Like so many other things Jewish (and not), I find it difficult.

I recently saw a blog post by a new blogger, Heshbon Hanefesh (welcome!), that resonated with me, and reminded me of Psalm 27, which has gotten me through some tough times in the past. This Psalm is traditionally recited, at least by Ashkenazi Jews, after Shacharit and Ma’ariv throughout the month of Elul. (I think that in Nusah Sefard, it’s recited after Minchah, instead.)

For those who have never seen it or need a refresher, here it is:

The verse that always grabbed me was verse 10: “כִּי-אָבִי וְאִמִּי עֲזָבוּנִי; וַיהוָה יַאַסְפֵנִי”
/ For though my father and my mother have forsaken me, the LORD will take me up.

Except that, instead of “take me up,” I would say “gather me in.” As I commented on Heshbon Hanefesh’s post, all I want is for God to gather me in. Please, God, gather in all of my scattered bits. Sometimes, it feels as though bits of my life are flying off in their own directions, leaving a diminished “me” behind.

As an adolescent, I felt very abandoned by my parents, and that’s when this verse began to speak to me.

Writing now, on Rosh Hodesh Elul, I am very fearful. Not of God’s judgment, but of the process of Elul. Of it failing me, or me failing it. Of God slipping further and further away from me, beyond my grasp. I have lately had a much more difficult time connecting to Judaism, Jewish community, and Torah than I would like. I don’t really know why, or what’s going on exactly, but the severe depression of this past fall/winter has probably taken its toll on my spiritual life, which feels empty and depleted. I am often left wondering why I do all of the Jewish things that I do, in addition to what I am doing here on this earth.

I am also fearful of the shortening of the days, as Heshbon Hanefesh is. Fearful is too weak a word. Terrified is closer. I think that I have gotten progressively more and more depressed each of the past three autumns. Or maybe 1 (2008) and 3 (2010) were the worst. In any case, my psychiatrist said that seasonal affective disorder can start as early as August and that I’d better start using my light box. The bulb burned out at the end of last season and I finally ordered a new one today. But, hell. I can’t get depressed again. I can’t. I’m starting graduate school and will have a more structured environment, which should help, but also considerably more stress (both academic and financial), which may not. I’m not sure I ever really recovered from this past fall and winter’s bout.

Back to the Psalm–another verse, verse 4, has also long spoken to me, and I actually had it written on a shtender* that I bought in Jerusalem when I was eighteen: “אַחַת, שָׁאַלְתִּי מֵאֵת-יְהוָה–    אוֹתָהּ אֲבַקֵּשׁ:
שִׁבְתִּי בְּבֵית-יְהוָה,    כָּל-יְמֵי חַיַּי;
לַחֲזוֹת בְּנֹעַם-יְהוָה,    וּלְבַקֵּר בְּהֵיכָלוֹ.”
“One thing have I asked of the LORD, that will I seek after:
that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life,
to behold the graciousness of the LORD, and to visit early in His temple.”

I want God in my life, but I’m angry at God. I am having misgivings about organized religion. It feels like too much for me a lot of the time. I am not sure that one can have God, at least not the God I want and in the way that I want, without organized religion. I am also not sure that one can have community, or at least not the community that I want, without organized religion. Even though “community” often disappoints or infuriates or bores me, I don’t know what I would do without it.

I am hoping that I can put some thought/effort/writing into all of this, in one form or another, throughout Elul and arrive at a more satisfactory place than I find myself now.

What’s your Elul going to be about? How do you feel about Psalm 27?

[Here are some thoughts about teshuva from 2003/2009. This post wasn't really about teshuva, interestingly enough. I'll have to think about that some more!]

* Shtender is the Yiddish word for lectern. The one that I bought looked something like this.

This verse appears in Lamentations 1:16, part of Megillat Eichah, which Jews around the world read tonight, on the 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av.

For these things I weep? No, I weep for so many other things! I do not weep for these things.

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I’ve been having mixed feelings about this year’s three-week long period of mourning since, oh, the 17th of Tammuz or so.

For the first time ever, I didn’t even make a pretense of fasting on the 17th of Tammuz, the day that starts off this mourning period. (I normally try and then I eat if I feel really sick later in the day, as Jewish law dictates for these minor rabbinic fasts.) In addition to the depression that I struggle with, I also have “food issues.” Not really an eating disorder, more like disordered eating. I was trying to eat better around the 17 of Tammuz, and that meant not skipping a day of food. I was also trying to get work done, and that required coffee. So I had breakfast with coffee and went to work.

It wasn’t that I didn’t feel sad; it was that I felt sad about the wrong things, and about nothing at all. You know how you can just cry and cry and cry and not even really know why, except that it feels like the world is going to end? Like nothing will ever be okay; like everything will always be broken? So, yes, I’ve had a bit of that lately. July and August are not normally a bad time for me; they’re usually somewhat neutral.

I didn’t want to “do” the Three Weeks. I didn’t feel like trying to deflate my already flailing mood. I didn’t go out to any live concerts during this period, but, let’s face it, I don’t usually go to live concerts all that often anyway.

But what to do about Tisha B’Av? I could not really be in the mood for commemorating the loss of the Temples in Jerusalem during the Three Weeks or Nine Days, and just do the minimal, rote requirement, but ignoring Tisha B’Av is out the question for me.

For one thing, there are these excerpts from the first chapter of Eichah that lay forth my pain for the world to see. I know it isn’t my pain, but it is. It is all of our collective pain, since the Temple was destroyed and everything went to hell. The agony of unceasing tears and of soul-rending sighs are expressed here, and are heard by the entire congregation, which sits on the floor, in the dark, partaking in the terribleness that was and still is. In Judaism, I feel like all of the pain that ever was, still is on Tisha B’Av. That’s part of the beauty of this religion that re-enacts both redemption and suffering, each in its own time, but together, as a community. “Behold my pain!” the author of Eichah proclaims in 1:18. “וּרְאוּ מַכְאֹבִי” How often do I want to shout that from the rooftops? Often. (Hence the blog, among other outlets.)

Just as Sukkot and Simchat Torah are difficult holidays for me, because they so often proclaim the “season of our joy” just as my Seasonal Affective Disorder is kicking into high gear, I find some solace in the open expression of sadness that Tisha B’Av welcomes into my community. Sadness is not only okay on this day, it’s required. Finally, something that’s easy for me! But also, the acknowledgment that sadness is a part of life, a part of our history, a part of our tradition, somehow makes me feel more a part of things, less on the sidelines, peering in through a window.

There is a second reason to not give up on Tisha B’Av, just yet. And that is the way that Tisha B’Av can try to pry me away from my own gaping pain and open my eyes to that of others. We don’t only cry for the loss of a building and sovereignty when we cry on Tisha B’Av. As illustrated by these verses from chapter two of Eichah, we also cry for the tremendous human suffering that accompanied the destruction of Jerusalem.

One of the many, many problems with being depressed and with struggling with depression is how self-centered it makes one. I wake up each morning wondering if I will make it through the day. Will I get up? Will I eat properly? Will I shower? Will I get any work done? How will I feel? Will it be better or worse than yesterday? The self-centeredness of my distress is, itself, distressing. I can’t necessarily force my way out of it. One thing that was great about a recent vacation that I took was how it took me outside of my closed little world of dark rooms and self-loathing and out into the world.

On that note, the American Jewish World Service recently put out a prayer for East Africa, specifically focusing on their terrible famine, in connection with Tisha B’Av. More here.

I hope that this Tisha B’Av and every future Tisha B’Av will turn from a day of sadness and mourning into a day of redemption and ever-lasting happiness. And I hope that you all find your ways through this difficult and confusing day of tears, but not the tears we’re used to. I’d love to hear your thoughts.

If we think that this–”Why did God give me mental illness?”–is a good question to ask (see below for an alternative), then their answer isn’t bad. It boils down to:

1. God gives each of us both challenges and the means to overcome them. So God isn’t setting you up for failure any more than he sets anyone else up for failure. You may just have greater challenges than others, but that also means that God gave you better skills and talents for overcoming them. I found this thought very comforting when I was younger. I learned something similar about the Akeidah [binding of Isaac] when I was studying that in school–God tests those whom he is sure can pass the test. God only asked Abraham to sacrifice his son, his “only” son, Isaac, because he knew that Abraham wouldn’t.

2. God hopes that we’ll use these challenges and our talents at overcoming them to help not just ourselves, but also others. We may help others who don’t share our problems, as well as those who do. That was a huge motivation for me to start this blog and it also motivates each and every infrequent post. I need to take my pain and suffering and use it, as much as possible, to (a) show others that they aren’t alone and (b) show others that hope is possible, when I am feeling hope. (I only feel hope sometimes, but such is life.)

Of course, this answer is only good if we think that God gives us mental illnesses for a reason, as opposed to a more laissez-faire attitude towards theology, which is more like: God may be ultimately in charge, but he doesn’t make small decisions like deciding why I got depressed instead of my neighbor, Ms. Perfect. Good things happen and bad things happen and that’s how God wants the world to work, but he doesn’t muck around in the details. I have mental illness because of a combination of biological vulnerabilities and a crappy childhood, and it really sucks, but that’s just how it is. God lets bad things happen, but He doesn’t do them to us. (Likewise, God lets good things happen, but He doesn’t personally choose us to be the recipients of dumb luck.) Sometimes, it is easier to think this way. Certainly, when discussing the Holocaust or why innocent children die, it’s easier to think that God just kind of lets the cards fall where they may, based on human agency, in regards to the little details.

I am pretty sure that both attitudes towards God’s intervention in the world are defensible from a traditional Jewish perspective, but feel free to disagree.

Do you have other answers to “Why did God give me mental illness,” or think that Chabad.org’s answer is good, bad, or neutral? How do you deal with theology and your struggles in life?

It is taking place at Yeshiva University in New York City this coming Sunday, October 31.

I am very, very glad that this conference is taking place and that people are speaking about, among other things, depression, suicide, OCD, and eating disorders. With the exception of those issues, I think it’s not quite the issues that I would have focused on in such a conference, but they also know their audience better than I do. (The other things are also really important, but I tend to not think of them as mental health issues in quite the same way.)

Their blurb reads:

On Sunday, October 31, 2010, Yeshiva University’s Student Medical Ethics Society (MES) will be hosting its fifth annual conference, entitled A Beautiful Mind: Jewish Approaches to Mental Health. The conference will provide participants with a broad foundation for the medical background needed to understand mental health, as well as the advanced medical research and practices used today to prevent and manage mental health challenges. Topics covered include suicide, depression, eating disorders, addictions, substance abuse, and more. Participants will also be introduced to an overview of the fundamental ethical dilemmas surrounding mental health, as well as how the system of Halacha (Jewish law) approaches these complex issues.

In addition to gaining broad knowledge in medical, ethical, and Halachik issues of mental health, participants will be able to choose from a series of specialized tracks, each geared towards in-depth analysis of the most pressing issues in the field. These tracks include Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder (ADHD), Bullying and Harassing, Living with A Mentally Ill Family Member, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder (OCD), and Sexual Abuse. The individual sessions will be guided by leading rabbis, physicians, and mental health professionals all of whom are experts with ample experience in their fields of mental health, ethics, and Halacha. In addition, there will be a special track geared to Rabbis, in order that they will be able to ask their individual questions to the leaders in Halacha. Finally, exclusively for students, Dr. Pelcovitz and Rav Willig will lead a discussion pertaining to mental health as it applies to students.

The conference will be a wonderful opportunity to explore these complex and pressing issues, and to interact with leading rabbis, physicians, and lawyers in the area of medical ethics. Pre-registration is required and will be open to all those who have an interest in broadening their knowledge and understanding of ethics in mental health. Students, teachers, rabbis, mental health professionals, physicians, and laymen are welcome.

Please join us for a unique and fascinating conference exploring Mental Issues from a Halachik, Ethical and Scientific perspective.

I hope that good, productive action comes out of it!

Morning Ritual

Since I posted my snow photos, I’ve been more interested in sharing some of my visual artwork.

In that vein, here is my first offering. I dumped my morning pharmaceuticals out on the Talmud that I was studying, since it was easier to take them that way, rather than straight out of the little compartment in my pill box. When I looked down at them, I thought it was striking. The way the words get distorted by the fish oil capsule; the anti-depressants splayed out randomly across the words “חשוב” (“important”) and “חמור” (which can mean “serious,” although in this case, I think it means “donkey”) and “לא מצי” (“not found”).

I like this image too much to watermark it. I hope that people respect that and don’t claim it as their own.

Wishing all of my readers a happy, healthy, and especially liberating Passover, and hoping that I get to post some of my thoughts on that holiday either before or during it.

I have a very hard time “forcing” happiness, and it’s in quotes because I’m not sure it’s possible. Likewise, I have difficulty with the times of the year that Judaism specifically tells us to be happy. The post, however, is interesting and thought-provoking even for me, predisposed to disagree.

Instead of a “reset” button, I seem to have a “relapse” button, wherein I feel like I am doing better (whee! life has meaning! I am being productive! I am taking good care of myself!) and then, I wake up one morning a few days later, and, once again, I am not. I feel like I can’t get my bearings, despite trying my hardest. (Except for the days when I give up before I even get started.) It is frustrating, to say the least.

I have been hoping that this current snowstorm might function as such a “reset” button, much in the way that I sometimes hope that a weekend, a new month, a Jewish holiday, or an extended vacation will somehow function as a “reset” button, to make okay all that is not. But there is just something about snow, isn’t there? The way that it covers everything, and makes thing appear to be what they are not. The way that it envelopes the world, softening its hard edges. The way that it creates a sort of blank slate, a new world to mold and shape according to our wishes, and then a reborn world when it finally melts. There is something pure about it, and purifying.

It’s not just me. See Isaiah 1:18:

I try not to think about my depression as a sin, because that somehow implies that I have free will to exercise over it, whereas I am fairly sure that “free will” and “depression” overlap very little.

Nonetheless, depression and sin share enough that a metaphor that works for one may very well work for the other. Like a sin, depression is something about myself that I do not like, and it causes me to act in ways that I regret, and it is difficult to shake off. Like sin, depression sometimes feels like a crimson stain that resists all of the oxygen-enriched stain removers I apply to it, as well as the outright toxic bleach with which I scrub at it. Like a red stain, it bleeds through into so many areas of my life.

What would my “sin” of depression being “as white as snow” feel like? What would my life look like after the “reset” button of a winter storm had been pressed?

It would be fresh and clean.

It would be cold and invigorating.

It would obscure the dirt in the street below.

It would soften some of the differences between us, the way our winter coats cover us and make us all just people.

It would be alert.

It would be full of beauty.

It would contain the variation and individuality of the ever-unique snowflake.

It would help us overlook people’s imperfections in light of the sheer miraculousness of their existence.

It would create a sense of wonder in the world, and promote laughter and frolic.

It would make the ordinary seem extraordinary.

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[In unrelated news, Borei Hoshech now has a Facebook "page" as well as a Facebook "profile." If you would like to become a "fan" of the "page," click here! I will let people know about new posts through the page, and will also be less discriminatory against my actual, real-life friends in allowing people to become my fans.]

P.S. That last photo is a standard-issue New York City Parks Department trash can.

In other news, I am sad tonight because I had fully intended to apply for a grant that would enable me to work on this project in a more serious and sustained manner, but I can’t get my act together to do it. I am also still torn about whether writing/thinking so much about depression while depressed is helpful or hurtful. I also don’t know, should I ever emerge from this current, too-long, state of severe depression, whether writing/thinking about depression and tefillah while not depressed would be helpful or hurtful. I was nervous about that when I started this project in my gloriously un-depressed state back in the summer of 2008. So maybe it is for the best that I could not manage to apply for this particularly wonderful opportunity. Maybe this work is not my intended tafkid (role) in life at all. Or maybe it was meant to be of a hobby than a vocation. I do not know.

I do remain worried about permanently messing up my as-yet-undetermined future by remaining depressed so long that I miss all my chances to do something worthwhile with my life. Or that I alienate or piss off so many people along the way that I effectively do the same thing.

When we last left our struggling, prayer-commenting hero, she was writing about the Elohai Nishama prayer. It wasn’t so much that she did not want to get to “Sheh-asani Kirtzono” “who has made me according to His Will,” as that she had so much to say about it, that she couldn’t say anything, and, instead, resorted to writing about other things.

I have always loved this prayer. I know that many women (and some men) take issue with it, or, perhaps more accurately, it’s male counterpart, “Who has not made me a woman.” Personally, I always felt that everyone should just say “sheh-asani kirtzono,” “who has made me according to His will.” I’m sometimes not sure how men can resist saying it! I like that it is phrased in the positive; that we are thanking God for what we are rather than what we are not. I like that it is phrased in an inclusive way: However we are, God wanted us that way. God made us as He wished to make us.

I have taken great comfort and derived great strength from this prayer. During my better times, I (surprisingly?) feel grateful to God for afflicting me with depression, which I am certain makes me into a better person. Had I not become depressed, I might have turned out like some people I know: type A, aggressively competitive, perfectionist to a fault, judgmental of those I consider inferior to me, happily self-sufficient, and condescending to all. I am better off as I am: acknowledging my imperfections, understanding of the imperfections of others, kinder, gentler, more open to relationships of all kinds, and realizing that I cannot, under any circumstances, just “go it alone.” I honestly used to think, before I got depressed, that people were often more trouble than they were worth. I no longer feel that way. I used to think, before I got depressed, that if only others were more like me, the world would function better. Now, I know that if too many others were like me, the world would be very broken.

It took my own monumental failures to live up to my sky-high standards to really feel that it was okay to not be perfect. I always talked the good talk of tolerance and acceptance of others, but it took my own inability to fit into the A-hungry culture of the college I attended to really see differences from these cultural ideals as valuable, rather than unfortunate. I still struggle with many of these issues, but my life without these struggles and these nuanced appreciations and understandings of the world around me would be a paler, worse life.

There are other ways in which I sometimes think that my depression has given me a better life than I would otherwise have. I suspect that, when the mood is right, I experience intense gratitude for things that others sometimes take for granted. Things like rushing rivers, red leaves fluttering to the ground, a nine-year-old girl dancing in front of her reflection in a hotel door in a totally un-self-conscious way, babies’ and young children’s open-hearted acceptance of the world and the people in it, sunshine, weather warm enough to go out without a coat, fresh raspberries or figs…the list goes on. I don’t think I noticed these small pleasures before I got depressed.

So, God, I declare to you: Thank you for making me according to Your will! I did not ask to me made this way, and I certainly would be hard-pressed to say that I would choose it if given the choice to avoid it, but having been made this way, I find room in my heart, God, to be grateful. This illness, these struggles, have drawn so many wonderful people and so many satisfying relationships into my life. Back when I was “perfect” and didn’t think I needed anyone, I was worse off.

I don’t always feel this way. Sometimes, this blessing is a major thorn in my side. I don’t understand how anyone can thank God for creating her as a being who wishes to end her own life. I don’t understand how anyone can thank God for creating him as a being who sheds buckets of tears in the shower every morning, instead of being a productive member of society. I don’t understand how anyone can thank God for a condition that seems to thwart every attempt I make to be a productive member of society. It is unfathomable to me, at times, how anyone could ever think that God plays any role in this disaster that is full-blown depression, except perhaps as a punishment. And thinking of depression as a punishment from God for poor behavior goes against everything I believe about God and punishment and good and evil. (Also, I was such a good kid! With a few exceptions relating to my lack of desire to assist in household chores.)

If there was a God at all, I sometimes feel, depression would not exist. Sometimes, I am struck with a particular potent stream of the “What ifs”–thoughts I have about how successful and happy and professionally accomplished I would be had I never been struck with depression, or had I vanquished it for good back in 1998 or 2000 or 2003 or 2007. At those times, I really cannot understand a God who would consciously cripple and hinder His creations in this protractedly cruel way. God, do you know how much better of a Jew and a person I would be had this saga ended years ago?!

I hold both of these feelings simultaneously: I know, when I am well, that I am much better off, as a human being and a Jew, for having struggled with depression and won. I know, when I am unwell, that if these was a caring and compassionate God in this universe, that nobody would fight this hard to simply get through the day, to simply live. It’s ghastly. Just ghastly.

The December 2009 issue of The Atlantic has a fascinating article, called “The Science of Success,” by David Dobbs, that may shed some light on the two sides of this coin and on this blessing.

The abstract reads:

Most of us have genes that make us as hardy as dandelions: able to take root and survive almost anywhere. A few of us, however, are more like the orchid: fragile and fickle, but capable of blooming spectacularly if given greenhouse care. So holds a provocative new theory of genetics, which asserts that the very genes that give us the most trouble as a species, causing behaviors that are self-destructive and antisocial, also underlie humankind’s phenomenal adaptability and evolutionary success. With a bad environment and poor parenting, orchid children can end up depressed, drug-addicted, or in jail—but with the right environment and good parenting, they can grow up to be society’s most creative, successful, and happy people.

I know, if I know anything at all, that I am an orchid. I am decidedly unable to take root and survive almost anywhere.

Although all four of us were raised by the same parents, two of my three siblings are fairly well established in life without too much trouble or angst. The third seems to be well on her way. As far as I know, they  have had no need for therapy or late-night conversations about whether ending their lives was a good idea or a bad idea, despite having been raised by the same parents and many of the same genes. This troubled me for a long time, and made me feel like my depression was somehow my fault. If they could thrive, why couldn’t I? This article explains all of that quite neatly. They are dandelions and I am an orchid. The parenting they received seems to have been sufficient for my three siblings, at least in their current states of adulthood. Although I wish with all my might to have been born a dandelion–life would have been so much easier, and probably better–none of us gets a choice in this matter.

The article also explains why God might choose to afflict someone–or, rather, a random segment of the population–with depression, anxiety, or any number of other afflictions that seem meaningless and simply cruel. It sort of turns on its head the very irritating comment that I used to get all the time, but thankfully no longer do, which was presumably meant to make me feel oodles better but never did: “You know, it’s only the most intelligent who get depressed.”

I cannot adequately summarize (or quote) the whole thing, so you should really read it yourself before going on.

The author begins by describing the “vulnerability hypothesis,” which considers “psychic and behavioral problems” to be “products not of nature or nurture but of complex ‘gene-environment interactions.’ Your genes don’t doom you to these disorders. But if you have ‘bad’ versions of certain genes and life treats you ill, you’re more prone to them.” He then goes on to describe the newer, alternate hypothesis, which is the main point of the article.

This new model suggests that it’s a mistake to understand these “risk” genes only as liabilities. Yes, this new thinking goes, these bad genes can create dysfunction in unfavorable contexts—but they can also enhance function in favorable contexts. The genetic sensitivities to negative experience that the vulnerability hypothesis has identified, it follows, are just the downside of a bigger phenomenon: a heightened genetic sensitivity to all experience.

This theory was so consonant with my experiences that it nearly knocked the wind out of me. It also explained, in evolutionary terms, why my existence is not a ghastly mistake and waste of natural resources, as I sometimes feel sure that it is.

This orchid hypothesis also answers a fundamental evolutionary question that the vulnerability hypothesis cannot. If variants of certain genes create mainly dysfunction and trouble, how have they survived natural selection? Genes so maladaptive should have been selected out. Yet about a quarter of all human beings carry the best-documented gene variant for depression, while more than a fifth carry the variant that Bakermans-Kranenburg studied, which is associated with externalizing, antisocial, and violent behaviors, as well as ADHD, anxiety, and depression. The vulnerability hypothesis can’t account for this. The orchid hypothesis can.

This is a transformative, even startling view of human frailty and strength. For more than a decade, proponents of the vulnerability hypothesis have argued that certain gene variants underlie some of humankind’s most grievous problems: despair, alienation, cruelties both petty and epic. The orchid hypothesis accepts that proposition. But it adds, tantalizingly, that these same troublesome genes play a critical role in our species’ astounding success.

I went on to identify strongly with his description of the “mercurial orchids” (metaphors) and “neurotic monkeys” (actual psych lab subjects). I was also moved by the author’s own struggle with the decision about whether to have his SERT (or 5-HTTLPR) gene analyzed to see if he carried the allele which came with a greatly magnified risk of major depression. I found reason to hope in this passage:

And even when they [orchids] lead troubled early lives, some of the resulting heightened responses to adversity that can be problematic in everyday life—increased novelty-seeking, restlessness of attention, elevated risk-taking, or aggression—can prove advantageous in certain challenging situations: wars, tribal or modern; social strife of many kinds; and migrations to new environments. Together, the steady dandelions and the mercurial orchids offer an adaptive flexibility that neither can provide alone. Together, they open a path to otherwise unreachable individual and collective achievements.

At the end, the author discovered that he had a genetic vulnerability to depression. But rather than seeing it as a cause for despair, he saw it as a cause for hope:

The orchid hypothesis suggested that this particular allele, the rarest and riskiest of the serotonin-transporter gene’s three variants, made me not just more vulnerable but more plastic. And that new way of thinking changed things. I felt no sense that I carried a handicap that would render my efforts futile should I again face deep trouble. In fact, I felt a heightened sense of agency. Anything and everything I did to improve my own environment and experience—every intervention I ran on myself, as it were—would have a magnified effect. In that light, my short/short allele now seems to me less like a trapdoor through which I might fall than like a springboard—slippery and somewhat fragile, perhaps, but a springboard all the same.

I found that framing of the issue to be incredibly hopeful and uplifting.

I am still seeking that springboard part of depression, which so often feels like a deep well out of which I must climb, exhaustedly, over and over and over again. Despite that, I am pleased that science claims that this springboard exists, somehow, somewhere, if only I improve my own environment and experience enough to see  it.

The idea that the genetic predisposition to depression provides something positive, when I am doing okay, is not new to me.

The hard thing is to find the positive when I am not doing okay. To have faith in God and/or the allele that I surely carry that makes me wilt so much more easily than my siblings, despite having been raised with the same care. The hard thing is to stop wishing to become a dandelion and to begin making the most of this “orchidness” that I carry. The hard thing is to recognize that God could knowingly inflict me with the gene (plus some sub-optimal childhood experiences) that have made my life so scary and exhausting, and to say, despite it all:

בָּרוּךְ אַתָּה ה’ אֱלֹהֵינוּ מֶלֶךְ הָעוֹלָם שֶׁעָשַׂנִי כִּרְצוֹנוֹ:

Blessed are You, God, King of the Universe, who has made me according to Your will.

The beautiful thing about this bracha [blessing], I think, is that is gently encourages us to take a good, hard look at how we are–both how we were created and how we exist on this planet right now–and to find ways to deal with being that person.

To thank God for having made us dandelions or orchids, monkeys neurotic or calm, rather than bemoaning what we are not.

We are what we are. There are some propensities that we cannot change, but we can always change things about our environments or circumstances. That is what I do whenever I pop a pill that helps bathe my brain in extra serotonin; what I do whenever I sit down with my therapist; what I do whenever I make the conscious and very difficult effort to take a walk outside in the fresh air and bright sunshine; and what I do when I go to the gym to flood my brain with dopamine. It’s what I do when I struggle to create a community of caring friends, and it’s what I do when I try to maintain a relationship with my parents despite great geographic distance. Accepting what I am and trying to change what I can to make those things favorable parts of my personality rather than severe liabilities is the only way to move forward. That is what I shall try to think of the next morning that I utter this blessing.

Here is hoping that 2010 brings all of us springboards and the improved environments and experiences that shed light on them. Here is to honoring the neurotic monkey in each of us.

Psalm 116 appears in the Hallel that we say every morning during Chanukah.

Psalms Chapter 116 תְּהִלִּים

The entire Psalm is beautiful.

Here, in the middle of the joyous Hallel, where mountains dance like rams, we admit that we are, right now, in a place of “trouble and sorrow.”

Now that I look, I see that other parts of Hallel also contain a strong element of calling out to God from the narrow place, or מיצר. For some reason, I always had the impression of Hallel being a wholly celebratory, happy sort of collection of Psalms (that I loved to hate on when depressed). I probably had that assumption because we say it at celebratory occasions, like Chanukah, Sukkot, Pesach, and Rosh Chodesh. Also, probably, because this Psalm as well as many of the others is expressing the point of view of a person who has already been saved or redeemed: “וְלִי יְהוֹשִׁיעַ.” “He saved me.” “כִּי חִלַּצְתָּ נַפְשִׁי, מִמָּוֶת:    אֶת-עֵינִי מִן-דִּמְעָה; אֶת-רַגְלִי מִדֶּחִי.” “For Thou hast delivered my soul from death, mine eyes from tears, and my feet from stumbling.” But before today, I never noticed that some of Hallel can be read as coming from a place of deep despair.

I think that my favorite line from this Psalm is the fervent hope expressed in these distressed words from the seventh verse:
“!שׁוּבִי נַפְשִׁי, לִמְנוּחָיְכִי”
“Let my soul return to your rest!”

My soul, which was once at rest and at peace, is no longer. I beseech you, God, to return my soul to your rest, to your peace, to your comfort. Please God, listen to me, and speak to me, and, most importantly, let me hear your words and feel your eternal presence in my life.

The word, “מְנוּחָיְכִי” which comes from the root נח, or rest, has many connotations to me. Rest and comfort, but also, somehow, a loving embrace of God. Perhaps because it sounds (a little bit) like the word חיבוק, or hug. I don’t know why.

I am certainly not feeling that מנוחה, or rest, at the moment, but it’s times like these that I am so glad that I have these resources at my disposal. These words, in my lips and on my heart, with which to say:

Please, God, let me have back what I once had.

Please, God, let me have the kind of peaceful, restful soul that I imagine that others have, that may have always eluded me.

Please, God, incline your ear towards me. Be gracious and compassionate even when I cannot be. Especially when I cannot be.

And if it’s not quite true that “הֶאֱמַנְתִּי, כִּי אֲדַבֵּר;    אֲנִי, עָנִיתִי מְאֹד,” “I trusted even when I spoke: ‘I am greatly afflicted,’” well, maybe saying the words makes it so. In this case, I sort of think it does. Whatever reason I say these words, my saying them, in the midst of my great affliction, means that I still have hope or trust in God, or something greater than myself and my own deep personal pain and sorrow. I must still believe, a teeny tiny bit, in redemption, or I wouldn’t say these words.

And, finally, the words that get me every time:

I shall. Because that’s where God wants me, and that’s where I will be able to “כּוֹס-יְשׁוּעוֹת אֶשָּׂא” or “lift up the cup of salvation.”

Happy Chanukah!