Comment by Susan Furry on 7th mo. 24, 2012 at 6:19pm

Thanks for the clarification about Dan Berrigan's words, Bill! 

I agree with much of this posting but need to object strongly to the paragraph about the 12-step group.  As a "mental sufferer" (recurrent depression since childhood) one of the most hurtful things I could hear when depressed was "you can get better if you work on it."  Perhaps those group members who "didn't try" were trying as hard as they could, had been trying for years, but were more severely ill than those "positive thinkers" who got better.  Self-blame and guilt are common symptoms of depression and many other mental disorders.  PLEASE don't reinforce it by implying that it's their own fault.  Don't judge; some problems cannot be solved by will power, nor by 12 steps, nor by "helpful" suggestions.

Comment by James C Schultz on 7th mo. 27, 2012 at 10:49am

As amember of a very small monthly meeting I hear members talk about numbers a lot and I hear concern for the dwindling quaker membership in my area.  However, the Spirit tells me that quantity is not a problem.  The scripture says that whereever two or more are gathered in my name I am there.  When we talk about God's name we are talking about his nature - Love.  If we gather in Love God will be there and where God is true seekers will find him.  Instead of seeking new members we should listen to that still small voice within that is calling us not just to love our neighbor but is asking us to do it in a certain way that only we can do it.  If we truly Love each other the world will know we are His Disciples and membership will take care of itself.  There was a time Quakers didn't keep records of membership.  Maybe counting members is offensive to the spirit of God.  It was in the old testament.  I think that we have to watch over our hearts with all diligence.  The worst that can happen is we cease to exist as a society and all our buildings get sold and the money given to the poor.  Is that really so bad?

Comment by Forrest Curo on 7th mo. 27, 2012 at 11:25pm

"Quantity is not a problem" -- to a Meeting.

If someone might benefit from knowing a Meeting, but the nearest available Meeting has rested content to sit on their Light, that is a problem. It is even a problem to the Meeting itself -- as in the Parable of the Talents, if that works as Ursula Jane O'Shea read it:-- losing touch with the Spirit as a consequence of being too timid to share it.

It is right to trust God, that our Meetings will continue -- or be replaced with something else that does the job. But we don't lie about with our mouths open, waiting for our daily bread; and neither should we treat our obligation to make our traditions known in any such way.

Comment by Mariellen Gilpin on 7th mo. 28, 2012 at 12:47pm

Hi Susan,

I apologize, Friend, for not responding much, much sooner. (My laptop suffered heat exhaustion, and has now been laid to rest. Long live its replacement.)  Depression is indeed a terrible illness, all too often terminal.  My heart goes out to you.  I want to try to talk a bit about mental illnesses, in hopes of explaining myself a bit.

I'm a listener.  Perfect strangers walk up to me in public places and tell me their near-death experiences. This has been true of me since childhood, and was true of me in the 12 Step group.  Group members told me things their therapists wouldn't let them talk about.  The doctors said to us, "Just take this pill and come back in a week."  So did the therapists: "Take your pills and don't talk about what distresses you. It'll just make it worse."  I have felt like a voice crying in the wilderness for many, many years: Mental illness may be caused by three things.

1.  Individual biochemistry, as in depression and bipolar mood disorder.

2.  Environmental causes, such as chronic childhood abuse, shaming and neglect, or consequences of war and famine.

3.  Environmental causes, such as abuse by pill-happy psychiatrists.

There is no necessity that one of the above causes should be the only cause at work in a particular instance of mental illness.  Lois Pomeroy wrote in What Canst Thou Say, our February 2012 issue on Shame, "I want to put in a word here in shame's defense. It isn't always bad. According to my understanding of Erik Erikson, the developmental psychologist, feelings of shame can be positive and useful if they come at the appropriate developmental stage and in a loving context....feelings of shame [can motivate me] to make difficult choices, grow up and take my place in a larger world."

Abuse, however, is seldom done by people motivated primarily by love; it is more likely to be done by angry people, and angry people tend to prefer to visit their anger on smaller people, that is to say, children. Preferably children who can be threatened never to tell.  Now, if one has an inherited biochemistry tending to sadness, and one has also been abused in childhood, one may reasonably conclude AS A CHILD that  there's nothing one can do but hunker down and Take It. This person may well have a strong tendency to the sort of debilitating sadness that gets labelled depression. In addition, someone who has been abused in childhood goes through life with the word "Victim" tatooed on their forehead -- which makes them extremely attractive to other angry people, which makes the Victim even sadder, even more sure he or she cannot make any significant changes for the better in his life, even more debilitated, even more eager to find a protector...who becomes angry when the person doesn't seem to be making any efforts to help himself.  If, in addition, this individual falls into the hands of the sort of head-doctor who doesn't listen and just pushes pills (and more pills when the person continues to be sad), the patient may well become incapable of change for the better -- he or she may not be able to speak up for herself because the words aren't there when he needs them.

This is where the 12 Step group comes in, sometimes successfully, sometimes not.  The saying was, "People have to be loved back to health....We have to hope for another until he can hope for himself."  'Advising' does happen in 12 Step groups, but advising is almost always bad news. What one does is provide teaching in what a Friend in the Recovery, Inc. movement calls "secure truths" -- the common sense principles upon which a life can function more healthily.  Principles like, "If the rough road gets you there and the smooth one doesn't, which are you going to choose?"  That is to say, making a different choice is the rough road; making the choice you've always made is the smooth road, the familiar road -- and leads to more of the same unhappiness, piled higher and deeper. The choice is always left to the individual sufferer.

I think of the fella who used to call me regularly and mope over the phone, talking wildly about what a terrible person he was.  I listened and listened.  Gently, gently, one night I listened and said, "God doesn't make junk." The fella hung up on me.  Never called me again. He wasn't interested in thinking of himself as possibly worth God's trouble. (He tended to call women, convince them he was going to commit suicide unless they came right over and prevented it, and then tell all their mutual friends they'd made mad, passionate love when the well-meaning woman showed up at his door. I'd spoiled his game. Spoiling his game was the last thing on my mind at the time; I'd wanted to help him rethink his view of himself. Unfortunately, rethinking interfered with executing his game.) He attempted suicide so many times that eventually his heart simply gave out. He died, not because he'd tried to off himself that particular evening, but because his body simply stopped.

I, too, am angry about the way the world stigmatizes mental illness -- as long as we treat the sufferer according to the ancient Hebrew custom of scapegoating someone and driving them into the wilderness to die, we don't have to face the true causes of debilitating mental illness: that is to say, the seeds of abuse, shaming, and emotional neglect that are the truly debilitating conditions.

What truly makes me angry, however, is to remember the hopelessness of so many of my 12 Step friends, and to know that total lack of hope was something they learned at the hands (literally) of their parents, and their parents' parents.  They didn't believe they could make any difference in their own misery. Choice had been removed from their vocabulary in infancy.

I don't know what the precise combination of biochemistry and nurturance is in your particular case, Friend, and I certainly appreciate your feeling that I dumped on you in my earlier note. Again, I apologize.  I truly hope, however, we won't let the Religious Society of Friends die by projecting our personal sense of hopelessness onto the Universe.

Blessings, blessings,

Mariellen Gilpin

Comment by Susan Furry on 7th mo. 28, 2012 at 2:46pm

Thanks for your response.  I was beginning to wonder if you'd read my posting.  I thought it was a private message by email, but since you answered publicly, I'll do so too.

In my case, I had wonderful loving parents, a secure home, no abuse at all.  However, I can date my first episode of depression to Junior HIgh and it may well have begun earlier.  My parents were beautifully supportive, but neither they nor the doctors had any idea what was wrong.  Later, as an adult, my sister suggested that the cause might be hereditary; my father's father and one of his sisters had episodes in their lives which sound like depression to me but it was unlikely to be diagnosed in the early 20th century.

I have seen various therapists and psychiatrists for many years now.  None has ever identified anything in my history which could be a cause, though we have discussed the question (except for one stupid guy who insisted my father was "absent, alcoholic, or emotionally distant" -- because "the book says so."  I know he was wrong, and it's not denial; my sister, my cousins, and various friends who knew my parents say he was a wonderful man.)  

So I believe my depression is biochemically based and probably hereditary, and the psychiatrist who worked with me longest agrees.  But from an early age I knew something was wrong with me, and I grew up deeply ashamed because I felt it was my fault.  That was the feeling that asshole interpreted as a reaction to a bad relationship with my father.  I'm still mad at him; I got to see his notes later and he wrote that my father was distant and that I was in denial about it!

I still have to fight against feelings of self-blame at times, which is why I sometimes get really angry when I hear what sounds like "people are depressed because they don't try hard enough," or "You could be happy if you DECIDE to be happy."  Such things may be true of some people, I don't know, but they are NOT true of me!!!  That's what that paragraph in your essay sounded like to me.  Please re-read it from my perspective, and I think you'll understand what I mean.

Your response focuses largely on abuse, which bothers me, because that's not my issue, despite one stupid therapist, and I feel as if you're implying that it probably is.  I don't like your comments about choice, either.  I did not choose depression, and had no choice between rough and smooth roads.  You may think that your group doesn't give advice, but to me it sounds like advice, and shallow, blaming advice too.  Sometimes people have a choice about making "a difference in their own misery" and sometimes they don't.  You would never say such a think about someone with a devastating physical condition like MS!!!

My depression is in remission right now, but there is no guarantee.  I'm enjoying life and am pretty open about my history, which puts off some but which others have thanked me for.  

Why did you tell me about that poor man who called you?  His situation had very little to do with mine.  He must have been profoundly ill, and it's too bad he exploited and mistreated women out of his pain, but at least he didn't get a big gun and shoot up a movie theatre!  Your description of him sounds again like blaming the victim; he was surely more a victim (of illness) than the women he hurt.

As you can see, I'm still angry.   I'm glad you tried to help people who were suffering, but I wonder whether your help sometimes just added more guilt to their already crushing load.  I hope you'll think and pray about my perspective.

We don't need to continue this  unless there's something you really need to say to me.  You can email me at susanfurry@facebook.com

Susan

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