Living With the Devil Called Depression: Finding Hope, Healing, and Strength for Those Who Suffer, Love Them

What if depression has convinced you that your suffering means you're weak, faithless, or beyond hope? Depression can drain energy, distort thought, strain relationships, silence prayer, and make even ordinary life feel impossible. For people of faith, the struggle can become even heavier when emotional suffering is mistaken for spiritual failure. Living With the Devil Called Depression offers a different way forward. Fr. Morson Livingston brings together Catholic faith, psychological understanding, responsible mental-health care, and more than four decades of pastoral experience to help readers understand depression without shame, fear, or easy answers. Inside, you'll discover how to: - Understand what depression does to the mind, body, relationships, and spiritual life- Recognize harmful myths about faith, prayer, medication, and mental illness- Seek professional help without believing your faith has failed- Support a spouse, child, friend, parishioner, or loved one who is suffering- Understand medication, therapy, crisis warning signs, and suicide prevention- Pray when God feels distant and hope feels impossible- Build healthier boundaries for caregivers, clergy, and those supporting someone in pain- Approach recovery, relapse, joy, and healing with patience and compassion This isn't a book that asks you to choose between faith and science. It shows how medicine, therapy, relationships, community, prayer, and sacramental life can work together in caring for the whole person. Whether depression has entered your own life or the life of someone you love, these pages offer understanding without judgment and hope without pretending the journey is easy. Depression may speak with the voice of despair, but it doesn't get the final word.