If you recall, I previously likened the experience of prolonged panic attacks to a swimmer dragged underwater by a drowning companion. Imagine being that swimmer, fighting for hours the stress of that wreckless companion, then spotting a spiritual leader (one who promotes a path to PEACE and JOY) on shore within shouting distance. With as much composure possible, you express your plea for assistance:
“HELP ME. I AM EXPERIENCING HOPELESSNESS, DESPAIR, ANGER, AND AGONY TO WHICH YOU PROCLAIM THE GOSPEL HOLDS THE REMEDY.”
Imagine then hearing the following questions in reply:
“Have you tried praying about it?”
“Maybe you’ve not been reading the scriptures consistently?”
“Have you forgotten that if you ask, you shall receive…If you knock, it shall be opened unto you?”
Or the most flattering (heavy sarcasm) assumption of all…
“Maybe there is some sin or misdeed in your life that is preventing you from experiencing peace, joy and happiness?”
I have received council of this type from well-meaning church leaders many times in my life. These were good people who were trying as best they knew how to counsel on a complex and not-well-understood biological problem which affects emotions integral to religious experiences. For quite some time, I assumed their anecdotes of increased effort must be correct. I simply wasn’t applying adequate effort or spiritual commitment to qualify for deliverance. But the harder I would try and the more sacrifices I would make, the greater my deficit of effort to happiness would deepen. I know of many specific individuals who have encountered this same effort/happiness deficit, who sought help from church leaders, who then dismissed their church leader and their religion at large because their chronic unhappiness could not be reconciled with the understanding of a God whose path proposed a “Plan of Happiness.” In most of these cases, the leaders (innocently and naively) suspected and implied that antisocial behavior, comparatively less service involvement, or unrighteousness were the explanation for unhappiness.
I, myself, have found this the hardest part of church attendance…the unending optimistic loop from a culture of socialites promising happiness and joy for one’s obedience, service and social involvement – a perspective in contradiction to my own human experience. Yet, my prior individual experiences confirming the existence of God bound me to remain active in church, despite its cultural inability to explain my emotions. So I stayed. I stayed because I had experienced God’s undeniable influence in my life as a participant in this church. I also stayed because I knew my own suffering was miniscule to the tests that God had given to many before me.
It was in this prolonged time of reluctant commitment that I realized, now relating back to my figurative panicked-swimmer-self, that those who have not experienced emotional instability are CULTURALLY LAND BOUND. Those good-hearted leaders on land to whom I plead for help were culturally limited to their land bound perspective. They could not perceive the demon pulling me down. In fact, that demon beneath the surface was unseeable…unknowable to those solely experienced in land surface stability. Their assumptions were based on the idea that the spiritual properties of land life operated equally in the medium in which I struggled.
In fact (and this being the very reason there is such disparity in mental health awareness) to the land bound leader, and anyone else historically acquainted solely with emotionally firm footing, VISUALLY, it appears that the struggling individual is on solid ground. That which is perceived seems merely an act, an exaggeration, a manipulated play for attention, or a weaseling out of work.
Here we enter the complexities of individual subjective experience inherent to the human ordeal. An individual’s experience in all it’s abundance of information, or lack thereof, is unquantifiable, and therefore unknowable to anyone outside the individual system. This is the very reason you are asked to verbalize your perceived pain level when you present at the emergency room. “On a scale of 1 to 10, how would you rate the pain you are experiencing from your tummy ache.” When you respond with an 8, your rating does not indicate a universally accepted pain level identified numerically with 8. In fact, the chronic severe arthritic in the adjacent room just responded with a 5 concerning the pain level of her newly fractured forearm. The purpose of the pain scale is solely RELATIVE to the individual questioned following comparative time and treatment changes. If you present with a pain level of 8, receive a morphine drip, and 20 minutes later respond with a pain level of 3, your physicians can ONLY make an assessment of YOUR treatment’s effect IN COMPARISON TO YOUR REPORT of 20 minutes previous.
This is a complex rabbit hole to dive into. As much an individual desires to keep their religion simple, there are real religious implications attached to individual subjective reality when a person anticipates being judged by their God according to their individual human experience. Instead of trying to jump into the philosophies of physicalism, qualia and phenomenal character, a good and simple starting point for consideration is the question:
Is Your Red The Same As My Red?
- If you are unfamiliar with this concept you can look up those exact words on YouTube for a couple minute explanation. Is Your Red The Same as My Red?
If we consider this sensory question as legitimately unverifiable between two separate persons, then we can consider a similar question concerning other sensations uniquely individual and unverifiable.
In fact, when we use other senses, like taste, we quickly recognize the human experience is undoubtedly unique for the same action affected upon different individuals. Just try asking 20 of your friends their feelings on the experience of eating cilantro. Or another individual effect is autonomic response. Consider offering peanuts to 100 kindergartners in front of their parents. Do you anticipate each child will have the same pleasant reaction to eating peanuts? Do you think each parent would offer the same cool and calm approval to the proposed snack?
The same principle applies to our emotional capacities. Some individuals are predisposed to happiness and social affection. Williams syndrome is a particularly interesting example of a genetic tendency towards happiness in social situations, even in cases where normal social deterrents are presented to them…like being scowled at. However, these individuals commonly exhibit a hyperreactive level of anxiety when encountering stressful situations NOT socially related (an encounter with a wild animal for instance.)
Another fascinating example, an inversion of Williams syndrome, is Alex Honnold, the American professional rock climber who scaled Yosemite Park’s El Capitan without the use of any assistance from people OR PROTECTIVE ROPES, and who some consider to show several high-functioning autistic traits. In the documentary FREE SOLO, an MRI scan of his brain shows significantly less activity in his amygdala than the average person. This indicates that the fear producing center of his brain is comparatively less active. He is biologically handicapped in his ability to feel fear in certain scenarios. On the other hand, he describes himself as shy, anxious and a bit of a loner (all common features, including situational fearlessness, in the “broader autism phenotype”.) Overskeid G. (2016). Power and Autistic Traits. Frontiers in psychology, 7, 1290.
A comparable disorder occurs in the frontal lobe of the brain. The frontal lobe is responsible for many functions including: speech and language, attention and concentration, mood and emotions, motivation, organization, pleasure, happiness, and impulsivity control. Just imagine what would happen if you had diminished activity in this part of your brain. You probably don’t need to imagine much. You’ve likely quickly tapped the memory of that kid in junior high who would randomly yell out “KOTEX” in the middle of class once or twice a week……..or YOU WERE that kid. Attention Deficit Disorder is well known to be the result of a genetic propensity towards or a developmental defect producing diminished activity in an individual’s pre-frontal cortex, the most evolutionary advanced part of the human brain. According to ADDitude Magazine, a CDC study in 2016 documented that 6 million (9.4 percent) of U.S. children ages 2-17 have been diagnosed with ADD.
The point here is that there are genetic conditions that cause people to want to abnormally socialize, embracing everyone in the room. There are other genetic conditions that compel people to perform risk taking activities that most others can’t even WATCH. And there are genetic conditions that predispose people to impulsivity, indiscretion…and a wicked sense of humor (thank you, Robin Williams.)
Of these genetic conditions, of which everyone of us fits somewhere in the wide spectrum of inherited madness, do we find any difference in their individual acceptability and value in our 21st century Western Culture?
Is there a difference in the CULTURAL VALUE of each of these conditions?
How does your God VALUE these natural predispositions?
Does your personal and/or collective religious culture embrace
- GOD’s VALUE
or
- CURRENT CULTURE VALUE when considering those with and without these conditions?
Could your God have historically used a person pre-dispositioned towards modern cultural discord to lead His people?
Of these three conditions – which does the Early Christian Apostle Peter most resemble? Remember this???
Another point to be addressed that will require an entire post of its own is the ability and propensity to deceive others, and even oneself, of one’s subjective personal experience – the exaggerated example of this being the 80’s motion picture Ferris Bueller’s Day Off. Like Ferris’s sister, many of us would rather take on the title of “heartless wench” than be conned by a family member’s deceptive theatrics. Yet, others of us would rather take the road of “Conned, BUT KIND” attitude. In general, we are all a bit of both.
Without delving too deeply into this point I want to shortly recognize it is a HUGE ISSUE when addressing emotional disorders of loved one’s. “When do I let the negative emotion determine outcome, and when do I tell my child (or myself) to just buck up and do what is expected?” There is no easy answer here. 42 years into my own human experience and I’ve yet to create a concrete answer for myself. This is a tight-rope skill that takes time, patience, open dialogue and wisdom to optimize. Just like most all parent-child relationships, your Ferris will likely steal the metaphorical Ferrari a few times. There will also be time’s when your Ferris is legitimately “puking up a lung.” The purpose and benefit here is to LEARN and GROW through the experience; NOT to have a perfectly functioning child (or self) from the get go. In short, the best course of action is the use of good situational judgement to SAVE FERRIS.
These are important things to consider when pondering the impact of mental health on social expectations as related to God and religion. Many of my thoughts have been developing in my head for 25+ years, the time I first started taking my relationship with God seriously and also near the time when I began to experience significant depression. Not until 11 years ago, did I really consider my thoughts of value to any outside of my family and a few friends. It was then that I had several strange occurrences that prompted me to speak with my then local church leader about my emotional struggles.
In 2010, I approached the Bishop of my church for guidance on how to handle a particularly stinging episode of depression. This was the first encounter he and I had had with one another as I had recently moved into the area of his congregation and he was new to his position as Bishop.
After giving him some details of my problems, he paused for a minute or two. Searching for what he wanted to convey, he then responded truthfully the following (summed up as well as I can remember):
I have no experience personally of what you are going through, and therefore I feel I should not counsel you on your path at this moment. Please, if you will, grant me some time (a week is what he requested) to speak with those I do know who have experience in what you are going through. I will also use that time to prayerfully consider what the Lord would have me give you as counsel, myself.
This man, Bishop Chipman, openly admitted his lack of knowledge concerning emotional problems. Up until that time, as that drowning individual, I had never heard a land bound leader admit that he did not have an answer to my struggle. Yet his humility about his own inexperience enabled me to gain strength from my plight.
Because Bishop Chipman DID NOT say, “Todd, you’re not spiritually working hard enough”, as others had said before him, this allowed me to address the problem from a religious aspect to which I had previously felt discouraged to investigate. In addition to asking the question “What is wrong with me SPIRITUALLY” I now felt allowed to ask the question “What is incomplete about my UNDERSTANDING OF GOD’s CHARACTER” when contemplating my anxiety and depression.
True to his word, Bishop Chipman did counsel with two good men who had personal experience with emotional difficulties. With my permission, he informed them of my struggles and encouraged me to seek their guidance. Both men were great sources of information and support for the physical, emotional and spiritual effects of my malady. They served the role of wizened mentors or guides on my undesirable path towards a boon of knowledge. Bishop Chipman also offered me some excellent counsel concerning a people who suffered immensely to then appreciate their own deliverance. He also gave me a blessing that appropriately addressed my emotional issues both biologically and spiritually.
Also, unexpectedly, Bishop Chipman asked me to serve in a church capacity close to him so that he could monitor my progress. A further benefit here was this enabled him to gain valuable knowledge of how the Gospel is perceived through the eyes of one with biological depression.
Eleven years later, Veraun Chipman, his wife Denise (just as important in this story as Veraun), and their children are some of the people our family holds most dear to our hearts. I’ve probably spent more time with Veraun over 11 years than I have any other person outside of my home and work. This all coming from a short meeting where two very different individuals were able to admit their divergent weaknesses and agree to strive to understand one another through time and determination. An UNCOMMON FRIENDSHIP.
There are many other fine men and women outside my family who have played and continue to play significant roles in my progressive struggle through mental illness. But none play a greater role than the Chipmans.
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