this isn't me jogging... but it's pretty cool anyhow
A SILENT KILLER
Depression can kill you. Seriously, it can literally kill you. Not only will you feel like death but you could potentially die. Depression at its worst can lead to suicide, which takes about 850,000 lives per year according to the World Health Organization[i]. For young people, ages 15 to 24, suicide is the 3rd leading cause of death. [ii]However, outside of the most evident cause of death for depression (suicide), depression itself can also lead to other physical conditions that can cause death including cardiovascular disease among others.
I was actually surprised when watching a recent episode of Dr. G the Medical Examiner[iii], a young man was in good health and fell into a depression after his separation from his wife and child. The knowledge that he wouldn’t be in his little girl’s life spiraled him down into such a pit of despair that he rarely moved from his bed, choosing to languish instead. Eventually because of his non-movement, all of his organs began to slow down. This sluggishness caused his bowels to eventually become completely impacted. This impaction of fecal matter caused a leaking of e-coli into his blood stream, causing an infection that quickly killed him.
Yes, he died because he let himself wallow in misery a little too long and actually became full of crap?? Well, in a nut shell, yes. Hard to believe, but true.
MY WALK ALONG DEATH’S DOOR
You may not know this but I know firsthand about depression and have battled with it off and on during my life. I don’t know when it first began, but I have a self-portrait that I painted in high school and it’s me with blue skin to represent the pain that I felt inside. I think the piece was supposed to be similar to Dali’s style and I actually have a scale floating behind me and a school and a ball and chain. But somehow, I’ve always gotten the depression to subside for a bit.
It’d actually been about 4 years since my last bout of depression. But God in his sovereignty, allowed me to revisit those days ever so briefly recently. One of the things that became clear to me as Jesus pulled me out of the hole of despair, was that I had to take a look at the things that I had been doing that let me trip and fall into the hole in the first place. I had to ask myself what was going on with my body physically. What pieces/factors from that could have been contributing to the emotions that caused my tumble and then enabled me to stay down there?
And I knew the exact answer to that question. For months, I had fallen into a slump of eating poorly and basically not exercising. Those things had been pushed down so far on my priority list that they didn’t make the list at all. As a result, I’d gained close to 20 lbs. Yes, 20 pounds. And although the weight bothered me a little, I was so wrapped in other things in my life, all good things like God and my family, that it didn’t really bother me that much. The issue that really had me down was my skin. My skin was worse than it had been during my teen years. And just a step shy of all over facial breakout like the time I used a facial moisturizer that I had an allergy to and developed acne worthy of a PROACTIVE commercial.
About a year ago this time, I was very active in the gym, but I stopped that when my daughter began to give me too hard of a time when going to the gym child care center.
CHANGING MY WALK
It was a bit of a smack in the face to realize that the very same things that I had been putting in my mouth had caused my grief. And I could point the finger of blame only at myself in the mirror. I did this to myself. And I said, enough. I decided that I had to cut certain things out of my diet for a while until my skin was back on track and I lost a little weight… most dairy, sugar, carbohydrates, candy, soda, juice, and a few other things. If I had to have coffee every day, then it’s not going to be this pleasurable experience or phenomenon that I had let it become – coffee with milk, sugar and bread dragging out the cup to the last drop. No more, my body is a Temple of the Holy Spirit and deserves to be treated with that level of respect.
[i] World Health Organization statistics on depression – http://www.who.int/mental_health/management/depression/definition/en/index.html
[ii] Suicide Awareness Voices of Education statistics – http://www.save.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=home.viewpage&page_id=705d5df4-055b-f1ec-3f66462866fcb4e6
[iii] Dr. G the Medical Examiner – http://health.discovery.com/tv/dr-g-medical-examiner/
Related Articles
- Spotlight on Recurrent Brief Depression (brighthub.com)
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