(Display Name not set)May 2007 Archives

I will be discussing my interpretation of the Pentecost on Sirius radio, on the Catholic Channel, Tuesday morning at 6:40 a.m. If you're up, tune in!

Thanks to reader Wayde who said he tuned in last time!

Read Susan Karas's wonderful piece, "The Un-Diet," on how she overcame her self-consciousness about her weight by clicking here.

Thanks to reader TJ Muktoyuk who asked, "How do I learn to reach out for help?"

TJ, as long as you don't expect everyone to understand (I'm speaking mostly of non-depressives), I think you can reach out in a variety of different ways: by checking out blogs on depression like Beyond Blue and online depression chat rooms (like the depression support group on Beliefnet). You can contact national groups like DRADA (Depression and Related Affective Disorders Association) or NAMI (National Alliance on Mental Illness). I'd also try Recovery, Inc. to see if they host a meeting near you, or inquire with a doctor or psychologist in town about local support groups.

I think anyone can be of support, even those who haven't struggled to the depths that you have. BUT you need to hang out with the compassionate kind. Walk away from (or don't call back) those that blame you for your pain because such feedback is toxic to recovery.

That's why I thought to include a response to your question right after my post on unrealistic expectations. It's hard to be vulnerable, to put yourself out there in order to get support. But if you keep your expectations low--and know that more people will think that you are weak than you are strong (even though we know the opposite), you'll be less frustrated, and will probably get there--to a circle of empathetic ears--sooner than later.

I mentioned in my "Depression--The Full Monty" post that one way of triumphing over despair is by an act of kenosis, or self-emptying. As Soren Kierkegaard would say, of becoming "transparent under God."

This is what Walker Percy means when he refers to writers like himself as ex-suicides. In a fascinating article entitled "Walker Percy and Suicide," published in the journal "Modern Age," John F. Desmond writes the following:

"[Percy] maintained that the writer...'starts with himself as nothing and makes something of the nothing with things at hand...a novelist these days has to be an ex-suicide.' The writer as ex-suicide becomes a 'nought' before the challenge of the blank page, which opens him to the possibilities of finding an authentic 'self' by discovering a true voice and naming reality.

"For Kierkegaard, one form of despairing 'suicide' is silence before reality, which he termed 'shut-up-ness' (I like that!). Thus, Percy saw writing as a way to overcome despair by emptying the egoist self in order to create a bond of communion with the reader. For author and reader, literature that honestly names the truth of being can reverse--albeit temporarily--the death-in-life alienation and despair. Writer and reader become 'ex-suicides' in humility before the truth."