It’s a term that is frequently referred to and thrown around — depression. But just what does this mean actually mean? Not medically the above mentioned Industrial Disease, as those are Dire Straits.
Other than that … what does a depressed person’s brain work like? What thoughts go through that person’s (Motor)head?
More and more, researchers and physicians, and also my own doctor — and especially nurses, since as caregivers at their core, they tend to be this way too — are recognizing that at the key is yes in humor, but also in the basic and very Biblical, if that’s for you, principle of having empathy. And in being an empath you are like Christ in a smaller form than the crucified one — rather than the evil one, Lutheranism over Lucifer — and how you deal with life and your own depression is strongly impacted by the fact that many around you are depressed.
Because they too are in pain, and you recognize this more than others, your pain becomes worse in a very real way. That’s no joke. And some of the best ways to cope are in religious teachings and extrapolations.
— Music is the universal language, and it is universally recognized as being good for depression, like humor. Especially, though many people might not think so, metal music, from Metallica to Iron Maiden. Especially listening to Tool is recognized for promoting mental health. —
This being the month where the importance of mental health in all its forms is recognized, it is underscored by the ways we relate to — and understand — those around us who suffer from depression.
As a kid, I would lie awake at night giving myself solace in the idea that even though this earth’s life was extremely difficult — insomnia to boot accompanies depression — there was a perfect Heaven that awaits us, so buck up, although the thinking in the here and now is on one central question: Though there are many ways to define quality of life, and there are various day-to-day little things to consider as well as the big picture, does anyone at all suffer from pain that is genuinely intolerable?
I will refer to both science and scripture.
The worst death of all may have been suffered by Christ. But even He found the ability to not just forgive his oppressors, but especially the physical strength to speak a few words, so his pain could be painted as terrible but tolerable. Peter chose to make it one worse, being crucified upside-down, but at this point after seeing what happened to His master, he could be seen, with a dose of comfort, as knowing what he was getting into. But we are told, “the mind is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
And then there are those martyrs and even the pious who practice self-flagellation, who still choose to go ahead, before and even while enduring pain.
Those at the hands of the Inquisition had an out they could have taken, by simply recanting their alleged heresy, if the pain became intolerable. It has been said, for worst case, that any torture can be endured, if you can mentally prepare for it, and even then nature gives us another out in the last-ditch measures of going into shock or insanity. Or Blackout.
But what if one cannot mentally prepare, like the simple-minded or children or simply those caught off-guard. I think the key here is that God throws much of his grace in the direction of people in such situations, to give them the extra help they need in times of particular trial, and we all can take solace in that, too.
Prescription drugs that make it easier to tolerate pain, or go into the last stages of life, have not been around for most of humankind’s history, but it seems certain that these have been present for use in some way for as long as we have been gatherers, since various herbs were the forerunners of modern-day pharmaceuticals. And of Cheech and Chong and The Who, and who else?
My younger brother Tom, a Missouri Synod Lutheran, they don’t laugh as much or smoke, but if holy, may have been on to something when as children in high school we haggled briefly, and he thus evoked medication advances, over my statement that, “because of the work of groups like The Peace Corps, human quality of life peaked in the 1970s and has been ebbing downhill since.” I don’t know if this is where he was going, but I had just gained some much needed relief from what I’d been taking for my newly diagnosed Tourette Syndrome, and he had seen the result. From the mouths of babes; OK Tom is only four years younger.
Lastly, we could also haggle over whether severe pain is something that hits a plateau at some point and it is pointless to argue whether it matters if someone ranks it as a 9 on the scale, or a 9.3, or 9.6, (but 99.99 would be the percent of diseases that aspirin cures. Sorry to reintroduce bad humor.) . This may all be relative, another reason to take some comfort. Although it is not relative if someone has a low pain tolerance or not, and that such tolerance decreases as one is ill too long. Is this, maybe why and by design, most children tend to have a few less diseases? Childhood cancer stands out as a non-example.
Music is the universal language, and it is universally recognized as being good for depression. Especially, though many people might not think so, metal music, from Metallica to Iron Maiden, (sorry Mozart and move over Beethovan, although heavy metal is largely derived from classical music. It does not nearly as much taken from, or give you the blues.) Especially listening to Tool is recognized for promoting mental health.
So many music reactors will cringe at some of the unflinching lyrics, but then be strangely uplifted by the catharsis by the (last) guitar solo, especially when its taken to its (bitter) end, like in Fade To Black and the crescendo shoots, one could say, Heavenward. I myself find few things in life as satisfying as crying to a poignant metal song.Concerning some of the above spiritual language, some observers have said that the Lutheran doctrine of salvation melds very well with the soaring and beautiful riffs of an otherwise wailing guitar.
This is such a broad topic, so for another time. But I will publish, probably on Wednesday, a list of notable music reactors who are also therapists.
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