Over at Psychology Today, Yale Dr. Jennifer Kilkus tackles the things we don’t want to tackle because of fear.
I’m in.
Fearfully, I’m in, with one step out the door.
“Avoidance,” she says, “is a common and attractive short-term coping strategy that can have consequences in the long term.”
While that might give us some short-term reprieve, Kilkus notes that “there isn’t a lot of emotional space to connect to the things that are most meaningful to us.”
In other words, you can’t bury the bad things, without sacrificing the future, good things that can come with the burial.
I’d suggest reading Kilkus’ whole piece because it really is very good.
And I’d just add this for us Christians.
In Christianity today, there’s a lot of pressure to feel the joy of the Lord, while somehow forgetting the sorrows of the world. And our lives.
In fact, go to church, and you’re immediately blasted with smiles, that opening song where they make you stand up and pretend you’re excited (“COME, NOW IS THE TIME TO WORSHIP!”) and today, Sunday morning — the church is contractually and spiritually obligated to keep you from anything but rejoicing.
I think the purpose is two-fold.
First, Christianity is ultimately about good news.
Resurrection unto life.
It is the best thing the world’s got going for it, because it’s the only thing that transcends it, and O God, how we want to be transcended from it.
But while we’ve been born again, we haven’t yet been resurrected.
Jesus wept, and while he lived in the world, he was a “man of sorrows.”
Second, churches want to survive. If they can make it a happy place, well, who doesn’t enjoy a water park?
But if people wanted to go to a water park on a Sunday, they would just go to a water park.
They go to church for something deeper, and that depth has to incorporate our depths, and that includes the depths of our sorrows.
I’m not just talking about the mega churches which are famous for force-feeding Sunday water parks.
I’m also talking about your local “Bible-based” church that probably forcefully rejects the notion they’re feel good places, but if you step into those bastions of “discernment,” you will still feel the pressure to act like you’re feeling great.
That’s because, very often, these churches claim spirituality is the balm for any depression, anxiety, or mood disorder.
These churches often teach that doctrines “renew the mind,” and they seem to take that quite literally — doctrine can heal minds with physical disease by talking about God’s sovereignty 500 straight weeks.
Meanwhile, congregants get sick like normal humans, and these churches understand that they can’t renew their congregants minds out of cancer, but such churches don’t know or refuse to believe that depression and anxiety are also medical conditions.
In the context of Christianity, you and I often live within a church and church community that wants to avoid talking about long-lasting pain.
We might acknowledge the pain that brought us to church, but once we’re there, it’s expected to be fixed or else we’re not doing it right.
And so, a Christian church that avoids the suffering of our lives will always fail to cultivate the “joy of the Lord” they claim to foster.
That’s why, I think, no matter how much progress is being made in acknowledging depression and anxiety, the church still feels like such a hostile place for the suffering.
We cannot spiritually flourish in a place that forces us to bury our emotions.
Does that mean we walk away?
Maybe, until you feel safe and strong enough.
I’ve had to, plenty of times.
But I think the more we say, “I’m miserable, but I love Christ, and those two things are compatible,” the more other Christians will look furtively, left and right, then whisper, “Um, I kind of am miserable too.”
And if they don’t feel that way, we’re thrilled for them.
And if they do feel that way, you’ve just made a really good friend.
Oh, also, one final note: medicine has really helped me. And millions of others. So there’s that.
Find a psychiatrist here.
Find a therapist here.
I wish I could say “Find a church that welcomes and is cool with the lifelong depressed here,” and you just sort by zip code, but unfortunately, the internet hasn’t come up with that good a filter yet. Maybe we’ll find one in the metaverse.
[Stock Photo: Pexels, free photography.]
