Driving through rural Alabama to a funeral recently, I saw a rare and really cool sight. A cropduster was plunging down toward a cotton field, spraying it with what I can only guess was some sort of herbicide. The deft pilot would swoop down just above the power lines, buzz the field and spray the crops, and then lift high into the air to avoid the tree line at the other end of the field. It got me to thinking. That’s what psychiatrists must feel like. They don’t fly planes to treat their patients, but they must play a precarious game with the fragile mental health of patients like me who suffer from depression. It takes just the right balance and adjustments to keep our medications right.

You can’t put a price on good mental health. I might go broke, but that’s better than the misery of full-blown depression.

Depression is an illness. It is not a sin. Some well-meaning Christians who have never experienced depression might tell us otherwise. They might tell us we’ll feel better if we just have more faith. They might even tell us that God has the power to heal our depression, so antidepressants aren’t necessary. That is a dangerous and shallow view of mental illness.