disorder or another. I'm just going to kind
of pause there because I've just kind of said a lot in a short period
of time, and I'll hand over to you Angela for now cool. So
thank you for that saying, yes, there's definitely a lot of different depression
depression disorders and that banner. But I go into another piece of music.
Are there any particular misconceptions around depression that we should address, because you've sort
of, you know, highlighted quite a lot there, and you start off
by saying that, you know, it's it's a lot more than just low
mood or some of those other symptoms. Obviously, something that's going to impact
you over a longer period of time. But are they kind of sort of
because I know with the stats that I was saying, you know, as
much as people may be suffering these or having these symptoms, many people don't
try and get help. Is there exactly because there are any particular stigmas or
misconceptions around that at all? Yeah, thank you. That's a really good
question, really important question. There is a lot of stigma around depression,
around mental health, and I think the problem is that people don't actually realize
that when somebody is suffering from depression, it's not it's not a choice,
it's not because they can't be bo that. Normally, there's some there's a
lot that kind of underlies the depression. So normally what you look at last
week we had we looked at the iceberg for anxiety and again for depression.
There is an iceberg that we can kind of look at, and normally what
people are seeing at the tip of the iceberg is that the person is quite
the person is never so maybe avoidant, maybe some of these crying all the
time, the seam low, it is quite low, that kind of not
wanting to socialize or talk to people, but actually, you know, there
are there are quite significant things that normally would have happened, and it could
be that things have happened over a long period of time that have not been
addressed, and so depression normally it's a lot of the time is there's there's
an imbalance of the chemical in the brain and something needs to be done.
There needs to be treatment to get the person back up and running. So
it's not people wanting to kind of not be bothered, or it's not people
being lazy or not wanting to work hard or not wanting to concentrate. Depression
is a very severe illness and needs somebody who is a professional to look into
it and help people. And you know, underneath the tip of that eyesberg
work could be helplessness, could be something who is confused, something who is
scared, somebody who is who feels rejected, who feels lonely, who feels
lost, and maybe is carrying a lot of shame, a lot of guilt,
a lot of hopelessness. Is really characteristic when somebody is depressed, you
know, they feel very hopeless. They feel like there's no point going on,
there's no point in doing anything. The future looks bleak, they don't
think much about themselves, or they don't think much about life in general.
So it's not something that people choose. It's not an illness that people choose
to have. It's quite serious and a lot of the time people are crying
out wanting to stop feeling this load, to stop feeling this way. And
it's really important that we are sense tape where compassionate when we start to notice
that people are not the way they normally are, or not engaging in some
of the things that because we don't always they're not always going to say we're
depressed or we feel low, but sometimes we can pick up some of those
signs on some of those symptoms and start to look out for them. Okay,
cool, which brings you nicely into a piece of music that I'm going
to play now. This is kirkkar I almost let go, And as you
were pointing out, sometimes there was you know, it's a serious illness and
one that you know we do need help for, but ultimately we are putting
our trust and hoping God he would indeed keep us. So this is cat
Car I almost let go. Mercy kept me, so I wouldn't let go
anybody in here ever felt like giving up, just throwing in the towel,
just giving up. I'm not going to ask you to hunt anybody, but
just look at him. That person you're looking at is here tonight only because
of God's mercy and his grace. Somebody only just tell God, thank you
for your mercy and your grace set kept me ball. My arm had passion,
way me done. God help me close, So God's mercy count me.
Can I get a witness in here so I wouldn't cool? I almost
gave her most Okay, I was riding the edge of the break through A
couldn't see de really hang me. But she's stame and grabbed me, and
God's mercy kept me. God, Can I get a witness in here that
knows about God's grace? So I'm here today because of his great come on,
hunt somebody next to tell me I was really down. I was really
down. The devil really hadn't but God's mercy kept me. I'm here tonight
because of God's mercy. Come on, nod, just thank him, just
thank him. I oh, let Coles. I felt like I just couldn't
take a lot anymore. My problems heavy now depression away. Now, God
help me. So I wouldn't lift a God mercy healthy, so I wouldn't
live all. So now go there kill me. She did say, girl,
oh you you, You don't know what I can do and how I
would know lesson happened so far down I didn't know who looks Yeah, but
all to be much that's the song my mama Tom Yeah, yeah, yeah,
yeah. He kept me. Yeah, yes, God kept me.
I'm allowed saying because of his grace. Oh he kept me. God kept
me. Important words there just testimony to the grace and most that we have
with God. Now you're here at an Adventist Radio London for a talking point
and we are continuing with our series bringing down Strongholds. On today we are
looking at depression and how we deal with depression as a stronghold. If you'd
like to join in the conversation, please do join us if you can.
If you have any thoughts, comments, there's various ways of which you can
do that. We've got a Zoom call on at the moment, so if
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or you can text us on eight triple eight write hope and then your message,
or you can whatsappers on zero seven four five nine six four to eight
nine eights. So if you have any thoughts on doing the depression, please
do contribute to our conversation. So we've just been talking, was just basically
gone through what depression is and the various different disorders that sort of our under
the umbrella term depression, of which there are many, and again some of
those were quite familiar for me. I'd heard of some of those before.
There's a few that i'd never really necessarily not really heard of, already thought
about. And some of the symptoms as well, I guess it wasn't aware
of. You're talking about the sort of psychotic depression, depression in terms of
the hallucinations, the paranoia, had necessarily thought about those. It's quite interesting
that actually you mentioned about sad as well, So this time of the year,
that's definitely one that's quite prevalent. I remember rightly, I think this
Monday coming is as dubbed Blue Monday, that sort of third week in January.
People are definitely feeling feeling very low, especially the weather's not great.
So that's definitely what I've definitely heard of as well. So definitely, as
you mentioned at the beginning, is definitely a public health crisis. Many people
are suffering from this. But for many people, how does it become a
stronghold for them? It's an illness, but how does that have that come
about? Okay, so that thank you for that. That's a kind of
good segue into the next. So we've talked before about you know, having
having negative kind of underlying beliefs, and you know, for some people it's
perhaps maybe something that's happened in the past, or maybe something that's happened suddenly,
you know, losing a loved one, having a baby, major life
change. Maybe it's messages that they've heard over and over again that are that
are negative that take hold, and then you know, people will then start
to believe believe for example, that you know, maybe there's no hope for
the future, or maybe they are not good enough, or maybe other people
are always never to be trusted or always going to let them down. There's
there's a kind of normally an underlying belief and this is not something that most
people will notice has happened, But on a day to day basis, what
will what they will experience will be maybe negative thoughts such as, you know,
kind of being very critical about themselves or about other people. Being consumed
with negative thoughts, thinking something along the lines of well, you know,
I've messed up again, or there's no point or nobody likes me, you
know. Then there's the kind of cycle that starts to form where the negative
thoughts then translate to negative feelings or emotions such as, you know, not
feeling motivated, not feeling interested, you know, feeling quite sad, slowing
down, feeling tired, and then that kind of translates again to you know,
what people do or not do, which are the behaviors. So when
somebody is thinking negatively and feeling negative emotions, then there's a tendency to really
want to isolate themselves, not really socialized with other people, maybe cut themselves
off from other people, not going out much, not doing much, and
in you know, these behaviors again what we call safety behaviors are behaviors that
make us feel safe in that moment, make us feel well, we feel
low, We don't really want to see people, We don't really you know,
this is kind of comfortable and safe, and so we will withdraw,
we will isolate ourselves. But you know, the behaviors then will reinforce the
negative thoughts. So the more time you have by yourself, especially when you're
feeling sad, you're feeling low, is that you know that time is spent
being even more self critical, feeling even more hopeless, and then that kind
of reinforces negative emotions again, and that's that becomes a vicious cycle. So
that that's really how you know depression takes hold as a stronghold. Okay,
Okay, cool, Okay, So I want to hand back over to you
on that one. I know that's a that was a long answer to your
question, Angela, and you're need that's fun. Sorry, I was just
I was just saying that's fun. Hopefully that's going to say you said,
segue into your next section about it being a stronghold. But again, I'm
sort of you know, thinking about how something maybe can maybe a small a
small thing if it's a traumatic experience, becomes such a big hold that big
thing that then takes over and impacts your life going forward. So right back
to you, Alison. Okay, so just looking at because we were talking
about depression as a stronghold, but depression is not always a stronghold. You
know, we can also have depression as a kind of like a physical problem.
So I think it's important that it can start off as a physical issue,
physical health issue, but then end up as a stronghold. I've just
talked about depression as a stronghold, so let's look at the difference between looking
at depression as a stronghold versus looking at different depression as a kind of physical
problem, so as a stronghold. When we talk about depression from a spiritual
perspective, we're talking about you know, depression really being as a result of
sin. And sometimes that's something that's where we've done something wrong, or not
necessarily we have done something wrong, some other people might have done something to
us. So if you think about a child who is helpless, who isn't
treated well by the adults around them, you know, that's other people doing
things that are wrong. So you know that might end up in depression,
but it's not because they have done something wrong, or it could just be
you know, because in our environment that things happening that are not great.
So if you think about you know, if you're in a war zone and
the environment is quite hostile, it's not something that you've done wrong, it's
just the secondmstances in that environment. But you know, when we talk about
sin, we really want to look about look at you know, if you
think about how sin came about, you think about the fall in Genesis chapter
three, think about the story of Kin and Able. In Genesis chapter four,
the Bible starts to introduce emotions such as shames such as fear, anger,
depression, Shame when Maneath noticed that they were without clothes, without without
covering, Fear when you know, they didn't know what was going to happen
to them, Anger when Kin noticed that his offering was not accepted by God
but his brothers was. And depression when he actually killed his brother. So
you know, these emotions came as a result of singing from a spiritual perspective,
you know, we we kind of start to see these emotions from really
from the kind of starting books of the of the Bible, so that that
then takes hold generations after that have experienced and and really the enemy uses these
these types of emotions to keep us held down, to keep us captive.
Depression can be as a result of something that's happened in the past. Angela,
you talked about something traumatic that's happened, and in terms of from a
spiritual perspective, the enemy will like to just replay that in the mind over
and over again. It's like you have a replay button and just keep pressing
on that button just so that we can remember what happened. And over time
we start to see life through very dark lenses and we don't see any hope,
we don't see any positivity, we're not motivated, and that kind of
cycle of negative thoughts, negative feelings, negative emotions is happening again. Depression
can also happen when in terms of a stronghold with problems that are kind of
happening now, so present problems. It doesn't always have to be something in
the past. Present problems perceived in a way that where we think, well,
there's no way out of this, you know, if that's if that's
how we perceive the problem, if that's how we interpret what what's happening in
our lives, in a very negative way. Then you know, that gets
kind of held in our minds as a very negative event and keeps being played
as a very negative event, and that can make us very low, very
depressed. We can also have fear of the future. So last week we
looked at anxiety and we talked about the fact that we have this innate desire
to want to be in control of what happens in the future, and it
were consumed by the fear that something's going to go wrong because maybe something went
wrong in the past, or because we've watched something or we've read something that
tells us something's going to go wrong, and why we keep asking ourselves,
well, what if this happened, What if that happened? That's bad?
Then we have this were consumed And you know, if you think about about
being anxious constantly, that starts to get you down. You start to feel
quite low, you start to feel hopeless for the future. So depression as
a stronghold is founded onlines that repeat and magnify themselves in the mind. Let's
talk about the depression as a kind of physical, physical problem. So you
know, sometimes people are born with kind of biological genetic genetic issues and you
know, which means that they can have chemical imbalances. So sometimes this is
a this is a biological problem. And if some people are more likely to
suffer depression, especially if there's a trauma that happens in their life. So
especially if they're involved, for example, in an accident, or they're abused,
may be physically abused or emotionally or sexually abused, then there might be
a higher likelihood that they will suffer from depression, or just there is alt
of an accident might mean that your brain chemicals are altered and that you know
your wills offer from depression. It could be situational, so it could be
breathement. It could be postpartum, like we've talked about changes in the in
the season, or past trauma that causes an imbalance of the kind of serotonin
or the dopamine that we need in the brain to keep us feeling motivated or
to keep us feeling a sense of pleasure. When people around us tell lies,
you know, that can feel depression and actually make us start to feel
quite low. Or you know, we we when when we experience illnesses where
we maybe physical health. In illnesses, we might need kind of medical interventions.
If you're in that situation for a long time, you start to feel
low, you start to feel depressed. So you know, there's a close
link between depression as a physical problem and depression as a stronghold. It takes
hold when we we don't treat it as a physical problem, when we continue
to kind of keep ourselves in that negative cycle, that that then becomes a
problem. So, yes, sometimes it's a physical it's a physical kind of
condition that's happening, and we need a kind of medical treatment, medical intervention.
We might need medication to sort it out. And sometimes it's purely kind
of like negative things that are formed beliefs in our minds and that keep get
getting played back and then kind of really becomes more of a spiritual spiritual issue
where the enemy uses that to to keep us down when we kind of we
just just to talk about how we manage depression when it's like a physical thing.
So it's really important that we we have a structure in our lives,
we have a routine, and that we engage in kind of activities that ensure
that we're looking after our physical health while keeping our bodies well, maybe making
sure we get enough rest, making sure we get enough exercise, making sure
we're eating well, taking the supplements that we need to take, and exercise,
for example, gives us the endorphins, which are the happy hormones that
we need to keep us feeling good, feeling happy. So it's really really
important that we're looking after our bodies. But it's also important that we are
doing things that give us a sense of achievement, so things like work,
but obviously not working excessively. Maybe that course that you've always wanted to do,
or that thing that you've always wanted to learn, or maybe that diy
that you've always kind of needed to do. Something that's going to make you
feel like you've achieved something. That's really really important because that gives us the
natural dopamine that we need that makes us feel good about ourselves. So the
sense of competence, the sense of achievement is really very important. And then
we also need to make sure that we're engaging in kind of social activities,
so connecting with other people, making sure that we're socializing and making sure that
we feel a sense of belonging. That's really really important because it gives us
the oxytocin that we need, which is the chemical in the brain that makes
us feel loved and makes us feel a sense of belonging and connection. These
hormones are really really important to kind of balance the chemicals in the brain and
make us feel positive and make us feel good. And then we also need
to engage in activities that give us a sense of pleasure, things that we
enjoy doing. Maybe so gardening, maybe some reading, maybe music, anything
that we enjoy doing. It could be arts and craft. You know,
something that gives you a sense of pleasure gives your brain the serotonin that it
needs to make you feel pleasurable, to make you feel happy. So,
you know, in terms of managing depression from like physical from a physical problem
or where the source is physical, then we need a does dopamine, oxytocin,
serotonin and endolphins of balanced life and structured life. I'm just going to
pause there, and next we'll have a look at bringing down depression as a
stronghold. Back to you, Angela, thank you, any thoughts there's any
at all Before I go into expiss music as always un scribbling, So it's
oxytocin dopamine, Ratze. I know, Alison, you made the slides available
to us and I'm sure if anyone's listening, we can definitely, if with
your permission, pass them on to those who are interested. It really is
a lot of good information in here, very past, but happy to share,
happy to share the information, fabulous for me. And I think it
really is important what you listen to, what you are part of, because
even just talking about depression can sort of bring that kind of mood. And
I was anxious for you to get on to how we can we can deal
with depression and fight depression. I'm glad that you and I think it's worth
reiterating that we need to, you know, exercise, and we need a
sense of achievement, and we need to do social activities because I know we
know it, but sometimes we forget or we don't prioritize these things. Angela.
We say on that you know, we're busy and we're rushing around and
we're trying to do what needs to be done, but may not be taking
the time out to do the things that we enjoy or you know, who
have time for exercising, for instance. But I'm really glad that you said
that, and I think it's worth reiterating that these are the things that we
need to do to counter some of the moods and the feelings that may have
us in a very dark place. And I also wanted to add there maybe
and I know you'll come to that later, that there are you spoke about
the structure that we need to have in place and the support that we need
to have in place, and I'm looking forward to maybe unpacking that a little
bit more too. Yeah, and I definitely love the idea of having a
dose, you know, doing the things that would bring about those happy horbones
and you know, don't put meine oxytocin serotonin to kind of and that will
help with the endolphins. So yeah, definitely a dose of all of those
that good stuff as it were. Indeed unshine music definitely. So I'm going
to go to a piece of music by Lauren Degel. You say, now
again the lyrics on this You mentioned about how you know, our thoughts can
become this and sometimes you're fighting those voices and things that we're spoken, that
we're taught, the things that I said to us, those events that sometimes
can bring us down. But obviously we want to believe that actually there is
a better way, There is another way. So this is laurendegele. You
say, I keep fighting voices in my mind, theay I'm not no,
every single lie that tells me I will never men. Am I more than
just the sum of every high and then every low? Remind me who wants
a kind? Just who I am? Because I need to know? Oh
you say when I can't feel him? You say I'm sure when I think
I'm weak? Can you say I am when I'm fall shot? And when
I don't be an? Who you say your hen dobby haby what you say
me? I believe the only thing that matters now is everything you think of
me. And you are find by word any who I find my ideaity?
You say when I can't feel thing? You say shut when I think come?
Can you say well when I am fashow where not top it all?
Whill you say when I shop? But you say a meeting? Harmony taking
all I have and no harmony at your feet? You have every failure.
God you have a revy too. Oh you said when I can't feeling You
say shorts when I think come with? You say when I'm so a shot?
Well? Double? How you say what you say? Really? What
you say? Melea Laren Deacle, you say, and in terms of what
we're talking about, to say stronghold, sometimes there are those beliefs and those
thoughts in our minds that tell us the completely within that God has for us.
And it has song saying taken all I have and I'm laying it at
your feet. You have every failure God, but he has the victory.
So we're continuing with our discussion today about depression and as before that piece of
music we were just talking about. Actually, it's an interesting thought. Actually
I never really necessarily thought about this in terms of seeing depression as a stronghold
versus being a physical situation, physical illness, which is quite interesting. That's
quite interest in which we will discuss a little bit later. But I did
love the fact that in terms of we looked at some ways in terms of
managing and there was is the word in acronym newsletters in terms of managing depression,
we need a dose. Basically, we want to do things that are
going to bring about those happy hormones dopamine, oxytocin, serotonin and are endorphins
to enable to manage depression, and the lots different things that Alison had mentioned
around that. So Allison handing back to you in terms of our next steps
in managing depression. Okay, Yeah, I just wanted to kind of revisit
that and emphasize on the importance of having this balance, having a balance between
you know, doing kind of activities that drive and motivate us, like work,
and making sure that we're engaging in soothing activities as well as protective activities.
The emotional brain kind of consists of different types of hormones for different functions,
and we need to make sure that there's a balance. I think that
society emphasizes a lot on working, and sometimes people almost take pride in just
working hard and thinking actually of case a luxury. I just really want to
reiterate that self care is not a luxury. It is a necessity. Because
if you're working and you're not engaging in soothing, self compassionate activities, you're
going to burn out. You're going to start feeling low, and you're going
to fall ill, and then you're going to be very low, and then
you're going to not be able to work and not be able to achieve,
and then that's going to make you very low. So the emotional brain has
kind of what we call the protective functions, and those are the functions that
tell you when to keep safe. You know, if you're crossing the road
that there's danger, and that's that kind of looks at the threat in the
environment and tries to protect you. Sometimes when that's overactive, that's when we
start to feel anxiety because that's disproportionate to the level of threat in the environment.
And then we've got the motivational kind of side of the emotional brain,
which is where the dopamain comes from, which makes us feel good when we
work hard, when we achieve things, when we get the kind of qualifications
that we've worked for, or we get promoted, or we get recognized,
or we do the chore or the diy that we've always wanted to do.
That's a good thing, but you know, we need to make sure that
that's in the right proportion. So if you think about the kind of emotional
brain as three circles, the kind of threat function, the motivational function,
and the soothing function, those three circles need to be of the same size.
If you're working all the time and you don't at the expense of the
kind of soothing part of the emotional brain, then you're going to burn out.
If you're over stimulated in terms of you know your threat and you're thinking
there's danger, then you're going to suffer anxiety. On the other hand,
if all you're doing is just chilling out and you know, you know,
taking a break and you're not doing any work, you're never going to feel
a sense of achievement and you're going to get depressed. So it's really important
that we have a balance. And sometimes people think, oh, I haven't
got time to go to the spa and get a massage, but actually you
need to do that. You need to do something that's going to soothe you,
and because that's just how God made us. So I just really want
to emphasize on that because it's really important. When people, you know,
go to a medical professional or a mental health professional say very I'm feeling very
low, one of the first things that they ask you is, you know,
tell me about how you spend your day. What do you do from
when you wake up to when you go to bed, What are you doing,
what are the activities that you're engaging in. And then we try to
do what we call behavioral activation, which is getting you to do things that
do things to ensure that there's that balance in your life. And sometimes you
know, just by doing that regulate things again and can can cure depression without
medication. So you know, it's really really important. I just just really
wanted to highlight that before I move on to dealing with depression as a stronghold.
So, dealing with depression as a stronghold, what do we need to
do? We need first of all, we need to start by knowing knowing
how that depression has come about, knowing the source of the depression. Is
it spiritual, is it environmental or situational, or is it natural or biological?
Because if we don't know, then you know, we don't know what
kind how to deal with it. So it's it's really important to take the
time out and just really reflect and think about, Okay, how has this
come about? Depression normally will kind of as a stronghold will develop. We
talk We've talked previously about a fortress having kind of walls, and when Paul
talked about bringing down strongholds or pulling down strongholds, he talked about like he
was thinking about a fortress with very high walls, and he like and when
we talk about the strongholds. We think about the high walls of lies that
have built in the mind over a period of time. And really, you
cannot know how to defeat a lie until you know the truth. If you
know the truth, then you know how to tackle the lie. And Christ
himself said in John eight thirty two, and you will know the truth,
and the truth will set you free. So it's important to kind of acknowledge
how you feel. Like you know, Angela mentioned normally there's a stigma around
mental health, around depression, and you know, a lot of the stigma's
a lie is to keep us in a place where we're trying to deny it.
We're trying to ignore it. And you know, if if you try
to deny it or ignore it, you're never going to address the problem.
So you need to know the thing that's causing you to feel the way you
feel, and you need to know that the way you feel does not have
the financy. But if you keep denying that, actually I'm feeling very low,
and you know, you want to look like everything's fine. I know
that as seven the Adventists, we have this habit of the way we creately
say is we say happy Sabbath, Happy Sabbath to everybody. And sometimes when
I see a Seven day Adventist outside of the Sabbath, I was I'm tempered
to say happy Sabbath, and often I stop to think, actually, am
I really happy? I know that I'm blessed, but you know, I
might not always be happy, because happiness just depends on what's happening at that
time. So we need to kind of try not to ignore or deny how
we're feeling. Remember Christ said in John sixteen Ves thirty three, but in
this world we will have trials and tribulations. We will have trials and tribulations,
but we should be of good chair. It doesn't mean that we should
pretend that we don't have trials and tribulations. So acknowledge how you feel,
trying not to deny or ignore how you're feeling. Don't try to cover up
how you feel. So don't try to do something that's going to overpower how
you're feeling, because that's just going to keep the problem festering underneath. Meditate
on the word of God, Go to the word of God, go to
the promises of God. Pray and speak to God honestly, authentically about how
you're feeling. You know, bring it to the surface, because when you
bring something out of the surface and give it light, you know, it
takes the power away. But when you keep it covered, then it kind
of just magnifies in the mind. So you know, be real and you
know, talk to God about it, talk to somebody that you can trust
about it. Don't try to kind of do something to overpower how you're feeling,
and really get professional help if that's necessary. You know, there are
professionals, like you've got doctors who are there to medical doctors. You've got
different types of medical doctors, those who focus on the bones, those who
focus on the ear, nose and throats, those who focus on cardiac issues.
You also have you know, psychiatrists who focus on the mind, psychotherapist,
psychologists. These are all people who are there to help to help people
who are feeling quite low. So you know, don't be ashamed, you
know, to go and get the professional help that you need, because depression
can be very serious mental health illness and you know might actually need quite a
bit of time and effort to really treat it. I've all responding in ways
that you know that feeling of depression is urging you to respond. So you
know, if, for example, you know, you feel kind of really
negatively about a situation or about a person, and all you want to do
is, you know, talk negatively about that situation or just just try to
avoid that, because what that's going to do is that's just going to keep
you in that visual cycle and make the stronghold control you. We've talked about
engaging in a kind of healthy and structured routine. Try and find something whatever
is good, whatever is pure, whatever is praiseworthy. Focus on these things
and do these things. Don't don't behave in a way that the kind of
emotion at the time is driving you, is driving you to go and overeat,
so it's driving you to not eat. Don't try to respond to those
those feelings at that time. Try and think about, Okay, what's healthy,
what can I do that's going to be better official for me in the
long run. Bringing down strongholds of depression also involves bringing down captive thoughts.
Last week and the week before, we looked at thoughts a lot. Your
depressive feelings result from negative thoughts. But knowing the truth, like we said,
will set you free. So you know, don't try to escape from
the feelings. There will be other ways that the stronghold will manifest itself.
So if you try to pretend, well it's not there, I'm not I'm
not feeling this way, then then it's gonna it's gonna just carry on manifesting
itself. You're going to find yourself almost like in a maze, trying to
get out of it by doing this and by doing that, and nothing is
going to work. So dealing with depression in summary involves addressing the natural causes
through making the right choices around how we think, how we behave, and
spiritual causes through bringing down strongholds. The stronghold of depression results from walls of
lies, resulting in fortresses of negative imagination and thoughts that keep the depression going.
And we can absolutely train our minds to respond in helpful ways believing the
truth, meditating on God's words and God's promises, and on prayer. Those
are very powerful spiritual weapons. Like we said at the start, the weapons
are of our warfare and not cannal but spiritual. And when depression is a
stronghold, we need spiritual weapons to bring down that depression. Just to leave
you with a few kind of texts from the Bible to remember. Remember.
Psalms twenty six eighteen Some Sorry thirty four eighteen says the Lord is near to
the broken hearted and saves the crushed in spirit. Remaiah twenty nine eleven says
that for I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord.
There are plans for good and not for disaster, to give you a future
and a hope. So when you're feeling hopeless because you're depressed, remember God
has good plans for you. And in God we always have hope. And
Deuteronomy thirty one, verse eight says the Lord himself goes before you and will
be with you. He will never leave you, nor forsake you. Do
not be afraid, do not be discouraged. And of course John sixteen thirty
three says, in this world you will have trouble. But take heart.
Christ says I have overcome the world. We bring down the strongholds. When
we are in Christ, we bring down the strongholds. When we believe in
His word, we believe in the promises, we believe in prayer, we
believe that we're covered by his blood, and we believe that He has a
bright future for us. And we also believe that, like he said in
John, there's a sick, there's just six so if the son seids,
you're free, you will be free. Indeed, thank you back to you,
Angela. Oh, I loved all those texts there, scribbling curiously those
for remind us. So, yeah, there's some good ones there. Psalms
thirty four eighteen, Jeremiah twenty nine eleven, Deuteronomy thirty one, verse eight,
John sixteen thirty three, and the last one, John six thirty six
or five thirty six. Yeah, the good ones, really good ones there,
So thank you so much, Alison. Yes, so there's a lot
of really really good information there, and I loved how you've gone through and
really looking at how you can deal with those strongholds when depression is a stronghold.
That next bit was almost kind of like I would almost say, like
a follow up to how you would deal with if it was a physical illness
as well. This in addition to you know, leave it, the ballance,
life, everything else. But this is where you are drawing on God's
word, his promises and if necessary, get the professional help like you've noted
before as well. So I guess you start at the beginning saying obviously that
depression when it starts to really impact your life, I mean, how soon
would you say to somebody, go to seek professional help? And I think
sometimes for many people that's probably one of the more daunting things to do,
because you noted in their about acknowledging that there is a problem. I guess,
how would you know that it's kind of obviously it's impacting your life,
could be infecting, but also acknowledging that this is a serious it potentially could
be a serious illness that you could be suffering from. How do you know
when to kind of go and seek professional help, as it were, especially
if you are battling with the idea of the shame, the fear, the
guilt, those stigmas that often surrounded surrounding meant health difficulties in general, much
less depression. Yeah, So when you've had certain symptoms for about i'd say
a week and a half, two weeks, so things like, you know,
certainly you don't really have pleasure, you don't feel interested in doing the
things that you'd normally be interested in, or you feel kind of you feel
bad about yourself, you feel like you're a failure, that you've led your
family down, you've led other people down, and these feelings are persistent.
Right, so you're feeling like this every day for about a week and a
half, two weeks, you should really be starting to think to think,
well, I need to maybe go and see my GP. It's alwa,
it's good to start with your GP. Maybe you've got poor appetite, or
you're eating too much more than usual, or you feel like quite tired,
or that you have very little energy. You've got trouble with sleeping, you
kind of have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep, or maybe you're sleeping too
much, you're feeling maybe hopeless. Maybe you're moving you you're very fidgety because
you're maybe that's combined with the level of anxiety, or you're kind of very
slow in kind kind of your movements. Then you really need to be thinking.
You know, you can't really concentrate, you know, things like maybe
reading the paper, watching Telly. You're you're finding it very really, very
difficult to concentrate. Or it could be you know, you start to think,
well I'll be better off deb or you know, I just want to
hurt myself in some way. You maybe want to self harm by maybe not
eating, or maybe things like pulling, pulling hair. It doesn't always have
to be kind of, you know, cutting oneself. Some people would you
know, kind of punch the wall until the bleed. You know, there's
those kind of symptoms. Are things that happen Maybe some of those things or
all of those things, or most of those things are happening kind of most
days over a period of two weeks, or every day almost every day over
a period of two weeks. Then start by going to speak to your GP.
See your GP, and talk to your GP about it. Normally,
the GP would give you a questionnaire to feel to complete and then we'll be
able to say, well, you know, there's mild depression going on here,
there's moderate and then you can take it from there. They can refer
you on to somebody else. But it's really important that you if you've got
those symptoms and are persistent over a period of more than a week or up
to two weeks, that you go and get help because if you don't,
it's going to get worse. It's gonna it's going to kind of progress,
and it then it starts to become things like psychotic, which then you get
into a situation where you're in a crisis, and when you're in a crisis,
it's very difficult to just get maybe therapy or talking to somebody. That's
when they start to look at more more serious interventions. So pick it up
when it's early and speak to somebody about it. Alison, I'm glad you
said that because one of the questions I had to ask was about that support
instruction that you spoke about when you spoke of Because so many people in this
position, or so many people who are struggling with depression aren't able to take
themselves where they need to go. Don't say that they're struggling, you know,
struggle alone. That I was listening to one man explain his about his
experience with depression and said something that I thought it was good to share.
He said, depression is like a club that anyone can join joined for free.
It doesn't matter your color, your creed, your culture. But the
only condition of joining that club is that you have to believe that you're alone.
You're the only ones struggling. You need to believe that there is no
one there to support you, and that you are fighting something that no one
could ever understand. And so many people are fighting with depression but just don't
feel there's anywhere to go. There's no one that they can tell, no
one would understand, no one would be able to help. So how do
we as people who support persons who are struggling with depression, how do we
pick up the signs and how do we guide or signpost people to help.
Again, it's looking out for those signs in some day. So you will
notice if somebody suddenly starts withdrawing. You'll notice if somebody maybe if it's something
you're close to, you know, what they're eating, habitas, You'll notice
if they're not eating anymore. You'll notice if they're not looking after one of
one common symptom is where people don't look after themselves, or maybe people unusually
start making up, start wearing makeup. So, you know, it's very
important that we notice things that are unusual in people. I think that sometimes
we can just be very quick to notice and then talk about it and oh,
what's wrong with this person? Have you noticed that behaving strangely? And
we don't really follow up, but we actually we don't know what that person
is going through. So if they've changed the way they dress, sometimes people
who would normally kind of make an effort to really look nice stop making an
effort. Or sometimes some people unusually start making too much of an effort,
so start wearing too much makeup, or start doing things that they didn't usually
used to do normally. Those are signs. So it's really important if you're
not seeing somebody in church, for example, rather than think, oh,
well, maybe this person's backsliding, find out, you know, try to
find out what's going on for them in their lives. So thinking about,
you know, always think about the why. Always think about beneath the iceberg,
beneath what you see at the tip of the iceberg, what could be
going on, And if you're noticing anything unusual, subtly try to find ways
to approach the individual, or to approach people who are close to that individual
and maybe monitor them or maybe try to get them to get the help that
they need. Also provide that there's the various help organizations out there. There's
the Samaritans. If people want to talk confidentially and you don't want people around
to know that you're feeling very low, please ring the Samaritans. Go and
talk to your GP, find a professional that you can talk to in confidence,
speak to somebody that you can trust, but also let's look out for
each other and let's be each other's each other's keeper. I think it's really
interesting, yes, because I think it will well, not all times,
but but most time it will require, you know, being spirit led and
knowing how to get people to make those first steps because it's not always easy.
Yeah. Absolutely, And I'm glad you said also about noticing things that
may be unusual or different, because I guess mostly symptoms they seem to be
more on the negative side. But it's quite interesting that you're saying somebody who
can appear really upbeat, very positive, seeming like everything's okay, but it
could be things like a bit more subtle, or just listen to the way
in which they're talking, the things that they're talking about, or there's maybe
you know, quite negative self talk, or you know, it's not necessarily
sometimes the signs aren't so obvious because I guess sometimes people are kind of we
say, managing, and I put that in kind of almost air quotes,
but managing in a way that doesn't seem as obvious that they could be struggling.
As you said, the under the on the is. Yeah, if
you think about somebody who has for example, who has the onset of bipolar,
so they don't necessarily know that, you know, they've got bipolar sympterms
of bipolar, they could come in be looking unusually excited, happy, you
know, and you know, if that's if that's unusual, then maybe that's
something to look out for to pick up on. If they're very active,
out of out of character, maybe that's something to keep an eye on.
Because when we when we think about depression, it's not always the low,
sad presentation, it's also an unusually happy presentation as well. And you know,
so we just we just have to you know, be more. We
need to pray for descendment. We need to pray for the Holy Spirit to
give us descendment to to to be able to descend and some of these things.
I wasn't going to ask another question as well. You made a distinction
between uh, the perssion that could be a stronghold and depression that's medically well
I don't know what the term is, but it could be based on medical
reasons. How do we how do we make that distinction? How how does
one know which it is? Is it a matter of just going to the
doctor and having having an assessment done, or can you can you tell is
there any difference at all in what manifests itself? And I know you may
have mentioned it, but just maybe asking you to repeat. Yeah, I
mean, I think the best way to go to the is to go to
the doctor and get an assessment. But sometimes it's quite obvious. Say,
for example, you've had it, you've been involved in a road traft accident
and you've had a head injury, you know, or somebody you have a
bereavement that situational, or you've just had a baby, you know, some
of those kind of big events that would happen that would cause an immediate change
in the mode that that's that's natural, right, that happens anyway naturally.
But then that and that can be treated in the same way. But then
that can easily become a stronghold if if it's not addressed, and the enemy
can use that to keep playing negative messages in our minds. So something that
started off as a kind of medical issue can end up being really a spiritual
stronghold. Right now. Yeah, a lot of some good stuff here.
You mentioned about the helplines, Allison, and you know there were lots of
resources out there, so you definitely would go to your GP to start off
with. But you mentioned the Samaritans. You can at them twenty four hours
a day, three six five days a year. They've got a free help
line. I think the number is one one six one two three if I
believe, you can email them as well Joe at Samaritans dot org and some
branches are now reopening as well, so you can just go in in person.
There's also a variety Mind actually, the organization Mind and Mind dot org
dot UK has a lot of good information on their resources, different help lines
as well. So definitely, if you do feel that you are struggling with
something, you know, the key thing here is don't struggle alone. There
is support out there, and I know sometimes we hear reports and we hear
things that sometimes people find getting that very difficult, but you know, do
reach out to somebody that's incredibly important and be persistent as well if you need
the help, be persistent. Yeah, definitely, So Allison, as we
as we're looking at this and kind of looking at this from the I guess
a lot of this in terms of the spiritual as a stronghold. What advice
would you give to somebody just and this is we've covered, if we've covered
a couple of weeks looking at you know, worry, fear, anxiety,
and that can kind of lead into a condition or disorder as discussion, what
advice generally would you give to somebody who is going through these difficulties and these
issues. I mean, I would I would really start by saying that I'll
start by normalizing, right, because I think that what sometimes what we don't
do very well is we we kind of make it a table and we stigmatize
it, and we make people feel uncomfortable, we make people feel ashamed.
So I think I would I would start by saying, you know, it's
it's okay to feel unwell because this is an illness and it's not your fault.
And I would say that you know that there's there's a lot that you
can do. You know, this isn't a hopeless situation. There's a lot
of help out there, There's a lot of support that you can get.
You know, you and and really God cares. God cares about you.
God wants you to feel well. God wants you to feel better, and
God wants you to to use the resources that he's made available. So just
keep an open mind and understand that it's not your fault that you feel this
way. Okay, and was somebody who's suffering depression? Now you talked about
different various ways to kind of help manage that. What have you is this?
Are these conditions sometimes things that people have for their whole lifetime, and
they're going to be continually managing that, you know, finding the right effective
ways, whether it's natural or with medication, et cetera. Or is it
something that you can kind of can you be cured from this well being?
That looks like yes. Yeah. So a lot of people suffer chronic chronic
depression, so they you know, they have this illness that goes on for
most of their lives. I mean, we see people in therapy who have
been depressed since the were eight and they are in their fifties or sixties and
it's been managed with medication and therapy, and you know that that's just the
chronic condition. And then we have people who have had depression and have been
in a very bad way and have been close to taking their lives and then
you know, have changed have you know, things have turned around? I
think being a believer in God. I believe that it can be healed,
but I also believe that there's more to healing it, especially when it's a
stronghold, than just medical means. I think that, you know, God
himself is the great physician, is the ultimate healer, And as a Christian
psychotherapist, I want to give God the credit because I know that I,
for example, am a vessel that He uses to heal people. I know
that the healing doesn't come from me, It comes from God. And God
himself knows what a person needs to make them hold again. He's the one
who creates us, and he's the only one who can a lot of these
illnesses, especially depression. There's a lot of shame and guilt and hopelessness involved
in the emotions that characterize depression, and only God can take this away.
So whilst I'd like to say, yes, there's you know, various medications
and various tablets, Yes God, God will give the physician and the psychiatrists
and therapist the wisdom and the knowledge. But I think that people who find
themselves in a kind of like revolving situation. Sometimes people who trusting in human
beings, and I think if we do trust in God. God has the
ability to recreate, to kind of take us out of the pits that we
were in and give us a brand new life and a brand new mind.
And he's the one who says, I haven't given you a spirit of fear,
but I've given you a spirit it's sound mind. And so we need
to trust in God. It can be cured if we're trust in God.
If we believe in God. Let remember that what we believe ultimately is what
we become. And if we believe in God and believe in the fact that
he's the creator and he's the healer, we will become healed. If we
believe in just medicals irons, which has always been researched and changing, then
we might have periods of wellness, and we might have periods where we feel
better, but then it comes work with a vengeance, because what's happening is
that underlying the kind of negative beliefs and negative messages are being replaced by the
enemy. So I do believe that people can be cured completely. And you
know, some people might differ with my beliefs, but I seriously, honestly
believe that to have sustainable wellness and healing I think that God, God himself,
in some cases, not in all cases, God himself will will need
to intervene and ensure that that healing is complete. So yeah, I believe
that we can be healed from depression, even very serious depression. I have
seen people turn around. I have worked with people people who who have have
been healed where they've had absolutely no hope, where they felt like, literally,
I want to take my life, and they have turned around and they've
been like totally different people. I would like to say, not by my
might or by my power, but absolutely by God's healing spirit, because I
have prayed for them. Amen. Amen, Love. And so before we
go to a music break and come back with final thoughts, I also wanted
to ask you to repeat and we've spoken to that to it before the importance
of balance. I really loved what you said before, and I mean I
was hoping that you would say the exception was if you approached it from a
soothing and do nothing lays about kind of way. But you did say that
even that can be bad for you you do it excessively. So I'm going
to have to go revisit my plan. But when you spoke about that,
you said that even having that balance and approaching life that way could be a
source of healing for some and you may not need to take it any further.
So just reiterate, if you will, or repeat that the importance of
balance and having that kind of structure in our lives. Yeah, and I
think there I talked about. You know, our brains are very kind of
complex, powerful machine, really the powerhouse of the body. And the brains
have different parts, and we have what we call the emotional brain, and
the emotional brain can be broken down into kind of the threat system, the
motivational system, and the soothing system. And the threat system is what looks
out for any dangers within our environment and helps us to kind of determine what
we need to do to keep safe. So that's important, and it's important
that we're always making sure that we're keeping ourselves safe. And that's where we
get the adrenaline, the cortisol, and we have an excess of that,
then we actually have anxiety disorder because the perception of the threat is not proportionate
to the reality of the threat in the environment. And then what we have
what we call the motivational drive, which is the part of the brain that
needs for us to feel a sense of competence, a sense of achievement.
We need to work hard to achieve because that's how God created us to work.
Since this you shall work, it's a law. So we need to
work. That makes us feel good. That's where we get the dopamine that
makes us feel good about ourselves. So in the right proportion, that's very,
very important. We need to work to feel inspired, to feel motivated,
to feel a sense of achievement and a sense of competence. And then
we have the soothing drive, the soothing part of the emotional brain, and
that's where we get the oxytocin and the serotonin. That's where we kind of
experience law, kindness, belonging, pleasure, and that's really important in the
right proportion. So when we don't get this, then we either feel too
much threat or too much kind of drive, or we feel burent out,
or we feel and we have anxiety issues. But too much of that compassion,
which kind of is at the expense of the motivation and the protection,
will mean that we don't feel that sense of achievement, that sense of competence,
and eventually, if we don't have the dopamin that we need. We
don't feel good about ourselves. That makes us depressed. If you layer about
all day doing nothing, telling yourself you're caring for yourself and not achieving anything,
then you feel a lack of sense of achievement. You don't have the
dopenin that your brain needs for you to feel good about yourself. So if
you think about the emotional brain as three circles in equal size, we need
a good dose of the soothing, a good dose of the motivation, and
a good dose of the protection. We need that balance. And it's not
a luxury to self care. It's not a luxury to do things that you
enjoy it because a lot of people feel guilty about that. And that's a
lie from the enemy. It's a lie to say I'm not going to rest,
I'm not going to take a break. It's a lie. So let's
have that balance and let's enjoy life and live life more abundantly man and balances.
Balance is really the key. And I guess, like you said,
and I don't know where that stigma has come from in terms of feeling guilty
as if it's not something that is a necessity. As you said, I
guess that's maybe a topic for another show. I guess, well, we've
talked about it a little bit, but it's worth revisiting for sure, because
we do put last, don't we. Yeah. So I guess as we're
coming to the end, I'm going to play short clip of music and then
we come back with our closing thoughts. This is attract by Marvin Sapp.
Never would have made it, And as you're saying, Allison, ultimately there
are there are where's, medication therapy activities that we do. But ultimately,
as Christians would believe, if it wasn't for God, we definitely may not
have made it. So this Marvin Sapp definitely would never would have made it,
never would have made never could have made that. Without you, I
would have lost it all. But now I see how you were there for
me, and I can say, never would have made never could have made
out Without honey, I would have lost it all. But now I see
how you were there for me, and I can say I'm stronger, I'm
wiser, I'm bad, much bader. When I look back, Oh,
the all you're pot me through, I can see the too, But the
one I held on to never never one, Oh I never could have made
it. I wouldn't have lost it all. Oh see, how are you
are there for me? Many another I want to lost in my mind a
lot time all never I had nothing for you, stuck, I'm wise offs
now I'll say so that Sam lay to my storm at my test because you
saw some time a metro a podcast, I'm strung out song, I'm wars
up, I'm got out at anybody bad eyes? I understanding here, I
tell you, I'm play okay. As Marvin said, he never would have
made it. He's stronger, wise, so much better. It's made it
through the storm. And as Alison ha said before, there are ways and
means to I'm gonna say, recover, manage, or be healed from depression.
As we've been talking this has been talking point. We are doing another
part of our series and bringing down strongholds, and today we've been looking at
depression. It's a very very very deep topic. It's a really serious illness
and there are various different types of depression that we've learned about today. Send
any closing thoughts from what we've talked about today. There is so much,
really and I think just a reminder that this program will be podcasted as well
as the others that we've had in the series, and I'm looking forward to
listening to it again. To be fair, just useful information, even if
and I have struggled with depression in the past, so many of us have,
but even in terms of supporting persons who are struggling and knowing what to
look out for and how we can signpost and assist people. We have time
to talk in February first, and as a company we will be doing some
initiatives around that. And for me, what's stood out from what we've discussed
here is simply the need to have conversations, the need to talk about what
people are going through and to normalize. As Alison said, this really dreadful
disease, this battle that people have and silently struggle through. And I'm hoping
that this would have have moved the needle a little bit and hopefully those who
are listening will take that next step if they do need assistance, if they
do need support, to reach out one one six one very easy to remember
that Samaritans Mind online. They've also got resources, useful information that you can
really leverage. And of course Alison and so many other practitioners who are available.
I know appointments are hard to get, but be persistent if you do
need support. And I don't want to say finally, because I think this
is foremost. God is good, He is faithful. Well, and we
have decided that we're going to list our promises, haven't we. We're going
to sort of take one for each week. I think that Angela. I
think we did at the beginning of the year. Yes, five promises and
I get lots of different one so I know the fabulous that we can.
Yes, sir, absolutely there. I mean it's and if you just take
a sticky note and write it out and put it there so that he comes
to mind or you come across it Psalm fifty five twenty two, give your
burdens to the Lord and he will take care of you. He will not
permit the godly to slip and film. Yes, indeed, and as you
mentioned about the different headlines, we also have our own Cornerstone Counseling as well,
so CCS, and we will play the adverts straight after the show for
this as well. Yes, and similar to you, and again we did
and glad you kind of went back to the idea of keeping ourselves balanced and
the idea that you know, looking after ourselves is so so important and keeping
it balanced, you know, it says I think it's in the first Corinthians
come over the text now about our body's been a temple and we also honor
God with our bodies. You know, God has created us in his own
image, and you know, due to sin, yes we have sickness,
diseases and ill health, but we are God's created and He is there to
up lift us. And you know, for us to kind of treat our
bodies in a way that is special. There's a reflection of Him is also
so important. So the idea of balance and having all there's different fact functions
and factors you know, working together definitely, But as Dny has said,
you've said definitely we do. If you need the help, do reach out.
There are people out there to help you. Alison, any closing thoughts
before we finish, I just just want to close with you know, if
you're killing law, if you're pulling down, you know, God cares.
God cares, He cares about the broken hearted, and you know he cares
through people as well around you. He cares through the support that you can
get. He will provide what you need to make sure that you are healed,
because He is happy when you're happy, lovely, So thank you for
joining us for talking point. Next week we are going to be finishing our
series with our last topic, which I do believe, we're going to be
looking at the importance of self worth, So definitely do cheat. Do you
join us again next week from five to seven send you would your mind,
closing with prayer for us and then no problem. Definitely. Father. We
come before you this afternoon or this evening as broken vessels, as mortal vessels,
and we know that we are plagued by sin and its consequences, as
Angelus said, but also we know that we fight against not flesh and blood,
but principalities and weakness in high places. So Lord, we call it
upon you. We asked for your strength and the courage that we need to
be able to pull down the strongholds in our life. We come against the
thought of depression and Swiss side and every dark place that's in our lives.
Lord, we ask that you shine the light upon it, help us to
seek the prayers and the professional help that we need, and help us to
make those first steps towards gaining the victory that you have promised. Your Bible
is full, your word is full of promises that we can hold on to
to get us sort of difficulties in our life. Lord, you promise not
to leave us nor forsake us, and so we hold on to that definly.
Father, Thank you for Allison and the work that she's doing. Continue
to bless her abundantly. We ask that you also bless our listeners and bless
us as a talking point team. Remember Pedro now, as he is on
well, I asked that you give him a feeling and quick recovery. Well.
Thank you again for this conversation that we've had. In Jesus name I
prairie a manner. Amen, Amen, thank you so much for joining us
on talking Points. It's been a really good conversation. Thank you again,
Alison for your insight and your knowledge that you shared with us. I hope
you enjoy the rest of this evening and you'll be back with a r L
for our Sunday programs. So it's good night for me, good night for
me. We will get this right. Good lack for Radler's what I should
have said, good night from good night from everyone, thank you for joining
us. I'm going to end with one of my favorite songs at the moment.
It's not a new song but you may have heard before. But as
often we pray, when we close our prayers, we say things in Jesus
name. This is Israel, a new breed, and it is called in
Jesus name. And the lyrics. I love the words on this. It's
so fitting for what we're talking about. God is fighting for us. God
is on our side. He has overcome. Yes, he is overcome.
We will not be shaken, We will not be moved. Jesus, you
are here, so I want to thank you for joining us. Have a
good week and have a blessed week, and will see you again next week.
This is your new breed in Jesus name. Amen, so hy single
love for saying God is sin, For God is on the outside. He
is sober. Come, Yes, he is sober. Com We will not
be shaken. He will not be moon. Jesus, super oh, carry
over coddling of shame. Bus so the cost be its sober come. He
will not be sake, He will not be booth. Jesus, I say,
I will, I will not The ras reption howrist the living men priest
Jesus said, oh, carrying of birds, tuddling God shame ps A the
congess, p s A the co We will not be saying he w was
me me and A will not time presation, power of rivers love me dying
am free in Jesus, I will, I will not time, will don't
see your time you have dying drew and Jesus dres the name Exeus. The
power around the names comes toys to sing the times, falling out, the
taking about the shap feeling about us of the parents and shouted off, showing
it out johns study war times the same and when shouting so said John sid
show your feeling name change amazing and we shouting shoting way not sh love this
and that for you. Fred s away not time will try to startle ship
slip share so you see, says show so we will shouting it out,
shouting. Are you struggling to cope with life? Conflict, bereavement, fear,
relationship, anger, depression, negative thoughts, trauma, and uncertainty can
all cause emotional imbalance. Don't struggle alone. CCS, your trusted confidential counseling
service is here for you. Call our listening line on zero double three zero
one double three two nine four five. Our office line for appointments on zero
two zero double seven two three eight zero five zero, or visit our website
www. Dot CCS Counseling dot org, dot UK. Our counselors speak various
languages. CCS a shoulder to lean on. We are here to listen.
Adventist Radio, London. Inspiration for the song