Out of the Depths: Your Companion Through Depression and Anxiety

By James E. Hightower and Matt Kelley

The Out of the Depths series addresses common pastoral crises in a faithful, encouraging, and factual manner that provides support to parishioners in crisis beyond the initial pastoral conversation. These inexpensive 64-page booklets can be given out to parishioners when they bring their recent diagnosis, crisis, or trauma to the pastor as a way to continue to provide care throughout the difficult season. Each booklet begins with a thoughtful consideration of the topic at hand, which is followed up by 30 brief devotions. These devotions are designed to be manageable in an overwhelming time, encouraging, and honest. This Depression and Anxiety edition is authored by Jim Hightower and features insightful devotions by Matt Kelley. The Out of the Depths booklets are essential care resources to be given out by pastors, Stephen Ministers, and congregational care teams.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Abingdon Press
• Release date: Nov 6, 2018
• ISBN: 9781501871351

James E. Hightower

Jim Hightower is a retired minister in the United Church of Christ. He has a Master of Divinity from Earlham School of Theology and a doctorate in psychology and counseling. He is a licensed professional counselor and a licensed marriage and family therapist in Louisiana and Mississippi. Dr. Hightower has previously published eight books including Caring for People from Birth to Death and A Time to Change? Re-Visioning Your Call. Hightower is the pastor of Long Beach Presbyterian Church in Long Beach, MS. He , his wife Susan and their younger children reside in Diamondhead, MS. The older children live in New Orleans with their two adorable grandsons!

Book preview

Introduction

WHAT THIS BOOK CAN & CANNOT DO

This little book is intended to be a companion through the darkness of anxiety and depression. You may suffer from either anxiety or depression or both of them. This book is organized into two parts. The first is educational. In it, we will look at basic information about these conditions. It is our sincere hope that this knowledge will provide a useful framework within which to understand your personal experience of depression or anxiety. The second part of the book is devotional and consists of thirty daily scripture readings, devotions, and prayers. It is our sincere prayer that these readings will bring hope and comfort, provide a daily grounding faith ritual, and lend a sense of connectedness, both to God and to a community of grieving hearts, as you move through the days and weeks to come. You do not have to read the first part of this book before beginning the devotions. Feel free to start them at any time.

In these pages we will be talking about a very serious condition that affects not only our minds but also our bodies and our souls. Before we dive in, we want to let you know what you can and can’t expect from this book.

1.This book cannot replace a medical or mental health practitioner. (Please follow the recommendations of your treatment team.)

2.This book cannot give you a diagnosis. (Only medical professionals give diagnoses.)

3.This book cannot fix you. (You’re not broken.)

4.This book can empower you by educating you about your illness.

5.This book can provide hope when hope seems absent or distant.

6.This book can journey with you through the shadows and valleys of anxiety and depression.

If this little book has found its way into your hands, please know that we are deeply sorry. We share the experience of suffering that is life-altering. However, even though our deepest struggles cannot be repaired, they can be redeemed. You are on a journey to wholeness and healing. It is our greatest hope and the crux of the Christian story that when all feels lost, God’s redemptive power is already at work. Others have traveled this road before you, and one day you will become a companion who guides and blesses others as they travel through this all-too-familiar valley themselves.

Grace and peace,

James Hightower & Matthew L. Kelley

Chapter One

RECOGNIZING ANXIETY & DEPRESSION

In this book, we consider anxiety and depression together even though they are distinctly different disorders. We do so because depression and anxiety often occur together, meaning that they are often co- morbid. This term simply means you have more than one illness at the same time. A high percentage of people who have symptoms of anxiety also present with symptoms of depression; the opposite is true as well. While for the purpose of this essay the two will be presented individually, it is important to remember anxiety and depression often hang out together.

Notice that anxiety and depression are referred to as illnesses. How so? With both physical and psychological components that interfere with a person’s ability to function, left untreated they can pose major physical risk to a person.

Physical consequences of anxiety can include loss of sleep, a feeling of never being rested or extreme fatigue, headaches, gastrointestinal distress, and more. If the anxiety disorder has progressed to or started as panic disorder, rapid heartbeat, profuse sweating, feelings of dizziness, feeling like you are having a heart attack can occur. If the condition of anxiety is caused by a traumatic event, symptoms may also include emotional or physical withdrawal, and excessive, universalized anger at everybody or everything. Often, if anxiety is left untreated, people may turn to addictive substances to self-medicate. If the substance abuse being used to self-treat is not treated, then all the physical and cognitive illnesses caused by the abuse of alcohol and drugs can occur.

Depression has physical symptoms as well. Depression lowers most people’s sensitivity to bodily aches and pains, decreases sex drive, and can lead to eating too little or too much. Depression can cause you to hardly sleep at all (insomnia) or cause you to want to sleep day and night. Depression also compromises your immune system; your ability to ward off infection may be lowered. As with anxiety, substance abuse can also be a symptom or byproduct of depression. At times, depression can make you feel so bad you will opt for feeling nothing. In those moments, your depressed and disordered thinking may convince you that numbing yourself with alcohol or drugs is good; however any drug taken that is a downer or depressant (alcohol, Xanax®, heroin, OxyContin®, Vicodin® and sedative drugs) when you are depressed will only worsen the depression.

If you are depressed, you are at a higher risk of suicide. Suicide was the 10th leading cause of death in the United States according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). In 2014, 42,826 people died by suicide with half of these cases involving the use of firearms.¹

If you are reading this and want to die, have the means to kill yourself, and a plan to do so, please reach out for help. Go to the nearest emergency room or call the suicide line 1-800-784-2433 or the deaf hotline [phone]. Contact your doctor, minister, a family member, your partner, or other trusted adult. If you are a teenager, reach out to your parents, foster parents, grandparents, aunt or uncle,