Miracle in the Bizarre
Depression is perhaps one of the most trivialized yet pernicious illnesses that has plagued our species for thousands of generations. As time goes on, its tendrils continue to burrow themselves into us, deeper and deeper still. As of 2023, around 17% of teenagers (Newport Academy) and a whopping 34% of young adults under thirty currently battle with depression (Witters). Suicide is the third leading cause of death amongst people 24 and younger; yet 3 in 5 teens have never received any treatment for their depression (Discovery Mood & Anxiety Program). I am lucky enough to not have suffered from any serious depression since my years in high school. Said depression was drawn mostly from the state of “being in high school”, and was remedied rather successfully by the state of “no longer being in high school”. While I could easily write an entire essay on why that is, and how the structure of high school functions as a very efficient factory for the generation of mental health issues, I will not. Though I was, and still am, surrounded by depression in those around me. Which is more than enough, given that what I do suffer from is clinical anxiety, largely based in empathetic worry for others. Anxiety is considered depression’s twin flame, as the two are often treated with many of the same types of medication and therapy. And while my personal experiences with depression are rather mercifully nestled in the past, my experience with anxiety is still very immediate.
I think perhaps I have always had anxious tendencies. This does not come as a surprise, given that both of my parents took anxiety medication for many years. I was very shy, quiet, and self conscious as a child and teen. I had my first panic attack when I was in the third grade. However, the genuine throes of my illness did not take hold until a few years ago. Several inciting incidents occurred in rapid succession in the summer of 2021 that pushed me into a sudden, unexpected, and frankly nightmarish scenario. Seemingly out of nowhere, I was overcome by uncontrollable physical symptoms. My thoughts raced, my temperature rose, my heart pounded, my legs shook. I was overwhelmed by nausea when I tried to eat. At night I was unable to sleep: I woke up shaking and nauseous after only twenty minutes of rest. I spent what felt like the longest three to four days of my life in a desperate fight to make myself eat saltine crackers and attempt to get my body back under control. It felt as though I was suddenly thrust into some horrible nightmare, a parallel universe wherein time passed agonizingly slowly. Every moment was spent in a struggle to retain a vice grip on any flimsy sense of homeostatic relief I could. I finally begged to be taken to the ER. I was convinced that my body had been thrown out of whack, that the drastic anomalies that had occurred in my regular life had precipitated this somehow. However, after I was checked over the kind RN informed me, if a bit bluntly, that what I was experiencing was rooted entirely within my own head. There was nothing physically wrong with me.
I was shocked. I despaired. I had been certain that I would need to be kept there. To be monitored, hooked up to fluids, ensured to be physically stable after the harrowing ordeal I had gone through. Instead I was sent on my way with a script for a pill that would calm me down just enough to sleep, and instructions to follow up with my Primary Care Provider. I cried the entire way to the pharmacy. How could this be? How could there be no physical cause? How could I be sent off to tackle this on my own? I was not alone, however: through some very uncomfortable days, with support from my mother, my best friend, and my soon to be partner, I was able to claw back to some semblance of normalcy. And then, after much humbling work with my PCP and therapist, to a life where I felt myself again.
Had I lived at the time of the Bible I too, just as was given as an explanation for the plight of Saul, would have believed I was overtaken by a devil (1 Samuel 18:10 & 19:9). To be at the whim of a force completely beyond one’s own control, at least before any guidance or intervention, is terrifying. One of the most powerful tools we can possess when in a state of mental or emotional turmoil, is the knowledge that we are not alone in our experiences. To have others who understand, or even simply to release the burden and be honest about our suffering, destroys the insidious power that the illness holds over us. The power to isolate, even within one’s own mind: a damsel locked in a high tower, destined to be forgotten, doomed to be alone. In times that we must overcome powerful and destructive emotional states, we seek the guidance of something higher than ourselves: perhaps God, perhaps medical professionals, or perhaps both. So is the case with both Claire (from the chapter “Darkness Visible: The Experience of Depression” from Peter C. Whybrow’s A Mood Apart) and Saul (of 1 Samuel in the Bible).
At first read, it seemed to me that there was not much similarity between the experiences of depression of those recounted in the Bible and those of Claire. Nor any religious allegory in Claire's experiences that could be tied back to the Bible. However, upon reflection it occurred to me that Saul’s struggles in particular line up rather closely to Claire’s, despite the fact that his issues’ ultimate manifestation is different. This difference is not exactly a surprise, given that due to cultural gender norms men are far more likely to display mental duress through the channel of anger, and women are more likely to display more stereotypical “sadness” (Hopkins Medicine). “Women with depression may come in crying; men may come in acting out in anger. We’ve taught boys that they don’t cry; so instead of crying, they get angry and threatening” (Hopkins Medicine). Therefore, it seems likely to me then that what Saul struggled with could very well have been some form of depression as well. Side by side in their simplest summaries, the similarity is striking. Though not immediately apparent, the two follow very similar stories.
Darkness Visible follows a woman named Claire, and her battle with debilitating mental illness that drives her to endanger her life and others. The selected verses of 1 Samuel follow a man named Saul, and his battle with debilitating mental illness that drives him to endanger his life and others. Darkness Visible is decidedly secular and contains no mention of or allusion to religion (though I would have loved to know Claire’s perspective on religion). The verses from the Bible are obviously very devoutly, intimately religious. Despite this major difference of context, I feel there are many deeply rooted connections that can be drawn between the two. Specifically in relation to John F. Wilson’s categories of human existential needs outlined in his book Religion: A Preface, which at least by his definition, are an innately religious endeavor to satisfy. So too is the experience of severe depression and mental illness a religious experience: they drive us to reach for more, to something, or someone, beyond ourselves for answers.
In the stories of both Saul and Claire, they find themselves caught within the web of an unnatural and inexplicable state of emotion. For Claire this manifests as severe melancholic depression or “anhedonia” (Whybrow 23). For Saul, destructive outbursts of rage (1 Samuel 18-19). “Mysteriously painful,” as Whybrow quotes William Styron’s description in his titular “Darkness Visible” (Whybrow 21), these emotional states seem to come without cause and with a vengeance. They affect everything from their victims’ relationships to their physical and mental health. It becomes apparent after analysis from the outside that these responses were germinated by a long series of events and experiences, and are very reasonable given the circumstances. In fact, my immediate reaction I wrote in the margins of the Darkness Visible reading was, “I don’t know, I think plenty of people would be messed up after that” (Whybrow).
Claire and Saul both dealt with a large amount of consistent uncertainty and precariousness in their lifetimes. Claire had a tumultuous childhood, full of loss and upheaval. Both of her parents died in her youth, and as a result she was frequently moved around before she landed in France (Whybrow 27-29). Later, her first husband of less than a year abandoned her and her daughter abruptly with no explanation. The final nail in the coffin of her mental state came when years later her new husband dashed her plans to return to France with their children, the one place she had found solace in her younger years. Saul on the other hand, lived at a time of war and great upheaval for the Jewish people. In a desperate attempt to unite the Jewish peoples against the threat of the Philistines, a king was chosen to lead Israel: and that king was Saul (West). Saul is not known to be a terribly intelligent man, a bit of a brute (Seifert), and was chosen primarily due to his tall stature which allowed him to “stand out from the crowd” (West). Saul was thus thrust into leadership as the first king of Israel, a wartime appointment, with little to no experience of being a leader. What he is good at is fighting: and when Saul’s originally favored officer David is known to have “bested” Saul on the battlefield by word of mouth, Saul is pushed to his limit (1 Samuel 18:7-11). Eventually their precarious lives lead to feelings of inadequacy and insecurity for Claire and Saul. Claire feels herself a failure, damaged, unattractive, and desperate for validation but unable to open herself up to receive it (Whybrow 28, 38-39). Saul has issues with self esteem as well that cause him to feel immediate jealousy when David’s accomplishments are touted in relation to his own (1 Samuel 18:8).
Each of them respond to their situations in a similar fashion: a contempt and a bitterness for those closest to them. In the case of Saul, David, in the case of Claire, her husband Elliot. Claire takes out her unhappiness on Elliot, drinking heavily, fighting with him and acting erratically when drunk (Whybrow 27-30). She had endangered herself and her children when she crashed her car, which led to even more feelings of worthlessness, specifically as a mother (Whybrow 24-25). Saul more directly puts David in danger when he attacks and attempts to kill him (1 Samuel 18:10-11). His son Jonathan tries to talk sense into him, and Saul recognizes he has done wrong in the eyes of God (1 Samuel 19:4-5). Yet he still attempts to kill David again (1 Samuel 19:9). This contempt derives itself from fear: a fear of instability and a fear of a lack of control. Both Claire and Saul exhibit an external locus of control: rather than feeling capable of making things happen for themselves, they feel they are at the will of things happening to them. The heart of Saul’s insecurity likely lies at his feelings of inadequacy as a king, Claire’s with her feelings of inadequacy as a wife, mother, and woman. Claire responds in despair, drinking heavily, being an inattentive mother and failing to leave the house, while Saul retaliates with a show of physical force.
Yet Saul is fearful of David. He, the strongest, tallest, most handsome man in the land is afraid of David (Samuel 18:12-16, 29). He is afraid of being upstaged as king by David’s accomplishments, when he already feels unworthy of his position, insecure in his ability to rule. Claire similarly fears rejection after her past experiences with men and choses instead to isolate herself physically and emotionally, feeling unworthy of love or affection (Whybrow 21-39). For one’s health or life circumstances to teeter so perilously day in and day out, puts strain on one’s mental state. After enough time, one may finally be pushed to that breaking point we see Saul and Claire inevitably reach.
Saul and Claire exhibit a profound internal loneliness, as they feel alone in their suffering. They feel no one is able to understand their situation, and their personal insecurity and doubt then feeds into a self fulfilling prophecy. They begin to push everyone away, through anger or through grief, which only further compounds those feelings externally through self-enforced isolation. Eventually this loneliness leads them to turn to something stable, comforting: that which is holy, absolute, larger than life, that has always been there when times have been toughest. For Saul, this is God, who is easily recognizable as holy. When Saul turns to God however, feels he has been betrayed, abandoned, and that David has been favored instead of him (1 Samuel 18:12-16). While Claire does not turn to religion in her need for holy experience, she has something that is fascinatingly similar: her devotion to the works of author Virginia Woolf (Whybrow 34). She lives her life with Woolf as an inspiration, and holds a very deep connection to the author and her works. At the climax of her illness however, Claire is no longer able to find solace in the works of Woolf (Whybrow 34-35). This can be equated to a Christian like Saul feeling unable to find solace from the word of God in the Bible in their darkest hour. Saul and Claire head toward a complete breakdown, in utter despair at disconnection from that which is holy to them.
So lost within the grips of their illness, it takes an outsider to force them outside of the cyclone that is depression. They each begin a journey, physical, emotional, spiritual, or otherwise, to seek help. Each has a figure in their life who stages an intervention, that pushes them on their journey to recovery. And while this journey is not one that anyone can complete for them, it is not one that can be completed alone either. For Saul it is his son Jonathan and David’s wife Michal who step in. Jonathan attempts to talk sense into Saul; when this does not work, Michal helps David to escape against Saul’s orders (1 Samuel 19:17-18). Eventually, after a long pursuit of David by his men, Saul himself is led to Naioth at Ramah where the prophet Samuel (who selected him as King) and his followers were (1 Samuel 19-23). It is there that he is touched, as his men were, by God. He tears his clothes in response, finally in the presence of God once more amongst the prophets (1 Samuel 19:24). Claire’s situation is more familiar to us today: her husband takes her to see a therapist (Dr. Whybrow), and is initially held under inpatient care to treat her severe depression and suicidal ideation (Whybrow 36-39). Through a combination of medication and therapy, she is able to make persistent progress to recover. Claire and Saul take the journey to overcome their loneliness, and find meaning to their suffering.
What can be similarly distilled of the human experience through those of Saul and Claire, are several innate human behaviors: to long for, to seek, to need, and to desire meaning. These marked similarities can be linked intimately to Wilson’s theory of basic existential human needs, which he claims drive us to seek religion. They are backed up biologically: we are hard-wired by biological necessity to connect to one another (Martino, Jessica, et al). In the same way our brains crave food and water, they crave relief from loneliness (Braren). Our historic usage of solitary confinement and banishment throughout the ages show this profoundly: the punishment we consider second only to death, is that of being alone. We crave many things beyond our solely physical needs, and that craving is mirrored eloquently between the stories of Claire and Saul, though hundreds of years apart. We crave a sense of stability in our often precarious lives. We crave purpose in our suffering. We crave something larger than ourselves to look to and lean on when times are tough. We crave meaning for the difficult lives we lead. We crave solidarity, relief from the grips of loneliness. We crave to be seen. And, ultimately, we crave to be understood.
For fun: title "Miracle in the Bizarre" is a reference to the song "Miracle in the Bazaar" by Todd Rundgren, off of the album A Capella released 1985. Definitely worth a listen. As a note: every single "instrument" sound on the album was made using Rundgren's voice, thus the title "A Cappella" is a play on the term "acappella".
As Jalaludin Rumi has prophesied
This day
This day Allah
Allah will make his presence known to you
There is a miracle in the bazaar
There is a miracle in the bazaar
There a spirit appeared in flaming green
Mamun the madman is cured
Praise be to Allah
Praise be to Allah
There is no God but God
There is no God but God
Works Cited
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“Depression: His Versus Hers.” Johns Hopkins Medicine, 22 Sept. 2023, www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/depression-his-versus-hers#:~:text=Depression%20also%20looks%20different%20in,they%20get%20angry%20and%20threatening.%E2%80%9D.
Holman Bibles, editor. Holy Bible: Christian Standard Bible. Holman Bible Publishers, 2017.
Martino, Jessica, et al. “The Connection Prescription: Using the Power of Social Interactions and the Deep Desire for Connectedness to Empower Health and Wellness.” American Journal of Lifestyle Medicine, U.S. National Library of Medicine, 7 Oct. 2015, pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6125010/.
Seifert, Marlon. “Tall, Handsome, and Clueless.” Pr. Marlon’s Blog, Pr. Marlon’s Blog, 19 June 2020, prmarlon.com/blog-2/tall-handsome-and-clueless#:~:text=Once%20Saul%20was%20chosen%20and,Leave%20a%20comment.
Staff, Newport Academy. “Depression in High School.” Newport Academy, 25 June 2024, www.newportacademy.com/resources/mental-health/adolescent-depression-in-schools/.
Stephen Braren, Ph.D. “The Evolution of Social Connection as a Basic Human Need.” Social Creatures, Social Creatures, 26 July 2023, www.thesocialcreatures.org/thecreaturetimes/evolution-of-social-connection.
West, James King. “Saul: King of Israel.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 15 Nov. 2024, www.britannica.com/biography/Saul-king-of-Israel.
Whybrow, Peter C. A Mood Apart: The Thinker’s Guide to Emotion and Its Disorders. HarperPerennial, 1998.
Witters, Dan. “U.S. Depression Rates Reach New Highs.” Gallup.Com, Gallup, 7 Feb. 2024, news.gallup.com/poll/505745/depression-rates-reach-new-highs.aspx.