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.]

This is a pretty amazing, and potentially, game-changing study for both the diagnosis and treatment of PTSD, as reported by Israeli paper Ynet.

A team of Israeli researchers studied thirty five combat veterans with treatment-resistant PTSD.

One of the groups received hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT), which is already used in a number of medical conditions.

Research has found that HBOT can help generate new blood vessels and neurons by improving the supply of oxygen to the brain.

With that existing research in mind, the researchers theorized that they could activate mechanisms to repair wounded brain tissue from PTSD.

Professor Shai Efrati explains to Israeli paper, Ynet, “The treatment induces reactivation and proliferation of stem cells, as well as generation of new blood vessels and increased brain activity, ultimately restoring the functionality of the wounded tissues. Our study paves the way to a better understanding of the connection between mind and body.”

That seems to be exactly what happened to the participants in the trial.

In fact, every participant reported “significant” improvement in PTSD symptoms such as avoidance, hyper-arousal, and depression.

And that improvement was confirmed by brain scans that showed structural and functional improvement in the brain wounds.

In other words, participants reported it helped, and their brain scans agreed.

Further, there were no adverse side effects reported (although adverse side effects have been reported with HBOT used in other contexts).

Professor Efrati says he expects the treatment will be effective for years.

The significance extends.

Efri adds that they may have arrived at the most effective diagnostic method for PTSD — one that goes beyond self-reports, and that they’re working on identifying the biological fingerprint of it.

Obviously, this is enormously exciting.

First, imagine the healing to patients afflicted with this often lifetime disease.

PTSD is something the Alpha Christian Optimists often dismiss, but I’ve written before how dangerously naïve the “shake it off” crowd is to science, victimes, and that dismissing PTSD is an affront to God.

While I always paid lip service to the notion of PTSD and believed in it, intellectually, I never really knew until I developed it, and unfortunately now I can never forget. My body won’t let me. If you have PTSD, you know the avoidance, hyper-arousal, the depression that comes from it. I don’t have to explain it to you.

You just know. It kills many before it kills some.

And yet look at this study.

Every single participant with treatment-resistant PTSD reported significant improvement, and the scans suggested this wasn’t a placebo effect.

Second, if indeed, scientists are closer (and they appear to be) to finding the biological blueprint for PTSD, it’s yet another scientific data point for a skeptical Christian church.

The American evangelical church, in particular, is historically poor at acknowledging PTSD.

I would guess it has something to do with the “rugged individualism” and conservative politics that somehow associates PTSD with “the snowflake generation.”

And yet.

Behind the curtains, you will find Christians of every single generation, who — if you get to really know them — point back to some trauma that their bodies and minds still can’t forget, that live with them and keep them from living, and bring them to the brink of despair.

PTSD is all over the American evangelical church.

It’s just too shy to say so.

But the more academic research on this topic, the more difficult it will be for the “more prayer!” voices to dismiss the medical nature of this condition.

If you struggle with PTSD, the Anxiety & Depression Association of America has some good resources on facts and treatment.

Here’s a good resource from the National Institutes of Health.

And you can…

Find a psychiatrist here in your area who can help treat PTSD.

Find a therapist here in your area who can help treat PTSD.

Hopefully, we’ll learn more about HBOT and, perhaps, one day, it will provide relief to millions.

[Photo: Pexels, free stock photography]