Beyond Blue: March 2009 Archives

I've been politically incorrect for as long as I can remember. I really should wear a sign around my neck that says "I apologize if I say something offensive," because it feels like I am eating the soles of my shoes a few times a day.

But when it comes to my mood disorder, I think that "spiritually incorrect" is the better term.

There are lots of "spiritual" approaches to treating depression, each of which has a devoted following. There are "The Secret"-loving folks (and half of Oprah's viewers) telling me that all I have to do to feel good is think positive thoughts--to throw the intention of personal sanity and well-being into the universe and fetch it when it returns to me. Then there are the Tom Cruise disciples warning me about those toxic pharmaceuticals I'm putting into my body (they say fish oil and vitamins are enough). Then there are the New-Agers claiming that mental health is only one yoga class, acupuncture session, or hour of Tibetan meditation away. (FYI: I believe in all these things--positive thinking, fish oil, vitamins, yoga, acupuncture, and meditation--but they alone could not treat my clinical, suicidal depression.)

And then, even more dangerous (in my opinion), I have intelligent, theologically-trained pastors, priests, and ministers of every denomination advising me that God alone is what I need--that if I read the Word, and lay my head on Jesus, then I can stop seeing both my psychiatrist and therapist.

Because prayer alone will be enough heal me.

In the face of such ignorance I say this, a prayer a priest friend recently taught me: "Jesus, save me from your followers." (Or, my secular version: "I'm sorry. My fault. I forgot you were an idiot.")

If I sound angry, it's for a good reason. These attitudes not only perpetuate the stigma of mental illness--they worsen the depression of millions of people around the globe because, in addition to their other symptoms, the depressives now feel responsible and guilty for having brought on the pain themselves. And in trying to overcome it by themselves (with the help of their prayer beads), they stay stuck in the Black Hole, or resort to suicide.

I don't think I'm exaggerating when I say that religious leaders who are uninformed about mental health are plentiful.

Back when I was a sophomore in college, a priest preached in his homily that "the world needs God, not Valium, and that the place to go with problems is the confessional, not a psychologist's office." I stood up and walked out. Every now and then I'll hear a variation of it, and I'm tempted again to walk out again (but with kids, that's not so easy).

In the psych ward--where I thought I was free of judgmental, evangelical lunatics--I was accosted by an ignorant pastor. After the chapel service, where we read psalms and sang "Amazing Grace," he told me to stay put (because I couldn't stop crying?).

Pointing his holy finger at me he said, "Honey, all you need is the Word. I was right where you are. I was down and out too, and then I picked up the Bible and God cured me. Praise the Lord! All you have to do is believe." I was so doped up on sedatives at the time that I don't remember what I said to him, but I don't think it was nice.

This is one of the more popular pieces from my archives. The sad truth is that I haven't gotten any better. Look at these photos I took the other day. Now I not only hoard books. I hoard nuts as well, just like my literary agent. She won't admit it to anyone but me. But she looked at these nuts and said I don't have enough.

I can smell an intervention coming my way. Two friends have recently sent me books about clearing out clutter. Three more have offered to help me organize my medicine cabinet, sock drawers, and bookshelves.

Clutter is a four-letter word around my house, given the hoarding crisis our family has just endured with a relative. Anyone with more than four magazines by her desk is accused of being an "information hoarder." And if you don't have the proper plugs in the correct lid of the Platex (not Gerber) sippy cup, you're in for a half-hour (minimum) lecture from the "head" of the household.

Last night at two in the morning, David shrieked in pain from a leg cramp. After fifteen minutes of trying to calm the boy down, Eric walked downstairs to fetch some children's Tylenol. As he reached for the grape-flavored medicine in the back of the cabinet, all 25 bottles of my prescriptions and vitamins came flying out.

"%&*#%!!" yelled an angry Eric.

Then he walked over to get a sippy cup out of the basket of orphan lids and cups to the left of the microwave. As he searched for the right lid (and plug) to the Sponge-Bob cup, the whole Disney clan (and their cousins) tumbled to the floor.

"%&*#%!! %&*#%!! %&*#%!!"

Three seconds later I heard what sounded like a grown man hurling sippy cups at the refrigerator. So I tiptoed into Katherine's room and climbed into bed with her.

"I'm sorry for my tantrum last night," Eric said the next morning, his head bowed in shame. "It was childish. But you have to understand: this mess affects me."

It was the same talk I get once or twice a month: how stuff is starting to control us, that my piles are growing and reproducing ugly children, and that the disorder disrupts his peace. Our house, or the management of it, has always been a sore 2,000 square feet in our marriage. I'm a slob. He's an architect.

Intellectually I know that clutter imitates the other bad boys (caffeine, alcohol, nicotine, and sugar) in stealing my serenity. I read an article about it every time I sit down with a magazine in a doctor's waiting room. You'd think I'd catch on after twelve years living with an artist of space--a man who intuitively understands how environment affects a person's mood, and whose senior project in college was developing work stations that, in compatibility with an employee's personality (as determined by the Myers-Briggs personality test), would foster peak performance.

"Setting has everything to do with health," Eric reminds me every time a stack of books on my desk becomes a Leaning Tower of Pisa. Scared to death of relapsing into a deep depression, I carry half of the stack out to the garage, where I build another tower. And I tell myself that tomorrow I'll do better.

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