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A few years ago I came across some perplexing information: We are the most depressed nation in the world, and have been for quite a while. A recent report by the World Health Organization and the Harvard Medical School concludes that almost 10% (9.6%) of Americans suffer from depression. We are more depressed than other wealthy nations such as Italy (3.8%) and Japan (3.1%), and more depressed than struggling countries such as Mexico (4.8%) and war-torn Lebanon (6.6%). Astonishingly, out of the 14 countries surveyed, Nigeria, an impoverished land laden with tribal conflict and governmental corruption, came in with a depression rate of 0.8%. We are over 10 times more depressed than Nigerians! How can this be? Some may suggest that people who live in constant concern for water, shelter, and life have little room left in their days to be depressed. I suggest there’s more to consider. While many factors contribute to depression, at its core it is a disease of isolation. More specifically, it’s a condition of isolation from God, from our selves and from others. 

I’m not suggesting that we don’t have enough friends (although we’re lonelier than ever before) or that people who are depressed don’t have relationships with God where they are seeking Him and experiencing times of communion with Him and other believers. I’m not even suggesting that people with depression don’t work hard to have a better understanding of their inner worlds so that they can live and love more freely. But there’s something missing in all of this that is unique to the way we as Americans have chosen to live our lives and what we have come to value. Somewhere in our “wave to your new neighbor from your car” culture, we have lost the senses of belonging and meaning that give us hope.

Consider how meaninglessness and isolation from God would contribute to depression. Most of the people with depression I work with are Christians, so it isn’t simply a matter of knowing one is saved, going to church, or even praying regularly. In fact, many people with depression do all of this and more, so their senses of hopelessness and isolation are exacerbated by the fact that they are doing all they know to do to have the kind of relationship with God that “should” drive away their depression, yet they are still depressed.

Something else is keeping them from the certainty in God’s love that is the antidote for depression. For example, a Christian woman might experience depression if she doesn’t like the way her life is playing out. Maybe her family is suffering in ways she can’t understand. Maybe her God-given longing to bear children remains unmet after trying everything medically possible to make it happen. In either situation (and countless others) she might feel guilty that she doesn’t like her life, feel powerless to change it, or be committed to the idea that God is in control so He should intervene (but isn’t).

Any one of these options would be a set up for depression, especially if she is either unable to recognize or unwilling to own her anger toward God for where she is in life. It’s impossible to be certain of God’s love in this condition, and how this woman gets to the place where she can rest in the trust and certainty of God’s love she is designed to experience is something only God can navigate her through.

Another scenario might be a man who is unaware of his deeply-held belief that no matter what he does, he will never measure up to what God expects of him. Maybe he has some awareness of it, but believes that this is how life is and he just has to deal with it.  Certainly, this would create an isolation from God and a sense of meaninglessness in his life, no matter how many other things give him a sense of accomplishment. Both scenarios (and again, countless others) probably induce an anger at God or a distrust in Him, either of which is going to compromise the sense of belonging with God he needs to make it through this precarious world in which we live.

His depression probably manifests itself in the form of simply avoiding honest conversation with God, being a workaholic, or being easily angered by his wife when she doesn’t come through for him. And while the symptoms may come and go, his depression is not going to be resolved until he confronts his fear with God and is willing to let God speak to how he came to believe that he doesn’t matter.

Isolation from God is intertwined with isolation from our own souls, our selves. I don’t know any Christian who can feel isolated from God but deeply satisfied in his or her own sense of belonging or purpose. Most people I know who struggle with depression are isolated from their own sense of being as well. One scenario might be that they may have an idea of who they are and what they are called to do, but they feel lost in how their current situations fit into the bigger picture and lost in how to get beyond where they are. They feel like something is missing that would make them feel more complete. Then they feel guilty that they think they need something else to make them feel complete. They scour their inner worlds trying to identify what’s wrong or what’s missing that leaves them with a sense of hopelessness.

The problem is often exacerbated by the fact that they can’t seem to figure out what’s wrong with them. They try to pin it on circumstances, such as singleness, a struggling marriage, job dissatisfaction, death or loss, all of which are legitimate difficulties but usually leave them looking for solutions when the problem lies deeper. A change in venue or marital status rarely resolves someone’s depression long-term. Only a sense of belonging that comes from knowing who you are and knowing that you are loved is going to dissolve the depression.

Another problem is that some people don’t realize that they don’t really want to know what’s behind the depression. They think they do, but they’re also afraid that if they look too closely or too deeply, they will either not like what they see or not like what they need to do with what they find.  I’ve sat with people who have struggled with depression for most of their adult lives, but only after they uncover and come to terms with deeply painful realities from their past are they able to walk out of the depression and experience hope. They just had no idea there was more inside and no idea how to access it. But the hope comes because they no longer live under the lies they have believed about themselves and their existences that they didn’t even realize they held.

For example, a woman may know that she should feel loved because she intellectually believes that God loves her. But she walks through life with a nagging feeling that she is unlovable that subsequently leaves her with a sense that she doesn’t belong. As a Christian, she believes that she should not question her parents’ love for her when she was younger, so she convinces herself that her struggle with depression is connected to something she is doing wrong. However, as she uncovers places in her life when one or the other parent clearly failed to place her needs over their own desires, she must deal with the painful reality that she has believed something about herself (that she doesn’t belong) because she did not have an accurate picture of her own story: that she gleaned from that parent’s actions the idea that she doesn’t matter. I am always amazed (but never surprised) as I watch a sense of belonging and meaning emerge in people like this woman who have sat in my office and are willing to see themselves for who they are. They get a better idea of who they are as they choose to face the reality of their own stories, both the good and the bad.

Even as I write about people being isolated from themselves, I cannot separate this reality from the broader sense of isolation from God and others. They are all intertwined. We know who we are in the context of relationship. Ultimately, none of us can have a sense of belonging or meaning outside of a certainty that God loves us. I recognize that there are many people who are not Christians and also not depressed, but as believers, our truest sense of belonging comes from God. That being said, when a person feels isolated from other human relationships, depression makes sense. I cannot help but wonder if maybe Nigerians have less depression than us because they know where they fit in the bigger picture of their communities.

Few people I know who suffer from depression have a realistic hope that they will continue to be connected and contribute to their communities on a long-term, consistent basis. Not to say that they don’t have weekly coffee dates with their friends, participate in Bible studies, or know that their families will be at the dinner table with them that evening. But we were meant to have a sense of belonging to something greater than ourselves and our immediate families.

Sadly, our culture is so transient and isolated by design that we have come to assume that we will live at least 15 minutes from the closest people in our lives outside of family members (or others who live with us), and that there’s little assurance that our communities will look the same this year as they did the last. It’s difficult to find comfort and meaning in our families, our spiritual communities, or our cultural traditions (as less modern countries seem to) when what is most consistent in them is their inconsistency.  

Knowing that, at the end of the day, we belong to an entity bigger than ourselves can allow us to know who we are, what we’re about, and that both matter. This is essential to our emotional well-being. The world around us is not going to shift back to a way of life that infuses a knowledge in us that we belong and matter. We can, however, be more aware of whether or not we are inviting God and others to see us and speak into our lives in ways that would challenge the isolation just a little bit more.