I read the Book of Habakkuk on your recommendation. An interesting way of G-d communicating His prophecy of the Babylonian Captivity — incorporating Habakkuk’s doubts but ultimately affirming his own prophetic duty to the Lord.
Which is why, although I thought the idea of the “tablets” was very interesting (since I write not only here on your comboxes and elsewhere on Bnet but for my own sake as well), I, like you, stumbled on it.
Because Habakkuk wasn’t writing his own vision — he was writing G-d’s vision. And G-d’s vision for Judah was, in Bob Dylan’s words, “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” So you think you’re still faithful to Me just because you’re less sinful than the Babylonians? Watch out, because I’m going to put them in a position to unleash all their evil against you. True Old Testament justice.
And scary as h*ll to someone with depression.
The bylaws of the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance, the support group where I moderate the discussion most Friday nights here in my New Jersey hometown, say specifically, “DEPRESSION IS NOT A CHARACTER FLAW.” Or, from a religious point of view, depression is not a sin.
But if we take the message given to Habakkuk as being analogous to depression, then it would seem to say that depression — or at least our behavior while depressed — is sinful.
Now of course, from a religious point of view, EVERYONE is sinful. And of course, despite medication and therapy and exercise and positive self-affirmations and all the things we try to do to control this disease, sometimes we lash out — one might say sinfully — at the very ones who love us the most. And in the true spirit of faith (any faith, not just the Christian faith), we must make amends and ask forgiveness when this happens. We cannot abjure personal responsibility, despite our illness.
But G-d almost seems to be saying with the Babylonian Captivity, “I promised you I wouldn’t flood the earth again — and I won’t — but you deserve that, so this is about the worst punishment besides that I could come up with.” G-d — the Old Testament G-d, not the New Testament G-d — is condemning all of His people as wicked.
Is He condemning all of us with depression as wicked? Is this illness in fact a harsh “cure” He has come up with, as he thought the Babylonian Captivity would “cure” His people, for our sins?
If so, it sounds awfully Job-like to me.

This is not meant as a provacative question, but in order to understand what you mean. Why do you choose to make depression analogous to the evil that God inspires Habakkuk to write about, and then ask if God is visiting depression on you as an Old Testament punishment for sin? The sacrifice of Jesus was satisfaction for all our sins. Do you view the loss of health, destruction of tornados, and crash of the stock market as punishment for our evil ways? It says in Scripture that the rain (blessing) falls on the evil as well as the just. It would imply that the converse is true. Most of what befalls us we bring on ourselves by sometimes imperceptible decisions, but it is not true in every instance. Sometimes illness is the result of neglect on our part, and sometimes it is spontaneous.
I agree depression is not a character flaw, but it is a flaw, just like poor eyesight. And I agree that depressives have to make amends for the pain they inflict on others, just like everyone else. I think the big piece of the puzzle that you are leaving out or minimizing, is the forgiveness of God. We need God’s forgiveness not for God’s sake, but for our own. I read Habakkuk and have hope. What seems like a tragic end, isn’t.
“For though the fig tree blossom not
nor fruit be on the vines,
Though the yield of the olive fail
and the terraces produce no nourishment,
Though the flocks disappear from the fold
and there be no herd in the stalls,
Yet will I rejoice in the LORD
and exult in my saving God.
God, my Lord, is my strength,
he makes my feet swift as those of hinds

and enables me to go upon the heights.
Sorry to have accidently touched “Post.”
The just man lives by faith. Having been through multiple hard times, from which I was not spared, I have come to realize that even my faith does not depend upon my own ability to think or feel it. God is there supporting my meager attempts. That I wrestle with God and ask “Why?” is evidence of a relationship. That I say “No,” is an acknowledgement that there is One who hears. Even the status of “just” depends not upon my actions, but on the One who saves me.

I think your “vision” is clear and true, and your writing has made my life better. You’ve modeled courage and perseverance for me; made me laugh when I most needed to, about the thing I most need not to take so seriously. I thank God that you write. I wrote in a post on my blog recently that you were one of my heroes, and I don’t use that word lightly. Your honesty helps me to heal my own wounds, and teaches me to trust. It doesn’t matter to me why you write. I’m just grateful that you do. God bless you.

Babs:
My post was meant along the lines that if Therese was trying to make an analogy between the Babylonian Captivity and depression — which I think she was trying to do, it was a little confusing, though — I was bringing her analogy to what I saw as its logical extension. (Which, I agree would make natural disasters like tsunamis also divine punishments rather than mere manifestations of an already created world, so yeah, I found it a bit odd, too. But the INDIVIDUAL loss of health, as in Job or any of us, well might be such a punishment.)
“That I wrestle with God and ask ‘Why?’ is evidence of a relationship. That I say ‘No,’ is an acknowledgement that there is One who hears.”
I profoundly disagree. That one feels the presence of the divine gives evidence that there MIGHT be a G-d, no more, no less. Humans are imperfect, so we could (sadly) be mistaken.
“Even the status of ‘just’ depends not upon my actions, but on the One who saves me.”
This was always my stumbling block with Protestant belief (I was raised Catholic), even though I worshipped at a United Church of Christ for many years. Predestination, particularly Calvinist/Puritan “double” predestination, IMHO seems to remove all purpose from earthly life. Or, to put it another way, when you cite “rain falls on the just and unjust” from Scripture, I take “rain” either literally or as a punishment, not as a blessing.

Dear Therese,
I’ve always wanted to respond to your blogs – though this is my first time – to let you know just how much your work and your writing inspires and very literally comforts me.
It is the hug I do not have; the the honest conversation I cannot hold; and the beautiful, thoughtful inspiration that seems impossible at times to provide for myself when I’m always lost in my mind.
On this evening which finds alone and severely immobile and depressed with secondary bipolar, very literally did your words make it into my heart and made me feel a little less alone and more hopeful about tomorrow. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.
It’s been quite a day; precisely the RIGHT day for you to “pen” this blog and for me to read it. Serendipity at its best. You see, I had to stay home from work today (my first time due to my mental illness) following one of my most difficult weekends ever battling with my debilitating depression…
I am 24 years old and have been living with a depression since I was 15 and bipolar since I was 19… I’ve been onto your blog since day one as a Beliefnet aficionado. It has followed me when living and working overseas to nights like these.
I am also a writer – a journalism major – though my black dog keeps me from writing personally. And I am a Catholic – and one that struggles with my faith just like you. I know you hear this often, yet I cannot post without mentioning the deep connection I feel with you with your writing – which I am ever so grateful for. Someday, I hope to do for others what you have done for me: give a moment of quivering tranquility to a woman in despair.

QUOTE [I write]…that one or more words of mine will make it into someone’s heart, and will make her feel less alone and more hopeful about tomorrow UNQUOTE
You succeed! and more.
Your best blog post (IMPO) if not ever than that I can remember.

Dam !, I have to admit it ! I Love you !
I love your openess, your Truth, your passion and compassion, and most your sense of humor . . . Now if the Whole world can get into God’s sense of humor (which nobody thinks is one dam bit funny, but God and a couple of us !) perhaps the world may change for the better…They say that laughter can cure a lot of shit !
By the Way, how come the Bible/Book of Life stopped at Revelation ? Isn’t it a good idea to continue on after the Truth, the Light and the Way have been Revealed … Aren’t we ALL in the Bible ? … “There is nothing new under the Son (or is that Sun ?)… And do you have to vealed, before you can be re-vealed? I ate some veal once, didn’t like it very much, Like most Italian food, you have to put some spicy sauce on it to make it taste good … How come “romance” comes from the Romans…what the hell kinda Love is that!… Beware Romans! with their hand out… and a spicy meatball !
LUV 2 ALL
Wisdum

Emma:
I was a journalism major, too.
You are a beautiful writer. In the words of Jeff Lynne and ELO, “Hold On Tight to Your Dream.”
http://www.btinternet.com/~edward.caution/holdontight.htm

Today’s post both humbles and chastises me. T. Humbles because it reaches rihjy omside and massages my spiritual heart like an open heart surgeon might do literally when attempting to restart the physical one and chastises because my own writing is far more selfih and written in the hopes that some day I’ll succeed in selling one of my “autobiographical” books disguised as fiction (“based on a true story” just like made for TV movies) and generate some much-needed income to glesh out my retirement/disability check that only arrives once each month and must be stretched until it’s like the elastic waistband in a pair of oft-worn slacks: shapeless and barely capable of holding them above my too-wide hips. I can clim no altruism in my motivation, unlike you. so I’m not sure that vision even merits God’s attention even though I do have some altruism which manifests itself in non-writing ways, like totoring (for free) the grade-school grandchildren of a friend wjo are struggling to nove on to the next grade. As others have already commented, the vision you describe so well is ALREADY reality, foryou reach into many of our hearts each day and provide the only glimmer of hope that many of us in the abyss see. Bless you. Bless you and PLEASE don’t ever stop; for some of us that would be tatamount to the sun refusing to rise one gloomy morning. Somehow you always seem to wite the very words I need to hear on days when the black dog has howled longand loudly enough to dispel whatever remnants of hope and faith still remain inside my tortured soul, which anymore seems to be way too frequently.As others before e have expressed on many different levels, your blog has become a lifeline and I truly appreciate this (fairly) new feature of having it arrive in my mailbox rather than having to go searching for it on a daily basis(How lazy is THAT?) If only there were more Therese’s in this world!

Margaret:
No need to disguise your life stories — memoirs are all the rage these days (and, as I think I’ve disclosed, I’m slowly working on my own). People eat them up — there’s plenty of room in the market for both of us. (And a lot of the material for Therese’s books has been autobiographical, for that matter …)
BTW, much as I have come to absolutely love Therese (both as a writer and as a human being), let’s not put TOO much pressure on her. Remember, ultimately, she’s in the same boat as we are

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Learned_helplessness and
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Explanatory_style
this may really help you therese

Therese,
Thank you for writing. Thank you for living. Thank you for sharing your life and growth.
You make a difference.
From my perspective on things, you have fulfilled your big hope. You help those of us who are struggling with different forms of depression and anxiety.
Keep doing what you’re doing, but please be kind to yourself, too.

Enemy
Depression, I fear you. You have brought me low. Many times you have driven me to despair, gripped by a cold, wrenching fear from my gut to my spine. I fear you more than death, there is an ending in death but there seems no hope in your ever ending. To put depression to an end one must regain one’s will, for in depression one’s entire will is taken up in just surviving, there is no will left for living.
I fear your spells of anger, the ones where I am so near the edge, the edge of madness and violence. I fear you most of all. Even a hint of you is fearful for I know you can grow quickly, fed by my fear and lifelong attitudes
Perhaps I will never be completely free from you but if I can learn what makes you grow and stay and thrive maybe I can diminish you to a place where the drugs will make you seem to go away. As it is they only seem to take the edge off. I’m still depressed, I’m still scared, anxious. And sometimes I just can’t take it anymore and I’m walking up the hill outside my house screaming ultimatums at God about help and healing… and it helps. I feel better, the next day is easier. I thank God for one good day and manage to struggle through one more week.
I always look to the weekend to be healing but too often it feels just like the rest of the week there’s just not the demands on my time, not as many tasks to do. I still feel anxious, depressed, despair is not far away, I’m just not pushed, there is less stress… in some ways. Sundays are the worst and the best day. I seem to often have attacks of anxiety and near psychosis on sundays. Though they can take a couple of hours in coming these attacks are mercifully short in their intense stage and afterwards I generally feel quite good. As though I’ve conquered some demon from out of the depths of my mind. But depression, you are still my enemy. I fear you more than death.
I have learned that anger suppressed feeds my depression. I realized recently I still have much suppressed anger towards my first wife. She abused me in every possible way, used me up, drove me mad, and let me go when I was of no more use. I loved her, something in me still does. Perhaps that is why I sometimes feel I could actually harm her, something I didn’t do when we were together. I have prayed often recently to be able to forgive her, It is slowly being granted but not until I began to express the anger in bold black letters on my sketch pad and computer. Long diatribes of violence, painfully drawn out of my heart in tears. I am spent. I ask my God is that enough? I get the sense it is not. The only thing I can thank her for is she drove me trembling and broken to the feet of Christ at the same time she drove me mad. I escaped to Christ, He was palpably near as I slipped into psychosis, a calm gentle presence nearby or within as reality shifted toward evil. He was with me, keeping the essential me intact even as my personality splintered, spun, and cried so desperately for freedom for the captives that I was chained. I cling to Him now. Still. Always. Whenever my grip upon Him is loosened and I slip, my life loses balance and meaning. I sink.
She was pathologically jealous. Every blink of my eye was punished as a look at another woman. Every emotion I expressed was chastised as wrong. When I expressed no emotion I was cold and heartless and “dead”. I was allowed no friends, no family, no money. She demanded absolute fidelity and truth on her terms, terms shifting and impossible to meet. I can say quite literally I could do nothing right and things I had nothing to do with were judged to be my fault, evidently on some supernatural plane. She herself was free from all restrictions. She lied easily, more often than she told the truth. small lies and grand, involved schemes of interconnecting lies. Every day we fought, she attacked in blunt or subtle ways but consistantly punishing me for imagined evils. Once or twice a month there would be the exceptionally cruel battles that would eventually drive me out into the night to walk for hours and sleep in hallways or laundramats. She would seek me out never letting me go, but letting me rest a bit when I had been gone a day or two. She would be kind for a bit. She feared losing me. I was her support as well as her foil and target. I looked good next to her. She often threatened suicide should I leave. Somehow I loved her. She was exempt from her demands of absolute fidelity as she was often unfaithful. She had at least three abortions. This does not count the time, early on when she had me acquire money for one and then used the money to pay rent. I doubt any of the pregnancies were from my loins.
In the end she entered into the New Age and channeled the spirits that drove me over the edge. That is another tale. The anger seems to be dissipating a bit. Writing helps.
Reading Therese has encouraged me to take up writing about my depression again. I too am Catholic and know the reading she refers to. Pain flows through me when I write of these things. I thought for a while I should leave it al in the past, but it is still affecting my present, so I write again.
madspirituality@blogspot.com

The first time I read the B.B. post I went and wrote a four page catharsis on my “so called life”. I recalled memories, even some of the suppressed ones, and drained my tear ducts and made some true confessions. An amazing relief followed! I didn’t realize before what a release it could be. I am very grateful for the chance to share my feelings with other depressives. Although I used to feel inadequate for not being all my mother thought I should be. When her friends when over ( you know the ones whose son is a doctor and daughter a lawyer) and I am just a Horse trainer. “You should have become a vet!” Because what and who I am is an embarrasment to her. Yet I am the one who she unloads all her life’s regrets and problems on because in her words “I can take it”. I feel like I’m living that Kelly Clarkson song “Because Of You” To which I can add my own lyrics. “Do I look bionic? You must think I’m made of steel!” You pour out all your pain on me till I’m too numb to feel!” I may take up songwriting at some point. I am just an artist whose medium is pain…I got nothing left to lose and all the world to gain!