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Author Parker Palmer, a deeply religious (Quaker) and contemplative man, suffered through years of deep clinical depression. In his book, Let Your Life Speak, he writes, When people ask me how it felt to emerge from depression, I can give only one answer: I felt at home in my own skin, and at home on the face of the earth for the first time. I now know myself to be a person of weakness and strength, liability and giftedness, darkness and light. I now know that to be whole means to reject none of it, but to embrace all of it.I was struck by the word Palmer used; emerge. To me, emerge indicates a process kind of like coming out of the fog. I am someone who believes in the power of prayer, but in all the situations where I have been with those who struggle with depression, all who had recovery, did so slowly as in emerging.There was no instant recovery. For most people, it is not someone prays and like a light being switched on, they are healed. Listen, I believe God can heal instantly, but recovery, even if it is an emerging instead of instant, is still healing. Possibly you know of someone who has recovered from depression, or someone who was healed immediately. Your sharing may be of help to others who are still working their way through it.Doyl

This is one reason that pain killer-type medicines are attractive: They fix it NOW. At least as long as the dose is working. That is, when a person takes such pills, they begin to very soon feel euphoria--life just feels like it's going to be alright, etc. Depression is a type of pain that people want pain killers for. I'm not saying it's legit; I am saying that when people want help, they reach for what helps.As best as I can tell from anti-depressant medicines, none of the non-narcotic ones work very fast. You might take it for weeks, even months...and the change is not nearly so immediate as that of pain killers. You apparently just simply and slowly...emerge.I do think that really good and positive events in our lives can reset us to some extent. But if your life is pretty much just plain jane, you can get stuck in depression. You can be a functional-but-depressed person about as easily as you can be a functional alcoholic or addict: That is, you really can go to work every day and do a good job...yet carry a load on your mind and heart.Having had to be on pain killers after a really bad turn post-surgery, I began to realize the euphoric effect. Yes, I had to have them to survive the pain (it was that bad), but eventually I noticed the euphoric effect. At first, I thought it was just me being happy that the pain was not as severe...but someone told me that, no, those pills will do it for you otherwise.I've also read that sometimes pain killers are prescribed AS anti-depressants. I imagine that's based on a psychiatrist's angle, but if it works, I don't see any sin in it at all. But the PROBLEM is that these pills do not truly cure you of depression...it will be right there waiting for you if they ever let you off the pills...unless somehow you escape it.