Have you heard the one about the agoraphobic who collected restaurant menus

Sounds like the set-up line for a joke, right? It's not. According to this Atlantic blog post, the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of American History recently added to its archives a collection of 4,500 menus from restaurants around the world, collected over four decades by one Virginia Mericle of Washington, DC.:

Mericle was a life-long collector. As a star-struck 16 year old, she would write to movie studios and request photographs of actors. Bing Crosby, John Wayne, and Dean Martin were a few of her favorite stars. She received many replies; some of the pictures were even signed by the stars themselves.

After marrying and having children, Mericle developed agoraphobia and gradually stopped venturing outside her home. Yet she remained very connected to the outside world -- through the mail.

...Interestingly, Mericle seems to have taken little interest in the actual menus, and merely sorted them into American and international piles. Furthermore, the influx of menus had no impact on the family's culinary habits. It is quite possible that Mericle simply wanted to feel connected to the outside world, and accomplished this goal through mail correspondence. Perhaps her experience with the movie studios taught her to select institutions that would readily respond to impersonal mail solicitations.

The Willows, in Honolulu. Timmy Chan's in Houston. The Luau Hut of Silver Spring, MD. Apparently, if you bring a little yearning purpose and vision to it, your hoard can end up being thought of as a collection. Go forth, agoraphobics, and bring into being exquisite collections of yellowing documents! Just remember menus have already been done.

Some say “Youre depressed because you dont have enough faith ”

For a Christian leader to pass judgment on a Christian suffering from depression by saying, “you're depressed because you don't have enough faith,” or “you need to have more faith,” demonstrates not only a lack of sensitivity that beggars belief, but also demonstrates the depth of the leader’s ignorance.

To demonstrate how such comments are so far off the mark, let us take a moment to consider what King David wrote in Psalm 143.

Psalm 143:1-7
A psalm of David.
O LORD, hear my prayer,
listen to my cry for mercy;
in your faithfulness and righteousness
come to my relief.

Do not bring your servant into judgment,
for no one living is righteous before you.

The enemy pursues me,
he crushes me to the ground;
he makes me dwell in darkness
like those long dead.

So my spirit grows faint within me;
my heart within me is dismayed.

I remember the days of long ago;
I meditate on all your works
and consider what your hands have done.

I spread out my hands to you;
my soul thirsts for you like a parched land.
Selah

Answer me quickly, O LORD;
my spirit fails.
Do not hide your face from me
or I will be like those who go down to the pit.


The persecution afflicted upon King David by his enemies has lead him to the depths of depression, as we can see as he laments that he has been crushed to the ground, that he feels like he is dwelling in darkness like those long dead, and that his spirit has grown faint and his heart dismayed. Overwhelmed, David cries out to God to save him quickly lest he becomes like those who go down into the pit (which could refer to the grave or hell.)

We see David pouring his heart out before God. There is no empty religious rhetoric in a vain attempt to comfort himself - he makes no pretence that everything is fine. Yet in all this David is not demonstrating a lack of faith. Rather, although he is going through a very difficult time, David has found the courage to honestly express exactly how he is feeling.

The intensity of David’s suffering is so devastating that his life has been shaken to the core. Yet even as so many aspects of his life are crushed, we get to see what is left - the very foundations he is standing on. Let us keep reading:

Psalm 143:8-12
Let the morning bring me word of your unfailing love,
for I have put my trust in you.
Show me the way I should go,
for to you I lift up my soul.

Rescue me from my enemies, O LORD,
for I hide myself in you.

Teach me to do your will,
for you are my God;
may your good Spirit
lead me on level ground.

For your name's sake, O LORD, preserve my life;
in your righteousness, bring me out of trouble.

In your unfailing love, silence my enemies;
destroy all my foes,
for I am your servant.


So what are the unshakeable foundations in David’s life that have withstood these terrible trials? It is his trust in God - “I have put my trust in You,” and “I hide myself in You.”

This proves that it was not a lack of faith in God that led to David’s dire circumstances or depression. In fact, it was his faith in God that SUSTAINED him throughout that dreadful trial.

And so is the case with so many if not most Christians who are suffering from depression and other disabilities such as long term illnesses and handicaps. It is their faith in God that sustains them through such trials, that helps them keep going and not give up when so many others have done so.

My diary has entries very similar to Psalm 143, such as this one:

13th May 1990 -
Boy it is hard, it is so hard.
The deep pain is gone, but I’m still a mess.
This is one difficult road,
And I feel for all those who have had to tread it before me.

The old fears and doubts which swamped me before rise up against me,
But I have found that if I don’t examine and analyse them,
Then they don’t overcome me, I don’t fall.
I try to keep my eyes on Jesus, to trust Him, to rely completely upon Him.

How I long to be normal again,
As I believe this will end one day.
The recovery will be slow, I think.
It needs to be, I couldn't cope with anything instant.
I'm beginning to see some hope for the future, which is good I guess.
But it still seems so distant.

The Bible says to consider it joy to endure trials,
I must say that there has been no joy in this trial.
It defies any previous experience known to me.
But I’ve been forced to trust God when it seems He has abandoned me.
I have been forced to come to a place where I have trusted Him without feeling like doing so.
All I want to do is cry out that He had abandoned me, that He is not faithful.
But He is faithful. And I know that.
He is faithful and true. He is Jesus.


The fact is that depression destroyed my life goals and for a time, turned my life into a living hell. Yet in the midst of that hell I did not walk away from God or give up on Him. Instead, I clung to Jesus like a shipwreck survivor clinging to a life-raft, and He did not let me down. He sustained me, helped me to cope and keep going - even during the blackest phase when I could not feel Him doing so. And then, in His timing, He led me out of that place to greener pastures. And as I continued to trust Him, He used the trial for good, drew me closer to Him, set me free from lifelong anxieties, and helped my faith to grow so that I would be better equipped to deal with future trials.

Now that is faith – trusting in God when our world falls apart. Anyone can say, “I trust in God!” when they are well off, healthy or their life has no problems, but how deep is such faith? Gold is purified by fire and the Bible uses the same analogy regarding the maturing of our faith. Faith grows and matures when tested by the fiery trials that come our way.

Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ! In his great mercy he has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, and into an inheritance that can never perish, spoil or fade—kept in heaven for you, who through faith are shielded by God's power until the coming of the salvation that is ready to be revealed in the last time. In this you greatly rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all kinds of trials. These have come so that your faith—of greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honour when Jesus Christ is revealed. Though you have not seen him, you love him; and even though you do not see him now, you believe in him and are filled with an inexpressible and glorious joy, for you are receiving the goal of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 1 Peter 1:3-9

These judgmental leaders who say, "if you had more faith you would not be depressed, or would not have this or that illness or handicap," are suffering from faulty theology to the extreme! Faith does not prevent us from going through trials - such trials develop our faith.

I would go so far as to say that those Christians who trust in God to sustain them through depression and other disabilities actually have a much stronger and deeper faith than leaders who tell them that they “need to have more faith." The fact is that these accusers have obviously never been through such a trial; otherwise they would have never made the accusation in the first place.

God uses such storms and trials to develop our faith, and this developing of our faith will assist us throughout the rest of our lives.

‘Consider it pure joy, my brothers, whenever you face trials of many kinds, because you know that the testing of your faith develops perseverance. Perseverance must finish its work so that you may be mature and complete, not lacking anything.’ James 1:2-4

Honestly, if such people stopping being so aloof, and instead of standing back at a distance and passing judgements, were to get close enough to someone suffering from depression, and upon seeing what they endure on a daily basis and yet continue to trust in God and cling to him, and if these accusers honestly cared about the depth of their own faith, they should fall on their knees and ask, “Please God, put me through such a trial so that I too can have faith like that.”

All verses from the NIV.

(Tags: Christians who judge Christians for having depression and anxiety)

Do bridges make you panic

This New York Times article is about a business that shuttles anxious people across the Chesapeake Bay Bridge. Here's the description of a typical customer:

Kathleen Busch, who retired from the human resources department of a Baltimore company, said she could cross carefree “when I could wear a bikini.” Her fear began after she was stuck in the Baltimore Harbor Tunnel for hours. (Experts say the fear of bridges and tunnels are sometimes linked.) 

Trying to drive through the tunnel later, “everything went white,” Ms. Busch recalled. “I had a full-blown panic attack,” with racing heart and shortness of breath. “I thought I was going to pass out.” 

In the two years since she and her husband bought a retirement home on the Eastern Shore, she has not tried to drive on the Bay Bridge for fear of causing an accident.

Apparently this isn't the only bridge with services to help the anxious make the crossing:

The five-mile-long Mackinac Bridge in Michigan, one of the world's longest suspension bridges, offers a free drivers' assistance program. In the Florida Keys, enterprising college students have been known to wait at either end of the Seven Mile Bridge to drive tourists.  

But the Bay Bridge, because of its proximity to major cities — 366,000 were expected to cross from Friday to Monday — is apparently the only one busy enough to support commercial drive-over services. (Two other companies, besides Kent Island Express, ferry drivers across the bridge.)

(Photo credit.)

The difference between you and a psychopath

The amygdala, of course, is the brain's fear center -- an ancient evolutionary development that's worked to keep homo sapiens sapiens alive if not thriving for hundreds of thousands of years. A sudden movement, a sharp sound: The amygdala reacts at the slightest provocation. It's up to the prefrontal cortex, the seat of reasoning, of "executive function," to quiet the amygdala, once it's determined that the movement or sound doesn't represent an actual threat. In the case of people who panic, it's believed that the prefrontal cortex doesn't have the "oomph" needed to shut down the amygdala's warning screech as appropriate. Why else would you panic because you're riding an elevator or driving over a bridge?

If you panic, you may have wondered what it would be like to be unburdened by an amygdala. Maybe it would be awesome; maybe you'd feel free to become the you you've always wanted to be. Maybe it would make you fearless if a bit odd.

Or maybe it would make you a psychopath. At least, that'a conclusion reached in a recent article in the Guardian UK, an excellent piece called How to spot a psychopath:

In the mid-60s, Hare was working as a prison psychologist in Vancouver. He put word around the prison that he was looking for psychopathic and non-psychopathic volunteers for tests. He strapped them up to various EEG and sweat- and blood pressure-measuring machines, and also to an electricity generator, and explained to them that he was going to count backwards from 10 and when he reached one they'd receive a very painful electric shock.

The difference in the responses stunned Hare. The non-psychopathic volunteers (theirs were crimes of passion, usually, or crimes born from terrible poverty or abuse) steeled themselves ruefully, as if a painful electric shock were just the penance they deserved. They were, Hare noted, scared.
"And the psychopaths?" I asked.

"They didn't break a sweat," said Hare. "Nothing." The tests seemed to indicate that the amygdala, the part of the brain that should have anticipated the unpleasantness and sent the requisite signals of fear to the central nervous system, wasn't functioning as it should. It was an enormous breakthrough for Hare, his first clue that the brains of psychopaths were different from regular brains.