When I Lost My Computer–I Felt Amputated!

Apple 13" MacBook Pro

Lost, Misplaced, or Stolen?

On a busy day last week, I misplaced my laptop from my car. Had it been  stolen? I had parked close to where the tire people could retrieve it to replace my 4 worn tires with a set of new Premium tires. Then I drove to a supermarket where I left my car for a half-hour or so. Finally, I drove to my counseling clinic where I was to meet with clients that evening. Because another counselor was already using the room I was assigned for the next hour, I brought my materials with me into the clinic, but set them down in another room. When that other counselor ended his session, Frank and I transported my stuff to the new room.  But later, when I lost my computer, I felt amputated!

I Lost My Computer

That evening at home, upon emptying my car of my Daytimer, Professional case, lunch box, and water thermos, I found…no computer! Bought in 2018, it contained everything valuable to me and my ministry. Materials for the Sunday school classes I’ve taught, including outlines, handouts, and slides. Sermons. Workshop presentations. In addition, the Login to my blog: the UN and PW, no longer worked.

Also, all of my most recent personal Bible study notes, 23 single-spaced pages: “Christian Morality,” on the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 5-7. And, most recently, accumulation of 17 pages of detailed notes on II Corinthians 5:11-21, on what “We Are Christ’s Ambassadors” means. Finally, I couldn’t print my spreadsheet containing my 2019 business expenses and income from speaking and selling my book. My tax information, too? All those hours I had put in entering and totaling–gone!

I Felt Amputated!

I had lost all my work, all my backlog of preparations, all my resources. “Well, Lord, it’s now just You and me!” I could count on nothing but Him to revive my memory of my previous work, or to give me something new to share. Where was my computer? Had I left it at the office? The next morning I returned to the clinic where I do volunteer counseling (https://goodsamraitanministries.org) to check the room I had used–no computer. I told a couple of people to be on the lookout.especially Rick, a colleague who spends more time around the office that I do.

Another friend, Frank, led me in believing prayer that, if it had been stolen, the thieves would be shamed into returning it promptly. On Frank’s advice, I retraced my steps and began asking questions. First, I went to the tire place, then to the supermarket to report it lost–or had it been stolen? That afternoon I called the police to report it stolen. I theorized what could have happened: taken from my inadvertently-left-unlocked car at the tire place, at the supermarket, or maybe the parking lot of the clinic. But that computer contained…years of work.

Self-Doubt

Did I slip up locking my car after a stop? How could I have been so stupid, or, more likely, careless? That still felt stupid! I checked Craig’s List to see if  my computer showed up. One of the officers said, if I found it there, a police officer would accompany me to buy it and I could show proof it had been stolen. I had the original bill of sale ($2100, https://apple.com). I explored with he insurance broker whether or not I should file a claim.

Then my wife helped me problem-solve: I could still access my Blog through the family computer, which I had bookmarked. I began to feel less frustrated. But my stress over missing my computer had led to losing sleep. I wakened between 4 and 5:00 a.m. Then (of course?) I began to feel a little soreness on the back of my tongue–and began sneezing. Now I was getting sick. I had missed my computer on Monday evening, talked to my colleagues at my counseling clinic on Tuesday morning, and  investigated the room I had used the previous night. Tuesday afternoon I reported the missing computer to the police and called my insurance company. Wednesday I felt sick and stayed in bed. But on Thursday morning, my wife fielded a call from Rick, my colleague at the clinic.

An Unexpected Call

“Hey, Gordon,” he said, “I was vacuuming your room and found your computer wedged beside the baseboard,” he said. “I opened the case and found your name: Gordon Grose.” I had a psychology manual in my case, with my name on it. Then I began the pleasurable tasks of feeling better physically (I had already begun taking our home herbal anti-viral remedies), retrieving my computer, and returning to the tasks which my computer, once lost, now found, enables.

Lessons From Losing My Computer

I learned what it feels like to lose my right arm, to feel amputated, cut off from all my accumulated resources, and to be totally dependent on the Lord for every future preparation. In reality, we need to learn that lesson over and over. With whatever tools we use to create, we must always rely on the Lord’s leading for the next task. We dare not ever rely on our resources or our selves to serve Him. The Lord had graciously returned my resources, but He also taught me my need to more fully depend on Him. Through Frank, he taught me the value of believing prayer.

What have you lost? Is it a piece of technology? your cell phone? or a part of your life? or a relationship? Whatever it is, you can, like me, tell Him, “Okay, Lord, It’s you and me. I need to depend on You fully.” Recalling that amputated feeling helps me remember anew what depending on God means. What deep need will you unload on Him?

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Lessons Time Teaches Us

Time to reflect on lessons time teaches

What Time Is It?

We are well into the New Year by now. Day three of a new decade as well as a new year. Friends at church say: “I can see better, now that it’s 2020!” People celebrate the turn from New Years Eve to New Years’ Day with “Happy New Year!” toasts. We all hope to have a happy New Year. We hope others do also. I’m still in good health and have led a busy 2019 teaching and preaching. I certainly hope you have a Happy New Year! But the New Year should lead us to explore some lessons time teaches us. In a 2017 blog (What Time Teaches Us, See link below), Victoria Logan identifies four lessons: 1. To Grow, 2. To be Grateful, 3. To Forgive, and 4. To not waste it. Her thoughts help us a lot, but I want to share some of my own reflections.

My Reflections

As my wife and I have aged, we’ve decided to downsize. We’ll live with our daughter and her family (if we can work out the interminable complications of building a new story to their home).  Now I must also find a home for my many books, collected over a lifetime. Some, when new cost me just $4.00, but now, even though they would be $20 or more new today, nobody wants them. Nobody wants books. Too much space to store them. Learn what you need on line. Google it! Our real estate agent says nobody wants our beautiful silverware set, either, or our fine china dishes. As time as edges us closer to the end of life (although living to 80 is like it used to be to live to 60), the creeping of time has taught me some important lessons. Time teaches us the everything is temporary.

Lesson Time Teaches us: Everything is Temporary

That’s something I’ve learned. All of our possessions, our home (which has provided great comfort and security) we must relinquish. Too big for us now, for people my age. Hard to keep ahead of the weeds, moss, growth. Too expensive to pay taxes on. Time to consolidate. I’ve had the opportunity to lead worship services to people in retirement homes. When I asked one lady where she was from, she said, “Dallas, Texas.” Why is someone from Dallas living in Oregon? Well, she had to leave her familiar surroundings, her treasured relationships with friends, doctors, and perhaps church friends, and move closer to family. In other words, time forced her to yield all of her life against her will. Everything she was and had was temporary. There’s another lesson time teaches us.

Lesson Time Teaches us: Loss is Real

In her move to Oregon, that lady had to leave behind her life. We avoid thinking of loss, setbacks, and disappointments, but they find us. Welcome or not, we have to face the realities of accident, death, disease. Talking with relatives across the continent (Dad came from Maine, Mom from Newfoundland), at least those who are still alive, I find they are slipping physically. One lost her husband two years ago. He was the last brother of my mother’s siblings. Another, one who married a cousin can’t get up out of her chair without help because of vertigo. She used to write chatty notes at Christmas, but not this year. One pastor friend lost his wife unexpectedly. Such is the result of the advance of time.

What About You?

Another lesson I’ve learned is how time forces me to think big thoughts. I recall commenting to a friend, “Why should I live another year? To see who wins the Super Bowl?” Big deal! Another friend, a physician who spent his life as a ob-gyn in Africa as a medical missionary, told me, “If we didn’t die, we’d never do anything. We’d be couch potatoes!” That’s true. Death limits our options; it forces us to get our priorities at least a lot better than if we lingered forever. Well If “they” must come to terms with Time, and I have to, what about You? What lessons has time taught you?

What Lasts?

Writers of Scripture reflected on lessons Time taught them. Twice in Scripture, we read, “All men are like grass, and their glory is like the flowers of the field; the grass withers and the flowers fall, but the word of the Lord stands forever.” (I Peter 1:24; a quotation from Isaiah 40:6-8). We all think ourselves quite important, but Scripture is realistic- grass! Here today, and tomorrow, just like those who died last year, celebrities, younger than you and me; we outlived them and others will outlive us.

What is it that you’re doing that lasts? What legacy will you leave your loved-ones, friends, co-workers? How will we leave our mark? The key is the extent we live, love, and pass on the word of God. What will be my legacy, I wonder? Or yours? What lessons is time teaching you?

[Image: iStock photo.com; Article: Victoria Logan, https://www.theodysseyonline.com/what-time-teaches]

 

 

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Every Day Is A Gift We Need To Use Well

Your Christmas Gift: Life

Your Christmas Gift: Life

Christmas 2019

“Every day is a gift,” my 80+ year-old church friend Allen said. I had probably commented to him on his aging and the infinities he and his blind wife experienced. He led her on his arm everywhere she wanted to go. I can’t remember how it happened, whether he became ill, but Allen is gone now. He “passed” or “passed away.” I prefer the term we in polite society seem incapable of stating: he died. His wife still attends church and our class for seniors. I spoke with her again yesterday, December 22. Every day of life is a gift we need to use well.

It wasn’t too long ago that my friend Allen made that comment, but it’s one I’ve not forgotten. Nor do I intend to. The older I get (approaching Allen’s age when I spoke with him), the more I recall those words of wisdom. Every day (of life) is a gift. Life has revoked Allen’s gift. But I still have mine.

Every Day A Gift: Using Mine

I enjoy good health, due, in large part to the Texas doctor I saw in the early 2000’s. I live in Oregon, but through a complicated set of circumstances, our son, daughter-in-law, and wife all saw him for a time. Last year I actively taught classes, preached in several congregations, led a pastor’s retreat, and attended a national convention across the country in Virginia Beach. I especially want to spread the word about the hope I found in the Book of Job, so wherever I go, I share my book (Tragedy Transformed: How Job’s Recovery Can Provide Hope For Yours, 2015). I produce a monthly update on my activities and encourage supporters on my mailing list to pray for me as I continue to serve Christ and people’s needs. Every day of life is a gift I need use well.

But my gift makes all of this activity possible. God has given me a gift to use for Him: day by day I use that for service in Jesus’ name, help for hurting people, hope for the depressed. As long as God gives me each day as a gift, I intend to continue these activities as well as to provide support to my wife, four children, eight grandchildren, and three great grandchildren. Every day of life is a gift I need to use well.

 Using Your Gift

Well, since every day of life is a gift all of us need to use well, what about you? Life has not so far revoked your gift, right? You still have that same gift: Today! How will you use your gift this Christmas 2019?

[Credit: Photo istockphoto.com]

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Hope Through Tragedy Reading Job – Facing the Unavoidable II

"Our messy room" college dorm

Our messy room- Tobin

Finding Hope In Tragedy

At our son Paul’s college graduation my world began to turn upside down; tragedy snuck up on me. After six months, Paul also developed mononucleosis. Mono for each led to myalgic encephalomyelitis, also known as chronic fatigue syndrome. Juli later developed multiple chemical sensitivities and experienced vasculitis, a painful inflammation of her blood vessels upon chemical exposure. For years, I resisted facing it, but my son and daughter-in-law’s medical condition forced me to change my thinking, my habits, and my relationship with God. We never know when we will confront an overwhelming, inescapable demand to deal with tragedy. Although initially disappointed with our son Paul, eventually I had to face the unavoidable. But eventually I found hope through tragedy reading biblical Job.

Although the crises come less often these days, Elaine and I still never know when our son will need us to pick up a prescription or, unable to leave Juli, ask me to buy plumbing supplies on a Sunday morning because he accidentally broke their water pipes.

Hope Through Tragedy Reading Job

“Can I find hope through tragedy reading Job?” you ask. As we hunt for ways to grapple with personal tragedies, many people turn to the most famous story of personal tragedy we know—Job. “Job is my favorite book of the Bible,” people tell me. “The things that happened to him…” they say, their voice trailing off. Job’s story helps them put their problems into perspective; in light of Job’s tragedies, theirs seem minuscule.

But reading Job’s story for consolation, insight, or perspective creates difficulties. Like most of us, I tune in better to the prose of the story than to the poetic dialogue. As a result, when I read the book, I grasp the storyline at the beginning (the first two chapters) and at the end (the last chapter), but I find the disputes between Job and his friends tedious. I bog down in their well-meaning, but hurtful counsel, even when I read some elements of truth in what they say. I also find the long speeches toward the end wearing. What’s the point?

I’ve studied these sections again and again, though. And in them I see huge benefits. I found hope through tragedy. I write, therefore, to help us benefit from the large central section, the part we tend to skip. After careful study, that’s where I found the greatest treasure to deal with my tragedy. In the poetry of the dialogues with his wisdom colleagues, Job’s recovery comes to light. When I face the worst life brings, teasing out the life-lessons from Job’s inner experience through the middle of his story gives me hope. If Job gets better, maybe I can, too. If you need hope to recover from your tragedy, maybe Job’s story can also provide that hope for you. When tragedy confronts you as a disappointment to your expectations in the end may help you also face the unavoidable.

Where is God?

When we’re going through tragedy, one important question arises: Where is God? Easy answers, like He’s the sun above the clouds, trivialize our hurt; complex answers, like God’s omnipotence (He does what He wants), frustrate us; yet receiving no answer at all may seem to confirm our worst suspicions—God has forgotten us, abandoned us to Fate. If you’ve questioned God’s presence in tragedy, however, you’ll find in Job’s story at least the kernel of an answer. Job not only feels abandoned, but with great eloquence, he tells God about it. And, in a surprise, God responds, though not in the way Job expects.

Whatever tragedy we’ve experienced, Job’s story can encourage us, because through it we become aware of God’s very real presence. But it also warns us that the Sovereign Lord is not subject to our demands for answers. The answer Job receives rocks him every bit as much as his tragedies.

Hope for Our Story 

Job’s story, then, is our story, key to finding hope through tragedy. Along with observing his response to tragedy, we will see people today in tragedies similar to his. We’ll learn about their faith amid horrible life circumstances. Through no fault of our own at any point tragedy can disrupt our lives, cause untold grief, and, if we survive, change us forever.

In the book from which this material is excerpted (see below), modern-day fellow sufferers let us in on their real and poignant struggles as they faced strange physical illness, a natural disaster, a serious mental disorder, and insurmountable grief. They’ll show us how they’ve come to live a new normal— and how, even as victims of tragedy, they can and have recovered. Job’s story and theirs can provide you the hope you need for your recovery. Because they recovered, you can too. When unusual physical illnesses immobilized Paul and Juli, tragedy hit our whole extended family. When two state police officers with unwelcome news rang her doorbell, tragedy ambushed Melissa. Tragedy struck Andrea and her family when Hurricane Katrina’s waters flooded their city, church building, and home.

[Resources: For more stories of how people today found hope through their tragedy, read Tragedy Transformed: How Job’s Recovery Can Provide Hope For Yours at https://amzn.to/2mLvCeB or order to the left of this page through PayPal. Linda Kruschke also blogs on life and death, faith and fearlessness, music and poetry at https://anotherfearlessyear.net/my-blog-posts/ Our son Paul writes of his own experience with this same illness at https://www.gordongrose.com/chronic-fatigue-…fs-ii-guest-blog/ Photo: Picture: Xanadu II, Oscar Wilde House, Our Very Messy Room, Tobin, Flckr.com]

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Disappointment With Our Son — Facing the Unavoidable

"Our messy room" college dorm

Disappointment: Our Very Messy Room- Tobin

My wife Elaine and I took one look at our son Paul’s college room, then stared at each other. Disappointed, we saw: papers, books, clothes, bedding, dust, paperclips—and, as we got down on our knees to clean, dirt. Two days from his graduation, our son had nothing sorted, and nothing packed. We needed to box—and ship—everything in those two days. Elaine and I felt proud to have our son attend our alma mater. Paul demonstrated academic achievement, musical gifts, and an outgoing personality. We knew he would go far. But now we felt disappointment with our son.

“Stay close to the Lord.” That was my last bit of counsel four years earlier in our last moments together. I said my piece, then I left him to introduce himself to new class- mates. Now here we were knee-deep in the multiplied stuff he accumulated in those four years. But what we didn’t know: he was facing the unavoidable illness of his future wife.

“I had to help Juli.”

Paul wasn’t immune to the concern that showed on our faces. He defended himself, “But, Dad and Mom, I had to help Juli.” He was right, he did. Six weeks earlier Paul’s fiancée, Juli, came down with infectious mononucleosis. Too weak to attend classes, she needed daily tutoring. In addition to completing his studies, Paul stepped in to help Juli keep up her classwork so she could graduate.

But it wasn’t just graduation that weighed heavily. The couple’s wedding was looming closer even than graduation. Juli’s dad, the Rev. Jim Andrews, and I were going to conduct the ceremony together. Some friends the couple wanted to participate—bridesmaids, groomsmen, and performers in a string quartet—were children of missionary parents. The day after graduation, they would depart for destinations around the world. The only day to have everyone together was the day before graduation.

Anger

Elaine and I, anticipating the pleasure of Paul’s wedding and graduation, felt angry that he’d left the cleaning of his room for us. But we weren’t the only ones to face disappointment. Because of the need to clean Juli’s room, her mother Olsie didn’t even make it to their graduation. That was the initial impact of Juli’s illness on Paul and all of us parents. That impact didn’t lessen in the years that followed. Initially, Elaine and I felt disappointed and angry with our son Paul, but eventually, we also had to come to terms with Juli’s illness.

[From Chapter 1, Tragedy Transformed: How Job’s Recovery Can Provide Hope For Yours (2015). This book is available on this website through PayPal or at https://amzn.to/2mLvCeB.  Look for another excerpt next week. Paul writes of his own experience with this same illness at https://www.gordongrose.com/chronic-fatigue-…fs-ii-guest-blog/ Picture: Xanadu II, Oscar Wilde House, Our Very Messy Room, Tobin, Flckr.com]

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Help Partner Help Addict

To help your addicted loved one, help their partner, friend or spouse. In many cases that may be the only way to help change an addict’s behavior. “Could you get my husband to stop drinking,” a young woman wanted to know, “for my sake and for the sake of our children?” A member of my congregation, she expressed concern to me, her pastor, about her drinking husband. Her appeal for her children tugged at my heart. But I needed to help this partner help her addict.

In a recent blog, I discussed one reason addicted people drop out of church (See https://www.gordongrose.com/signal-addiction/). Here I want to explore how to draw an addict in. Usually it’s a wife who comes to their pastor to complain about a husband’s excessive drinking.  Then there’s the request, stated or implied, that you do something about it.  You can reach out, talk to them, or take them to an AA meeting.  Life for them has become unbearable.  You suspect, however, that, on the one hand, the risk of alienating is much greater than the probability of receptivity. On the other hand, however, if you turn her down flat, you risk alienating her. What do you do?

Helping The Spouse

Help partner help their addict. Because active addicts tend to blame others for their decisions, living with them is fraught with conflict. Some experience it as hell on earth. Addicts need a way to avoid dealing with how badly they are addicted, and how unable they are to take charge of their life. They, therefore, deflect criticism to others and from their own guilt within. They will argue, blame, excuse themselves, and otherwise make getting along with them all but impossible. Only by succumbing to the temptation to placate their wrath by giving in to their every whim: buy my alcohol, call my boss and say I’m sick, you should have known better, etc.

Jesus challenges us to live as a child of God in whatever situation we find ourselves. Because it runs counter to our human nature to love our enemy, in the case of an addicted loved-one who declares war, we’ll need help to do it. We’ll also need time to practice love.  

What To Expect

To help your addict, you will need help. To You can’t do it alone. You’ll need coaching support in your battle to love your addicted husband, wife, or child. Here is what you can expect of the coaching process: At first, failure; then, insight after the fight; eventually, insight beforehand almost averts the fight; finally, you stand firm with kindness, with no fight (at least from you). To learn to live as a gracious child of God in such a relationship will require a lot of support. We also need Jesus’ love. Pastor, you can coach others to practice Christian love and to help them place responsibility for the addict’s behavior where it belongs. Al-Anon and Celebrate Recovery also provide invaluable support. Check out www.celebraterecovery.com     

In my case, I was this woman’s pastor. Sometimes a woman will approach a friend or relative of her husband in order to elicit help with her husband’s drinking. In general, when a person seeks you out for help, it is they who have the problem. That is never more true that with the spouse of someone addicted. Because they are aware of their need for help, your challenge is to enlist them in the process of change. Of course Al-Anon and Celebrate Recovery will help them, but what can you do to help them?

Help Partner Help Addict

When that young wife came to see me, I proposed a series of meetings with her about how she could handle herself. I had recently read a paper that outlined a strategy for dealing with people with alcohol addiction, so I applied those lessons to help her.

Lesson 1. Stop your persecution. That means, stop your angry, snide comments. Don’t throw away the substance. Don’t give any excuse to blame you (the spouse) for the addict’s behavior. “My wife’s a b—-! I’m going for a drink.” Instead you consistently demonstrate love, concern, and care for your spouse. All the while expressing your desire they stop using. “I love you, but I don’t want you to _________.

Lesson 2. Stop allowing yourself to be used as a patsy. Just as harassing can provide the excuse your spouse needs to use, so does its opposite. You enable their continued using through your involvement in the addicted’s behavior: buying it for them, doing it with them, or making excuses for them.  When the boss calls, put them on the phone. Stay out of it.

Lesson 3. Be kind, but always straghtforward, truthful, and honest. “I care about our marriage and our family,” you say. “Your (addiction) is your decision. I would like you to find help, but it’s up to you.”

Over a period of weeks, that approach with the wife who came to me finally got to her husband.”He stomped his feet,” she reported, and yelled, ‘Why do you keep saying it’s up to me?’” He fumed, but the changed relationship put enormous pressure on him to change. As a result, he eventually began coming to church with her! This wife needed coaching over and over to keep her on target, but her tough love for her husband broke his addiction and drew him to Christ.

Who Needs Your Tough Love?

Do you live with someone addicted to drugs or alcohol? Gambling? Internet porn? Your life is not easy, but it will be much better if you maintain your love, while holding your loved-one responsible for their own behavior.

[Photo: alcoholtreatment.net No copyright infringement intended. For additional resources consult: https://americanaddictioncenters.org/alcoholism-treatment/spouse and https://www.alcohol.org/helping-an-alcoholic/husband/ Click here for a free ebook: https://docs.google.com/file/d/1rIGOglYpMYKAAL-IR7H6D65sts_WQkfKEVyTrdyz4nI/edit]

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Hope For People with Bipolar Illness

Vincent Willem van Gogh
Self-portrait, 1887

There is hope for people with bipolar illness. Many famous artists, such as Vincent Van Gogh, lived with manic-depression without the benefits of our current state of knowledge. Living with that disorder, now named bipolar illness, presents challenges beyond most people’s comprehension. Most mental illness, we now know, comes from early childhood trauma, as I describe in a previous blog (https://www.gordongrose.com/where-mental-illness/). But some disorders, like bipolar illness, derives from a strong genetic component.

To anyone diagnosed with bipolar illness, however, these questions confront them daily: How do I live with this? Where can I find ways to get through today without allowing my symptoms to develop, intensify, or dominate my life? How do I support myself, my family, and remain productive? How can I make the most of a poor (at best) genetic inheritance?

Although I do not have bipolar illness, I have worked professionally with people who do. And one of my family members is diagnosed with bipolar illness. Let me, therefore, venture to put myself in your shoes.

Finding Hope through Facing My Sadness

Facing sadness can in the end result in hope. Like any grief, my diagnosis represents huge loss. Although I’m relieved I can name it, I also live under a cloud, a handicap as real as any limp. Like any loss, therefore, I must give up pretending I’m normal. I need to allow myself to feel sad, and to let down my defenses. Denial allows me to minimize my disability, expect too much of myself, and shun medications because of their side-effects. Meds also prevent my mania, which I enjoy. Self-aggrandizement allows me to talk circles around others, work without sleep, and fosters my narcissistic sense of superiority. But when my mania fails, I crash: “What’s the use of living?” But there is hope for people with bipolar illness.

My first challenge, then: face my sadness. I do have an illness that hampers my functioning. I feel sad; I need to mourn. 

Finding Hope Through Taking Charge

Hope also derives from taking charge. Moving from my position as a victim of genetics or of circumstances to an agent of change, decision, and choice represents my greatest asset as a person. So can I learn to work within my limits? How do I make the best of a difficult situation? Can I find strength I never knew I had: in God, in a Higher Power, in counselors, and/or in social support? How can I mobilize a team to sustain me: medical practitioners, friends, professional colleagues, neighbors, family? None of us lives life alone, but my living with bipolar illness makes dependence on the good will, and concrete support of others all the more necessary.

Finding Hope to Go On

 How can I find hope to go on? To persevere daily under a cloud of uncertainty? We can also find hope by observing how others dealt with the illness. Others have been where I am now, I tell myself. I’m not the first, nor the only person living with bipolar disorder. How do they cope? In what ways can I draw on their experience, failures and successes to teach me what to avoid, and what to pursue?

Are you living with bipolar illness? How do you face your sadness, take charge of your health, and mobilize the resources that give you hope?

[Note: A earlier version of this article first appeared at http://www.bipolarhappens.com/bhblog/gordon-grose-tragedy-transformed/ My thanks to Julie Fast for her invitation to write a guest blog. If you are diagnosed with bipolar illness, I urge you to visit her site and take advantage of her extensive writing and self-help resources. Another resource: Darkness Is My Only Companion: A Christian Response to Mental Illness, by Katherine Greene-McCreight, Brazos, 2006. The author is an ordained Episcopal Priest and is diagnosed with bipolar illness. Picture: en.wikipedia.org No attempt to avoid copyright intended]

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Where Does Mental Illness Come From?

Where does mental illness come from? One of the most perplexing issues for Christians is the relationship between spiritual problems and mental illness. Is lack of faith, failure to pray, for example, the reason a person becomes depressed? Because a person fails to trust God, does he or she experience “voices” that create great distress? or out of control mood swings? In fact, we find the origin of mental illness, and physical illness as well, much closer to home.

Important Study

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) joined with Kaiser Permanente Department of Preventive Medicine in Dan Diego, CA. They investigated the effect of Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE). Using the medical histories of 17,000 people, researchers examined ten categories in early life. They sorted for recurrent physical abuse (beatings), contact sexual abuse, and abuse of alcohol or drugs by a household member. Investigators also flagged a household member who was clinically depressed, mentally ill, or incarcerated. They counted a member of the household who was suicidal, or a mother treated violently. They later added physical and emotional neglect. To register for a number more than one, a child had to experience more than one type of abuse. More repetitions of the same type did not count.

Where Does Mental Illness Come From?

ACE Scores and Chronic Depression
How Childhood Experiences Underlie Chronic Depression

Researchers then compared the frequency of those types of experiences with measures of later wellbeing. They noted physical health risks, for example, disease, healthcare costs, and life expectancy. Fifty years after the trauma, the study matched the person’s ACE score (0 – 4+) with their current state of wellbeing.

This chart above shows how childhood experiences underlie chronic depression. The Adverse Childhood Experiences (ACE) scores for women (red) and men (yellow) show at the bottom, 0 through >=4 (L to R). That’s the number of types of abuse a person experienced.  The left scale shows the % of those people in our population with lifelong chronic depression. The skyrocketing prevalence of lifelong depression as the result of increasing types of early childhood trauma leaps out at us. While every person needs godly counsel, those with greater early trauma will need more specialized attention. 

Accidental Discovery

The authors stumbled on this relationship while conducting a weight loss program: “Unexpectedly, our Weight Program had a high drop-out rate, limited almost exclusively to patients successfully losing weight.” The researchers had expected the opposite! “Exploring the reasons underlying the high prevalence of patients inexplicably fleeing their own success in the Weight Program, ” they said, “ultimately led us to recognize that certain of the more intractable public health problems like obesity were also unconscious, or occasionally conscious, solutions to problems dating back to the earliest years, but hidden by time, by shame, by secrecy, and by social taboos against exploring certain areas of life experience.”

This chart pattern holds true for almost every mental and physical illness of which we are aware. Physical illnesses which fit this pattern: severe obesity, smoking and lung disease, risk for coronary heart disease and HIV. The same pattern holds for addictions: adult alcoholism, and drug addiction, including I-V drug use. But it also applies to mental disorders, such as hallucinations, attempted suicides, those with a history of lifetime depression, and use of antidepressant prescriptions. Life expectancy also declines with the rise in ACE scores.

What Can I do?

Now that we understand the source of many if not most of our disabilities, mental and physical, what can we do about them? Next week I’ll explore ways we can help ourselves and how pastors and other counselors can assist people who come to us for help.

[ From Felitti and Anda, “The Relationship of Adverse Childhood Experiences to Adult Medical disease, Psychiatric Disorders, and Sexual Behavior: Implications for Healthcare,” in The Impact of Early Life Trauma on Health and Disease: The hidden Epidemic. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2010.]

Posted in Mental Illness | Comments Off on Where Does Mental Illness Come From?

Option B by Sheryl Sandberg: A Review

Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer, Facebook

I recommend Option B in the strongest terms. At least for people who have lost a loved one. Not everybody will want a book about a sudden death, grieving, learning to adjust, and finding ways to rebound. It’s not a life we choose for ourselves, but, at times, trouble finds us. That’s when this book will help.  Sheryl tells the story of her husband, David Goldberg, who, while exercising in a Gym in Mexico while they were on vacation, unexpectedly died of a heart attack.

Sandberg’s Story

Sandberg, Facebook Chief Operating Officer, tells her compelling story in a compelling way. Well-written, well-researched, with practical helps and tips for navigating the uncharted territory of a sudden loss, her book provides a much-needed resource for those who come after. I can imagine that she also benefitted from this project as a way of dealing with her and her family’s grief. Like many such projects, this one brings strength out of weakness, value for others out of helplessness for ourselves. Sandberg interweaves her personal stories and experiences with the stories of others and with much valuable research information. She documents on book end pages to keep the reader engaged.

How We Interpret Tragedy Negatively

Sharing one of the most helpful analyses of our misperception of disasters which befall us, Sandberg early on draws on psychologist Martin Seligman. For decades Seligman studied how we deal with setbacks. Our greatest misperceptions, he says, which hinder our recovery, begin with P: Personalization enables us to conclude that we are at fault; Pervasiveness leads us to believe that a disastrous event will impact every area of our life; Permanence tells us that the results of our tragedy will last forever. “The loop in your head,” she says. “repeats, ‘It’s my fault this is awful. My whole life is awful. And it’s always going to be awful’” (16).

What Do I Say?

People often want to know, “What do I say to someone who’s lost a loved-one?” “When you’re faced with tragedy,” Sandberg answers, with a quote from writer Tim Lawrence, “you usually find that you’re no longer supported by people—you’re surrounded by platitudes. So what do we offer instead of ‘everything happens for a reason’?” Laurence suggests, “the most powerful thing you can do is acknowledge. To literally say the words: I acknowledge your pain. I’m here with you” (43).

Finding yourself surrounded by platitudes recalls biblical Job with his friends, as I describe in my Tragedy Transformed: How Job’s Recovery Can Provide Hope For Yours (2015). Feeling with the bereaved offers the best avenue of approach. Ordinarily, we feel helpless, so, to extricate ourselves from our awkwardness, we often blurt out what’s unhelpful, if not hurtful. Instead, be patient, listen, feel, hug.

Option B

Two weeks after Dave’s death, Sheryl prepared for a father-child activity. “I want Dave,” Sheryl cried. “Option A is not available,” her friend replied, then offered to help her make the best of Option B.

I found Sandberg’s Option B a pleasure to read. I confess to reading a lot of books on suffering and tragedy. But for someone who looks for hope in the bleakness of grief, they will find Sandberg a sturdy guide on which to lean.

[Option B: Facing Adversity, Building Resilience, and Finding Joy by Sheryl Sandberg and Adam Grant, New York: Knopf, 2017. Picture: commons.wickimedia.org no copyright infringement intended. Other resources on Tragedy: https://www.gordongrose.com/responses-to-tragedy/ https://www.gordongrose.com/responses-to-tragedy -ii/ See also Marlys Johnson, survivor to husband’s death from cancer: renew purpose.com

Posted in Death and Dying, Hope for the Hurting, Recovery | 1 Comment

Depression Can Lead to Addiction

Depressed man

Depression

Depression can lead to addiction. To escape his dislike of his life, taxi driver Joe used vodka binges. Those led, however, to a plan to end his life. Like the weeds that grow in our yard, demanding our constant attention to remove them, emotional weeds can grow in our lives. The weed of addiction may begin with something as simple as a desire. But desire can lead to an inclination, to repetition, to relief, and/or distraction. From there, the road leads to pleasure: “I drink because I like it!” Before we know it, like Joe, we’re hooked, another word for addiction. That slow development of addiction, as I wrote previously (https://www.gordongrose.com/signal-addiction/), can lead a church member to drop out.

Many people find alcohol relieves depression.  Among those who experience depression, in fact, alcohol is the most common addiction. In the general population, the risk is 15%: for every 100 people, at some time in their lives, 15 become alcoholic. For those with depression, according to Christian psychiatrist Donald Hall, that risk almost doubles.

Effect On Our Brain

Alcohol, then, both results from and creates a down mood.  As alcohol, along with unrelieved stress, injures brain cells, it increases the possibility of depression. When depressed, people act with poor judgment, behave impulsively, and abuse alcohol (Donald Hall, Breaking Through Depression, 137).

When, as a result of a friend’s phone call,  Joe came to Dr. Hall, Joe admitted his past poor decisions. After they discussed ways of making better life choices, they also discussed Joe’s attempts to escape his confused feelings through drinking. The counseling and self-examination led to better ways to help Joe cope.  Antidepressants prescribed by Dr. Hall, helped Joe think more clearly. His group of recovering alcoholics gave Joe support and relieved his feelings of loneliness. Using every tool he found, Joe broke the addiction cycle as well as his dark moods. For resources to help with what professionals call Dual Diagnosis (e.g., depression and addiction),                                                                                    go to: https://www.dualdiagnosis.org/depression-and-addiction/

Drug addict

Addiction

My Experience

With one drinking man who sought my help, I found a lack of assertiveness. A “nice guy,” he found it difficult to stand up for himself. Like the time the boss unexpectedly asked him to work overtime. That night he went on a binge, but felt baffled as to why. Through our work, he discovered that when life turned  against him, he felt depressed. He no longer felt mystified by his binges. I helped him trace back to the trigger, the specific insult to his ego he hadn’t dealt with: his need to speak up for himself to his boss. Along with insight, in which we help connect past experiences with present events, we worked on teaching him assertiveness.

With the other tools such as those Dr. Hall provided Joe, pastors and other concerned Christian friends can offer a way out when we help someone find an accepting support group, e.g., Alcoholics Anonymous (https://www.aa.org), and/or Christian fellowship, e.g., Celebrate Recovery (https://www.celebraterecovery.com). 

[Pictures: Depression: Public Domain; Destitue man: Flickr.com. No attempt to violate copyright is intended. Hall, Donald, MD,  Breaking Through Depression: A Biblical and Medical Approach to Emotional Wholeness, Eugene, OR: Harvest House, 2009.]

Posted in Mental Illness, Recovery | 2 Comments