Q&A: And Know What to Answer the Depressed
And Know What to Answer the Depressed
Question
With God's help
Hello to the Rabbi, may he live long, head of the philosophologists,
I wanted to ask the Rabbi about the matter of “know what to answer the depressed person.”
I have a few friends who are depressed,
and usually they sometimes present to you, as part of trying to persuade you, that a certain state of affairs A (like staying in bed or committing suicide) is preferable* to another state of affairs B—which usually involves effort and sometimes also lack of enjoyment (for example, work or studies).
And since life is a constant effort, in the sense of the verse “Man is born to toil,” why is it right to make the effort and not leave it all and give up on life? Or, in a softer and temporary version, to stay in bed as much as possible, stop working or studying, etc. etc.
I have a few lines of thought I came up with, but since it’s clear to me that the Rabbi will analyze the issue in the best possible way, he surely knows more, so I’d be happy to hear 🙂 ,
I thought to answer on several levels:
1. To try to persuade him that (by his own view) state A is not really preferable to B [for example, the World to Come of a sinner is far worse than a life of suffering; you can always commit suicide, so wait “until tomorrow” and give one more chance to an attempt in which maybe you’ll see life differently].
The problem: an atheist friend who doesn’t believe in the World to Come but rather in total nonexistence after death didn’t see this as an advantage, and looking ahead to a significant change later in life is not persuasive enough; and in the end, why is it preferable right now, according to him?
2. Or, even if by your own view B is not the preferable state subjectively, there is still some value in maintaining B that overrides personal feeling. [For example, the fact that life has meaning tells us that it is not “right” to commit suicide; morality tells us to do good for another person; and service of God tells us to keep the commandments.]
The problem: here too, the atheist friend does not accept this whole value-based plane.
3. To increase in him, in a manipulative or instinctive way, the desire to do B rather than the desire for A—for example, to take antidepressants if he agrees, or to convince him to go to a club or to a prostitute [in the hope that a steep immediate pull toward life will be created].
The problem: they are averse to taking pills, and regarding the second part [women], I’m doubtful whether it’s right and whether it can last over time; and I haven’t yet suggested it to them, so I’m not sure what they’d answer, especially since in cases where it’s not literally a life-threatening situation, I’m doubtful whether it’s permitted [and even in a life-threatening situation, maybe not?].
Preferable*- I’m quite doubtful what proper definition should be included under “preferable”: whether it refers specifically to suffering and pleasure, or opposing desire [to which suffering is translated], etc.
Answer
I understand that we’re talking about atheists. I don’t see a way to persuade them rationally. In my opinion, this is a question for a psychologist.
As for religious people, one should tell them that suicide is forbidden by Jewish law and morally.
Discussion on Answer
With God's help, 21 Kislev 5781
To K — greetings,
Persuasion through intellectual arguments can help against intellectual arguments, but what good is an intellectual argument when the problem is in the will? When a person has lost the will to live, you need to breathe that will back into him.
Sometimes the despair comes from a person’s feeling that nobody cares about him. Here, listening with interest and sharing in his pain can help. The very ability of the sufferer to unload his pain before a listening friend eases the pain a little.
Sometimes a person feels trapped, in a problem with no way out. Here, sometimes the listening friend can tell him that he himself—or someone he knows—went through a similar problem and got out of it. And sometimes when the sufferer explains his distress to his friend, he himself finds the way to solve the “tangle.”
And sometimes the effective help is in the spirit of “If there is anxiety in a man’s heart, let him distract his mind from it.” Invite the sufferer to do some enjoyable activity together that will distract him a bit from his distress.
To solve the sufferer’s problem at its root often requires the help of a professional, but listening and caring can help, whether a little or a lot.
Best regards, Yaron Noam Spiegel-Borlai
Regarding the desire to sink into bed, it’s worth noting that prolonged lying down can lead to pressure sores, and besides, after a few hours in bed that too gets boring 🙂
Best regards, Adir from Mount Humor
Thanks, I know most of this, except for: “And sometimes the effective help is in the spirit of ‘If there is anxiety in a man’s heart, let him distract his mind from it.’ Invite the sufferer to do some enjoyable activity together that will distract him a bit from his distress.” In that, I did not act with them *enough*. Do you have ideas for such activities in a phone conversation?
Mr. Humor, it’s important to note that these are people who, as far as I know, are not suffering from pressure sores, but they have lain / are lying in bed, some of them already for more than several years continuously… so this is not something temporary in the style of “one day honey, one day onion”… for some of them it’s several continuous years of onion, and the honey, even if on the horizon, is far away. [And there are those who describe nonexistence as that honey…]
But with God's help, we hold that God’s salvation comes in the blink of an eye.
With God's help, “surely goodness” in Kislev 5781
To K — greetings,
An idea that will not only occupy the young man and distract him, but also give him a sense of worth and meaning, is: ask for his help.
For example, you suffer from lack of time to study Torah because of the pressure at the university. Ask the young man to set up a study partnership with you on a Torah topic in which he has some basic knowledge. Start with fifteen minutes a week, and it will likely become more.
A person often falls into depression because he feels worthless. It may be that he failed in some major task he expected to succeed in (or others expected him to succeed in), and when he failed, he feels like a total zero.
In that terrible state, when you let a person succeed in small things, to feel that even in his current condition he can be of help to others, his self-image and confidence can rise tremendously.
I encountered this method when I was in a medic training course more than twenty years ago. They explained to us that the current policy regarding victims of combat shock is that although they are evacuated from the battlefield, they are kept not too far away. They are brought to the battalion aid station, and the medics keep them occupied as much as possible as “auxiliary manpower”—carrying stretchers or arranging equipment and the like. That way, the guy comes out of the shock a bit and begins to “come back to himself.”
Maybe the depressed young man also got “combat shock” from the difficulties of life, and giving him an opportunity to help a friend in what he can, and without pressure, can bring him out of being sunk in his depression.
Best regards, Yaron Noam Spiegel Borlai
Thank you very much!
One friend is an atheist and the second is a believer [there were others who were depressed too, but not really as severely as them]. With the believer, with God's help, I manage to persuade him or at least talk with him, but every so often he raises these issues again.
But regarding the atheist, not only have I failed to talk with him about this, emotionally I also don’t feel capable of arguing with him, because I don’t think there is a “correct” way to persuade him (of course, according to his view there can’t really be a way for either side—not only toward suicide but also toward choosing life—because of the naturalistic fallacy. But it seems to me that as a result, from his perspective choosing any path can only be on the basis of “just because,” and that’s why I raised the idea in section C—that the body will pull him in place of any other desire or thought).
All the social workers didn’t really help me persuade him at the time, even though their methods of how to phrase things in conversation (which I’ve mostly forgotten by now) helped for a few moments.
In any case, since there is also a religious guy, does the Rabbi have any additional ideas? Or just generally for mildly depressed people who aren’t threatening suicide but just want to throw off all responsibility—like quitting work and dropping out of studies and not getting out of bed…
Is there really no further breach in the question? [If state of affairs A is more tempting / preferable / pleasant / easy than B, why not do A?]
It’s just that every time after talking with someone about this topic, I wonder whether there isn’t still some hole I haven’t thought of. And I understand almost nothing about psychology.