This is part three of "Colin overshares about depression!" Here are parts one and two, and here are the disclaimers:
I'm okay! I'm getting professional help and have a wonderful support system and don't need you to reach out! This post will briefly mention suicidal thoughts and I do not want to talk about mine with you. If you are struggling with them, please please please seek professional help. Once again, I'm getting professional help and my happiness is not your responsibility.
This represents my experience, and therefore may be different from how you or your loved ones experience depression! Sometimes I use the word "you" and it usually means "here's how I felt", not "here's how you should feel" or "here's how everyone with depression feels."
As usual there's a general content warning for mental health content, and this time there is also a fairly brief section referencing suicide, and pretty much the whole thing references faith. If you're worried about specific triggers, please always feel free to ask me.
I thought the title sounded cool before realizing it was vaguely ripped off from James Cone but I couldn't think of a replacement title so apologies and no disrespect is intended and also you should read the book it's very good.
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Sometimes I find it really hard to read the Bible.
Because it's all about how God so loved the world and you should consider it joy to have the peace of Christ and love that always perseveres, always hopes and remember there will be no more tears because you are worth [so much] to your Father in heaven and it's supposed to lift your spirits but sometimes it just kind of doesn't.
Because somebody telling you about hope and joy doesn't really make you happy. It just reminds you that you're not.
And someone telling you they love you is supposed to make you feel loved. But maybe right now you don't remember how.
So you just sort of give up because
what's the point
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One of the strangest books in both the Christian and Hebrew bibles is Ecclesiastes, the story of a man known only as Qoheleth (Hebrew for "the teacher", traditionally identified with Israel's King Solomon.)
The vast majority of the book is a bizarre sort of stream-of-consciousness narrative of Qoheleth's thoughts on the world over a couple of years, beginning with:
“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says Qoheleth. “Utterly meaningless! Everything is meaningless.”
Ecclesiastes is usually classified as a "book of wisdom."
I think we sometimes take this to mean that we're meant to take the things Qoheleth says as unmistakably true. If he says life is meaningless, it's only because he's wise enough to see through the facade while we lesser minds can still fool ourselves with fantasies of love and importance.
But recently I've started to see myself in Qoheleth's words.
I've found myself thinking "everything is meaningless" (or "all is vanity!")
But not because I'm suddenly super wise Not even because I believe it's true
I don't think it's making a truth claim about the world at all. I think it's expressing the way depression feels.
See, it's not really a book of fully-thought out conclusions. It's the story of a depressed man --- wise, yes, but also clearly, undeniably depressed. And you can see his thoughts and his opinions as he struggles with them unfolding on the page before you.
So it's not the sort of book you read to see if you agree with its thesis.
It's the sort of book you read to spend some time with the author And see how they felt and what they tried and who they were And see how this guy coped with this whole depression thing
I don't think he really believed there was no meaning to life. But I do think he understood how I feel right now.
All things are wearisome, more than one can say.
[...]
So I hated life, because the work that is done under the sun was grievous to me. All of it is meaningless, a chasing after the wind. I hated all the things I had toiled for under the sun, because I must leave them to the one who comes after me.
[...]
What do people get for all the toil and anxious striving with which they labor under the sun? All their days their work is grief and pain; even at night their minds do not rest. This too is meaningless.
All things are wearisome.
It takes me about half an hour now to get out from under the covers. And another twenty minutes trying to get the nerve up to shower. Forty-five minutes to peel and chop three potatoes into wedges. Four hours to read fifty pages of a book.
I get kind of tired walking to work now. I get kind of tired watching netflix. I get kind of tired doing nothing.
I don't know why. I'm not thinking about anything in particular. But my heart is beating fast and it's stressful and it's sad and it's all the time and it's like you know that feeling when you're super stressed and it kind of makes your chest sting or ache or burn or something? it's that feeling over and over and----
I dunno. I don't think I hate life. I certainly don't have a reason to.
But sometimes I'm not sure.
I saw the tears of the oppressed— and they have no comforter; power was on the side of their oppressors— and they have no comforter.
I declared that the dead, who had already died, are happier than the living, who are still alive. But better than both is the one who has never been born, who has not seen the evil that is done under the sun.
I don't think you can understand what suicidal thoughts are like if you haven't had them. But you can understand that this is one, and God still loved the guy who had it.
And not just his pre-depression self. God loved this man, thoughts and all, so much that the man and his unfiltered thoughts made it into God's holy book for the rest of time.
Because his thoughts mattered. They were terrible and they were painful but they mattered because the person who had them mattered.
God saw him. And God heard him. And God cared that he felt that way.
I don't know if that helps you.
It doesn't make me feel any better.
But it feels like it should, which is sort of close.
I have seen another evil under the sun, and it weighs heavily on mankind: God gives some people wealth, possessions and honor, so that they lack nothing their hearts desire, but God does not grant them the ability to enjoy them, and strangers enjoy them instead. This is meaningless, a grievous evil.
A man may have a hundred children and live many years; yet no matter how long he lives, if he cannot enjoy his prosperity and does not receive proper burial, I say that a stillborn child is better off than he. It comes without meaning, it departs in darkness, and in darkness its name is shrouded. Though it never saw the sun or knew anything, it has more rest than does that man— even if he lives a thousand years twice over but fails to enjoy his prosperity. Do not all go to the same place?
The first paragraph certainly reads like it's about depression, and even with all of Qoholeth's wisdom he can't give us (or himself) a real explanation.
He's just frustrated.
He blames God, calls it "a grievous evil" and sees its painful absurdity
It's an accusation crying out for an answer.
And the answer never comes.
So maybe we don't have to understand everything. Maybe we don't have to resolve our doubts and anxiety. Maybe it's enough to know that God is in control. Maybe we can trust him even when we don't understand him.
It's easier said than done. But maybe depression is a chance to practice.
Do not pay attention to every word people say, or you may hear your servant cursing you— for you know in your heart that many times you yourself have cursed others.
or maybe you won't.
maybe they'll say nice things unbelievably nice things
you’re always a joy to have around, just as you are, however that is
please know that i care about you so so much and am so very grateful that you have been a part of my life through the past few years
my friend, you are worth more than many sparrows to God and to me - you can't guilt trip me out of that!
and maybe you'll feel a little bit loved how could you feel lonely with friends like that? you're hiding ungratefulness behind "depression"
but i mean you brought up depression so she probably felt pressured to say something maybe he says this to everybody with depression it's probably nothing to do with you (they don't actually like you)
she only talks to you because she's too nice to stop you you're only really friends cuz they feel bad for you and they're christians so they're nice to everyone hanging out with you is a chore for her you should just leave him alone stop telling her how you feel you're burdening him wasting her time you're a drag useless bad
You make everyone feel like they have to say something nice because you have depression and it would be just so mean to make someone like you go away and that's probably the only reason anyone ever talks to you to begin with.
They're not objective thoughts.
They're cynical and uncharitable.
But they feel objective And that's enough to hurt.
Remember your Creator in the days of your youth, before the days of trouble come and the years approach when you will say, “I find no pleasure in them”— before the sun and the light and the moon and the stars grow dark,
[...]
when the almond tree blossoms and the grasshopper drags itself along and desire no longer is stirred. Then people go to their eternal home and mourners go about the streets.
Remember him—before the silver cord is severed, and the golden bowl is broken; before the pitcher is shattered at the spring, and the wheel broken at the well, and the dust returns to the ground it came from, and the spirit returns to God who gave it.
It's a regret.
I wish I'd been a better Christian I wish I'd prayed more I wish I'd loved more I wish I'd reached out more While I still felt like I could.
But for now it's too late.
Instead all I want to do is scream at whatever can hear me:
“Meaningless! Meaningless!” says Qoheleth
“Everything is meaningless!”
I'm angry and frustrated and sad and confused but I have neighbors So I quietly scream hurtful phrases at my slow-cooker.
It doesn't make me feel better. It doesn't make Qoheleth feel better.
I don't know if he ever felt better.
But he's reached his conclusion just in time to end the book:
Now all has been heard; here is the conclusion of the matter: Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind. For God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing, whether it is good or evil.
As an ending at first glance it's kind of ... unsatisfying?
But the more I think about it, the more I like it.
Mostly because of what it doesn't do.
It doesn't promise a quick fix to depression It doesn't tell me to just cheer up It doesn't give a theology of sadness It doesn't give any sort of solution at all.
But it doesn't say to do nothing And that's important.
Because most of the time, I feel like nothing is all I can do.
I don't feel like I can make anybody happier I don't feel like I'm good enough at my work I don't feel like I make the world any better I don't feel like I'm worth anything at all.
I just sponge up time and effort and goodwill from the people nice enough to be there for me and it's all a waste of time because no matter what they do I'll still be depressed.
But that's not what Qoheleth says.
"Fear God and keep his commandments, for this is the duty of all mankind."
ALL mankind.
That includes me and you.
And we have a purpose, a duty, because each of us matters.
One of the best things for my mental health this summer was helping at our undergrad research program, because I felt like I was actually good for something. I could help people learn! I could answer questions! I still don't have whatever brain juice lets you feel wanted, but it was nice to feel kind of needed.
Maybe it's a bit too much right now to believe that God loves you. Maybe it's a bit too much right now to believe all that's broken will be made whole.
(Although he does, and it will)
But maybe together we can cling to God Maybe together we can keep his commandments Maybe together we can trust that this will be worth it.
Because Ecclesiastes is only part of the Bible Because things change and things pass and this will too Because right now you're loved and wanted far more than you know.
And someday you'll be able to feel it.
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Epilogue:
Speaking of unsatisfying endings, here's last few verses of the gospel of Mark:
“Don’t be alarmed,” [the young man] said. “You are looking for Jesus the Nazarene,who was crucified. He has risen! He is not here. See the place where they laid him. But go, tell his disciples and Peter, ‘He is going ahead of you into Galilee. There you will see him, just as he told you.’”
Trembling and bewildered, the women went out and fled from the tomb. They said nothing to anyone, because they were afraid.
They were afraid.
They were the first to learn that Jesus had risen They were a few of his last remaining disciples They were the only people on earth who knew about literally the most important event of all time.
And they were afraid. And they were upset. And they didn't want to talk to anyone.
And that was okay.