At a recent gathering of about 55 of ministers, wanting to glean the wisdom of others regarding the topic, I asked if anyone had done a sermon on depression. None had, but several told me their stories and the stories of others. Surely failure of clergy and other professionals to speak openly is not because depression is insignificant and unimportant, but because of prevailing cultural stigma. Furthermore, it is a tough topic and we can hold out only a slender thread of hope. Like diabetes, depression can be managed, but there is no known cure.
Depression is often misunderstood as a sign of personal weakness, or instability.
However, the stigma is diminishing with more and more who have been afflicted speaking out. Wurtzel, who by the age of 12 was cutting her legs in the girls' bathroom suffering with violent mood swings and many hospitalizations, went on to graduate from Harvard and become a music critic. One finds solace and healing in these troubled accounts of the eclipse of hope. Of course there are many books on depression written from the outside, some holding out instant hope, and others with catchy titles such as Potatoes, not Prozac . Despite a much better grasp now of the dominions of depression, the past 25 years of research and advances in drug therapy and more people coming out of the depression closet, depression is still an elusive illness that defies description.