Tuesday 9 July 2013

living and active word

I read Stephen Fry's sad but honest description of his depression just now. His feelings of loneliness in the midst of a crowd of wonderful people are probably familiar to many of you who struggle with depression. I know exactly what he means when he says that even though he feels lonely, "[t]he strange thing is, if you see me in the street and engage in conversation I will probably freeze into polite fear and smile inanely until I can get away to be on my lonely ownsome." I've been feeling like that a lot lately, knowing it's better for me to be around people but just wanting to hide in my room.

Then I opened my email and very next thing I read was my daily WordLive email, which I'd been ignoring all morning. The first line read:

'He sets the lonely in families' (Psalm 68:6) Thank God for your church family.

Well that was definitely a word to point me to the truth! I love it when that happens.

It doesn't mean that the feelings of loneliness, sadness and anxiety that come with depression are absent in that kind of community (far from it!), and it doesn't mean that church families are perfect, because they certainly aren't. But it does mean that God did not intend for us to be alone (even if we're severely introverted or depressed). He has created communities of people who love him, and as an outworking of that, love each other.

It would probably irritate Stephen Fry to think that something he wrote drew me closer to God. Maybe it wouldn't. I don't know.
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3 comments :

  1. AliTuesday 9 July 2013 at 16:35:00 GMT+10

    Yes. I blogged this article a few weeks ago, but I took it that he was saying that even though now he is medicated and so not actually depressed (at least that is what he says) he is still sad and lonely, and so he writes about loneliness as a stand alone condition that anyone can suffer from.

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  2. becTuesday 9 July 2013 at 16:44:00 GMT+10

    Yes, agreed. I guess I just seized on the depression angle, because that's the lens I'm looking through at the moment.

    I like what he says about his medication and psychiatrist and that both have obviously helped him a lot. And, as you say, that being sad and lonely are things that anyone can suffer from. I suppose there is the implication that just because he might be either sad or lonely doesn't necessarily mean he's going to "do something" to himself and that it's okay to feel things.

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  3. AliTuesday 9 July 2013 at 18:31:00 GMT+10

    Yes. And I thought my earlier comment might be a strange sort of comfort - that even people who aren't perhaps clinically depressed can be sad and lonely. And I like that he makes it clear that seemingly fabulous circumstances are not the remedy (though it does seem that 'not having someone to go home to' is part of the cause of his loneliness). I was actually quite amused by his quandary that he doesn't want to be alone, but wants to be left alone. I know that feeling ... It sounds a bit like the introvert dilemma :)

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