On Depression, Writing, and Free Will

As a depressive, the ability to summon, focus, and properly orient my creative energies long enough to write anything I’d consider worthwhile—or even lucid—is often a fleeting privilege. Time and again, I find myself subconsciously rendering my conscious “thank yous” to the gods of chance or spontaneous thought and not to God.

When I formulate a clear sentence and see it on the screen in front of me—when I read what I’ve been thinking for so long and finally understand what my brain already knew—it’s similar to rolling a boulder off my chest, and I can finally breathe. I find great relief in writing, but the work is paradoxical—to accomplish it is therapeutic, but to reach that point usually requires a great strain on my mind.

I find writing a dangerous act of self-exposure, especially in the blogosphere—bearing my thoughts to anyone who clicks on by. There are few things I find more comforting and which instill a sense of self-security more than knowing my thoughts are captive to no one but God and myself. Writing requires that I leave that comfort for the sake of pursuing a human connection with any possible reader.

But when I’m at my desk, the blank computer screen turns into something like a mirror, reflecting whatever pretentious pseudo-intellectual persona I hate to admit I strive for. I secretly want to be smart; writing reminds me that I’m insecure. I’m reminded that I often can’t organize my ideas into a steam of coherent thought, and as a result, I feel embarrassed and vulnerable.

The quality of my writing becomes the measure by which I determine whether or not I am smart, or at least functioning—whether I’m still sane. If my work is validated as good—maybe just a passing compliment in person or online—the purpose of my existence somehow seems legitimized. If this sounds dramatic, it is.

As a result, it takes me a very long time to write. I’m capable of obsessing over a single sentence for ten minutes, because I want it perfect. I want to piece it together and make it whole, so I can hold it up to the light and examine it—I want to understand what the sentence is trying to tell me, because I want to understand what I’m trying to tell myself. If I can’t write, if the words won’t come, I become disoriented and confused. I feel like I know myself less, the world makes less sense, and I start to panic.

I’ve sat paralyzed, 500 words short of a final paper, my body literally shaking from anxiety, because I couldn’t write what I was thinking. I’ve stared at the screen for an hour hoping for inspiration only to find myself slipping into a terrible depression when it doesn’t come.

After waking up from what usually turns into a 15 hour consolatory nap, I ask myself the following question: “Am I depressed because I can’t write or can I not write because I’m depressed?” Psychology-based wisdom will usually answer, “yes.” Depression is both a result and a cause—and I believe this to be true, but I tend to treat depression only as a result when it pertains to my own experience.

I blame myself for everything—for not reacting positively to persistent, negative, intrinsically evil forces, which I perceive as entirely all too pervasive worldwide and therefore overwhelmingly discouraging and yet which create an equally dire existential situation for every other human being around me who manages to smile while walking opposite my direction down the street and get on with his or her life in a seemingly higher-functioning and more productive way than I do my own.

This usually forces me to meditate on the relationship between the constructive/destructive powers of my free will vs. the redeeming, omnipotent presence of a good God who allegedly reigns over every human action on this planet, including my own. To what extent can mental illness dominate my free will? To what extent can God channel the effects of my free will toward his own ends? To what extent do I blame my sin-nature for actions I willfully commit, yet which seem out of my control?

If I’m bed-ridden because I have mono, I have a clear and good excuse for why I’m bed-ridden, and I have a name for it. If I’m bed-ridden because I’m depressed or crippled by anxiety, it’s not so simple. There’s no blood test to remind me why I’m sick. Instead I’ll start to doubt myself. What if, for instance, I’m not actually depressed? What if I’m just lazy? What if I’m just scared? Or weak? Or defective?

The greatest struggle I’ve encountered as a depressive is convincing myself that in the moments I’m incapacitated what I’m experiencing isn’t my fault. Because I can’t see anything keeping me emotionally down I’m disposed towards believing I’ve somehow chosen to be this way. My fate seems entirely too much up to me—the consequences of my decision-making appear as if they exist outside the purview of God’s sovereignty, and this is a terrifying thought.

This is how I can go from simple writer’s block to existential crises in a matter of minutes. I want to write; I have emotions that feel so strong and vivid, and thoughts, which are so clear for the short moment they flicker in my mind, and yet too often my best attempts to put them in writing are futile.

My faith teaches me that my free will—contrary to how I usually feel—is not a curse, but a gift from God, which he uses for his own perfect end: Proverbs 16:3-4 says, “Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and your plans will succeed. The Lord works out everything for his own ends.”

This is something I want to believe and yet which I often struggle to fathom. When I’m depressed I usually act in ways I don’t want to, or rather, I don’t seem to act much at all. I sit helpless, broken under the weight of my indecisions, wishing that someone else could live the next five minutes of my life for me. How can my plans succeed—how can God work them out for his own end—if my very will to act on these plans is completely lacking? How is my lying in bed going to be worked out for any end, let alone a positive one?

I wish there were simple answers to some of these questions, which I could accept. Simple answers do exist but rarely speak directly to my current experience: “God is bigger than this,” “God is speaking to you in the midst of your struggle,” “You will come out of this having learned something great,” “God is good, always,” “Keep trusting in him,” “maybe this is a test.” The list goes on. At best, I can comprehend these answers intellectually, and maybe this is what I have to settle for. I know what they mean, even if they don’t always speak to my soul.

I can choose to believe that God doesn’t care about me—that the hope I have in God’s sovereignty isn’t real—but doing so never makes me feel any better. Perhaps God shrouds himself in mystery so we'll be forced to trust in him through faith and not assurance. Faith is a distinct choice and therefore, so is hope.

I can choose to have faith even in my blackest moments—when logic leads me to despair and I can’t quite understand why I should keep going; I can reorient my heart towards God and pray that in time my mind will follow, and I can do so even when I’m bed-ridden.

Finding Truth in Depression

Here's a nonsensical argument: “stop whining about your sinus infection, there are starving children in third world countries.” I heard a classmate say this in the school café last week, and he was being serious. Besides finding his comment stupid, I also found it offensive. Here’s why:

His statement assumes that all human suffering is relative. It assumes that the subjective experience of one person—however painful or trivial it might be—should diminish when compared with the subjective experience of another person whose suffering is—from an objective point of view—worse. He attempts to draw attention to the suffering of those less fortunate—a noble endeavor—but in doing so, denigrates human experience in its entirety.

Upper middle-class Americans suffer too. So do upper, upper middle class, and upper class Americans, and celebrities, and CEO’s, and rich billionaires; so do pastors and priests, and motivational speakers, and Christians who smile too much. Why? Because suffering is part of the human condition—we live in a fallen world and everybody’s life has its problems.

According to John C. Crosby, author of The Selfhood of The Human Person, “incommunicability” refers to the phenomenon by which a person does not share his being with any other person. A person’s life is unique; what they experience is entirely their own and contributes to the “fullness of [their] self-identity.”

A person’s pain, therefore, is incommunicable—it is entirely his own. Others can empathize with it or sympathize with it but they cannot absorb it. The most they could do is possibly simulate it; they could create for themselves the same kind of pain as their friend, but never the same pain.

I wonder whether my classmate would venture to use that same statement on a person suffering from depression—depression, after all, is very painful. I’d hope he wouldn’t. The sad thing is, however, if he did, the person suffering from depression might actually believe him. Why? Well, because they’re depressed.

I’ll speak from experience: when I’m depressed I usually feel like my life simply doesn’t matter, especially relative to the overwhelming size of the universe. I deceive myself into thinking that God has these moments when he just happens to overlook my situation. I feel weak, small, and—during the moments my anxiety kicks in—psychologically paralyzed; sometimes I simply don’t want to exist. At the same time—and here is a great paradox about being depressed—I find that I’m self-centered and wholly self-involved.

I don’t want to matter, but at the same time—to the extent that I brood over and loath every undistracted, waking moment of my life—I am all that matters. When I recognize this contradiction within myself, I feel selfish and guilty—if I really am as worthless as I’ve lead myself to believe, then who am I to brood over my own worthlessness?

Fortunately, this psychotic, and yet brilliantly constructed syllogism is not true, because it’s based on a false premise. It assumes that I as an individual—as a person—could ever not matter. And this is never true.

In The Selfhood, Crosby establishes a foundational truth about the nature of human beings: “Persons are ends in themselves and never mere instrumental means.” To engage another individual with full respect to his personhood, I must regard him as possessing human dignity. “When I look at others only insofar as they intersect with my projects,” writes Crosby, “then of course I lose them as persons, because I am not willing to let them exist as ends in themselves.”

As Christians we know that all people are created in the image of God and therefore possess intrinsic self-worth, which He confers. A person’s value is infinite, because God's love for him in infinite. Therefore, with regard to the entire panoply of human existence, a person’s value is never relative; it is always absolute. Nor is his personal suffering relative; it too, is absolute.

Crosby has us consider the absoluteness of human persons in this way: If there are 500,000 print copies of a town newspaper, one of those copies is worth very little. If there were only 10 print copies of that same town newspaper, the value of a single copy would then increase significantly. The value of one copy is relative to the number of total copies. People are not valued in the same way.

“According to one estimate,” writes Crosby, “there have existed until now some 77 billion human beings. But no one person becomes smaller in the presence of all these other persons, or is relativized in their presence.” Therefore, before God, each person exists as if he were all there is. Crosby writes further:

“It seems to be a particularly ‘worldly’ way of considering persons to subject them to the laws of finite numerical quantity and to think that each person gets smaller as the number of persons he is compared with gets larger. One recovers a sense of their personhood only by realizing that each person has a certain ‘absoluteness’ of being, by which I mean not a divine self-existence, but rather a curious metaphysical ‘insensitivity’ to the presence of other persons, an inability to be relativized by them in the quantitative sense just explained.”

Because the importance of our existence before God can never be relativized by the presence of others, nor can the weight of our sufferings. It’s easy to think that our problems are trivial or that because others's problems are so much worse, that we have no legitimate reason to be upset. But God does not compare our sufferings with the sufferings others.

Depression hurts, and it compels us to think less of ourselves. The only things worse than suffering from the pains of depression is suffering from the delusions it causes—believing that our pain isn’t pain at all, but rather a selfish impulse. God’s grace, however, abounds whether we recognize that we’re deserving of it or not.

I take comfort in this fact, and I hope you can too.

"There's no such thing as free enterprise anymore!"

My grandparents are in town this weekend:

Upon observance, the whole of my Grandpa's typical day amounts to, from what I can tell, a morning coffee session at the kitchen table (done in conjuction with a dismissive perusing of the morning paper, and therefore followed by a woeful reflection on the liberal and decadent state of modern America), followed by a crusading, daylong rampage on any and all unsuspecting crossword puzzles in sight. Any break from this schedule is for time spent staring out at the mountains with sage-like authority, dozing off in an upright position, or eating homemade cooking. Jackpot.

Bare in mind, this was presented to me in light of recent introspective queries in which I've found my self to be without any conceivable life goals or ambitions...

.... And then it occurred to me (with stoic realization) that apparently what I really want to be when I grow up is an old man.


It just makes sense. My favorite cereal is Honey Bunches of Oats, my favorite pattern is plaid, I sleep more more than I'm awake, and 90% of my comments are based more on the anticipated reaction than their actuall content. I'd rather look at the Grand Canyon than walk through it, exercizing makes me weez, and if I was smart enough I'd conquer a whole slew of crossword puzzles in my day (and cheat when no one is looking).


So basically, I have about 50 years until I'm truly in my element...give it some time. Unfortunately, in all honesty, this can probably account for only half of my awkard disposition. The other fifty percent remains lost in the cosmic void of things unknown. However, I count this as progress nonetheless in my ongoing psychoanalytical venture through my neurosis.

Matchbox 20 was right.

Today I offer you the latest token of city life to take root in good ol' State College, joining a class of forerunners including displaced hipsters, and nostalgic indie-rock Strokes fans.....behold, a little gem I like to call H1N1.


...that's right. We got the swine flu- fresh outa Queens, by way of Mexico, three cases have turned up at my middle school alma mater.


More notable however, is that it happened on the same day the World Health Organization declared a global pandemic...(which is pretty much the exact opposite of telling people "there's no need to panic"). Now personally, the severity of this outbreak is not what concerns me. I'm already well reconcilled with understanding that the world is coming to an end-- old news. What gets my goat is that by declaring a pandemic, the W.H.O., in the event that I were to catch the swine flu, has officially stripped me of the possibility of feeling special...because now apparently we're all going to get it...cheers. No longer could I then say, "Yeah dude, I totally survived that crazy swine flu epidemic everyone was freaking out about,"and feel like I especially cheated death, because now the response will be either, "Oh word, me too," or, "hey I'm dead."

...and the livin's easy.

Getting serious for a moment: Tonight, I'm sittin at work, well into my tenth hour of the first of five double shifts I have this week, when a dear lady who I've come to recognize as a regular, hands me a bag of cookies....and not even a single batch, mind you, but two different kinds of cookies. Not only did she consider that if by chance I didn't like chocolate chip, toffee would certainly do instead, but she also showed consideration for the fact that everyone enjoys variety, even within a random act of kindness.... Holy crap. Yes, I cried a little.

Now before I go on, I suppose I should provide some context as to the weight this situation holds for a simpleton like my self. Over the last academic school year, due to a college budget and an opportunity cost analysis that repeatedly left me picking sleep over time that could otherwise have been spent cooking, I slowly weened myself off of every food category on the pyramid save for sugar and caffeine. Over time this limited diet left me with two physiological conditions: a nervous system fully dependent on caffeine in order to function, and blood sugar levels teetering on the brink of diabetic collapse. Ultimately, I fell into a process of using coffee to stay awake and sugar as a way of tricking my body into thinking it actually had calories to burn for the day. The end result, and what I'm getting at, is that although since coming home I've got back on the wagon of normal food consumption (coffee however, still remains an important part of my life), surprising me with a large parcel of cookies, as what took place tonight, is tantamount to watching a recovering alcoholic do a keg stand. woot!

Soon after my experiental moment of grace, however, I was left with having to process what exactly took place and what I was supposed to take away from it. A few nights ago that same woman came through the garage without her pass, which she had forgot at home. Technically, I was supposed to charge her but I didn't. She was very appreciative, and so I've understood what took place tonight to be a disproportianate response of thanks for my helping her out. And therein lies my problem: on the one hand we have an example of kindness being met with kindness, "reap what you so", respect karma, ect. On the other hand we have an example of, and I quote Michael Doud, "No JC, you didn't do your job and you got paid in cookies for it. You bucked the system, halfassed a job that already takes almost no skillset, and came out on top. Kudos. Penn State's out five bucks while you get paid you hourly wage (my tuition dollars at work) on top of a mound of cookies." Two competing theories, both with valid points, and yet a greater example as to why I struggle to interpret the times.

I can feel increasing amounts of my brain cells committing suicide the more I write here.

When you work till midnight in a 4x6 booth at a parking garage for a campus in summer session, you grow accustomed to spending time in solitude. Slowly, and in a way that slips beneath the radar of self-awareness, your legs fold pretszel-shaped atop the office chair, your arms open wide in a bear hug stance, and your index fingers and thumbs pinch the air Rafiki style. Iron and Wine soothes the airwaves, incense burns from an unknown source, and levitation becomes a goal to work towards, not a dream. Such has been my case in recent weeks, and although I typically welcome the quiet and stimulating ambiance of my work quarters, there are times I am forced to admit that the seclusion takes a toll on my psyche. I realized this in retrospect tonight, after having successfully thwarted the terroristic efforts of one deviant housefly, attempting to upend the tranquility I so highly cherish as having cultivated within said booth through my steadfast commitment to mediocre work. Ten minutes into a strategic operation to smite the winged vexation from the air, I was finally victorious after landing a devestating blow via duel combo visitor's map/notepad. Instantly commemorating the moment with a hearty fist pump, a swagger-heavy Irish jigg, and a resounding "woot!", I was then interrupted with an "eh hmm...?" from the perplexed old lady who had pulled up amidst my bout of rapture. Turning around to face the window, I was met with a "you shouldn't smoke pot at work" eyebrow raise, and the realization that I really need to find an outlet for my testosterone.

I've decided a good way this could be done is by making my currently banal circumstances more challenging. The reigning idea so far is tying the fingers on my right hand together to make it harder to push the button that lifts the gate. I can almost feel the adrenaline rush already.

"I thought this would make the gate go up." "No sir that's jut a piece of paper."

Hows is it that cobble-stone streets in Rome have survived dating back centuries, yet the average road in State College (and lo, throughout the country) can only last from one summer to the next before needing to undergo some kind of mad construction project? I suspect a widespread and well coordinated conspiracy is at work, facilitated by the efforts of the united road workers of America. I wish I could have been at the meeting when some einstein conceived of the indefinite amount of profit available if, thenceforth, asphalt were only to be held together by elmers glue. A momentous occasion no doubt, forging then and there a thorn per every person's side who choses to drive between the months of May through August. It's a sad moment when you realize that you're paying taxes to huff car exhaust in 80 degree weather, stuck in traffic whilst the car in front of you's sound system overpowers yours with a smattering of taste-forsaken, nasel-tuned, pop-alternative (alternative to everything that sounds short of making want to die) gravel rock.

I bring this up today, while at work, because construction has an entire half of the road directly behind me blocked off. True, I am not suffering the pains of sitting in traffic or negotiating unforeseen detours, but what I am experiencing is a violation of the pleasant sanctuary I have established here in the exit booth kiosk. What was once a haven for psuedo-intellectual and contemplative thought is now a mere shelter from the thundering clamours of jack-hammers and dump trucks. How am I supposed to work if I can't effectively fall asleep every 15 minutes for a power-nap? What's more, every person exitting the garage who likewise has suffered an inconvenience due to said construction, feels the need to air their greivance with me. As if, as the only (part-time I should add) Penn State employee readily available for conversation, I naturally, and by default, am responsible for whatever problem is taking place within sight. "Yes ma'am it's true. I hired all those men across the street just to piss you off today. I'm one of those higher-up administrative types who made it big at the age of 18 and now likes to kick it down here at the garages with the lay-workers. Thank you for coming."