“When I went through surgery and recovery with my brain tumor people brought meals to the house, cards came in the mail, people called. But two years later when I crashed with depression, I felt forgotten. Nobody called and someone in our Bible study group told me that I just needed to get over it,” said Jamie Meyer, author of Stepping out of Depression; Fresh Hope for Women Who Hurt. (Available on Amazon.com)
As a family, where faith is paramount, we found that there wasn’t really any help within the church. We traveled from church to church because our son believed that surely we would find the right place where this ‘problem’ could be dealt with once and for all. Our search in the Christian community was met with one pastor who told us the problem was solved, “we cast out all the demons.” Steve was excited, “finally someone found the problem and I’m going to be ok.”
Fresh Hope is thrilled to announce that we have now have a Fresh Hope app for both Apple and Android mobile devices. The app allows you to have all of our online resources (blogs, videos, podcasts, newsletter, recovery principles, etc.) all at your finger tips in one place.
After an initial diagnosis of depression, the best thing you can do is become informed, for you and your child. Jumo Health, a digital health resource for families, offers a depression discussion guide which provides questions to help foster conversation with a doctor after a diagnosis.
These healthy friendships can have positive impact on your depression.
Why would there be a small ray of hope following my diagnosis? After all, usually people see the diagnosis of bipolar disorder as the difficult thing to accept. Well, it was because of the people around me who helped me to see that the diagnosis and treatment of my bipolar disorder were a way back to having a future. It was the idea that the bipolar could be treated and I could have a future poked a small pinhole of hope into the darkness of hopelessness. It was not an easy journey, but it was more than worth it.
Being focused is essential for getting a lot of different types of tasks done in this life. However, sometimes being intensely focused or “stuck” in our thinking about something is not good and we end up needing to be distracted from it. We need to be interrupted! There are times we can become intensely focused, ruminating over and over on something negative. It’s at that point that we need to interrupt and distract our thinking.
“Bipolar mania, and the less intense hypomania, is associated with increased risk-taking behaviors like drug use, promiscuous sex, over-spending money, and other poor decisions. To compound the problem, mania brings increased energy, increased distractibility, less need for sleep, and elevated moods, which make the risky behaviors happen with increased frequency.”
The Bible offers practical advice on developing and maintaining good friendships.
Good friends take time for each other. Friendships don’t occur in a vacuum. “Be devoted to one another…” Romans 12:16. Spending time together doing activities that you enjoy or working on projects together create opportunities to build relationships.
For every $16.64 given annually, we are able to offer hope for one year to one person.
Any amount you are able to give will help bring hope to those who desperately need it.
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