Mental distress

I had come to a full-stop - been diagnosed with clinical depression, and put on medication. I was 56, two years into what was to be my last ministry post combining a priest-in-charge with a prison chaplaincy. I had worked as an Anglican priest for nearly thirty years. On one of his infrequent visits (he dropped in a couple of times, having phoned to say he wouldn't be staying long as he was on his way to another appointment) the area bishop remarked with surprise that there was no way that he could tell that I was not well. I seemed to be perfectly normal.


Well, what was I meant to do? Make it easier for him? Act the part of one in mental distress? But my distress was real. The fact that I was not sitting in the corner, huddled up for protection, or staring vacantly into the middle distance, was, I would have thought, a good thing for him as well as me.

People are often unwittingly insensitive to those in mental pain. As a time-served insomniac, I wish I had a mogadon for every time that a person with whom I've shared this personal problem has thoughtlessly replied, "You know, I always sleep like a log. I'm off the moment my head touches the pillow." I mean you wouldn't say to a victim of blindness, on first being apprised of their affliction, "You know, I can see perfectly well with both eyes." Would you?

Or imagine saying to the bereaved parent of an eighteen year old killed in a road accident, "You know, I wouldn't be able to tell by looking at you that you were even slightly upset." Yet here was my professional Father in God, as I stood on the edge of an emotional and vocational abyss, telling me how good I was at hiding my true feelings. As if I needed him to tell me. As if that wasn't a big part of the problem.

If someone has a physical disease like cancer or Alzheimer's they will rightly, with a bit of luck,
a) be showered with sympathy
b) receive unconditional support, or be seen as deserving such support, and
c) be told how brave they are even when they reject such accolades because, as John Diamond insisted, cowards get cancer too.
It is very different, sometimes the complete opposite, with emotional pain.

There is little acknowledgement that emotional pain may be intractable (a malignant sadness) and that what is most helpful is the solidarity without judgement of someone who cares enough to want to understand.