Beyond Blue

I was so moved by this essay on faith and depression composed by an anonymous Beyond Blue reader. I hope you find as much hope in it as I did.
There is a dark smudge on my forehead. I am acutely aware of it. It feels kinda slimy. And people notice. This year, I’m not sure I want them to.
There are plenty of years I’ve wanted people to notice the ashes on my forehead, for all the wrong reasons. ” Look,” I wanted to say, “I’m pious, I’m observant, and I take my faith seriously.” So much for praying in a closet. I’ve never been particularly uncomfortable declaring or discussing my faith. Working in the church, it simply comes with the territory. Those conversations can often be difficult…”what kind of Christian are you?” but those discussions are usually discussions I can handle, that push me to think and to delve more deeply into faith.
In the last three years, that has changed. Most psychiatrists would probably tell you that I’ve suffered from some form of clinical depression and anxiety for a very long time. They’re probably right. But it’s only in the last three or four years that the disorder has struck a blow so hard that I can’t even articulate my thoughts about faith. A glance at my journals will tell you that my spiritual burn-out began during a very difficult work experience. But what is happening now is something much, much deeper than that.

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Abraham Lincoln is a powerful mental health hero for me. Whenever I doubt that I can do anything meaningful in this life with a defective brain (and entire nervous system, actually, as well as the hormonal one), I simply pull out Joshua Wolf Shenk’s classic, “Lincoln’s Melancholy: How Depression Challenged a President and Fueled His Greatness.” Or I read the CliffsNotes version: the poignant essay, “Lincoln’s Great Depression” that appeared in “The Atlantic” in October of 2005.

Throughout his life Lincoln’s response to suffering–for all the success it brought him–led to greater suffering still. When as a young man he stepped back from the brink of suicide, deciding that he must live to do some meaningful work, this sense of purpose sustained him; but it also led him into a wilderness of doubt and dismay, as he asked, with vexation, what work he would do and how he would do it. This pattern was repeated in the 1850s, when his work against the extension of slavery gave him a sense of purpose but also fueled a nagging sense of failure. Then, finally, political success led him to the White House, where he was tested as few had been before.

Lincoln responded with both humility and determination. The humility came from a sense that whatever ship carried him on life’s rough waters, he was not the captain but merely a subject of the divine force–call it fate or God or the “Almighty Architect” of existence. The determination came from a sense that however humble his station, Lincoln was no idle passenger but a sailor on deck with a job to do. In his strange combination of profound deference to divine authority and a willful exercise of his own meager power, Lincoln achieved transcendent wisdom.

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If I had to name the most common complaint I hear among depressives, it is that they are lonely. Just five minutes ago, I replied on a thread within Group Beyond Blue to a woman who started a thread called “Who Do I Turn To?” She wants so badly to connect with another woman–as the anchors in her life, her mother and friends, have either passed on or moved.

So many of us are lonely. It is at the core of so many disorders and illnesses. Not just the imaginary ones made up in our psyches (or so many think), but heart disease and immunity functions and nervous system disorders. Many of our health issues in this country stem from loneliness.

In his PsychCentral blog, “Loneliness Is Not a DSM-5 Disorder, But It Still Hurts,” Psychiatrist Ron Pies reports on what loneliness does to the body. He writes:

It’s easy to assume that loneliness is simply a matter of mind and mood. Yet recent evidence suggests that loneliness may injure the body in surprising ways. Researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine studied the risk of coronary heart disease over a 19-year period, in a community sample of men and women. The study found that among women, high degrees of loneliness were associated with increased risk of heart disease, even after controlling for age, race, marital status, depression and several other confounding variables. (In an email message to me, the lead author, Dr. Rebecca C. Thurston, PhD, speculated that the male subjects might have been more reluctant to acknowledge their feelings of loneliness).

Similarly, Dr. Dara Sorkin and her colleagues at the University of California, Irvine, found that for every increase in the level of loneliness in a sample of 180 older adults, there was a threefold increase in the odds of having heart disease. Conversely, among individuals who felt they had companionship or social support, the likelihood of having heart disease decreased.

And lest there be any doubt that loneliness has far ranging effects on the health of the body, consider the intriguing findings from Dr. S.W. Cole and colleagues, at the UCLA School of Medicine. These researchers looked at levels of gene activity in the white blood cells of individuals with either high or low levels of loneliness. Subjects with high levels of subjective social isolation — basically, loneliness — showed evidence of an over-active inflammatory response. These same lonely subjects showed reduced activity in genes that normally suppress inflammation. Such gene effects could explain reports of higher rates of inflammatory disease in those experiencing loneliness.

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In the spirit of Valentine’s Day, I thought I’d feature an interview with a very cool licensed psychologist and neuropsychologist that I was lucky enough to meet in person at a book signing back in September. Marsha Lucas, Ph.D., has been practicing psychotherapy and studying the brain-behavior relationship for over twenty years. Prior to entering private practice, she was a neuropsychologist on the faculty at the Emory University School of Medicine. In other words, she was probably one of those persons in grade school that was taken aside and given more challenging work, while the rest of us (at least the one writing this blog) struggled through the regular assignments.

Her newest book, “Rewire Your Brain for Love,” is a fascinating read because she delves into how the human brain works – or fumbles – in relationships. In other words, she explores how we developed our current relationship wiring, and, if part of that is contributing to toxic relationships, how to modify it through mindfulness meditation. Lucas shows how a short meditation practice can result in seven key relationship benefits, including communication with yourself and others, an enhanced ability to handle fear, and being more emotionally authentic and resilient.

I have to be honest. I still really struggle with meditation. I’ve talked to my psychiatrist more than a few times about this, and she has consoled me that there are many forms of meditation. She thinks swimming qualifies. And THAT I can do. It forces me to breathe is a structured way, like meditation, but allows me to move as I am doing it. Something about sitting still just does not seem to work.

So it is my pleasure to feature this interview with Dr. Lucas.

1. Marsha, what does mindfulness have to do with relationships? Aren’t relationships about interaction and isn’t meditation something you do by yourself?

You’ve got an excellent point! After all, most people don’t say, “I’m so lonely, so heartsick – I’m so eager to have a partner – I know! I’ll go sign up to learn meditation!” But here’s the synapse – the connection: Our brains are wired – or not – for healthy relationships. If, like so many people, yours is not, you can improve that wiring through the simple practice of mindfulness. Research from Harvard, UCLA, and so on have shown that changes happen in the brain when you practice mindfulness, in areas that have to do with better emotional resilience, healthier empathy, quicker recovery after an argument. I talk about those changes in terms of seven “high-­?voltage” relationship benefits.

2. You say that we can we “rewired for love.” Do you mean that literally? Will a “rewired” brain show up differently on an MRI?

Yes, there are actual changes in the connections and pathways in the brain. One of the ways that researchers look at this is, in fact, on what’s called a “functional MRI” (fMRI for short), in which they’re able to see the areas of the brain that are most active during certain tasks – like meditating; or in experienced meditators, they can look at how different parts of the brain react to, say, the sound of a crying baby. They can also measure the size of brain areas in people who meditate and compare them to non-­?meditators. Overall, the changes are seen in areas that are deeply involved in the seven high-­? voltage benefits.
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