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Depression

Scripture

Psalm 34:17

The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them; he delivers them from all their troubles.

Prayer

Adult:

Dear God,

My heart feels very, very low. So low I can’t even look up. God, can you help me see the sun and the stars? Can you help me feel the feeling again when my heart would leap? The feeling when I could feel excitement in my heart. Nothing seems exciting anymore. Many days I just want to give up. It is so hard to be depressed all of the time. No one likes to be around someone who is depressed. God, please either lift me up or let me leave this earth peacefully. I don’t want to live like this anymore. I need your grace. Thank You God. Amen.

Child:

Dear God,

Why am I sad? Can you make me be happy again? Can you take away all of the junk I am sad about? Thanks God.

Activities:

To talk to someone in deep depression, they describe it as a deep hole or a non-ending abyss. They say it is a sad so low you don’t know how to escape it. I don’t have chronic depression, but have had a couple of instances where I felt this low – Losing my daughter, having my husband lose his faith, being let go from a job I wasn’t expecting, not being close to my mother, failure of my marriage, and losing my grandparents were all difficult life experiences. Every time I felt this low of lows it was scary since depression runs through my family. Some of my family members have gotten so depressed they have lost work and have never returned. The depression has caused them to have a break-down. They see no excitement out of life. Luckily, I’ve learned to dig my way out of the hole. Don’t believe a week of activities can take you away from depression, but the activities are initial activities you can work on and continue to work on when you feel the lowest of lows. In the severest cases of depression where you wish to die, it is critical you seek medical attention.

Adult

  1. If you were on your death bed, what would you hope you said or did? Have you done these things?
  2. Why do you think you are depressed? What do you think is missing? What can you do to change your circumstances?
  3. Attend a support group with others who suffer with depression. Learn from them and let them learn from you.
  4. Allow yourself to release your feelings. Play music, watch a movie, or read something that will make you cry. Sometimes the release helps.
  5. Force yourself to leave the house and do what you don’t want to do. Depression will keep you isolated and you need to not stay isolated.

Child

  1. Practice breathing techniques with your child and tell them to use these techniques when they are depressed
  2. Ask them to make up a story and use the scenario they are depressed about. It is important to find the root cause of the depression. It is also important you don’t minimize their reasons for feeling depressed.
  3. Talk about reality thinking. This means taking scenarios they are depressed about and turning it around to positive instead of negative thinking
  4. Give your child examples of when you’ve been depressed and what happened in the end. Let them know what you did to survive the depression.
  5. Model good behavior this week – eat right, exercise, and get enough sleep
  6. Conduct activities to utilize your child’s mind and not concentrate on the depression such as puzzles, crossword games, legos, building a car model, etc.
  7. Get them out of the house and be active. Being isolated makes the depression worse.
  8. Encourage them to talk about their depression and be empathetic when they do talk about their emotions. Again, the worst thing you can do is minimize how they’re feeling.
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