Category Archives: family

book reviews, children, S.A.D.

The Snow Queen

4 Comments

As I was digging around online today, musing on the level of winter weather we’ve had this year, I ran across an article on Hans Christian Anderson’s classic fairy tale, The Snow Queen.

The author of the article uses the fairy tale of the Snow Queen as a metaphor for depression. I won’t recount the story, but it is a very interesting interpretation.

It’s a great article. I often am intrigued by how regular themes of depression and anxiety appear in literature, even children’s literature.

Can any of the readers here think of any other fairy tales that may apply?

-DMR

book reviews, children, depression, family, suicide, therapy

The Yellow Wallpaper

4 Comments

The Yellow Wallpaper and Other Writings, by Charlotte Perkins Gilman, is not what one would consider “normal” reading for Lutheran pastors. Ms. Gilman was a turn of the (20th) century proto-feminist, advocated group raising for children (“it takes a village”), and any number of peculiar to downright evil ideas.

She also had a brilliant insight into the mindset of depression and anxiety.

In the signature short story in the above book (The Yellow Wallpaper), the protagonist has been diagnosed with melancholy. Her husband is a doctor, and believes that the best thing for her is to be kept away from all human contact. Despite her ongoing objections, she is made a virtual prisoner in her own home, a cottage they have rented until she gets better.

Of course, she doesn’t get better.  She goes slowly mad, and becomes obsessed with the yellow wallpaper in her upper room where she spends all her time.  The patterns in the paper become alive, she starts to see people on the other side of the paper.  It consumes her, until she finally cannot take it anymore and commits suicide.

Now the element of this story which I found so intriguing is the role of her husband.  He is a doctor, so he is an expert.  She cannot question his judgment, because that would be both unseemly and totally counterproductive.  So she is forced to accept his diagnosis even though everything within her says it is wrong.

The parallels between this and modern approaches to depression and other mental illnesses is striking.  What “camp” you fall into will determine your diagnosis.  Traditional medicine.  Homeopathy.  Good ole’ American willpower.  The “Luther” view of sing more hymns loud, drink more and be with people more (more on this little topic in another post).  Some will say drugs are the only way to go.  Therapy must be the answer.  Others will say that prayer is the only way.  Still others meditation, sunlight,  etc.  But it is surprising to me how completely exclusive these approaches can become.

The reality is that the mind is an incredibly complex thing, truly a wonder of God’s creation.  Just as there are many causes for depression, even so there may be many roads out of depression.  What we must be on guard against is presuming that one view or approach is the end all only way to come to a right way out.

In this path we walk, our Lord has given us many tools for healing.  God will see you through, no matter what path you may end up talking along the way.

-DMR

anxiety, depression, family, Pastoral Office, stress

These gray and latter days….

5 Comments


I hate the gray of winter. I hate it I hate it I hate it. There is something about the color gray that is just evil. Neither black nor white nor color, it is a continual reminder of the mush of our lives, and of how one thing blends into another so much that you can’t tell the difference.

Life. Family. Work. Play. For many they are hard to tell apart. And the busier we get the more those lines become blurred and (ugh) gray. Add to that a little obsessive compulsive tendencies and the easy possibility of becoming overwhelmed, and you have a recipe for an interesting month.

Most pastors will tell you that December and January are when most of the family problems come to a head in the parish, and that it is the time when everyone’s difficulties rise to the surface. This, too, has the effect of graying and mushing everything together, especially for the pastor.

Pastors (all bravado notwithstanding) are generally compassionate people. Pastors have a tendency to put on a tough exterior more as a self-defense mechanism than anything else.

I’m not really good at mechanisms right now. I take everything personally when I am under stress, even things that aren’t directed at me. It drives me batty, which also makes me crazy.

So what do you do when life is gray, stress is high, and things are crashing in upon you? I’d like to hear from you.

-DMR

PS Sorry this isn’t more upbeat and happy. Some posts are just like that.

anxiety, depression, family, Pastoral Office, stress

These gray and latter days….

Leave a comment


I hate the gray of winter. I hate it I hate it I hate it. There is something about the color gray that is just evil. Neither black nor white nor color, it is a continual reminder of the mush of our lives, and of how one thing blends into another so much that you can’t tell the difference.

Life. Family. Work. Play. For many they are hard to tell apart. And the busier we get the more those lines become blurred and (ugh) gray. Add to that a little obsessive compulsive tendencies and the easy possibility of becoming overwhelmed, and you have a recipe for an interesting month.

Most pastors will tell you that December and January are when most of the family problems come to a head in the parish, and that it is the time when everyone’s difficulties rise to the surface. This, too, has the effect of graying and mushing everything together, especially for the pastor.

Pastors (all bravado notwithstanding) are generally compassionate people. Pastors have a tendency to put on a tough exterior more as a self-defense mechanism than anything else.

I’m not really good at mechanisms right now. I take everything personally when I am under stress, even things that aren’t directed at me. It drives me batty, which also makes me crazy.

So what do you do when life is gray, stress is high, and things are crashing in upon you? I’d like to hear from you.

-DMR

PS Sorry this isn’t more upbeat and happy. Some posts are just like that.

family, stimulation

Relief

Leave a comment

Well, I just got through the most stressful part of the summer for me. It wasn’t so much things that I was doing, but that my wife was really really busy with her job. So that meant more watching the kids, more running around, more stimulation across the board. Lots of long days, etc.

Now was surprised me was that I actually made it. I’m not saying this to toot my own horn, but it is so easy to come to believe in depression and anxiety that things will never get better, that you can never handle things the way you used to do so. Not true. Or at least, not necessarily true.

One can be tired, worn out, and ready for a vacation. But you can still look back on those difficult times and say, “I handled it. I’m still here.”

Be of good cheer, friends. The Lord provides, and He will take care of you.

-DMR

family, stimulation

Relief

3 Comments

Well, I just got through the most stressful part of the summer for me. It wasn’t so much things that I was doing, but that my wife was really really busy with her job. So that meant more watching the kids, more running around, more stimulation across the board. Lots of long days, etc.

Now was surprised me was that I actually made it. I’m not saying this to toot my own horn, but it is so easy to come to believe in depression and anxiety that things will never get better, that you can never handle things the way you used to do so. Not true. Or at least, not necessarily true.

One can be tired, worn out, and ready for a vacation. But you can still look back on those difficult times and say, “I handled it. I’m still here.”

Be of good cheer, friends. The Lord provides, and He will take care of you.

-DMR

depression, family, Pastoral Office, stress

Do Pastors Relax?

4 Comments


Do pastors relax? There is a grand question. Many pastors work 80+ hours a week, even down to cutting the grass for the church, janitorial services, and a host of non-pastoral or quasi-pastoral tasks. Why do we do this to ourselves? Family has little room in such a life. Friends exist only on the internet. Time for personal recharging and reflection will certainly be at the bottom of the heap. We can easily look at life as one long series of obligations (and failures), and that all we do is try to keep our heads above water. I once had a pastor tell me that we (meaning pastors) measure our day not by the mistakes we make, but by the number of things we didn’t get done.

I certainly have lived that life, and continue to struggle with it every day. Guilt is a powerful thing, and none of us will ever fulfill our vocations completely (see the Ten Commandments).

All of this brings me back to my original question: Do pastors relax? And if they do, how?

One thing that really is critical for pastors and relaxation (and this may sound a little silly) is that often it has to be scheduled. I live by my calendar. If it isn’t on the calendar, or on the “task list,” it simply isn’t going to happen. If I do this, it is much more likely that I will take the time to sit back and relax. Golf. Tennis. Cards. Brewing Beer. Drinking tea by the lake. Whatever it is.

Of course, the danger with scheduling relaxation is making it become another obligation, something you MUST do can become a chore in no time. It’s a delicate balance.

Is it worth it? YES!

Is it a hard habit to form. YES!

Can you do it? YES!

Talk with your spouse about it if you’re married. It will help across the board in dealing with people, church, home, and the like.

So how do you relax?

-DMR

depression, family, shut-ins, stimulation, stress

Reentry Blues

2 Comments


Sorry about that two month hiatus there. If it is any consolation, in the words of Larry Nelson, “You’ve always been on my mind.”

I’m now several months into “reentry” and things are mostly good, but with definite bumps along the way. One plus for you longer time readers is that I have a draft of the book done. We’ll see where it goes from here. But that consumed a lot of my time this spring. Now I just have to get it to make sense…

For the most part reentry has gone well. We’ve done a couple vacations. I’m trying to get back into the swing of pastoral life juggled with family life. It’s okay. Here are a few observations that do come to my mind:

  • The things that bothered me on disability still bother me, e.g. overstimulus, stress, time with too many people, and so forth. That has not gone away. I’m learning how to manage it better, but it is still a long road.
  • Family time really has to be deliberate and planned. If it isn’t, I’m much more likely to simply bail out.
  • “A man has to know his limitations,” in the words of Clint Eastwood. I am very tempted to take on new and more projects, and to get right back to where I started. It’s my nature to be the superpastor, and while I’m working on that, it is very hard for me.
  • Time in the Scriptures and in prayer is easier now, but still not an unconscious habit of my daily life. Maybe its energy. Maybe there are still spiritual matters that have yet to be resolved. I’m not sure. But this is an ongoing challenge for me, as it is for most pastors.

So there you have it. I hope to be back to posting more regularly now. If you have any topics you would like to see covered, let me know and I’ll take a stab at it.

-DMR

book reviews, depression, family

One of Two Books I've Read on Depression: Speaking of Sadness

5 Comments


Over the last year or more I’ve read a number of books on or about depression in different ways. When I could concentrate enough to read. Two books I read early on I’ve mean to write about for some time. Here is the first one. The second will follow:

Speaking of Sadness
By David A. Karp

Karp is a sociology professor at Boston College. He is not a Christian (neither is the other writer). However, Dr. Karp’s book is profound. He has suffered from depression himself, and so the book is part auto-biographical, part sociology, and part explanation of what is happening to you and how others around you are reacting to it.

Some of the topics he discusses are disconnection, illness as identity, medication, coping, family, and depression’s impact on our society. It was probably the sections on disconnection and illness as identity that were the most useful to me. Depression forces one to withdraw into yourself. You shrink, so that you feel like you are in a deep dark hole and can only barely see out at all. Friends fall by the wayside, family even. Many a divorce has had depression as one of the chief causes. So to understand how and why this disconnection is happening is quite important.

Perhaps equally important is the concept of illness as identity. I remember having a conversation with my wife’s brother once. He said that he hated being called a diabetic. He had diabetes. In his mind, the illness did not define him, and so he wanted to create separation between himself and the illness. That can be done with physical diseases and illnesses to some degree. No one says “I am a flu-er”, you say you have the flu. Even this has it’s limits. Paraplegic. Diabetic. These are but a couple examples of where the illness is incorporated socially into the identity of a person.

But with mental illness it is different. Because depression and mental illness are so invasive, because we can’t seem to separate our minds from ourselves, depression quickly gloms itself on to the identity. You are marked as unclean or not quite right in the head. There is a social stigma that goes along with depression. Are you trustworthy, or will you just crash? Jobs, family, church, all of these areas an more can make depression become a part of you. I am surprised that no one has coined a term like “I am a depressionic” or something to that effect. Karp addresses this phenomenon with a great deal of insight.

Now where is the Gospel in a secular book like this? There isn’t any, directly. He goes through the journey down into the valley and back up again. It is descriptive, with many helpful insights along the way. I would highly recommend this book, for example, to anyone suffering from depression and especially to their family. It is very good for understanding this. What he doesn’t do (and I have yet to find) is a real treatment of the relationship between mental illness and faith. How is it that I can cry, “I trust when dark my road” and yet mentally not believe there is a future for me? Is the mind the sole place for faith, so that if my mind isn’t right, it must mean my faith isn’t right?

God forbid. Faith is a gift, not an achievement. It is a gift that God continues to give, no matter how difficult the circumstances. In fact, the harder it is, the sweeter God’s gift will become. Even if you don’t feel it. Even if you can’t see past the next fifteen minutes. That doesn’t mean God abandons you. It means that he is hidden for a time so that He may reveal Himself more fully to us at the proper time. There is hope. There is a future. There is a Messiah who comes.

-DMR