I'm completely stressed out right now. It's not the first time. This time it is the eclipse of several factors. Work is incredibly busy. Denise is in Minnesota looking over her dad, who is critically ill. She was due home last night, but has to delay coming home until next week. When she is gone I not only have my abundance of chores to do but her's as well. Last night I had a meeting about me making a major professional change of starting my own business. There's a huge amount of work and risk involved with that.
Lastly, we have had house guests for six of the last eight weeks. My present guest has his own reasons to be stressed out. I feel torn between trying to be a listening ear and keeping my own head above water.
I know that said "lastly" with the previous comment but the real kicker is that Denise and I become empty-nesters in two weeks. It will be a profound change in our lives. I wish I wasn't in the haze of chaos right now so I could focus on Ramsey's last days at home.
So I haven't had much time to write here. Heck, I haven't had any good thoughts of late because I'm so tired. I don't sleep well when I'm stressed. Then I get desperate and take a medication to help me catch up . . . which leaves me chemically impaired for the day. I've never figured out which is the lessor of evils, being impaired by insomnia or sleeping well under the influence of medications and then living with the "after glow" more like "after dull" of the medication for the rest of the day.
I wanted to talk about Evangelicals burning Korans. But I couldn't get my head around that right now. I did get in trouble on a medical forum when I said something negative about the Bozo pastor behind it.
But the thought that came to me in the last 24 hours, between the fog and the total distraction of taking care of desperate patients, relates to a few words I heard on Fresh Air with Terry Gross last night. I caught only five minutes of the broadcast so I'm not positive who she was interviewing or about what. I mean, I know he was an author. I think it was Jonathan Franzen talking about his new book Freedom.
This is approximately how it went. I tried to find the exact script on line but was unable.
Terry: "Why do you include characters who are depressed? Is there something behind that?
Franzen: "All interesting people have some darkness within them. They make the best characters because they are so real and rich. There is so much to draw from in their character." (something like that).
So it started me thinking. While I've experienced at least two bouts of serious. clinical depression, that is not the cross I bear. I mean, I wouldn't give myself the diagnosis of depression, at least for the past 10 years. I am respectful that it could raise its ugly head at any time so I am vigilant.
My baggage (thorn in the flesh or whatever metaphor you want to use) is anxiety. Yeah, I live with it daily where depression comes like a season . .. here in great strength, then melts away for a long duration.
But I liked the positive spin that Franzen put on the milder forms of mental illness (versus the more serious like schizophrenia). We who suffer such, have a deeper well to draw from. Yeah, that sounds sweet.
I've notice how so many of the great artists dealt with the darkness of depression or the noose of anxiety. Many of them took their own lives in then end. I think of Hemingway et al.
So I think to feel deeply about life and the beauty therein, runs the risk of feeling the darkness of the fall.
So, at least today, if I could push a button and suddenly be someone who has never struggled with mental illness . . . I'm not so sure I would.
5 comments:
You know what I was thinking...it's kind of a twisted way to reflect on 9-11, but maybe you can understand what I am saying. Have a blog posting to ask readers how they remember 9-11 being treated by the church. I recall how some thought the opening salvo to usher in the End Times just commenced. Others thought that the rapture was going to take place, and were excited about it. It took me years to realize..but how sick is that? To be so excited on a day with so much death and destruction? I'm sure many of the people who read your blog can tell their own stories.
One of my writing contacts was told by a travelling evangelist "Have you ever considered that depression might be your spiritual gift?" and went on to explain how it was often the dark and strong emotions that empowered the creative arts.
However, as somebody who's been there, I can tell you it's a real bitch. And you always have to keep it in some balance, or you could wind up like Hemingway -- first the alcohol, then the 12-gauge.
Headless Unicorn Guy
HUG, of course you are right. The alcohol and the 12 gauge are the "professional hazards" for someone who feels deeply. Of course there is nothing good about that depth of depression or despair.
But there is something good, or favorable, I think, in feeling life deeply. Feeling the joys and the pain of it.
Have a blog posting to ask readers how they remember 9-11 being treated by the church. I recall how some thought the opening salvo to usher in the End Times just commenced. Others thought that the rapture was going to take place, and were excited about it. It took me years to realize..but how sick is that? To be so excited on a day with so much death and destruction? -- Eagle
It's called "Grinning Apocalyptism", Eagle. They're "living in the prologue of Left Behind and find it all Very Exciting." Especially because with Darbyite Pre-Trib Rapture, God will beam them up before anything Bad could ever really happen to them! What the prophets called "That Great and TERRIBLE Day" as a spectator sport, with catered box seats! What, Me Worry? It's All Gonna Burn!
My writing partern (the burned-out country preacher) has told me many-many times that "John Nelson Darby and Hal Lindsay DESTROYED Protestant Christianity in America." Shit like this is why.
Headless Unicorn Guy
This article is written by a man who published a book discussing Abraham Lincoln's struggle with depression. It does not make fun of him, or suggest that he was weak because of it. In fact, the article (and book) suggests that depression was a major reasons he was able to lead so well.
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2005/10/lincoln-apos-s-great-depression/4247/
It touches on some of the things you wrote about.
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