I remember being told in church during the midst of my depression that ingratitude was the greatest of all sins, and that God expected me to be happy and to praise Him every day of my life. Perhaps there was some real love behind these messages, but I certainly didn't feel it at the time. It felt like I was being told that my depression was my own fault, that I was "choosing" to be unhappy and that I could just as easily "choose" to be happy again, as if happiness was a simple switch to turn on and off. It felt like added cruelty to me and further pressured me to become an atheist, if God expected me to be happy about my infant daughter's death and about the faith crisis that followed it.
But over the years since then, I have found that a daily gratitude practice has been enormously effective at combating my own depression. I do not by any means intend to stigmatize those who suffer from depression. We do not "choose" to be depressed. When a tragedy happens in your life, the grief and pain that follows are part of being human. I think that people rarely want to continue to be depressed when they see a way out.
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