When Cancer Meets Depression

A few days ago, a cancer patient's family member told me that his father, in the last twenty-plus days of his life, chose to give up treatment, neither eating nor drinking. The old man used this resolute way to end the suffering of his long-besetting illness.

Yesterday, the son of another lung-cancer patient told me that his mother, who has lung cancer, had also chosen to give up all treatment and await death; she did not want her illness to drag the whole family down. But as a son, he could not bear to see his mother give up like this.

A few years ago, a late-stage cancer patient in our village, unable to bear the suffering of the disease, took poison and died on a field ridge, not found until the next day.

These patients and their families all suffer greatly in body and mind. As the son of a cancer patient, I understand their feelings very well.

After my mother died, I was depressed for a full three-plus years. If it were not for so many patients begging me not to give up and to continue treating them, I think I might have collapsed completely. I have to thank my busy work for letting me forget much of my grief.

The physical and mental suffering brought by cancer cannot be deeply understood by anyone who has not personally experienced it. Cancer is often accompanied by depression; for some cancer patients, depression is a secondary condition caused by the cancer, while for others depression is a primary condition that preceded the cancer. I have seen both kinds of patients. To be honest, neither is easy to deal with.

Not long ago, the British Journal of Cancer published a latest study showing that if a cancer patient had suffered from a psychological disorder before diagnosis, their risk of death was higher.

This was a long-term study by the University of Toronto and other institutions, studying 676,000 Canadian cancer patients.

The study showed that patients who had sought care for psychological disorders before their cancer diagnosis had a death risk 5% higher than patients who had not been troubled by psychological disorders. If the patient had previously been hospitalized for a psychological disorder, the risk was even 73% higher.

Cancer is also an important factor triggering depression in patients' family members.

When a cancer patient appears in a family, the other family members sometimes, because of excessive mental and financial pressure, excessive self-blame and guilt, and excessive fatigue from caring for the patient, develop anxiety and depression.

Faced with anxious and depressed patients and family members, some doctors with weaker psychological resilience also become, periodically or even persistently, depressed.

Depression has not yet been fully taken seriously in present-day China. Both the patient and the family may feel that depression is simply the patient "not being able to see things clearly," and that as long as one "sees things clearly" one will be fine. Many chicken-soup-for-the-soul articles and Buddhist-minded essays also discuss depression lightly.

This mistaken understanding causes many depression patients to delay treatment, or even not to be treated at all. Even in Western developed countries, about half of depression patients do not receive treatment from a psychiatrist. Our country is still very backward in mental health, and the proportion of depression patients who have not received treatment from a psychiatrist is even higher.

The few patients I listed above, if they could have received a psychiatrist's help, could have had their depressive mood effectively relieved and their lives prolonged.

But because of our cultural taboos, many patients and their families feel a sense of shame or fear when receiving treatment from a psychiatrist.

Depression is not as simple as "not being able to see things clearly"; depression is a physical and mental disease, with both somatic symptoms and psychological symptoms. Generally, prolonged negative and pessimistic feelings that cannot be relieved are all related to depression.

If a person always feels that life is meaningless, can hardly take interest in anything, has insomnia or severe hypersomnia, reduced libido, reduced appetite or binge eating, headaches, and cannot relieve his negative emotions at all, feeling pessimistic and hopeless, under great pressure, and in a dark mood, then he should go to a psychiatrist (note: a psychiatrist, not a psychological counselor).

There are now some effective antidepressant drugs that can relieve the condition of depression patients and even cure their depression; many of these medicines must be taken continuously for over half a year.

The causes of depression are multifaceted. For cancer families, the financial and mental pressure brought by cancer is objectively present; unless these pressures are relieved, the depressive mood can hardly be completely relieved.

But if cancer-family members can correctly recognize the depressive mood hanging over the family and face it bravely, there is still hope of shaking off depression.

Since I am not a psychiatrist, I cannot give specific treatment advice here; I can only recommend a few books I consider quite valuable for combating depression, hoping they will help everyone.

There's a Black Dog Called Depression: the author is the Australian Matthew Johnstone. This is a popular-science book about depression recommended by the World Health Organization. The content is short and pithy; it is a comic book. I suggest everyone not buy the electronic version but get a paper book, because the font in the electronic version of this comic is too small.

Depression: the author is the French (writer) Grandgé; this is a comprehensive book introducing the causes, symptoms, and treatments of depression, as well as the actions and side effects of the common antidepressants.

The Happiness Trilogy: this is a series, by the president of the American Psychological Association and the founder of positive psychology, Martin Seligman.

Seligman caused a sensation in psychology by discovering the phenomenon of "learned helplessness" in humans and animals, and was accordingly elected president of the American Psychological Association. The positive-psychology doctrine he founded influenced many people and helped many out of depression.

There are many books on depression; among those I have personally read, the books by these three authors left the deepest impression on me.

Personally, after reading these books, the reader's understanding of depression will be very deep, and he will know how to deal with depression.

I hope everyone can face depression squarely, and ultimately walk out of it, regaining vigorous vitality.