A Sacrifice of Lamentation
I googled “clergy depression” before worship on Sunday.
A week ago Sunday I spent the hours before worship staving off what you might call a nervous breakdown. I succeeded in getting through my various and sundry tasks and responsibilities before I drove home and wept, on and off, for the rest of the day.
I’m depressed. I’ve known this for some time, but I’m so good at staving it off sometimes I convince myself I’m not. I’m apparently not so good at staving it off that I’ve convinced everyone else. I finally told a carefully selected lay leader, and instead of coming as a surprise to her, as I expected, she told me she’d already figured it out.
Oops. The pastor is not supposed to be depressed, and if she is, she’s supposed to keep it under extremely tight wraps. The carefully selected lay leader is supposed to be shocked – shocked! – to learn of this minor, temporary dip in her pastor’s mental health.
Only it isn’t minor, and it’s far from temporary. When I look over my shoulder at the length of my life, there have been so many episodes of depression, anxiety, obsessive thinking, and compulsive behavior that they all overlap into one long, sustained sadness.
And yet I’ve never felt quite so threatened by it before. It’s never been so acute, so painful. I’ve never felt like the nervous breakdown might not politely wait to descend until after coffee hour.
Last week’s episode hit me out of nowhere. I was driving to church with my daughter in the backseat. I’d flipped on the local NPR affiliate, and was absentmindedly listening to a story that was well underway. There was some translation involved, so it took a little longer than usual to catch up. And then all of a sudden I realized what the distraught woman was being interviewed about. It involved an unfathomably brutal attack on her young daughter. The interviewer referenced that the perpetrator had been wanted for a similar attack against a three-month-old baby.
I started hyperventilating, and crying, and slammed my hand into the radio button as quickly as I could. I tried to fake a smile at my daughter – she’s too young to understand what we’d heard, but I didn’t want to scare her with my histrionics – and focused on not crashing the car. Of course no one wants to hear about such violence. When I’m depressed, I can’t get past it. What I heard played over and over in my mind like a broken record, and to my horror, I pictured it in my mind’s eye. It was horrible. I didn’t want to live in a world in which such things happen. I didn’t want to be human if a human being could commit such an abomination. How do people go about their lives, shopping for shoes and praying for rain and eating birthday cake, when children are intentionally injured by sadistic adults?
I honestly don’t know how I got through the morning. I don’t know how I preached. The text for the week was the bit from Hebrews about Christ as the High Priest. I’d read a wonderful commentary in Feasting on the Word that opened the scripture to me. The theme of the sermon was that Christ, as our High Priest, lifts up a sacrifice of lamentation on behalf of all the people. He cries and weeps and prays for us, for all humanity. My voice thickened with tears at the climax of the sermon, when I alluded to the suffering in the world. It was probably effective. If you were a cynical listener, you might think that I carefully manipulated my emotions to appear as a compassionate preacher.
The truth is, when my voice broke, I almost lost it completely, grieving for what happened to those children. Grieving for what could happen to my child. I am terrified I am going to lose my child. I am terrified that by giving voice to that fear, I’m communicating to the universe (to God?) that I’m the perfect target to become a bereaved parent.
(Please, God, no.)
I’ve tried convincing myself I’m just really feeling Lent this year. That come Easter Sunday, the joy of the Resurrection will make these dry bones dance again. That I’ll trust God enough to believe that no matter what happens, life is a gift, suffering will be redeemed, and death is no more.
Yet I fear that it’s going to take more than Resurrection to heal me this time around. My therapist has been pushing medication for months now. I don’t want to take it. I’ve heard too many stories about it not working, too many stories of how much it sucks to get off of it. Of course I would encourage a parishioner to seek medical help for a mental health condition. I would provide referrals.
There is a part of me believes that my reaction to that radio story was exactly as it should have been. I shouldn’t be able to blithely change the channel to some pop country station and go on with my day. When I was in the midst of my weeping last Sunday afternoon, all I could think was that Jesus must have cried that hard. Jesus must have felt pain that deeply, to have lifted up that sacrifice of lamentation. Not that I’m comparing myself to Jesus. I guess what I’m saying is that I believed my sermon. I believed that Jesus weeps with us and for us. And in the midst of my depression, a weeping savior was comforting.
I guess my hope is that if I can believe a sermon preached through sadness, maybe I’ll start believing for myself all things I’d say to anyone else in my position.
May it be so.
Comments
Sarah K. writes:
Thank you for sharing this very, very vulnerable piece. I know you know this intellectually, but there is no shame in taking depression medication. I pray for healing, for a lifting of the depression, and for peace.
—April 09, 2009 at 02:55 PM
Elsa writes:
May it be so indeed.
What a gift you have shared here in admitting the deepest fears that are too often buried. Thank you.
—April 09, 2009 at 03:21 PM
Steph writes:
There are so many things about this account that mirror what I have endured this past year and a half. I too resisted medication...I have always encouraged others to get the help they need, but when it came to myself, I was resistant. Part of it is that by taking medication, I more fully admit how sick and broken I am...Pastors aren't supposed to be the weak struggling ones! But getting the help I needed was the right thing for my family, my parish and myself.
Thank you for sharing your struggle. Many of your sisters share this road with you.
—April 09, 2009 at 04:57 PM
anonymous writes:
Dear one- thank you for being so open and so honest. Many in the pulpit are on medication- Im in seminary, and many here, are too. I will share with you what the doctor of a dear friend of mine (OCD, finally got treatment after many rough years) said: "If you were a diabetic, you would take your insulin, and not worry about being "broken", right? if you had high blood pressure, you would take your medicine for the sake of your daughter, right? Take your meds- you have a chemical imbalance- except it's in your brain and not your pancrease." And she did- and she got better. Christ does lift up our sorrow, Christ does intercede for us, as does the Spirit. Take your meds.
—April 09, 2009 at 05:14 PM
Alex writes:
This is not a comment specifically to the author of this article, but to all clergy -- we have an important responsibility to educate our congregations that clergy are regular people with regular problems, emotions, moods, hormones, bodies and lives. I have concerns that the (appropriate) use of boundaries has sometimes moved to the inappropriate realm of clergy keeping things secret, thus giving an impression that their "set-apartness" is really a "set-aboveness". We clergy do not need to disclose every personal item or issue, but we need to find ways to express our humanness in ways that allow our congregations to provide us with pastoral care at times. Our ordinations mark us for particular service, not for lives that must be perfect or without struggle.
I think this article would be a helpful starting point for personnel committees to see that they have a calling to support and aid their clergy in times of grief and pain. Thanks for this reflection.
—April 10, 2009 at 10:26 AM
Betsy writes:
My husband also struggles with depression. He resisted medication for a long time as well- there were certainly a few very dark months while he was at his lowest. Finally, he decided he'd try it- for my sake. Anonymous says it very well, so I need not add to her words.
The medicine doesn't erase his struggles, but it helped. Instead of climbing an overhanging cliff with bricks weighing him down, he's just hiking the mountain trails: still tough, but now its possible.
You can get through this.
I also think- as care providers, our cups can get over-filled. I work in trauma as a chaplain, and my job often ends up caring for front-page news. Because of that, I don't have cable and I don't often read the news. (Never on my day off). I have found that I have certain limits for what I can absorb and continue to be functional. Your cup sounds pretty full. It's the nature of your (and my) job.
I know many of my friends listen to great stuff on NPR. I can't take it in the doses that they do. (I stopped reading chimp attack stories a few weeks ago.) I am also working with a therapist as well.
You are not alone.
—April 11, 2009 at 06:49 AM
Kent Kepler writes:
For Christmas this year my non-preacher daughter gave me a copy of Kathleen Norris'Acedia & Me: A Marriage, Monks, and A Writer's Life.I woud highly recommend her writing with its insights into depression, which she links to the old deadly sin, Acedia. I have found this useful in conversations with those religious professionals who get so overwhelmed with everything that they get depressed, or filled with lethergy. She explores this in terms of her own life, but also in light of the wisdom of the desert fathers and mothers. I know that I found it difficult to come to terms with depression during my ministry, and very reluctant to seek help. Explorations into the devotional writings of Kathleen Norris and Henri Nouwen helped me get through. Thanks for the frankness with which you have shared with us.
—April 13, 2009 at 01:13 AM
Elizabeth writes:
I have been depressed too, clinically depressed, intensely suicidal, hospitalized. It has been almost ten years ago now. I was on medication for years, and still in therapy occasionally. I still carefully manage my emotional health. -But- on the other side of it, I am a wiser Christian, a more intuitive minister, and a healthier human being than I ever would have been if I had not faced depression in my life. Really. I don't think I would actually wish this on anyone, but healing through depression has made my life sweeter and deeper. I pray the same for you and all who face it. You are brave for making yourself vulnerable with this.
—May 05, 2009 at 04:17 PM