My first post here is going to be about a difficult subject for me: rage.
I have never considered myself an angry person, or a person who would ever struggle with anger issues. After years of struggling with depression and dark emotions, I'm not scared of very many emotions anymore. I've faced some pretty dark stuff. But I have to admit that I'm a bit scared to talk about anger, and especially rage.
Anger and rage are not socially acceptable emotions. There are very few situations in which people believe anger is justified. Angry people are looked at as if they have a problem. They're being reactionary. They're not "giving it over to God." They're "letting their emotions rule them."
All these things and more I've heard from the super spiritual crowd. So what do I do with the veritable well of rage that is rising up inside of me?
Recently, at a gathering of Christ followers, we were having a conversation about depression. My friend Brad pointed out that sometimes depression comes from anger turned inward against ourselves - because there's nothing else we can do with it. There's no socially acceptable thing to do with it. We don't feel like we have a right to be mad at the person/people/institution that let us down - weren't they trying their best? We don't feel like we have a right to be mad at God - after all, he's God, and do we think we can do better than him? So we take all that rage and suppress it, turning it against ourselves. We're the ones who are unlovable, we're the ones who failed, we're the ones who expect too much.
And then we wonder where the depression comes from.
When Brad was talking about turning anger inward, the tears came. He was actually talking to Kelly, but it applied directly to me.
You see, I'm really angry. There was a night recently when I was lying in bed crying, clenching my fists. I really wanted to break something. It was all I could do not to get up and start crashing furniture. I wanted something on the outside to be as broken as I felt on the inside.
It's like Brad said...I'm turning all this anger inward because I don't really feel like I have a right to turn it against God. I mean, I AM mad at God, but I don't know how to be. So I redirect it at myself. Sometimes I feel like a whiner because I know people with much worse health problems than me, and I feel lucky to not have to deal with some of what they are dealing with. But the truth is, I feel gypped. I feel cheated. I'm only 27 years old and I feel like my youth has been stripped from me. There are so many things I can't do, so many stories I can't live. I hope that I'll get better, I hope that this whole ill-health thing is temporary, I hope that one day I can appreciate and respect my body, but the fact is I don't know. I don't know that I will ever have the energy to be like the people I envy, the people who travel and work out and live their dreams. I hate what my life has become like. I hate that I watch TV and spend endless hours "killing time" in front of a TV or computer screen. But I also know that I don't have the energy to do much else. I hate what I see in the mirror when I look at my body (so I try to avoid it.) I envy people who are thinner and healthier and more energetic than me. Sometimes I even get mad at them. Then I get embarrassed that I'm mad at people who haven't done anything wrong and poof, once again I turn the anger against myself. I'm the one who has failed, I'm the one who didn't take care of myself, I'm the one who has gotten myself into this mess.
It's so much easier to be mad at myself than to admit the simmering rage I have against Father.
I get the whole fall-of-man-sin-entered-the-world-now-we-get-sick thing, from a theological standpoint. But seriously, what loving father would let their child get sick and stay sick if they could do something about it? And the truth is that God CAN do something about the fact that I'm sick, and he doesn't. Not that I deserve it any more than the other half dozen people I know who struggle with chronic illness. But why? Why can't he heal all of us?
Yet I've never asked him to heal me. Maybe it's a result of turning all this against myself, maybe it's the feeling that I don't deserve to be magically healed any more than anyone else, maybe it's that I view this as somehow my fault. But I haven't asked him for much. I've done the legwork myself. I've researched. I've read. I've asked questions. I've participated in discussion groups. I've worked with doctors, but for the most part I have been my own doctor. I am much better than I was a year ago, largely due to my own initiative and research. Why am I so scared to ask God for help? Am I afraid that he's going to condemn me to chronic illness for the rest of my life and the only way to "handle" this is to handle it by myself?
Like I've handled everything else in my life?
"I would have lost heart, if I had not believed that I would see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living."
- Ps. 23:13
10 comments:
Heidi, I hope that you get a ton of trafic here at your site. But I hope that it is not only those who deal with depression. I hope it is the ones who do not - maybe the ones who just know someone that hurts like this. They need to hear this just as much as the ones who are dealing with it need the encouragment that this will bring.
Blessings on this. BE REAL!! Please don't hold back. Delete the comments that tell you to suck it up and trust God. The world - especially the Christian part - needs you and what you have to say.
Thank you, Barb. Thank you so much.
Heidi,
I agree with Barb. And I am also one who struggles with depression. At least I am long over the suicidal parts of it, and now can recognize when it is going on. My wife and I have code words we say to each other when one of us recognizes we're in a depression and that's to say to the other, "Don't let me make any life-changing decisions right now, OK?"
I posted/commented somewhere recently about something I just violated myself, above. I read years ago in an old "Whole Earth Catalog" that depression is an illness but instead we give it WAY too much power by treating it as if it were a part of us, a part of our being, who we are. So we say, "I am depressed". Which brings it to the same level as saying, "I am creative" or "I am in love". But that's odd - would you say, "I am the flu?" No. So try not to let it define you. Instead, why not say, "I have a depression"? Try it, you'll like it, if only because it changes the focus a bit and sets it toward healing.
Oh, and BTW, your post about rage was spot on - deal with the same thing myself (but not from the same causes). This blog is already in my reader.
Christ's blessings,
Jim
Heidi,
I don't know why, but reading this post was rather healing. Maybe just knowing that there are other people like me helps to make the problems and feelings i face not so insurmountable. Like I'm not a different from the rest of the world as i thought. So thank you for being so raw and open. I hope it is healing for you too.
Keep writing here. I love this place.
Jim - that's an interesting way to look at it - "I have a depression." It does help it not sound as personal - as defining.
Elizabeth - thanks for stopping by. I have to admit, the honesty of your blog was a big jumping off point for me here. :) It really does help to know we're not alone, and we're not crazy. I think that's a big part of what community is all about.
Thanks for reading, everyone!
Heidi,
I so enjoyed your wonderful outlandish outburst, thank you!
I am 30 years your senior for whatever that might mean, but to simply encourage you to be this real with Father is a longing in his heart, wooing and drawing you unto Himself as His treasured child.
Pouring out our hearts toward him is a wonderful safe and whole thing to do, He is way big enough to handle anything you can dish out. :)
I want to throw in a curve ball thought for you to consider, what makes any of us think that Jesus was NEVER sick?
I have personally battled with depression, more-so in the past than now, but I know its powerful grip only too well.
As my Father continues to lead me through His maze of grace, i am seeing so many fears loosing their hold over my soul.
Just this morning I shared this thought with a dear and trusted friend; 'Until the crisis-diss-illusionments come into our lives, the greater-higher purposes of the Father remain hidden.'
I so want to encourage you to continue to BE you, the unfolding miracle of His grace.
Richard
Heidi- your genuineness and raw expression of how the interplay between what is in your head and heart and how you seek to take it all in and make sense of it is so riveting to me. I have various health issues but have always struggled with fear of being overcome by a major illness or disease from my dad ding of cancer when I was 8. Just a weird way my mind tried to cope. Have you read any books by Dan Allender?? I think you display the epitome of what the Pslams are all about here in a very honest way. Pouring out ourselves with brutal truth before God and others you are inspiring Heidi!!!
Richard - thank you for your comments. You're right, it had never occurred to me that Jesus probably got sick - he was, after all, human. It is comforting to realize he dealt with the limitations of the human body.
Robert - thank you also. I am amazed sometimes at the encouragement I receive after I spill my guts and internal mess. I have indeed read several books by Dan Allender; his perspective on suffering has really helped me to be honest about the pain - the "brutal truth" as you put it. :)
I know that some books can be more helpful for some people than others, so I don't want to assume that what has been helpful for me will be for others... but... some of the most helpful things for me have been recommended by others. Among them, "Depression" by Ed Welch (written more by a caring observer than a sufferer, but palliative for me, nonetheless) and Michael Card's "A Sacred Sorrow" especially with his thought that believers today have lost the Christian practice of lament -- the ancient way of expressing fear, anger, pain, worry, and so much that is human TO GOD even when you want to run FROM Him. Card calls it "continuing the conversation." I hear an emphasis on how the psalms always ended with an expression of hope and trust in God. Sometimes, I wonder how long it really took the psalmist to get there. Were they penned quickly or did it sometimes take weeks or even months to go from the raw emotion to the expressions of trust? And, is it that the faithful psalm writers and other Christians who understood lament had so much more willpower than we and were much more confessional about hope / trust / faith, etc -- OR -- is there something about continuing the conversation with God in times of despair that is itself an expression of faith? and perhaps also a means of God's restorative grace?
Em, this is encouraging. It puts such a different perspective on what I'm going through. I've struggled with talking to God about what I'm going through, because at times He seems to be the enemy, but what you're saying is very much where He's been taking me lately... I'm starting to see that I don't have to have a big confrontation with Him - I love the idea of "continuing the conversation" right where I am. It puts such a different perspective on what I'm going through. My desire is not simply to vent about everything that has gone wrong, but truly to find an answer for the sense of betrayal that reverberates in my heart. I may check out Card's book!
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