LIVING WITH FAITH AND DEPRESSION
John Piper, in Desiring God, with a wonderful message for those of us who are tempted to work for our salvation.
“Religious ‘flesh’ always wants to work for God (rather than humbling itself to realize that God must work for it in free grace).
…. Any servant who tries to get off the divine dole and strike up a manly partnership with his heavenly Master is in revolt against the Creator.”
Slate’s Shannon Palus has a great review and write-up of academic literature on the controversial topic of trigger warnings.
In a well-meaning effort, more and more universities are attaching warnings to material that could stir up memories of past trauma for readers or viewers.
For example, if there’s a novel with rape, the university will affix a trigger warning for rape survivors lest they stir up awful memories.
Religious conservatives often really hate this kind of stuff (“snowflake generation,” they accuse), which is perplexing. Universities etc don’t do this to harm students. Their purpose is kindness and consideration (Which is far more noble than the hateful rhetoric from the evangelical-beloved-president that is designed to stir up division and hatred).
But the fact of the matter is that studies show trigger warnings either don’t work or actually might be harmful.
There are some theories trying to explain the growing empirical evidence.
First, “cognitive avoidance” doesn’t work. In other words, people have to process and address traumatic memories. Stuffing it away, refusing to engage doesn’t make it somehow better. The storm just grows.
Second, a trigger warning can actually be… a trigger. If a warning says, “trauma ahead,” that puts readers in an emotionally fragile state of mind.
Third, trigger warnings might reinforce the idea that a reader’s trauma is more central to their identity than anything else.
All in all, trigger warnings don’t seem to help people process whatever they read, they may amplify the effect of the traumatic material, and they may contribute to harmful self-identity.
Either that or — they do nothing at all.
That’s what the studies show.
So how do we help? Shannon Palus suggests:
That’s not to say that people who have experienced trauma should be left on their own to have that panicked response and just get over it.
“Rather than issuing trigger warnings, universities can best serve students by facilitating access to effective and proven treatments for P.T.S.D. and other mental health problems,” Richard McNally, a Harvard psychologist and co-author on the paper with Jones, wrote in the New York Times in 2016.
Over at BeliefNet, Megan Bailey has a great list of the things cheery Christians who were born with optimistic dispositions say to the depressed.
Her list:
I just wanted to mention something about the fifth (which is based on a verse from 1 Corinthians 10): “God won’t give you more than you can handle.”
We’ve heard that countless times from well-intentioned ministers who are, rightly, urging people to keep going.
But that’s because we’re interpreting that verse completely wrong.
The verse is this (NKJV): “No temptation has overtaken you except such as is common to man; but God is faithful, who will not allow you to be tempted beyond what you are able, but with the temptation will also make the way of escape, that you may be able to bear it.”
Most translations use “temptation” there, but others also use “trial.” The meaning seems to change, doesn’t it?
Most Christians would argue that, yes, indeed, God has given us every means (The Spirit) to overcome any temptation, but we all know that is a completely different matter than God giving us every means to overcome a trial.
A trial, for example, might be cancer. The temptation would be to abandon God during your bout with cancer. God doesn’t promise the means for deliverance from the trial (the cancer), but he does promise the means for staying true to him during the trial (his Spirit).
Your body probably won’t be able to handle the trial, but your devotion to God can.
That’s what this verse is about.
So why is it sometimes translated “trial”? Hero translator James Strong says that the Greek word can mean both “trial” or “temptation,” and context is key.
All of I Corinthians 10 is about temptation, so the reasonable assumption is that verse 13 is also about temptation.
That’s why the ESV, NLT, ASV, and NKJV have all translated that word “temptation.”
Unfortunately, many Christians misread the verse and use it to give false hope that God will never send a trial that sends us over the edge.
Now… before I finish: one comment on #2: “Others have been through worse.”
This is also ubiquitous, but it’s ridiculous to say on a couple counts.
First, many of us respond: “Yes, they have been through worse and that makes the world all the more sad.”
It’s not like we suddenly think, “Oh, people are doing even worse than I am. Now I feel better!”
Second, as T.S. Eliot wrote of suffering in The Cocktail Party (quoted in Glorious Ruin): “All cases are unique, and very similar to others,” while Charles Spurgeon said, “We should feel more for the prisoner if we knew about the prison.”
We should never compare suffering. If you’re feeling awful, you’re feeling completely awful. In fact, depressed people often can’t find a reason, but that doesn’t mean the suffering is any less intense.
Again, going to our buddy Spurgeon: “The flesh can bear only a certain number of wounds and no more, but the soul can bleed in ten thousand ways, and die over and over again each hour.”
We’re used to seeing Sweden (and other Nordic countries) at the top of so many lists of best countries for XYZ. XYZ is usually something related to quality of life.
Sweden, as it turns out, is #2 on Quality of Life, #6 on Good Country List (defined as contributors to global well-being), and #7 on happiness.
That might be about to change.
A new study of EU member nations shows Swedish youth are, by far, at the highest risk for depression.
A whopping 41% of Swedes 18-24 years old are listed as risks for depression, considerably higher than runner-ups Estonia and Malta.
One possible explanation?
The report highlights widespread feelings of marginalisation among young people in Europe due to the economic crisis. Presenting in-depth case studies of support services in five Member States, it notes the significant spike in child and youth homelessness in several countries since the crisis – including in economically advanced Member States typically characterised by welfare states and higher levels of social spending.
One of the classic symptoms of depression is a lack of motivation, and cheery judgmental folks often judge the depressed as “lazy” when they lie in bed and wake up only to watch Jeopardy, then go back to bed.
But if you’ve ever been severely depressed, you know how overwhelming it is to just gin up the strength to live.
And to really “live” in the Dance in the Rain/Instagram Life way?
To tweak the words of Jesus: “It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a severely depressed person to dance in the rain.”
That’s why mental illness is the leading cause of disability in the United States. It’s not because people are lazy. It’s because dread, hopelessness, and misery strip us of the strength to do anything.
In A Grief Observed, C.S. Lewis writes, “No one ever told me about the laziness of grief” and “it’s easy to see why the lonely become untidy, finally, dirty and disgusting.”
Well, science is starting to understand why.
Studies are showing that the chronic low-grade inflammation that can lead to depression significantly affects our levels of dopamine.
Dopamine is what drives motivation. If you have low levels of dopamine, you probably can’t gin up much motivation.
Now a fascinating new study in Trends in Cognitive Sciences is giving us some idea of why.
Basically, chronic inflammation tells the body to fight something, and dopamine gets the short end of the stick.
Or as the study authors put it: “the immune system disrupts the dopamine system to help the brain perform this recalibration.”
That doesn’t happen to everyone, but in the depressed, it appears the immune system often doesn’t work right and affects your dopamine levels.
(Think about Elijah, retreating to the cave during his battle with a depressive episode. He seems to have lost motivation to prophet it up).
In the same way, you and I feel like retreating from our responsibilities during a bout of depression. It’s our dopamine, not some grand design to get out of things just because we want an extra hour to play Madden Mobile.
Of course, we have to fight through this, but it’s also important to give ourselves grace, and also for others to understand the scientific basis for this very real loss of motivation before they text us: “Go to the ant, you sluggard.”
Painting: Ennui, Walter Sickert.
a. Golfer Thomas Bjorn talks about his depression: “When you’re a young man, you hide your feelings.”
b. A story about postpartum anxiety.
c. Coping with depression during retirement.
d. Study: Gender affects the correlation between depression and weight in children and adolescents.
e. Study: Anxiety in Late Life: An update on Pathomechanisms.
f. Kate Middleton’s brother talks about his “crippling” depression.
g. Fast Company: Coping with Social Anxiety.
“And this is the secret: Christ lives in you. This gives you assurance of sharing his glory.” — Colossians 1:27
On CNN, host Chris Cuomo bravely talks about his battle with mental health (video here).
“I came home many years ago from one tragedy to another. I had weeks of bad dreams and days of flashbacks and emotional confusion.
I realized, over time — people were around me were telling me — that it was affecting me and my relationships.
….I went to someone, they prescribed medication and [said] I had to talk through this, I had to go through the therapy process and understand why I wasn’t processing things that were haunting me.
It helped. A lot. Maybe more than any other treatment I’ve ever had on my body. I made therapy part of my routine, to this day, and it helps, to this day. It is better than the gym, okay?
…. There’s part of me that says I don’t want to rely on it. Everyone says they go to the gym 5 days a week. You say you go to therapy and [feigning shock]. No. Like what, it betrays a weakness in me? Like I care what you think? Or I care about how I take care of myself and those around me.
….Many don’t even consider it an illness like cancer or diabetes or heart disease. Yet none is as daunting as mental illness as far as what it robs us of in this society.
…. Depression is not a mood, it is a malady. It is a medical, treatable illness, and yet we hide from it.”
Later, Cuomo notes that the stigma is particularly bad for men, which is true. There have been relatively few celebrity male voices speaking out about their struggles, or male Christian ones, for that matter. Which is what makes Cuomo and Carson Daly’s revelations, for example, all the more important.
Also, what’s particularly wonderful is that Cuomo is in the field of journalism where he could quite easily be trolled by partisans for being “mentally ill” after acknowledging this battle. Yet he talks anyway. Bravery.
Here’s vid of Cuomo talking about it in another segment.
Taken from N.T. Wright’s book, Simply Christian.
Lighten our darkness, we beseech thee, O Lord;
and by thy great mercy
defend us from all perils and dangers of this night;
for the love of thy only Son,
our Savior Jesus Christ. Amen.
Charles Spurgeon, in his sermon, “Man Unknown to Man.”
“Allow no ungenerous suspicions of the afflicted, the poor, and the despondent.
Do not hastily say they ought to be more brave, and exhibit a greater faith.
Ask not, ‘Why are they so nervous and so absurdly fearful?’
No… I beseech you, remember that you understand not your fellow man.”
Sermon quote appears in Zack Eswine’s, Spurgeon’s Sorrows.
To brighten your day… (actually, it does brighten our day to find someone who gets it, right?).
From A Grief Observed:
“Part of every misery is, so to speak, the misery’s shadow or reflection: the fact that you don’t merely suffer but have to keep on thinking about the fact that you suffer. I not only live each endless day in grief, but live each day thinking about living each day in grief.”
No kidding.
By the way, I like to play a fun game when I read Christian books.
Count how many pages it takes until the author quotes C.S. Lewis.
I don’t think there’s a Christian book written, post-1980, that doesn’t quote Mere Christianity before Chapter 2. Usually, it takes until chapter 6 to get to Screwtape.