Are you trying to recover from Lyme disease or a different chronic illness? Clinical depression can prevent or stop your progress. Everyone gets depressed when challenged with an illness and the work and expense of getting better, but major clinical depression is a different matter. It can stop recovery of health in it’s tracks in three ways:
1st – The direct negative effect of extreme sadness on physical health, immunity, appetite, and so on.
2nd – Serious clinical depression causes comfort seeking behaviors that can become counter productive to getting well. Opiate pain killer addiction, alcohol abuse, sugar and junk food binges, and so on.
3rd – Perhaps most significantly, major depression takes away your will to fight. There are different pathways to recovery and all involve effort. I advocate holistic and non-drug approaches because that’s what worked for me. Whatever the case, a severely depressed person can’t fight for their health effectively due to underlying hopelessness and apathy.
If you are fighting for your health don’t assume depression isn’t a factor. Sometimes people who are very strong willed can push through depression and ignore it to some extent. In my view someone who tries to battle a serious health issue and major depression at the same time will most likely lose. No one’s that tough. Do the fast and easy Beck questionnaire or go to authentichappiness.org and register to take Dr. Seligman’s happiness questionnaire.
If you do have serious depression please seek help. While its true that there are things that can be addressed holistically that greatly impact depression like mercury poisoning, bio toxins, genetic snips, neuro- borrelia infections, and neurotransmitter precursor deficiencies, some people have tried everything and may need medication. I dislike drugs myself, but I would never criticize someone for using medication for such a dangerous issue as serious depression. It can spiral downward and suicide is a risk. Our mental state is one of the four pillars of health. Don’t allow depression to stop your momentum of healing.
For more information on Lyme Disease from Jack Miller CTN visit https://www.nhsofarizona.com/health-challenges/lyme-disease/