How I Defeated Depression

Hey, welcome to Self Talk with me, Dr. Ray Self. I appreciate you, uh, still following me and listening to me. I just pray that this show will be a blessing to you and will help you, or maybe somebody you know. Today I'm going to talk again about depression and how I beat it. Extremely serious topic. Can be life-saving topic; and uh, if maybe you don't suffer depression, but I promise you, you know someone who is, and so I, I think this is an important show, and just thank you for listening. Thank you for subscribing, downloading, and giving us a review. We're sponsored by my college, International College of Ministry. We're enrolling right now. God's called you, you need to answer. You know what you need to do. Icmcollege.org. icmcollege.org. Check us out, there's a lot of free stuff on that website too. God bless you, we're getting ready to start right now

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All right, here we are. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, I thank you for everyone listening to this show. I pray, Father, that um, you'll give me the correct words to say. Let your Holy Spirit be with us. Guide us, open up our hearts, open up our ears to hear what you would have us to hear. And Lord, I just declare and decree a blessing on everyone that listens to this podcast today. Thank you, Heavenly Father. In the name of Jesus, I pray. Amen, amen, amen.

Depression is, is tough. Depression is deadly, and all of us have suffered it at some time or another, but there's different types of depression. Now, there's a depression that you feel just when you know you, you lost someone. Lost someone close to you, uh, after a tragedy, after a disease, and that's a, that's an expected depress– that's an expected depression. It can be part of the grieving cycle, and that's an expected depression. But there's another type of depression that is…doesn't go away. It's every day. It's continual, and I suffered this. I suffered this from the time I was around 16 years old to my mid-40s and every day of my life. Every day of my life. And it was horrible. Now, there were days where I was okay…uh, there was days when I was uh, functioning high level and doing okay. I would never say I was doing fine but I was okay. But there were other times I was in the pit. I'm talking about the black hole. The black hole. Uh, I love this expression, dark night of the soul. It's a horrible place. It's a place of hopelessness, despair, where you don't, you don't, you don't want to live because you don't feel alive. And you feel so much…you feel so dead inside that you think that death may even be better. And - of course it's not, that's a big lie. And - you know, unless you're in heaven with Jesus, obviously. But what I want to say is I just want to share how I, with the help of the Lord, defeated depression. It's, it's something that I have a passion about, and you know, and I know there's a lot of answers out there. There's the medications, you can go to your psychiatrist, psychologist, and all that kind of stuff. And I'm a counselor, and counseling is great. Uh, meds can help, but I just want to share my experience, and I'm hoping this show will be a blessing to you.

So as a young man, I, I didn't really understand depression, and that I was suffering– and, and my family did not understand that I was struggling, that I was suffering. I didn't know how to put words to it. Uh, matter of fact, I suffered so much it became just a part of who I was. It wasn't until later, through education and knowledge and prayer, I began to realize that I was, I was sick. As a matter of fact, that's a key thing to understand: that depression is a sickness. And that's very important, I'll get into that more. But I would uh…I think one word for it is called dysemia, but my type of depression…I was never manic, where you had the highs and extreme highs and extreme lows. My depression was-- I would get up to where I was okay, and then I would go down to where I was horrible. And then I would cycle back up to okay, then I would cycle down to horrible. I mean, and it's, it's almost difficult to describe, but, but, but I was delivered and I was set free. Do I ever still have it try to come back on me? Yes, I do. It is a continual battle, but I know I'm free overall. I know that I am free overall, and I have a, a tremendous amount of compassion and heart for people who suffer this. And what's sad is that people around people who are depressed pretty much are clueless as to how to help them. Churches tend to be clueless on how to help someone who is depressed, um, and I, I love the church. Jesus loves the church, H gave us life for the church so um, I don't– not trying to be critical of the church, I'm just saying the church generally is either does– is unaware of depression or when someone is depressed, the church will throw something at them, “Well, remember the joy of the Lord is your strength,” uh, “You know, you just need to have more faith, you, you need to pray more, you need to praise Him, you got to praise Him more,” and all these things. And it's not that those are bad things, but that's not really going to cure your depression, although the Lord can do that.

So, so every day of my life I, I had this sadness that was underneath the skin. People would look at me and think, “Oh, there's Ray. He's such a good guy, he, he, he's, he's fine.” You know, “He laughs and He plays, and…” you know, “Ray Self, he's such a good guy, he's a good guy.” Matter of fact, I got where I hated that expression, “Ray is a good guy,”...growing up with that. When you say, “Ray's a good guy,” what that meant to me was, “You don't have to deal with Ray. Ray's not, not, not worthy of your consideration, he's just a good guy,” And, but, even though in college and in the business world and um, marriage and children, every day of my life, even though there were days that it, it seemed like I'm just a perfectly normal happy person, underneath the surface I was always sad. I was always sad…underneath the surface. And then there were days where that sadness that was underneath the surface penetrated and it went deeper, and deeper, and deeper, and deeper. Depression has many levels; and it can be mild, moderate, extreme and, and many levels in between. There were times when I, I was just sad and, and, and I'd feel lonely, I'd feel disconnected, uh, I would feel some anxiousness, a little bit of fear, um, but I just was not…I never had that perfect peace, that, that joy. Uh…I mean, I would have fun and I would laugh and, and have fun moments; but, just where you know that you're fine, you know that everything's okay and uh, you really got this peace about your life, no. I didn't have that. Now, depression is typically worse in the mornings. In the morning time your levels of Serotonin and endorphins are low. Uh, mornings can be tough. And I, I do remember, you know, saying, “Well, I'm just not a morning person.” But there were so many mornings even as, as an adult when I couldn't function until about 11:00 and the– boy, you talking about it's tough working a job and then later going out of the business world into the ministry and trying to function and, in the morning time so much stuff happens in the morning and I was just not not really functional; I was not on my game. Typically, and I was depressed and depression can cause confusion, it takes away your motivation, which is a huge thing, but by the afternoon I could function at a pretty, pretty good level by the afternoon and early evening. In the morning, it would cycle all over again. 

One of the key things I want you to understand about depression is it destroys motivation. It make– there's this constant feeling of being overwhelmed; therefore, I'm not motivated. My, my mother used to say, “Ray, depression is a disease of the will,” and she was right. It is a disease of the will. And so people say, “Well, why don't you get help? Why don't you get help?” You don't have the motivation. “What– why don't you,” you know, “why don't you, you reach out and, and do this and do that?” It's–  that's easy to say, but when you don't have the will and the motivation, it's very difficult. Yeah, there are things you need to do, there are things you should do, blah, blah, blah, but you don't have the will or the motivation, it's just not there. It becomes extremely hard, and you just want to go to sleep and cover up with the covers. And so there were times when I was just mildly depressed and I was functioning in pretty normal level, there were times when I was extremely depressed and it went on day after day after day after day, um…and my family was, you know, if, if you would talk to my family today and go, “Do you remember Ray always being depressed?” they would say, “No, no I didn't know he was depressed.” They didn't. My friends, would you ask my friends, “You remember Ray Self, how he was always depressed?” None of them would. None of them would tell you that I was always depressed. But I was. I, I didn't know how to deal with it, I didn't even understand it at all. Now, of course, as you get older and you know, I hear I am, I'm in college; but when I got into seminary and started taking counseling courses, uh, Christian counseling, I began to learn a lot. I'm very blessed I have a doctorate in Christian psychology now, which taught me a lot, amen, and um, a doctorate in theology. So you take the Bible with, with, with, with wisdom and that– that's a terrific, terrific um, resource. 

So…I, I want to share this incredible story, incredible story in my life. Life-changing moment for me. So I had reached a point where I was in the black hole. Now, if you've suffered depression, you understand what I mean by the black hole. What is the black hole? It's a place where you've gotten so depressed that it's just dark. It's dark all around you. You're completely hopeless. You're just…you're, you're not functioning at all, okay? So I'm in the black hole, and I am in this place, this, this horrible dark place. I'll never forget, I was in my, my, my den of my home. Some people call it the living room. My wife and I argue, is it a living room? Is it a den? Is it a family room? Anyway, I call it the den. I'm sitting in a recliner, I have such heaviness and such darkness all over me that I, I'm just…it's everything is just black. Black, despair, and it's just horrible. And so, doing what a lot of guys do, the TV was on, I have a remote control in my hand, and I'm flipping channels. You know, us guys, that's what we do, we flip channels a lot. Drives my wife crazy, but that's what we do as men. So I'm flipping channels on the TV, and all of a sudden there's a commercial that comes on. I'll never forget this commercial. And so, this commercial comes on and says, “Are you feeling despair? Are you feeling hopeless? Are you feeling like there, there's no way out? Are you so depressed you can hardly move? Call this number right now.” And I looked at that. I went, “Good grief, is this God talking to me?” It was a commercial. And so somehow, someway, I called this number and it was actually to a, a mental health hospital. I called the number and uh, I got a really friendly voice and they said, “You need to come in. You need to come in and talk to one of our counselors.” And something said, “Okay, okay,” and they booked me an appointment, and they got me in pretty quick. So I go to the hospital…How I got there, that– that's pretty amazing right there because to get somebody who's depressed to get up and go somewhere when you're in that deep, dark place is very difficult. But one thing about that deep, dark place: you're in so much pain that finally it may motivate you to get some help because you say, “I, I can't go on this way.” But a lot of people in that deep, dark night of the soul are in so much pain and so depressed, they do not have the will, motivation, energy, or drive to seek help. That's why, as a family member and as a friend, we need to be watching for this and understand a person who is deeply depressed may not have the ability to reach out for help. We need to understand that, so be aware of that. 

Somehow I made it to the hospital, go into this counseling office, and um, this lady walked in and she began to uh…to, to look at me. And she had this compassion in her eyes and this love in her heart. Ad it kind of…I was like, you know, it, it touched me - just the compassion that, that I saw in her, and she began to talk to me. And I didn't know it at the time, but she was a Holy Spirit-filled Christian. It should have been obvious. And she talked to me and she said, “I understand you. I, I, I understand what you're going through. I, I get you.” And just, just knowing; just knowing that someone understood me and got what I was going through was huge. It changed my life. And then she began to counsel me and give me some practical tips and, and, with love and compassion and care, and it was the beginning of my recovery. That's a whole long story after that. But, if you're a counselor, I want to tell you something. The fact that this Christian counselor understood, and got me, and, and was able to speak with compassion and understanding, was a huge impact to begin my– to begin my recovery. Now, let me say this: I had some valid reasons to be depressed. There were a lot of things going on in my life that were bad. Very stressful situations. But even with all the stress and bad things going into my life…I was still depressed. I could have a great day and be depressed. So, the bad things and the stressful things happening in my life contributed to the depression, but they weren't the cause of it because it was there anyway. It's just the stress, um, the, the issues I was going through made it much, much, much worse.

So how– this, this darkness that you're going through, how did I recover from it? Well, the counseling definitely helped, and it was uh…listen, it– when you go counseling, get a Holy Spirit-filled Christian counselor if possible because the thing that Christian counselors have is they have the love of Christ in them, which is critical. They also have the anointing of the Holy Spirit in them, which is where the ultimate healing - and the ultimate healing is going to come through Christ. And we need that. A secular counselor cannot offer you Christ, and we need Christ. Now, that's just the way it is. Okay. 

So I began to get some skills, and it wasn't always through counseling; some of it was through other people, some of it was stuff the Lord showed me. But here's what I learned to overcome: I knew…that depress— I knew what depression was, that's very, very, very important. One key moment in my life was when I realized depression was a disease. Let me explain this. So, when you're depressed, you get depressed because you're depressed, and depressed people end up being hard on themselves and discouraged with themselves and frustrated with themself, which also contributes to the depression. So, key point here is…I was talking to my sister one day, I’ll never forget this, and I was very frustrated because I was depressed, I wasn't doing the things that I knew I needed to do, and I was, I was struggling with uh, just getting going and I was really— I was hard— I was mad at myself, and my sister said, “Ray, if you had the flu, would you be mad at yourself? Would you be angry with yourself?” I said, “Well, no, because I have the flu.” “Would you be nice to yourself if you had the flu, and take care of yourself?” I said, “Yeah, because I have the flu.” She said, “Well, depression is a disease. Why don't you treat it that way?” And for some reason, that clicked with me. Depression’s a disease like the flu, or, you know, not too long ago, COVID. It's an illness. And all of a sudden, I realized instead of beating myself up, I needed to have mercy on myself, compassion on myself, and give myself a break. Yeah, I was struggling to get going. Yes, I was struggling doing the things I needed to do, but that was normal; that was part of the disease. And it's okay. It’s okay. I'm sick. And for some reason, that took pressure off of me because I knew that if I had the flu, I would probably lie in bed and take my Tylenol and drink plenty of fluids, and all that kind of stuff. And I would just take care of myself, and I wouldn't expect a whole lot of me. I may call in sick at work because, you know, I was sick. And so, realizing that I was sick, all of a sudden I had self-compassion. I began to give myself mercy. And that mercy actually helped me overcome depression. Okay, that's one big thing. 

The second thing that really helped me was, I realized that-- this is the picture that I got, was that depression was a magnifier of everything negative. So what do I mean by that? Well, depression is like putting on a pair of negative sunglasses and everything you see, every issue you see, every problem you see, is magnified and becomes— and it looks worse than it actually is. It colors your problems with negativity. And so I begin to realize, wait a second, it appears worse than it is. It looks worse than it is. It’s not as bad as it seems. That's the depression lying to my perspective. The depression lies to your mind. So when I realized that the depression was lying to me, and even though everything seemed dark and seemed hopeless and seemed overwhelming, in actuality, it wasn't the truth. And so I began to understand that, wait a second, this is what I feel and this is what I'm seeing, but it's not the truth. Now, yeah, my feelings matter, your feelings matter, but it wasn't the truth. The truth was, it was never as bad as I was perceiving it to be. And so, realizing that that was the depression talking to my mind, gave me a break. I was like, “Wait a second, it looks terrible, it looks hopeless, it looks like I can't make it, that's actually not accurate at all.” And for some reason, that also freed me up and took a lot of pressure off of me. 

Then, prayer. And praying and, and having people pray over me was critical. You know, asking the Lord to send the Holy Spirit to renew my mind and, and having people lay hands on me, lay hands on my mind. You know, depression has a spirit of heaviness. Sometimes, it's like, “I rebuke you, the Spirit of Heaviness. Come off of me now.” A spirit of heaviness, it's like a, a cloud that comes over your, your mind; so there's a spiritual aspect to it. What the demonic world does is they take a problem that's there and they make it worse. So here I've got, um, this negative sunglasses I'm wearing, making things look worse, and then I've got demons coming in on top of it and making things look worse. So, I learned to renounce, rebuke, and resist the demonic forces attacking my mind, and if I didn't have the strength to do it or the motivation to do it, I'd ask another Holy Spirit-filled Christian to do it with me or for me. And that helped a lot, okay? 

And then, just understanding what depression was, giving myself a break, having mercy on myself, becoming my own best friend, stop pressuring myself to, to do things when I was depressed, and I said, “You know what, I'm too depressed, it's okay to be that way. Uh, there is a demonic influence, I'm going to rebuke that,” and as I got the pressure off of myself, I was also able to reach out to people. Now, and I'll say this: when you're depressed, it's good to find somebody with the gift of exhortation. The biblical gift of exhortation is the gift of encouragement. I often say to my students, say never call somebody with a prophetic gift when you're depressed ‘cause they're just going to tell you the truth, nothing but the truth, so help me, God. Call the encourager. The encourager is going to encourage you, lift you up, pray for you, because when you're depressed, you need mountains and buckets full of encouragement. A lot of encouragement, a lot of positivity. Find that— you need to find that Joel Osteen kind of friend, okay? You got to find that Joel Osteen kind of friend. Okay. Don't, don't find the uh, nothing but the truth so help me God kind of friend when you're depressed. There's nothing— I mean, God uses all kinds of people. But these things together: taking pressure off myself, realizing it was a disease that is curable, okay? There was a demonic aspect to it which was curable, there was this, this negativity, these negative sunglasses I were wearing which were lying to me. And all these factors allowed me to start resisting the depression and come– eventually come completely out of it. 

Now, I want to be honest and transparent here. There were times in the early part of my depression where I, I took some medicines for it. I, I took some meds for it…and, to me, they helped some, but what I did not like about the meds - now listen, I'm not a medical doctor, I cannot prescribe or recommend med– medicines to you, so I'm not doing that. What I'm saying is me, with the meds, they would put me into neutral, where I wasn't feeling happy, I wasn't feeling sad, I wasn't feeling at all. I just got into neutral, and I got where I hated being in neutral all the time. I wanted to feel something. You– I wanted to feel more alive. And I wasn't a zombie, I was just, you know, I was just have– I was just flatlining, I just– feeling neutral all the time, and I didn't like that, so I just, I got off the meds. So prayer helps. Um…and, and again, doing practical things, like, depression makes you feel dead inside, so go where there is life. What is– where, what, where is life? Well, life can be a mall at Christmas - which now the malls are not doing real well - it can be a Spirit-filled church with praise and worship going– uh, people, see– be around people; like, a park with kids is playing life. Try not to isolate, get where there's life. Another practical thing is watch a funny movie. Just watch a silly movie. Laugh. Laughter is good medicine. You know, be careful.  Don't watch the news. Don't watch Fox or CNN or whatever you watch; don't watch the news, okay? You know, be careful what you listen to. Um, humorous movies, ridiculous movies, funny friends. Life. Life is where people are, and where there's a lot– Outdoors. Sunlight is a great natural cure for it. Sunlight is awesome, really helps. Um, you know, light, sunlight, outdoors, fresh air, the beach! Oh, you know, I live in Florida, the beach is an incredible cure, uh, for depression. All these things help tremendously. You know, prayer helps tremendously. Praying in the Spirit helps tremendously; all these things help.

I'll never forget; one funny story -  I'm getting ready to close here - funny story. My family…my family was so dysfunctional, we put the fun in dysfunction. So my older sister was suffering really bad depression. My younger sister - I have two sisters - reached out to my older sister and said, uh, “You know what, I want to take you to the movies. I'm going to– I– we got to– you got to get out of the house; I'm going to take you to the movies.” And so my older sister said, “Sure, yeah, okay, okay. I'll go. I don't feel like it but I'll go.” So my younger sister takes her to the movies. You're not going to believe what movie she took her to. She took her to see the Titanic. I said, “Seriously? The most depressing movie…” haha…” ever? Ever?” You know, Jack goes, “Rose, don't let me go, don't let me go.” “Jack, I'll never let you go, I'll never let you go,” she lets him go, and he drowns. The movie– it was terrible, terrible. Depressing movie. We have laughed about that forever. It laugh– it was so bad it was hilarious, but laughter is good medicine. 

Anyway, I hope this show has been a, a blessing to you and has helped you. If you have questions, or, you know, just reach out to me. Email me, drrayself@gmail.com. d r r a y s e l f @gmail.com. You know, I'd love to– love to help you, and uh, anyway, this show is kind of a testimony of my experience, so I hope it's been good for you. I appreciate you listening to, to Self Talk with me,  Dr. Ray Self. God bless you.

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Hey, thanks again for listening to Self Talk with me, Dr. Ray Self. I pray this show has been a blessing to you. It was a…I think a very important show. Again, uh, if I can assist you in any way, reach out to me at drrayself@gmail.com. Be sure and check out our school website, there's a lot of resources on our school website, icmcollege.org. There are some free lessons you can take which can be a blessing to you. Um, maybe you, you, you thinking about enrolling but you don't know what to do, click the free evaluation form - it doesn't cost you anything - and we'll send you an evaluation. It will tell you what courses you would need to get a degree, how many credit hours…Uh, we can transfer in for you - we give a lot of advanced placement - and what your cost will be. And, and even scholarship options. Do all that. Hey, check out my new book, it's called The Call: God answe–  God Called You, You Answered, This is What You Need to Know. If you make a donation of $15 or more and email me, I will mail you a copy of it, personally, or you can get it on Amazon, but I can mail you a personal copy and I'll put– I'll sign it and put a little note in there for you, sometimes a prophetic word. Anyway, my, my heart is that…I just pray that this show has been a blessing. Tell your friends about it, subscribe, download. Do the things that help build this show so we can reach more people, if you don't mind. I appreciate you, and God bless you. Amen and amen.