Although there are many more causes of depression, I will consider but three more here. Then we must move on to some practical solutions for the things that bleed us dry.
8. Soul Starvation
As your soul continues to be drained of strength, Soul Starvation sets in. Your exhaustion turns to a relentless sense that you will never get back to who you once were. You will never find the emotional/spiritual resources you need to recover from this passionless, vacant life. You are starved for life, friendship, feeding, and a fresh start. But this continual stagnation of your spirit constantly adds to your emptiness and the exhaustion of your soul gets worse and worse.
- Isolation
This, then, leads to Isolation. Not that you cut yourself off from your family, your work, or the rest of society. You continue to participate, sometimes as though by rote, in the daily rhythm of life, but within your soul you are intolerably alone. You are a shell. You are either in cover-up mode, intentionally living behind a façade, or have dropped out of the stream of life altogether. Even though you know this is not good for you, you do it anyway. It’s just easier.
For when your soul is completely exhausted you have little strength to live, to do anything, let alone to intermingle with friends. Isolation, for some, sadly, leads to remorse. Thoughts of suicide enter their plans of coping with this incessant agony. Your agony is a denial of anyone who cares for you enough to make a difference, even the God who made you.
- Unfulfillment
The final cause of depression I will mention is Unfulfillment. We settle for less than we know who we are or what we can accomplish. Again, we become a shell— of who we once were, or of who we believe we can never become. (There are certainly many more causes of depression, but these are the ones I have found, in my experience, to be the most destructive of a person.)
When we are young the world lies before us, wide and beautiful, full of love and wonder. I, like you, had dreams of what I would DO with my life. As I grew into my 20s and 30s those dreams were honed and clarified. I was ready! Of course, the organization for which I worked did not have the same dreams that I did and we had a very sad parting-of-the-ways. It was at that point I learned I would have to fight to bring my dreams to reality. Incidentally, what I dreamed as a youth had little to do with the scope of what I am doing today. I simply did not have enough life-experience to dream that big. That has changed.
For what seemed like an eternity, my dreams were on the back shelf. I was unfulfilled. My mind was bursting with ideas and energy within; and I was told to wait. Finally, at age 40, I stopped waiting and drew my dreams off the back shelf and put them into action. It was risky, scary, challenging, and exciting! I regretted waiting ‘till I was 40 to begin my fulfillment stage.
Living a life of unfulfilled aspirations, truly, inextricably, leads to soul exhaustion and depression. “Doing the next thing,” only creates a drudgery that epitomizes exhaustion.
If your life is presently in an unfulfilled stage, and has been there for more than a year, it is time you started thinking about shifting to another reality; one, wherein, you have a greater sense of making a difference. NOT to do so is to allow one more cause of soul exhaustion to govern and defeat your spirit.
Soul Exhaustion is a serious component of depression. There are many contributors and causes that can be identified. What we’ve considered so far is only a first step in dealing with this depletion of spiritual, emotional, and physical loss. The rest of this book (er, these articles) will offer some ideas, and some encouragement, on overcoming your own depression and living the life that God intended you to live.
Honour God, honour people, make a difference,
Gary
Dr. Gary Davis, President
NEXT— Solutions— Getting some rest.
Clueless Christianity 