Caleb Wilde
(218 comments, 980 posts)
Posts by Caleb Wilde
Should We Medicate Grief?
The American Psychiatric Association (APA) is about ready to publish their Fifth Edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5); and it’s created no small stir among the psychiatrist community.
One of the main issues that psychiatrists are having with the DSM-5 is that it is lumping normal grief into Major Depressive Disorder. Here’s a quote from Dr. Allen Frances, professor emeritus of Duke’s School of Medicine:
(In the new DSM-5) Normal grief will become Major Depressive Disorder, thus medicalizing and trivializing our expectable and necessary emotional reactions to the loss of a loved one and substituting pills and superficial medical rituals for the deep consolations of family, friends, religion, and the resiliency that comes with time and the acceptance of the limitations of life.
*****
There are many shared characteristics between grief and depression, but there’s also some distinct differences. Dr. Ginette G. Ferszt states this:
Although everyone grieves differently, grief and depression share several common characteristics. Both may include intense sadness, fatigue, sleep and appetite disturbances, low energy, loss of pleasure, and difficulty concentrating. The key difference is that a grieving person usually stays connected to others, periodically experiences pleasure, and continues functioning as he rebuilds his life. With depression, a connection with others and the ability to experience even brief periods of pleasure are generally missing. Sometimes people describe feeling as if they have fallen into a black hole and fear they may never climb out. Overwhelming emotions interfere with the ability to cope with everyday stressors.
Here is a chart that shows the similarities and differences between depression and grief.
*****
Should we medicate grief?
Mostly “no”, but in some cases “yes”. Here is when grief may need some type of medication:
- If grief-related anxiety is so severe that it interferes with daily life, anti-anxiety medication may be helpful.
- If the person is experiencing sleep problems, short-term use of prescription sleep aids may be helpful.
- If symptoms last longer than two months after the loss and the diagnostic criteria are met, the person may be suffering from Major Depressive Disorder. In this case, antidepressants would be an appropriate therapy.
Here is are some criteria to determine if grief has transitioned to Major Depressive Disorder.
- Feelings of guilt not related to the loved one’s death
- Thoughts of death other than feelings he or she would be better off dead or should have died with the deceased person
- Morbid preoccupation with worthlessness
- Sluggishness or hesitant and confused speech
- Prolonged and marked difficulty in carrying out the activities of day-to-day living
- Hallucinations other than thinking he or she hears the voice of or sees the deceased person. (From Nancy Schimelpfening’s “Grief and Depression”).
Ultimately, grief is the response to loss. And no amount of medication is going to bring that loss back. We must learn to live with the loss of someone integral to our very being. If medication hurts that learning process, then it’s destructive. If it can help us learn to live in the “new normal”, then it becomes an aid to understanding life after loss.
I think the following quote sums up the core of why medicating grief is usually not healthy:
Finding a Context for Grief: A Guest Post by Jason Hague
Karen and her husband George
“Jason, listen. I think I found a lump.” Karen’s eyes were full of gentle severity. “But hey, we’re okay. We’re gonna get through this. It isn’t our first rodeo.”
Karen was too young for cancer—just thirty four—and full of life. She and her husband George had been my friends for nine years, and part of my family for the last five. They were missionaries, planning to launch out to the South Pacific to eventually start an AIDS orphanage. And after countless encouragements, they believed with all their hearts that she would be healed. After all, she had beat cancer before when she was seventeen, and again (we thought) at thirty-two. That’s why she was so confident.
So they entered the rodeo a third time, pursuing all kinds of treatments; the ones that come from sober doctors in white hospitals, and the other ones from enthusiastic Americans with juicers in Mexico. They got prayer. Lots of prayer, from reserved, gray bearded conservatives, and from young mustached mystics who claimed they saw miracles happen every day.
They went on like that for months, traveling the country, raising funds for their move to the islands, all the while believing against the obvious. She was getting weaker. And weaker.
I got the call while watching a college football bowl game. Karen had collapsed and had a seizure. She was in intensive care. Even brain now, it seemed, was being squeezed by cancerous masses. The doctors were saying it was time.
Before I got in the car for our five hour trek to the hospital, I had an awkward stare-down with my pinstriped suit. As a rule, I don’t wear suits except for mandatory formal occasions. I knew the odds this time. But if I took it… what would that say about my level of faith?
I remember stomping out of my bedroom, tears shaking me from the inside. “Fine, God. I’m leaving the damn suit.” I said aloud. It was as much belief as I could muster in that moment.
Four days of blur followed, and finally, our remaining hope disappeared with our emotional strength. The nurses—Lord bless them—let me sneak my daughters into the ICU to say goodbye to their adopted auntie. She was too weak to say anything, but she hugged them limply. And to each of us, her circle of friends who had become kin, she spelled out farewells on a whiteboard full of letters.
I was in the room when her breath ran out. George was still embracing her, still serenading her body. “You are so beautiful to me.”
I would need my suit after all.
They wanted me to do her funeral, but I just couldn’t. All I could muster was a couple of weak stories about being together, watching Jack Bauer and dreaming of all the exotic ministry we were going to get to do one day. It all seemed so empty. So hollow.
I told God how much it hurt. I didn’t blame Him for her death, but I thought it was a pretty low thing of Him to do, giving words of hope when no hope, in fact, remained. God didn’t answer much. He mostly just listened. I don’t think He ever got offended by my doubts, or my cursing, or my anger. Wasn’t it Jesus, after all, who said to weep with those who weep?I wonder if you can’t talk someone out of pain, even if you’re God.
But eventually, I knew I had to make a decision. I could hold onto my complaint against Him, but only on one condition: I had to first acknowledge His generosity. He had given her seventeen years before she met cancer, then seventeen more after that. He gave her life. Karen was His present to all of us. And in this age, there are no presents that last forever.
So I made a decision to look God in the eye again and thank Him for my friend. This wasn’t so much a matter of religious sentiment as it was intellectual integrity. When gratitude is absent, mourning eventually loses all context and reason. It’s the same lesson I try to give my kids: to say “thank you for my ice cream” instead of pining hard for a second bowl. Even a gift cut short is, first, a gift.
Looking back, I see my own tears had testified of my great privilege: Karen was so lovely and gracious and warm, and I had been her friend. Her brother. Little did I know, my grief was itself building a case for the love and graciousness and warmth of her Maker.
And it made me look forward to the next age, when the Good and Perfect Gifts of our Father will indeed go on and never expire.
*****
Jason Hague is a pastor, writer, and former Youth With A Mission teacher who lives in Oregon with his wife and five Children. He tells honest stories of faith, culture, and autism at JasonHague.com.
You can follow Jason on Twitter and like him on Facebook.
Can We Chemically Induce Near Death Experiences?
“And her eyes opened wide, and she started whispering Jesus’ name … and then she started whispering the names of her dead parents … and she smiled … and moments later she died.”
We hear these stories a couple times a year. And I want to believe them. Those who tell us these stories, tell them with such conviction, such sincerity that I believe the stories themselves are true; but did the dying person REALLY see Jesus … and their parents … before they died?
The interpretation of these stories is where I start to question.
“We just know that Jesus was there, in the room, welcoming mom to heaven!” And I respond, “That’s amazing! Wow! You know for certain where your mom is at!” But I don’t always believe my own words.
It seems like every other year somebody with a near death experience (NDE) has these incredible visions of heaven, they write a book about it and make their millions (See “Heaven is For Real: A Little Boy’s Astounding Story of His Trip to Heaven and Back” for a more recent contribution).
But what happens if these NDEs are simply concoctions of end-of-life chemical reactions?
Dr. Rick Strassman, while conducting DMT research at the University of New Mexico, proposed that a massive release of Dimethyltryptamine (DMT) from the pineal gland prior to death or near death was the cause of the near death experience (NDE).
DMT is a psychedelic drug, producing intense visuals, euphoria and hallucinations; and, according to Dr. Rick Strassman, near death experiences. In fact, DMT is an illegal drug that you can find on the streets. So, if you want a near-death hallucination, go ahead and try some. You can – to some degree – chemically induce a NDE, where you’ll see angels, celestial bodies, heaven … or maybe, if it’s a bad trip, you’ll see the other side. Philosopher Terence McKenna suggested that DMT is a pathway drug to other worlds, as most people who use DMT hallucinate heaven and hell type experiences.
But, Strassman’s hypothesis that the human body produces massive amounts of DMT near death has yet to proven. Even if Strassman’s hypothesis that DMT is the hallucinogenic cause of NDE is false, it still is very possible that other chemicals produce visions of the celestial. We just don’t know for certain, but we hope.
And I imagine hope may be the main drug behind NDE. We hope that heaven waits at death. We hope that Jesus is awaiting us, to welcome us into heaven. We hope that heaven is real. And that hope may be founded on reality, or mere hallucination; but we still hope.
Hazing Funeral Interns
I’ve never heard of hazing practices in the funeral industry (although I’m sure it’s happened). And, thankfully, I’ve never been hazed. But if it was common place to haze interns, here’s what hazing might look like in the funeral industry:
1.) At 2 AM in the morning you call out Intern Johnny and say, “Johnny, there’s a call at ‘such and such’ address. Mr. Johnson has died.” If we’re hazing Johnny, it’s assumed that Mr. Johnson’s death is fictitious, but the address doesn’t have to be.
The possibilities are nearly endless:
Mr. Johnson’s house could be the funeral director’s ex-girlfriend/boyfriend’s house.
Johnny pulls up to ex-girlfriend’s house, rings doorbell and waits. Ex scrambles to get dressed, opens the door and reluctantly says, ‘Can I help you?”
Johnny: “I’m here to pick up Mr. Johnson.”
Ex.: “Who?”
Johnny: “Mr. Johnson … a deceased family member of yours?”
Ex.: “I’m sorry, Mr. Johnson doesn’t live here … you have the wrong house.”
Awkward.
Or, if the funeral director isn’t so diabolical as to send intern Jimmy to his or her ex’s house, he could just send Jimmy to an abandoned house.
Or, Mr. Johnson’s house could be the funeral director’s friends house and your friend could pose as the dead guy, who is waiting to scare the living S*%# out of the intern. And this idea leads to the next hazing …
2.) You could lay in a body bag in the morgue awaiting said intern. From there, scare as you wish … preferably BEFORE said intern starts the embalming process.
3.) “You embalmed an alive body” is a pretty nasty thought; and an equally nasty hazing. Intern comes back from picking up a body at a nursing home (most nursing homes don’t have morgues … we literally take the body out of the bed … which can create confusion when there’s two or three or four people who sleep in same room). Intern embalms said body. Funeral director comes storming into the morgue, “Is that the body you just picked up from the nursing home?”
“Yes” says intern sheepishly.
“The nursing home just called and said they gave you the WRONG BODY!” says funeral director in mass hysteria. “The body on the OTHER SIDE OF THE ROOM was the one that was dead!!!”
“DID YOU EMBALM THE BODY!?!” says funeral director!
Intern’s face becomes ghostly pale and distorted.
“They said the body you picked up was JUST SLEEPING!” That person was alive!
“Quick, try CPR” says funeral director.
When CPR doesn’t work, the funeral director screams, “NOOOO!!! YOU KILLED THEM!”
“What?” says intern. “NOOOO!” says intern.
At this point the hazing begins to involve some sense of ethics. Does the funeral director push this hazing farther by suggesting that the intern must clean the morgue top to bottom so as to cover up said “killing” or does the funeral director stop the hazing and save the poor intern a heart attack?
4.) Or, the funeral director could just have the intern clean the morgue, pick up dead bodies in the middle of the night, yell at them all the time … oh, wait, that’s what happens anyways. And this is why there’s no rite of passage in the funeral business. There doesn’t need to be.
