Respect and Gratitude (September 11, 2007)
In my work, I am never home when Maine Public Radio broadcasts SOF. I am deeply grateful for the podcasts that make it possible for me to burn CD's of your broadcasts and listen to them while I travel. I feel strongly that we suffer from an ennui that comes from a fear that the god of our understanding does not really exist; or, if it does, it damned us long ago for our faults and we are abandoned forever. Your gentle, intelligent, caring work clearly helps us heal that great wound of the soul. For that, I respect and care for you deeply, and I my gratitude for you and your work rises from that same depth.

Kenneth Hamilton
South Paris, ME (Listens to SOF on Demand)

A New Light on Understanding Depression (December 6, 2006)
I read this thinking my mom has this problem, I wonder what they have to say about it. My idea of depression is something that you can just snap out of or chose to be in. I used to get so angry at my mother when she was down. I always told her that she simply needed to choose to be happy. As I listened to this program I started to realize some things that I was wrong about. This depression goes much deeper and is a very hard and trying time on a person. When my mom started to take anti-depressants I thought she was taking the easy way out and not solving anything. I would make fun of her and tell her when she was crabby that it was time for her happy pill. When I heard this broadcast I heard an interesting quote "medication is a way for that person to find them self again." When I heard that I realized that looking back that was true. My mom is a much happier, better, and less angry person than she was in the past. I now realize that some people just lose who they are and need to find that balance to return to themselves.

Andrea Snowberg
Crystal, MN (Listens to SOF OnDemand)

Enlightened (December 5, 2006)
Wow! I couldn't believe I heard, "Why do people kill themselves? How could they do that?" Because, "They need the rest, it's exhausting!" So, after all this time I finally get a bit of an answer. I grew up in Forest Lake, Minnesota. I had a lot of my friends kill themselves. I am a nurse myself and have to often wonder why a 20 or 17-year-old comes in for suicide watch. And, I ask that same question as above.

This podcast actually opened my eyes and reminded me that others have "stories" and exhaustion too. They are not bad people. In dealing with my own severe depression, and on meds now, I am a bit lifted and "enlightened" by this reading. I may still remain in darkness, but am in hopes to find that "light!"

Lisa Sunde
Mounds View, MN (Listens to SOF OnDemand)

Tremendous Contributions of Souls (November 27, 2006)
I keep coming back to this program because of the tremendous contributions of souls (we who are so affected by depression) are able to share in so many very moving ways about our own experiences. It's good to know there's a place I can come where the truth is present. I have so much admiration for most of the people that post. I truly do.

Candace Christensen
Grand Haven, MI (WVGR, 104.1 FM)

Depression and the Soul (November 22, 2006)
Blessed I am that I have never suffered from clinical depression. But following the death of my husband, the seesaws and somersaults of finances and work situations, and the onset of fibromyalgia, I recognized a gray landscape that my soul inhabited. Three years later, it has not completely disappeared, for life changes in many ways. But I have learned through spiritual teachers (Christian, Buddhist, Catholic, Native-American wisdom) and friends how to recognize that the balance has shifted, that the gray is overtaking the blues and greens and reds with a bit too much energy.

What have been my lessons? How does my soul respond? As your guest quoted a friend, I know that the pain and suffering travels along with my connection with God, my connection with others. I know that we all suffer, that it's important to recognize the suffering, acknowledge it, connect with others when we can, to touch that very human spark that gives me hope. When hope seems like a pipe dream and all circumstances begin to overwhelm my spirit, I know I can carry on. It will be difficult, sometimes. Maybe often. But I am one of the lucky ones, with compassionate friends and therapists who open their hearts to my struggle. When there is darkness, I bring myself to my cushion, if only for a short time, and enter into tonglen meditation…breathing in the pain of all those who are suffering from the desolation of depression, breathing out all the compassion within me. May we all find peace.

Eileen Heidenheimer
St. Louis, MO (KWMU, 90.7 FM)

Pursuing the Question of Spirituality During Therapy (November 20, 2006)
I am writing to you after having listened to (for the 4th time) your episode on "The Soul in Depression." It was a lovely and inspiring piece that I have shared with my friends and a few of my patients. I am a psychotherapist who has spent most of my professional life listening to my patients speak of their depression. It is standard practice to ask about spiritual belief systems when we interview patients — it is on all of our interviewing forms.

Yet to pursue the question of spirituality, once therapy has begun, is generally considered to be taboo. But if I dare to breach this topic,I find that an exploration of faith (especially at these times) brings up some of the most powerful conversations I have in my life. I have wondered why, when I have listened to these stories, we so often abandon our beliefs when we most need them (e.g. "since I lost my mother, I no longer believe in God"). But after I have listened to your guests today, I think that depression, because it can be a shield that disallows us from access to our physical selves, can actually be a shield that prevents us access to our spiritual selves as well. The bright beacon that faith provides to people who have found themselves lost can be too thickly enshrouded in the fog of depression. It is, therefore, not really a loss of faith I am hearing, but a loss of the tools we have to connect to our world (both spiritual and physical). So much was stimulated by your program. Please keep them coming.

Debra Santos
Guilford, CT (Listens to SOF OnDemand)

A Story I Could Share (November 20, 2006)
I sent the link to this program to all my family and many of my friends, who went through hell a year ago trying to keep me alive. It so well explained the slough that engulfed me then and the triumph I'm experiencing now, that it's easier to point people to this show than to try to explain.

I heard a term on a radio show when I was in the car a few weeks ago that summarizes how I feel and what I'm expecting now: radical acceptance (and not just for me!). My family is a little skeptical; they're waiting for the other shoe to drop: Is the flip side to a living death a manic life? But I don't think so. Just because I wring more out of every day now than most people doesn't imply a disease state. I'm more engaged, more alive, more attached, more generous, more grateful, and more hopeful than I've ever been in my life. My sister-in-law quoted somebody as saying "sometimes you have to get your throat slit to find your voice." I could've skipped the throat slitting part, but I'm loving the new voice!

Terry Monahan
Minneapolis, MN (KNOW, 91.1 FM)

Family Members Are Helping (November 19, 2006)
I sought your "Reflections" page so that I could make a comment about the especially wonderful job you did with the program on depression. Now I find that the many insightful writings here are as helpful as the program itself, and there's really nothing for me to say that hasn't been said by others.

The many of us who have been through the desolations are comforted by hearing the truths that you, Krista, your guests, and many of the writers to "Reflections" have shared. More importantly, perhaps, you speak to the many who have not been there, and for whom it is so difficult to understand. Perhaps one simple recollection from my own two episodes of severe depression will prove useful to some whose loved ones are suffering it now.

Despite the numbing loss of most feelings, I could well empathize with my wife's frustration and anguish at not being able to do more to make me better or to relieve my pain. Several times I was able to say, "I don't think even loving friends or family can do anything to make a person like me better; but the way you are being gives me the reasons to want to get better, to maintain hope, to look forward to a return to life, to persevere. This is vital." When I got better, my reflections confirmed the validity of what the sick me had said, and so I was able to thank my wife again, profoundly. I just wanted to share this now with other loving family members of crazy depressed people!

David Cannon
Portland, OR (KOPB, 91.5 FM)

What About the Severely Depressed? (November 19, 2006)
I lost all contact with God when I was struck down with postpartum depression. I also had the death of hope. I had severe and persistent depression which didn't respond to talk therapy and antidepressants because I also had undiagnosed borderline personality disorder and acute anxiety. When I listened to this program, I heard one sentence that I could relate to: "I wanted to kill myself because death would have given me some rest" because severe depression is so unrelenting. Otherwise, I couldn't relate to the other writers or Ms. Tippett.

Did they have only moderate or mild depression? I wonder if someone who is only moderately depressed can write such nice literature about the soul. For someone with severe and persistent depression the pain is acute. I had this severe depression for three years, and, while I was cooperative with treatment and believed the doctor could help me, the medicines and talk therapy weren't effective. I had two nearly fatal suicide attempts in which I truly intended to die. I had a nearly fatal overdose, and I cut my throat the other time with a circular saw.

I had gained a lot of weight due to the antidepressants, also. The shock treatments also made me lose a lot of memory. I lost my job, my marriage, and my ability to work in engineering for manufacturing, running computer systems, because I couldn't concentrate or remember anything. Even after the depression lifted, I can't remember well, and I cannot do the well-paid, high-status jobs I used to be able to do.

Fifteen years later I've had a few moments when I've felt the presence of God, but the medicines that keep me alive also keep me separated from God. I can't feel His presence, and I find it hard to trust that He is present when I can't feel him. I have a hard time living with the loss of my God and hope. I still have PTSD, too. I work very hard. The meds I'm on help, and DBT (dialectical behavioral therapy) helps with the borderline personality disorder. So I work on making a life worth living. I practice mindfulness and radical acceptance. I work part time and volunteer a lot and my 15-year-old son is doing well, so that makes my life meaningful, too. I belong to two churches, a United Church of Christ (formerly Congregational) and an Episcopal community.

Victoria Morrison
Crystal, MN (KNOW, 91.1 FM)

People Overanalyze Depression (November 19, 2006)
I have to say as one who has been suffering from depression for years now, having both bipolar disorder and borderline personality disorder, that your guests spend way too much time thinking. Depression to me is more sadness than anything. There are many things that effect depression and many of them I believe to be your environment around you and not dealing with the things of your past and maybe present that got you there. There is one thing for sure that many of the people I have talked to in my online support groups say is that most of us do have that sense that we don't know who we are, and I think that soul has a part in it because in our poetry we seem to include the soul in our writings. I think while overanalyzing depression may sell books, it doesn't un-confuse the feelings we have about depression, it just made me feel more depressed. Thank you for your program though.

Paul Millard
Quincy, MI (WUOM, 91.7 FM)

Anger, Getting to the Core (November 19, 2006)
I have been a psychotherapist for over 30 years and it still amazes me when depression as a result of anger turned inward is not part of the discussion. I use chiefly Gestalt to actualize this with the patient and have had long and continued success. It is very frustrating for me to hear about all these other hoops people are put through and may never get to the core.

Maxine Duer
Bristow, OK (KWGS, 89.5 FM)

Thanks to Anita (November 19, 2006)
I can't even begin to tell you how much your discussion on depression meant to me. I have been "diagnosed" as clinically depressed. It is my soul in depression. Thank you so much for discussing this. There are so many of us out here whose souls are in depression. Thank you so much to Anita Barrows.

Candace Christensen
Grand Haven, MI (WVGR, 104.1 FM)

Looking to God (November 19, 2006)
I loved the poetry by Rilke and the guest. But, I'm afraid I missed all the information about anger, which I learned is the flip side of depression, and in a very real way is depression. When I made that discovery, my progress toward recovery was greatly helped. I learned to beat up pillows with my fist, a tennis racket, etc. I also exercised. That was a great help. When things are changing within, exercise is a great help, both for removing surface tension/stress, but also for helping with the process of things re-aligning themselves within.

And yes, my recovery was a very spiritual process. When I was finally able to "look up" (look to God) and say within myself, "Help me," then I began to work with the Divine, but also the Divine could begin to work directly with me. I could go on. But please, this thing about anger. No one talks about how real, how good it is to get in touch with it, how much a part of mourning it is, how we need to find ways and talk about ways to release it constructively. Feelings are a river. We need to find a way to let the river flow. That is very hard when there is much pain, much anger, too much fear, etc. I also loved the part of your program about the Quaker man who sat with his depressed friend. Yes, yes, yes. Christ cries with us, laughs with us, walks with us. And we need "Jesus with skin on" so much sometimes.

Barbara Langford
Lebanon, OR (KOAC, 550 AM)

Downloading of the Promethean Fire (November 19, 2006)
As a person who has also suffered from "clinical depression" I have spent much of my life attempting to understand it, what is at the core of it, how it relates to "god" and spirituality. I have come to a conclusion rather different than those I heard on your show and have heard elsewhere, though I did rather like Parker Palmer's description of the soul as a wild creature in the woods. Yeah, and it's hiding back there in the woods for a reason!

In the film Contact starring Jodie Foster, her character Ellie Arroway travels in a sphere to meet the supremely advanced aliens in the "heavens" of outer space. When Ellie arrives at the "contact" point she descends into unconsciousness, suffers a blackout. When she finally meets the "aliens" it is in imagery derived from her own art, a beach in Florida, the "supremely advanced, god-like alien" dressed up as, "skin walking" as her deceased father. Of course these elements of the "contact" completely disarm Ellie and she falls into the arms of "god," the father. Yes, they should have sent a poet — one tough son-of-a-bitch of a poet.

At the core of this blackout from which the entire "contact" experience is derived is a "downloading" of all the information, imagery, etc. necessary to make up the elements of said contact. In other words, all of it has derived from Ellie, from a human mind and soul. Who is to say that the entire notion of a supremely intelligent alien, a "god" even did not, does not derive from a similar downloading veiled behind amnesia — in other words a theft, a reverse of the Promethean theft of the divine fire? My point being the "gods" and all their powers and wealth derive from human soul and being, not the other way around.

Whenever anyone begins to get anywhere near penetrating this amnesia, this downloading of the Promethean fire from his or her being, begins to feel this staggering theft of self, of soul, what one feels, experiences is "clinical depression," the complete loss of self, plus the utter terror associated with this "downloading" of the human soul in order to create gods like the Aztecs used to do, feeding them, creating them with human hearts and soul. This, in my estimation, is the core of the human experience of depression. Of course, the cure for it is not "getting closer to god," or any form of spirituality, but to recover what human beings truly were, are, before we were used to create such deities in the first place. Power derives from the people, from the lowliest human being, not from capitalist deities. All spiritualities are apologists for the theft of human capital to create gods. No wonder were so depressed!

Jeff Lewis
Minong, WI (WSCN, 100.5 FM)

To Know You've Tried (November 18, 2006)
I'm normally not awake when your program comes on, but after a restless night, I was puttering around the living room when I turned on the radio in the middle of your program. I have not stopped thinking about it all day. Two years ago, I began dealing with a mild depression. Brought on by the wrong job, in the wrong city, and to top it off, a bad relationship. With my mother's help and encouragement, I began to see a therapist and finally, began to see a way out.

This past May my mother was killed in a car accident, and the mild depression that I had dealt with became acute. Yet I continued with my therapy and began a course of medications which have allowed me to see past the darkness and at least know that there is a way to survive it and in the end, to thrive. But what made this poignant to me is the fact that one of my closest friends has been dealing with major depression since she was a child, and at this point seems to have given up.

Only in her early 20s, she believes that the therapy she went through in her childhood did not help then and will not help now. I have tried to remind her that what you feel as a teenager isn't true for the rest of your life. I am recommending this program to her as a way for her to see that she is not alone, but that there is worthwhile work to be done to have your personal happiness. It's not easy, it's not safe, and it may not always work, but how much better is it to know you have tried. That alone can help lift the soul.

G.R. Mazzoni
Brooklyn, NY (WNYC, 820 AM)

Old Testament and Depression (November 18, 2006)
Turning on the podcast from Europe, I was confronted with the comment from your guest, I think it was Mr. Solomon, about the Old Testament being so strict and regulated, as opposed to the New Testament message being one of love and understanding. I think one need only scratch the surface to see how superficial this is. And maybe my own view is simplistic, too. My childhood impression of Christianity was that it was all about fire and brimstone, with punishment in hell for transgressions on earth.

And my impression of Judaism was that it was all about forgiveness — forgiving each other here on Earth in order to deserve God's forgiveness. And God was described as ultra-merciful, very slow to anger. I understand this show was about your guest's perceptions — but I found it odd that you didn't ask him about this. I mean, how can one simply accept such notions — either his, or mine — as a given? Unfortunately, many people have misperceptions about the Old Testament versus the New, and it would be nice if you would gently challenge them rather than accept them!

Toby Axelrod
Berlin, Germany (Listens to SOF Podcast)

Proper Attribution (November 18, 2006)
I was just listening to your conversation with Andrew Solomon on depression. You mentioned more than once that Solomon had said the opposite of depression is vitality. Neither you nor he seemed to be aware of Alice Miller's statement: "The true opposite of depression is neither gaiety nor lack of pain but vitality." I memorized this quote a long time ago, as a reminder to myself to embrace pain rather than shrink from it, so I can't swear as to which book it comes from, but I think it was in The Drama of the Gifted Child. In any case, it is definitely Miller. If Solomon's borrowing is inadvertent, he should check out the source.

Diane Schenker
New York, NY (WNYC, 820 AM)

Working Through Demons (November 18, 2006)
I find your program extremely fulfilling, not only as a seeker myself, but as a psychologist who has worked through my own demons and given my life to helping others seek and understand their own. You do great work, and I am particularly gratified that you do not frame your topics and discussion in rules, dogma, and bending spiritual thought in a way that excludes others, rather than includes them as you do. Keep up the good work. You are very insightful, as well as your guests, and have provided a viewpoint that is absolutely necessary in a time when others seek to divide.

Kevin Roseland
Moorhead, MN (KCCD, 90.3 FM)

Why? (November 17, 2006)
By trying to find meaning in depression, do we give it value? Are we who suffer closer to earth, more malleable steel, or flying too high or steel too stiff? If the former is true, then perhaps if I become sufficiently modest I will no longer suffer. Perhaps if I work harder, pray more sincerely, abstain from alcohol, coffee, late nights, exercise regularly I will stay close enough to the ground or remain malleable enough as to not need this curative.

I have found that nothing makes other than a subtle difference (except of course medication). My depression is biological, organic, periodic, etc. with a time table of its own and no distinguishable cause. No matter how hard I try it visits me every so often. So I will try and learn from it, use the experience to gain insight and depth; but I will not take responsibility for suffering, for being a sufferer. I do not suffer because of something I did or didn't do. I suffer because it happens and I survive because of who I am and things that I do.

Beverley Zabow
Netanya, Israel (Listens to SOF OnDemand)

Krishnamurti (November 16, 2006)
I love your show, especially your recent one on depression. I would very much like you to explore the teachings of J. Krishnamurti. His book, Think on These Things, helped me deal with a deep depression years ago. Please, please, please do something about this man's philosophies.

David Leeth
Spokane, WA (Listens to SOF Podcast)

I Can Now Say Thanks (November 16, 2006)
Two years ago you aired this same program. When it aired I was at that time in a deep state of depression. When I heard the topic at the beginning of the program I had the forethought to put a tape in and record the program. Over the next three months as different drug combinations were tried on me, I listened to that tape over and over. It was my constant anchor to humanity. It literally got me through.

Today, that deep emotional pain is a memory, but, your re-airing of that powerful program reminded me to not take my health for granted, it is a precious and fragile thing. I was not capable two years ago to have written and said thank you, even though I was. So, this year, being in good health, I write to you for all those listeners who find themselves grateful, but, cannot put pen to paper.

Laurie Dyche
St. Louis, MO (KWMU, 91.1 FM)

Local Resource in Philadelphia (November 16, 2006)
I enormously enjoyed your discussion on clinical depression and e-mailed the link to numerous members of our support group, who loved it as well. It was sent to me by the beloved husband of one of our members, who will do anything for his wonderful wife, who suffers from clinical depression, but is helped through medication and talk therapy. We have a wonderful support group for people with depression, manic depression, and our family and friends. I would love it if you folks would post our Web site on your information-filled Web site: www.NewDirectionsSupport.org, and I'm the director, Ruth Z. Deming, who is one of the lucky ones who, by the grace of God, had manic depression but, at age 60, am now cured.

Ruth Deming
Philadelphia, PA (WHYY, 91.0 FM)

From a Suicide Survivor and Depression Survivor (February 4, 2006)
I have lost an identical twin sister, almost 24 years ago, to suicide. At the time, this was totally unexpected to me, and caused me to go into a serious depression for about three years. I have since returned to "normal" life, and have seen a silver lining, in the sense that it taught me that depression is something in my genes. I have struggled to varying degrees since then with the ugly beast, but the difference now is that I know it can be beat. I want to mention one extremely helpful organization that I didn't see anywhere on your Web site. The place is called SAVE, Suicide Awareness Voices of Education, at 952-946-7998. They are located in Bloomington, Minnesota, and was started by a couple who experienced the suicide of their son. They are doing marvelous things in helping stop suicide, through education and other means.

Joan Angelis
Prior Lake, MN (KNOW, 91.1 FM)

The Abyss (January 4, 2006)
I just stumbled upon this site while I was looking for some poetry on the darkness of depression. I had just returned from a session with my therapist and had tried to articulate many of the thoughts that your guests had spoken. I feel as though I have lost my understanding of who I thought I was and what I believed. The abyss seems to in some ways follow me around or at times covers me with a heavy fog that can be silent or at other times screams at me. The poetry of Mary Oliver and a Persian, Hafiz, seems to have touched my soul with a sense of companionship in this abyss of mine. The worlds of the sublime that they each speak of speaks warmly to my soul. Thank you for your program.

Alexis Traa
Long Beach, CA (Listens to SOF OnDemand)

The Importance of Sharing Our Stories (October 18, 2005)
Thank you for your beautiful program, "The Soul in Depression," and particularly for sharing your own struggle with severe depression. For many years after my first episode of severe depression (I have now had two), I also approached talking, reading, or listening about the subject with marked trepidation. For years, I felt ashamed of having "succumbed" to depression; I am a physician and felt that I should somehow have been able to prevent this illness in myself (although I would not feel this way about any of my patients). I even resisted taking medication during my first episode, which only made things worse; I did take medication for my second episode, which helped me tremendously (and I continue to take it). I now realize that by sharing our stories of severe depression, we can help others — and ourselves — realize that we are not alone, we are not "at fault" for suffering the illness of depression, and that rich — and yes, happy — lives can follow a severe depression. I wish you all the best and thank you again for your courage and inspiration.

Sharon Joseph
Royal Oak, MI (Listens via Web Audio)

A Converted Muslim's Journey (October 10, 2005)
I am a converted Muslim woman and I want to share my struggle. I am another person who has walked on the path of desolation. I am doing well considering where I have been. I think everybody has a different journey through the darkness. I was 19 when I was crippled with depression. It's been hard for me to reach out to anybody. I've resisted medication and therapy; I was so ashamed, skeptical and paranoid. I had to do a lot of my healing on my own. (I have found that an important part of healing has been whole foods, nutrition, exercise, and alternative therapies.) Ultimately, walking through the "wall of fire" helped me to find God.

After I had gone through the worst, I found my first steps forward with Christianity. The gentle and forgiving principals of Jesus' message helped me find hope and then the healing process started. Time passed as I tried to put some pieces back together. Unexpectedly, when I was 25 I discovered the Islamic religion. It was after reading the book Islam the Natural Way that I felt reorientated to what it means to be human. Now I am 30, I have been Muslim for five years. I still struggle with myself and it is hard for me to accept how much time and opportunity in my life this struggle has consumed. But through my faith, I feel that I have found peace.

It is something strange and significant to hear so many people's voices echoing an understanding of isolating darkness and despair. For Muslims, now is the month of Ramadan, a time for fasting, prayer, and reading the Quran. Muslims believe the Quran is a Book of Guidance sent down for all humankind. It addresses these hardships and answers the soul's questions.

"Verily, We have sent down to you the Book for mankind in truth. So, whoever accepts the guidance, it is only for his own self, and whosoever goes astray only for his loss." (39:41)

"Is it not sufficient for them that We have sent down to you the Book which is recited to them? Verily, herein is mercy and a reminder for a people who believe." (29:51)

"A Book which We have revealed unto you in order that you might lead mankind out of darkness into light by their Lord's Leave to the Path of the All-Mighty, the Owner of all Praise." (14:1) Thank you to all the people who've been part of the Speaking of Faith programs. You have touched our lives with your voices.

Molly McCarthy
Burnsville, MN (KNOW, 91.1 FM)

Gratitude (October 10, 2005)
When I entered my own dark night of the soul, I kept thinking that it was a passing thing. I had bounced back from so much suffering: the death of my husband when my children were toddlers, an abusive second marriage that scarred those precious children, the years of anguish when as a single mother I watched those children struggle with their own depression, and then, four years ago last month the murder of my beautiful 24-year-old daughter, Francesca. It was natural, wasn't it that I should feel my soul had been torn asunder? It was natural wasn't it that I walked shrouded in gray, that I wanted to die with her, that I found even the simplest decisions beyond me. Tomorrow will be better, I thought. Tomorrow I will be restored to light.

I had always bounded back no matter how dreadful the anguish. My husband, however, thought otherwise. He knew that the Beryl he loved was lost to him. When I was finally diagnosed with major clinical depression, the doctor said to view the medication as a gift from God. As Parker Palmer stated so beautifully, medication and therapy helped me to "fall back into myself." What a gift. To respond once again to color and sound. To experience grief and laughter and wonder. To allow love to fill me once again. For all these gifts I give thanks.

Beryl Singleton Bissell
Schroeder, MN (WLSN, 89.7 FM)

Repairing the World (October 9, 2005)
Kol hakavod. Krista Tippett, you are a person who walks your talk and shares it. Your willingness to do a show on a depression that you had experienced is one of the humblest shows of tikkun olam, "repair the world." I will be sure to share this program's resource with colleagues at Trinity College that I work with including the campus minister and counselor within the health services department. Take care.

Jeremy Mendelson
Bethesda, MD (WETA, 90.9 FM)

Humanity in My Vulnerability (October 9, 2005)
In my late thirties I encountered a full-blown episode of depression. I was in the military and I was myself a healer, a clinical social worker. It was as though the floor had fallen out from under my feet. It was as though I was dropped to my knees. I remember one day reading the DSM symptoms and realizing I checked off each one. It was a powerful yet humbling moment. I located a therapist and, either in the first or second meeting, I remember him saying how glad he was that this "depression" was happening to me now. Then he began reframing the illness as a journey and opportunity to strip away what isn't true or the pretense — to get to the essence of me — and how I'd be better, stronger in the end. Of course I didn't believe him but I was desperate to not drown so I borrowed his hope. With psychotrophics and time what he promised came to pass. 

I came out changed, more human in that I found my humanity in my vulnerability. I embraced my pain and came to understand the power of suffering. I came to embrace my inner scars as part of the mystery of my personal tapestry — there are so many threads so many colors and textures. And sometimes I miss the struggle out. Yes, at the time it was like being turned inside out with all the nerves exposed but it at times was like a returning to a womb. I found an ember in a cinder that I learned to nurture so that the fire could emerge. In spite of the perception of isolation I found my connection to all things and all times, that I am not removed or truly separate. I found compassion and the ability to act compassionately and to accept the compassion of others to me. That's spiritual. That's holy.

Elizabeth Hankinson
St. Louis, MO (KWMU, 90.7 FM)

Waist Deep (October 9, 2005)
As the wife and mother of loved ones who have suffered the scourge of depression for many years, I found your treatment of the spiritual aspects of this disorder profoundly moving, insightful, and accurate. I have lived most of my adulthood on the shores of that dark water which ebbs and flows into the lives of those I hold most dear — and have waded waist deep into the pool of their despair. It is there we, who love these so afflicted, must patiently wait until they struggle back to our embrace and regain the sunlit shore. Your program is a stellar example of what distinguishes public radio from all others.

Alice Margolis
Edwards, MS (WMPN, 91.3 FM)

David and Psalms (October 9, 2005)
Thank you for your program on depression. Serendipitously I heard today's program and went to the Web site. I was particularly grabbed by Parker J. Palmer saying: "What I don't understand is why some people come through on the other side and reclaim life with new vividness and new intensity. That is the real mystery." Then under "Poetry for Reflection, Help, and Healing" I found five Psalms of David as "Helpful examples for meditation during and after depression." It happens that for over two years I taught a course, "What was David Thinking?," with adults in two synagogues. The five psalms you recommended are five of six reflecting his experience at one time in his life. Following is an abstract of a paper I'm delivering at the Society of Biblical Literature conference in November.

David at the Cave of Adullam, Depression and Hypergraphia: What if David wrote the Psalms tradition ascribes to him? What if each prayer could be connected with a moment or period of his life? Would that change our perception of his heart, mind, and soul? For adults in a congregational setting, I designed a course integrating Psalms which tradition attributed to David with the narrative about him in 1 Sam 16 through 1 Kings 2. A variety of insights emerged from this hypothetical construction. This paper focuses on one example, what I call "descent into the valley of dark shadows." Utterly alone, David hid in a cave at Adullam. A series of prayers reveal a downward spiral from desperation through suffering, illness, and hopelessness. After acknowledging human frailty David began to rise, asserting confidence in his own righteousness. He emerged with strengthened trust in YHWH and renewed belief he would become king. Modern notions of depression and hypergraphia (ala A. W. Flaherty) provide insight into this extraordinary biblical personality.

I think David's life and thoughts as I perceive them provide an approachable example of a person who reclaimed "life with new vividness and new intensity." His values and aspirations as revealed through prayers before he became king shed light on this "mystery." Currently we are reading Job and your program provided insights for lively discussion.

Adrien Bledstein
Chicago, IL (WBEZ, 91.5 FM)

The Resurfacing of the Soul (October 9, 2005)
Having just read "Lincoln's Great Depression" in October's Atlantic magazine, this program sheds even more light on the ineffable wilderness of despair. Parker Palmer's candid analysis of the "dark side of the moon" was simply eloquent. I have always been strangely mistrustful of people who don't comprehend depression. I guess it's because I feel as though they're missing something vital about humanity and are therefore not fully human. They just consume and consume and belch and demand more without any reflection or introspection. Introspection is painful, but necessary.

This show is for those who've had that "darkest night" — and lived through it. It's not about wallowing in self-pity, but rather about having experienced despair — having succumbed to the depths of sadness that exists within the human psyche, and decided to live. The most brilliantly alive people have an understanding of this suffering and are not afraid of it; in fact, all of my heroes have struggled with this bane and they are infinitely more beautiful because of it. Thank you for this program.

April Adamson
Minneapolis, MN (KNOW, 91.1 FM)

Medications (October 9, 2005)
My father, myself, and one of my daughters suffer/have suffered from depression. My father suffered for years from depression that went undiagnosed until he was being treated for heart problems, and the depression caught the notice of a doctor. He became a changed person, and I very much regret the loss of those years when he was just down, down, down. My daughter has benefited greatly from medication, although it is not a cure-all. Myself, I have a tendency to depression, but it never bothered me enough to seek help until this year when I asked my doctor for anti-depressants. Really, it was like magic. After a few weeks, I felt what I could only describe as a "magic bubble" surrounding me, and then after a few more weeks, the magic bubble seemed to blend into my surroundings, until the whole world seemed like a friendlier place. But, as your program suggests, the period of more serious depression was, in retrospect, very fruitful. And in the past, living in (less serious) depression was a dark, warm, place, inhabited by its own verities and landmarks. My question is: if we seek help immediately depression shows itself, so that we never really experience it, are we losing something valuable? When should we seek help?

June McIntosh
Canton, MS (WMAV, 90.3 FM)

Freedom from False Dependencies (October 9, 2005)
Another beautiful program. Thank you deeply. Having experienced severe depressions, addictions, suicidal and homicidal acts, and been revived from death, this is an especially sensitive subject for me. After over 30 years of various medical and psychotherapeutic treatments, correctional (penal) experiences, and then 12 years of abstinence from alcohol and drugs, I finally was shown the trailhead of the way out. After being released from another hospitalization for "mental illness," I found a cassette tape containing the reading of a letter written in 1958 by Bill Wilson, cofounder of Alcoholics Anonymous, on his experience with depression. It has come to be known as "The Next Frontier: Emotional Sobriety."

In it, he writes of faulty emotional dependencies on people and circumstances: "Suddenly I realized what the matter was. My basic flaw had always been dependence — almost absolute dependence — on people or circumstances to supply me with prestige, security, and the like. Failing to get these things according to my perfectionist dreams and specifications, I had fought for them. And when defeat came, so did my depression." Much of my life I lived acting more out of desperation. Today I try to act more out of dependency on a power greater than myself and everything else. I try to act more in the spirit of Francis of Assisi: giving without demanding anything in return.

My thinking may be simplistic. I am not very refined or sophisticated, but in the three years since discovering that tape, I have learned to live joyfully even through moments of apparent despair or desolation. I have been given the strength to live in joy while working through some of the most difficult living circumstances I have experienced: financial disaster, homelessness/joblessness, dissolution of my marriage, loss of relationships with my children. Today, I live simply with very little. I am practicing the ideas expressed above in all of my living. I am as absolutely dependent on the God of my understanding as I can be and much less dependent on people and circumstances. I no longer use medications. I seek a more spiritual way. I seek to do good without expecting anything in return. I have little despair or desolation today.

Jim Cox
Haddonfield, NJ (WHYY, 91.0 FM)

A Way to Discovery (October 9, 2005)
I was very touched my Mr. Palmer's description of the Quaker elderly spending time by massaging his feet in silence during the guest's depression. It takes someone who has experience suffering himself to not be overwhelmed or intimidated by a feeling of our own inadequacy in the face of suffering. This elderly man's compassion deeply moved me and told me that he was there too at one point. I myself have lived, on and off, with depression since my early teenage years; I am currently 44. I just came out of an 8-month bout after many years of being free of these feelings. I attributed it to a kind of mid-life crisis. Whatever the cause was, I can say that I came out of it richer, and stronger, and more confident. And I guess I could say that, in hind sight, I wouldn't replace my experience with anything. It brought me in touch with an inner soul searching that I wouldn't have bothered to do if things were hunky dory.

Is depression biological or is it God's way of giving us a quiet time to regroup? I found during my depression that it helped to just live with whatever feeling I was having without trying to escape it. It also helped to "know" that there was a reason for experiencing this and, as I had hoped, on the other side awaited growth and a deeper compassion for humanity. Don't get me wrong — I am no sage. But I am not as intimidated by my own inability to understand other people's suffering.

Sara Rosengard
Haddonfield, NJ (WHYY, 91.0 FM)

My Depression Waivers, Never My Faith (October 8, 2005)
I'm a 52-year-old grandfather who has been a Christian since I was 17. I've been battling clinical major depression since I was 15. Desolation is indeed an apt description of this diabolical disease. I'm still not comfortable calling this a disease even though my mother was desperately afflicted with clinical depression all her life. I've been hospitalized under primary and psychiatric care many times, been suicidal, twice in my life. As an educated and fully trained computer scientist, it's been ingrained in me that pure logic — as infallible as mathematics, where black is always black and white is always white — is the only method of answering or explaining any situation. I've seen people respond miraculously to anti-depressants. So why don't they work for me? I've tried almost all of them. But, paradoxically, my faith in God never seems to waiver, no matter how deep the depressive episode goes. How can you apply logic to something as complex as depression. How can you find help when your own mind is its worst enemy?

Stan Page
Woodville, AL (XM Radio)

We're Not That Important (October 8, 2005)
I caught part of your guest's naive conception of God as being not up "in the clouds but down here." I wish you theists could summon the courage to face the most likely: God is so alien to human nature, so busy with far greater tasks, that God does not care about us. We are simply not that important! Our galaxy includes 100-200 billion stars, and there are maybe 100-300 billion galaxies in our universe, which is one of countless others that have existed — in a multiverse that regresses-progresses infinitely. In a reality of such immense magnitude, those who believe in a personal god are deluding themselves and are committing the sin of pride when they say that the prime moving force of the multiverse has nothing better to do than worry about the affairs of a primitive species like ourselves.

John Likides
Brooklyn, NY (WNYC, 820 AM)

Wonderful Resources (October 8, 2005)
Thank you, thank you, thank you. You provide a wonderful resource for me and for the people I see in my clinical practice, many of whom suffer depression and feel guilty for it or for whom feelings of alienation from God send them to the pit of desolation. I tell them they may want to throw a lamp at me for saying it now, but they will look back and reap wonderful riches from the experience that brought them to my office.

Susan Reid
Atlanta, GA (Listens via Web Audio)

Understanding Depression Spiritually (October 7, 2005)
Thank you so much for a fine program on depression with resources for help and further growth. I am a pastor of a Lutheran congregation and have recently gone through a severe depression. I agree with your speakers, that in looking back, it was a call and opportunity to go deeper and to be healed, to begin to become whom I am called to be. I do understand it spiritually. But only in looking back can I now see that. Mainly, thank you for a quality program.

Jeffrey Louden
Park City, UT (KUER, 90.1 FM)

Contributing to a Fuller Life (October 6, 2005)
Your revelation of your experience of depression touched me, with sadness, but also with a strong desire to cheer you up and cheer you on in the work of your wonderful faith and ministry. I don't listen to your radio shows, up here in rural northern New York. But I do read and forward your weekly e-mails to miscellaneous friends and family members wrestling with the issues you bring into our daylight and darkness. You are so amazing in your ability to reveal the wonderful works and thoughts and contributions towards fuller life of all of your weekly guests. Thank you for your many gifts!

John Bingham Sr.
Essex, NY (Listens via Web Audio)

Meaning Well But Not "Getting It" (October 6, 2005)
I've read your email on your upcoming program on depression. The comment on "desolation" as a better name for depression resonated with me. It's frustrating when talking with people about my bipolar to hear them say, "Oh, we all feel down some times and up at others." I try to tell them my ups and downs are different in quality, but I've become resigned to sometimes just not getting through to some who mean well, but just don't "get it." I recently attended a convention of DBSA: Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance in New Jersey. It's a marvelous organization and among 150 other "bipolars" I found everyone "got it."

Pete Nelson
Herndon, VA (WETA, 90.9 FM)

My Child Shelby (November 14, 2004)
My daughter Shelby's depression began at age 13 and soon presented itself as anorexia so severe that she had to leave home and school and enter a treatment facility. Thus began five years of treatment in three different facilities, and with several doctors around the country, always accompanied by many and various medications.

The only changes she experienced were behavioral ones as the anorexia grew to include binging/purging, self-cutting and drug abuse. Shelby gave me more insights into her depression and consequent behaviors than the doctors were ever able to do. She would say that the treatments targeted her body and her mind, but never her "spirit." When we tried to discuss this with her psychiatrist, she suggested that we contact the hospital minister. Throughout her ordeal, Shelby kept a journal where she would often speak with God, whom she never blamed. Even so, I could only watch in desperation as the bright and beautiful light of her soul gradually dimmed and was extinguished. She died of a drug overdose at age 19.

Today's discussion dealt directly with the elusive topic that we knew was real and could/must be addressed in treatment (in life). We were never able to find direction or even someone who could talk to us about this aspect of depression. We always had such hope that the answer was there somewhere. When Shelby died, this hope died, but today's discussion shows me that this is a topic that is being considered by others. Thank you.

Jann Ferris
Vicksburg, MS (WMPN, 91.3 FM)

A More Colorful Person in My Faith (November 17, 2004)
As a listener familiar with depression I appreciated your program today on "The Soul in Depression." The interview with Parker Palmer was especially insightful and encouraging, hearing how one who already has faith dealt/deals with dark times. All too often within the Christian church there is an underlying or even overt assumption that once you know Christ and salvation, depression cannot have any hold on you. If you only prayed more, or repented of a, b, or c.

My own depression is under control through diet, exercise, medication, and counseling, but I believe it has, as Mr. Porter I think would agree, brought my faith to a deeper level, given me spiritual insights that I might not ever have come across otherwise and certainly made me more understanding to those who suffer this sadness and anxiety, something certainly at the heart of Christ's message of love of faith. Though not wished for, my depression is part of who I am and I am a deeper, more "colorful" person for it. Thank you for addressing this issue.

Ann Graf
Milwaukee, WI (WUWM, 89.7 FM)

Dealing with my Father's Death (November 16, 2004)
Thank you for the recent program on depression that aired in Baltimore on Sunday. The show aired exactly one year to the day in which my father died. I suffer from depression and I appreciated the comments about the helpfulness of medication. I think one of your guests stated that medication can allow us to return to ourselves. How true for me!

When my father died, I was very fearful of dropping back into a deep depression. My psychiatrist indicated that as long as I stick with the medication protocol, I should be able to deal with my dad's death as me (Dave Leiter). This was in fact true. Needless to say the timing of your show on Sunday was a great help to me. Thank you. I also appreciate the topics you deal with every week but this one was uncanny and hit home in a unique way. Keep the shows coming!

David Leiter
Linthicum, MD (WYPR, 88.1 FM)

Crosses to Bear (November 18, 2004)
I enjoyed your program on depression. I especially enjoyed listening to Parker Palmer's dialogue and thoughts. I feel frustrated, however, over something he said in an ernest attempt to differentiate suffering and the cross. I don't know that I agree with what he stated about "false crosses" versus what might be paraphrased as "legitimate crosses" to bear.

I interpret his description of "false crosses" to be those wounds to our soul which are related to narcissism. I agree that these wounds must be worked through. I also believe that these are the wounds which the Christ figure comes to not only accept but to indeed, work through and eventually let go of. He no longer remains stuck in the Puer Aeternus mode for he does not remain on the cross. Perhaps crosses have all "shapes and sizes," some lasting a lifetime and some we eventually are relieved of. Perhaps this is part of the mystery of life and the soul. Thank you again for your meaningful and interesting program. Continued success to you.

Steve Johnstone
Tucker, GA (WABE, 90.1 FM)

Blessed Are the Poor in Spirit (November 15, 2004)
My personal research into Gnosticism recently offered some insight into one of the Beatitudes that always bothered me: namely, "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven." I used to think, "Oh, swell… that means there's no surcease from depression till I die!" But the Gnostics believed that the Kingdom of Heaven existed here on earth (and throughout the universe), and that to find it required a journey into the depths of oneself, where one would see that the essence of one's being is light (i.e., energy), and that one is, therefore, part and parcel of the universal Kingdom.

I now read that Beatitude to mean that the poor in spirit are (albeit unwillingly) especially able to find that inner light (or vitality, as Palmer said so well) because we are forced to struggle with the darkness in order to find life. Which reminds of another wonderful line from Solomon's book: "The unexamined life is unavailable to the depressed."

Jean Rawson
Rockville, MD (WETA, 90.9 FM)

My Soul Aches (November 17, 2004)
When I first was hit with my clinical depression the way that I was treated by my employer (which was a religious institution) was almost worse than the depression itself. I felt that my soul had been raped. While I have tried to talk about this over the years, it hasn't really clicked with anyone. While I have abandoned my religion, my soul continues to ache. Thank you for introducing me to others who struggle with this. It has provided me with other ideas, words, and ways to ponder my pain and lack of willingness to disempower it.

Lyn Malofsky
Milwaukee, WI (WUWM, 89.7 FM)

A Light Shines in Darkness (November 14, 2004)
Thank you for your inspiring and informative program today. I am in the midst of yet another wrestling match with the dark angel myself. Whilst lying in bed listening to Ms. Barrows read from Rilke, warm and welcome tears flowed. This was a good thing. I knew my capacity for fellow-feeling was still striving for expression and communion with others. These tears became like an anointing oil, or a spiritual lubricant helping me to resist the frictions that would prevent me from even the will to write this e-mail. You should be proud of your work today.

Bill Herd
Ogden, UT (KUER, 90.1 FM)

Stopped in My Tracks! (November 14, 2004)
Standing in the middle of the kitchen, I was stopped in my tracks! Anita Barrows voice reading "Questo Muro" was sweet and full and true. It fed me like good oatmeal of the soul. Many thanks to her generous self for the hard copy now by my elbow…! Gifts, gifts! As she says in "Heart Work," "sometimes an abundance"…. Gratefully received.

Emily Wallace
Bethlehem, PA (WHYY, 91.0 FM)

The Paradox (November 14, 2004)
How absolutely bizarre that what I feel today, listening to the bold, articulate voices of my fellow survivors of depression, is so opposite from the experience of depression itself. Listening to the program today, I felt connection, community, and a reminder of the deep bittersweetness that only we who have experienced depression can know. This bittersweetness is composed of the rare knowledge that only we share—that humans can emerge as gentle, strong, loving creatures, after the horror, after the living death.

I have gone through severe depression twice now, I'm now 24. The first time my goal was to purge myself of the horrible blackness—to wash it away and become myself again, to return to the innocence and purity I had known before.

This last time, I chose a different path. I have decided that I will love this thing, I will give it what it needs. I will hold it and be patient with it, and perhaps wait all of my life to hear what it needs to say. I have been so terrified of the madness, of the cognitive disarray—what it does with my life and my sense of love. But as [Parker Palmer] says of the creature in the woods, I have learned that what I thought was my soul is a construct. What is truly my soul is much deeper, and it is all of ours; it is universal, and it never goes away.

If only we could speak to ourselves when we are in that state. If only anyone could speak to us and convince us of the truths that emerge only afterwards. What a mystery that it can't be done. May we each have that true friend—someone to rub our feet and wait with us.

Andi McDaniel
Minneapolis, MN (KNOW, 91.1 FM)

Beautiful Words (November 14, 2004)
Thank you for the beauty of the language — both the poetry and the prose of the contributors — Parker Palmer, Anita Barrows, and Andrew Solomon. Simply, glorious.

Elena Garcia
Miami, FL (WLRN, 91.3 FM)

The Closer You Are to the Darkness (November 16, 2004)
I just wanted to tell you how much I enjoyed Friday's program on the "The Soul in Depression." My friend, a beautiful woman inside and out, has suffered for years with depression. I listened intently to the music, the poetry, and Parker Palmer with her in mind. She is a writer and published author. I think that observation, "…the closer you are to the light, the closer you are also to the darkness" holds true. I have forwarded her info on how to listen to the program. Thanks for all you do!!

Charlotte Miller-Greenizen
Clayton, NY (WSLJ, 88.9 FM)

All the Useless Beauty (November 14, 2004)
I love your program. Each week touches me deeply and I am always surprised how much each week's topic provides me to reflect on. This week's program on depression was a perfect example of that. Much of the discussion was about the hard-won clarity that is finally left when one is reduced to a "bottom point" of the depression cycle. For me, however, my time with depression has taught me not to trust my sense of guilt for my emotional state or my envy for those who seem to be happy.

Half in jest, but aware of some truth in my jest, I recently said to a friend that we need a church that devotes half of its scheduled worship to despair and whatever, in the context of faith, would be anti-beauty. Maybe this would be something as "unacceptable" as holding services in the town dump once in awhile. I ran across the idea that the Christian cross should be a horrific symbol for the Church in James Carroll's Constantine's Sword, I am sure it is much discussed in other places, but I was struck by his equating the use of the cross to putting an electric chair or an oven from Auschwitz behind an altar. Despite Mel Gibson's efforts, I don't think this deadly symbol is really given its proper place as the horrific symbol it is.

If I may paraphrase simplistically, Palmer Parker's description of his growth beyond a belief in the natural tendency of faith to move to perfection was the connection for me to my jest. I believe that part of the answer to the dangerous trend in our world of seeking political solutions to religious certainty and to compensate for the longing for a perfection and entitlement that can come from that certainty is to understand that depression and despair are integral to God's plan. If this were truly included in popular religion, the vocabulary of faith and the form of worship would be incomplete without integrating these difficult areas into daily practice and worship.

To quote Annie Dillard badly, "We should be wearing crash helmets and seat belts as we invoke the powerful forces of God." Maybe it should be called a contemplation of the awe-full and the awful. In faith, we can survive and often thrive, but maybe we should not expect to win in any terms we might measure. God is not a referee. There is no holy whistle to end the game. Finally, faith is its own reward.

TS McLain
Sherman, CT (WNPR, 89.1 FM)

Availability of Passages (November 14, 2004)
Thank you for making your material so available. I wanted to get the text of the Tarrant quote because I couldn't copy it fast enough—and there it was. After some years in lay Christian community and complete burnout with church, I am finding nurture in Thomas Moore's The Soul's Religion and his book prior to that, Care of the Soul. Perhaps you would consider having him on your program. I appreciate your presence; I know few who are interested in the soul's journey but it is so real. Thank you for your work.

Gayle Turner
Washington, DC (WETA, 90.9 FM)

I Am Not Alone (November 13, 2004)
It was heartening to hear Parker Palmer speak about his depression on your program. As someone who suffers from clinical depression and has many of the feelings of self-loathing and lack of a sense of worth that accompany the disease, it made me feel better to hear such a great author and thinker has struggled with some of the same problems I have.

Eric Nunn
Tabor, NJ (WNYC, 820 AM)

Quiet Voices (November 16, 2004)
I am so thankful that this topic is being discussed. My church is quite verbal about depression, and specifically how faith interplays with depression. This greatly contrasts many of our experiences in other faith settings, where depression is a punishment for sin or a sign of weakness. I also have written a piece about interaction of my faith with depression that a friend hopes to publish along with other people's experiences. These are quiet voices that do not get heard very often. I hope this conversation continues and receives more recognition.

Anna Resele
Minneapolis, MN (KNOW, 91.1 FM)

I Am Not Alone (November 13, 2004)
One aspect of depression that I would like to see explored more is the relationship of an individual's depression to a society that fails to allow for full expression of an individual's essential nature and fails to satisfy his/her essential needs. When these are thwarted, some become depressed. A sick society produces sick people who need medicine to feel better. Good for the pharmaceutical companies.

David Brahinsky
Newtown, PA (WHYY, 91.0 FM)

Depression and the Soul (November 14, 2004)
A highly timely topic for me, one of my friends still present, and at least three of my friends past (deceased, one by suicide). More than all the bright, happy people telling those with depression on their back to, "Just buck up and get over it!" or "Pray on it!," I am increasingly heartened by the public admissions of citizens such as Ms. Tippett and her guests, other famous, semi-famous and anonymous people who, like me, suffer from depression.

As the program so rightly points out, some people burdened by depression are very religious, very literate, and very articulate; we are no longer content to be stereotyped as lacking in devotion and will power. Bringing this issue out into the open can only lead to more help for the suffering, more life for those who would end their existence. I was fortunate to be able to catch this SOF program twice today, both by accident of having public radio tuned in. This program doubtlessly saved lives today and tonight—and will do so many times in the future. Thank you so much for your efforts and the bibliography of future resources! Thank you!

Willie Snyder
St. Paul, MN (KNOW, 91.1 FM)

Merton on Despair (November 13, 2004)
As an NPR fan, my radio was on at a time that I am not normally inside and I caught your show for the first time. I enjoyed it very much and just wish my local Catholic Church would have similar programs. As a member of an Adult Faith Enrichment team, I am always trying to find ways to improve and will refer folks to your program.

On Depression, I just wanted to share that I was very moved by Thomas Merton's discourse on what he referred to as "despair." In one reflection, he said that despair could remind us to be humble. By humble he meant that ultimately our resources will fail us and this will remind us of our dependence on God and others. Our extreme sense of independence suggests that we have all the answers. Of course I am paraphrasing but I thought it was worth mentioning. Keep up your great work.

Mark Ramnauth
New York, NY (WNYC, 820 AM)

Blending the Secular and the Spiritual (November 14, 2004)
Well, you have done it again on the program about depression—that is blending the angst of the secular and the wonderful hope of the spiritual through a concise overview around real persons' challenges and their lives.

John Lestino
Moorestown, NJ (WHYY, 91.0 FM)

Finding Insight for My Friend (November 13, 2004)
I just became aware of your program last week when I stumbled upon the discussion of complementary medicine with Dr. Mehmet Oz. It was fascinating! I spent five years working as a nurse with a wonderful cardiologist who was really into complementary medicine and its role in treating heart disease. This morning I listened to the program on depression and was so moved by your guests' attempts to describe how it feels. I've e-mailed your newsletter to a very good friend who is just emerging from pretty severe clinical depression. She continues to struggle with the peaks and valleys. I hope she finds some insights from your program.

Evelyn Jackson
St. Charles, IA (KUNI, 90.9 FM)

A Life of Depression (November 16, 2004)
As I listened to the broadcast, I couldn't help but notice that Krista and her guests, Andrew Solomon, Parker Palmer and Anita Barrows, all had a severe bouts of clinical depression as adults. I liken it to suffering a horrible, debilitating accident that struck them as adults and took them time — years — to recover. The insights touched me deeply, especially Krista's comment that "in the midst of depression, very little if anything is possible in the way of spiritual reflection." This is quite true, for me. At best, all I could hold on to was a feeling of endurance and a dim hope — a promise — that someday, somehow, I would live. Also I related strongly to Parker Palmer's comment that the suffering of depression "is simply and purely death. It's a death in life."

But there is a different type of congenital depression I did not hear addressed directly. I grew up with a mother who was clinically depressed. Institutionalized for post-partum depression, I heard later from my relatives that when she came back to her newborn, she would forget to feed me for up to ten or twenty hours. Growing up, I and my brothers fended for ourselves, since she would sleep during the day, waking up at 4 PM and working until 6 in the morning. Later, in the throes of some of the worst depressions, when I was in graduate school, I found myself naturally living with that schedule too.

This is a different degree of depression, but not in the depths of the individual days. Those of us with severe depression know those days where just getting out of bed, washing yourself and putting your clothes on is victory enough. But the degree is different in breadth, not depth. A congenital depression of this kind is less like being the victim of an accident, where a life, once normal, is changed, but like someone with a severe handicap, who has never in any real sense, been normal. This is a life of depression from the cradle. I remember myself as a seven-year-old second-grader, seeking solace in long, solitary walks through the woods outside of Halifax. But although depression has the aspects of being congenital, it is, in a sense, crueler than some handicaps, for there are times when you are almost normal. There were magical Januaries, crisp and cold, holding forth the promise of a new year — a new start. This time it will be different. But it never lasted. I got married in 1981 in my mid-twenties. My wife later on reflected that in this period early in our marriage, I was depressed about 80 percent of the time. That is at most three good months out of the year. So much for hope and promise, since there was so little time to accomplish things.

For one reason or another, it took until my 46th year when I was finally identified as a person who would benefit from medication. Instead of Andrew Solomon, where the medication "returned me to myself," I say that my life truly began five years ago. I am reminded of the story of my stepdaughter (who I first met when she was eight), who, once the pediatrician finally identified the severity of the allergies she suffered, finally at the age of five, knew what it was like to go through a day not living with her vitality crippled by her incapacities. It is like being released from prison, a prison where I lived all my life, and now instead of holding on to that enduring hope, where I could only wish that some day things would be better, I am now living that life I had hoped for. Instead of having a couple of weeks here or a month or so there where I could feel happy, my life now is mostly the way I had wished. It is not to say that with Serzone and Buspar I do not feel the sadness anymore, but it is attenuated and does not last. I can function during my melancholy, and it only lasts for weeks now, not months.

This is a different aspect of depression, one that may have only been possible in this day and age, although I heard tell that for many people, depression gets less as we age. Perhaps my depression would have naturally gone away without the medication. After all, as my psychiatrist warned me, the effect of the medication is subtle. My wife, having volunteered at a mental hospital, had been worried that the cost of treating depression would be to turn me into a medicated zombie, as she saw happen to some of the patients. But it luckily did not happen that way to me. In any case, I now know that it would not have resolved by itself in due course. Due to worries of side-effects, my psychiatrist convinced me to see how I could get along without the medication. After about six weeks for it to get out of my system, I slipped back into my old dysfunctional self again. I have been glad that this was only a moderate bout, not at all as bad as the worst of the ones that I remember, but after five years of normalcy, I have lost some of my coping skills. Knowing my day-to-day moods, Mary was able to notice the depression coming back even before I was able to, and now I am back to getting the medication up to the former level so my mood is improving. But my experience goes to show that depression has an effect that spans lifetimes, not just the day-to-day darkness of soul-sickness.

This is a different aspect that was not mentioned as much. Besides the endurance of the hour and the day, depression can crush hope. When that spark goes out, sometimes only suicide is left. But for those who have survived, we have developed a preternatural optimism. Think of Little Orphan Annie singing "Tomorrow," except she has forgotten how to grin and has only the memory that once she could. But still she has that hope, of something she has never really had. Sometimes, it?s all that sustains her. And sometimes life does have a happy ending.

Antony Van der Mude
Hackettstown, NJ (WNYC, 820 AM)

Something a Pill Won't Fix (November 19, 2004)
I took antidepressants for 23 years and my doctors prescribed one drug after another to "cure" me. Eventually the side effects of the drugs caused me to be diagnosed with ADD and Bipolar Disorder. Then my dad was in the hospital for six months and I began to see that doctors did not know everything. There is a lot that they just didn't share with their patients. This made me start to question my own doctors about the Wellbutrin, Effexor, Depakote, Buspar, and Ritalin that I was taking for my "disease." I went through seven months of drug withdrawal and used alternative healing methods to recover from depression. Depression is not a disease as we are being led to believe by the medical profession. There is a reason for depression and a pill won't fix it.

Jeffrey Wilson
Columbus, OH (WOSU, 820 AM)

     And if your spirit
     carries within it
     the thorn
     that is heavier than lead —
     if it's all you can do
     to keep on trudging —
     there is still
     somewhere deep within you
     a beast shouting that the earth
     is exactly what it wanted?

'The Dark Night of the Soul' (July 20, 2003)
I was able to get my mother to listen to this program, and I think for the first time she is beginning to understand the struggle I have with depression. This program articulated, in ways that I have never been able to, that "dark night of the soul." It also articulated what happens when you come out the other side. It is not a journey easily undertaken, but is ultimately rewarding nonetheless.

Julie A. Bayley
New York, NY (WNYC, 820 AM)

Another Point of View (July 20, 2003)
As I listened today to the psychologist talk about depression I was struck by her romanticizing of a serious illness. I've never heard poems romanticizing diabetes and yet it is similar in origin to depression — an organic imbalance. Both sides of my family have members who are clinically depressed, and I am one of them. Clinical depression is terrible and I am thankful that medical science has made it possible for me and others in my family to lead normal, productive lives with antidepressants. As I think about it, the woman speaking was suffering from a physical ailment and when it was understood she was relieved of her depression. Do we romanticize mania? Do we celebrate schizophrenia? Am I missing something?

Diane Donato
Columbus, OH (WOSU, 820 AM)

Thank You (July 20, 2003)
I have been stricken with two periods of depression: In my early 20s, just after graduating from college in 1974, and more recently on and off since 2000. The first period was due to a realization that adulthood was upon me and I had wasted my education on an endeavor with which I could not support myself. I always remember being mystified at the senselessness of my father trying to give me a pep talk, when I felt encased in a cold dreary cloud, numb. My mother, bless her, waited and watched and seemed to know when to offer a simple, positive direction, when I was ready to accept such a suggestion.

More recently my parents' troubles have been a significant trigger. Since 1997 their lives went from happy independence to complete disaster, with growing dependence on me. Watching their health fail — primarily their mental health, due to stroke and Alzheimer's — has been an ongoing struggle, both to keep them from getting too depressed and to keep myself from drowning in depression as well.

I did try treatment with medications. I had to. I could not care for my child, fearing I would get in an accident driving him after a sleepless night. But twice I seemed to pull myself out of depression due to the overwhelming needs of those dependent upon me. Even now, I find that to sit with my severely depressed parents is a downer I have trouble subjecting myself to. At some point we have to reach within ourselves and choose to join the world of the living again. But what motivates us is the mystery.

I thank you because it is a spiritual thing, a soul-stretching experience that has changed me for the better. I have found writing poetry very helpful as well, once I'm in the recovery stage. Sharing these feelings is wonderful after feeling so alone and unworthy.

Laurie Seavey Gould
Pasadena, CA (KPCC, 89.3 FM)

Depression as Spiritual Blockage (March 4, 2003)
I fervently agreed with the expert on this program who juxtaposed vitality and depression. That's it exactly. My experiences with depression in myself and those around me show me that time and time again. I've been playing with theories of spirituality lately, and have been working with the premise that our emotions are our spiritual senses, i.e. we see the physical world with our eyes, ears, etc., and we see the spiritual world with our love, our faith, our hope, our optimism and sometimes our fear. If that's the case, depression to my way of thinking is like spiritual blockage because your emotions are totally blocked. It's like being emotionally, and thus spiritually, blind.

In this program the host tried to put a nice spin on it, talking about how people who suffer with depression have a spiritual depth to them that others don't always have. I think it's more analogous to a blind person who gets their sight back and never again takes for granted the sun, the colors, the world of visual sense. I think when depression lifts, from time to time, the depressed person gets their spiritual sight back and therefore never again takes their emotions for granted. I also think, when they again receive these emotional messages from their own spirit, it is close to the elation you feel when you return to health after a long sickness, i.e. vitality.

Bob Filipczak
Minneapolis, MN (KNOW, 91.1 FM)

A Comfort (March 7, 2003)
I found this to be a very comforting program. So often you hear that depression is "easily treated" as if taking a pill is just going to make it all go away. So untrue. I have had many depressions and live with it on a daily basis, most of the time in a low level way.

It was good to hear some people who knew something talking about it in a way that made it seem not all bad. I especially liked the poem by Rilke where he says "I love the dark hours of my being." There are times I feel very comforted by darkness (though not by depression) and if nothing else, it does make you a more compassionate person because you become aware of the suffering that others may have as well. I enjoyed the interview with Parker Palmer because it's so true that most people are so inept at dealing with it, and I've heard the very same things he mentioned so many times myself.

MariKay
Everett, WA (KUOW, 94.9 FM)

There is Light (January 29, 2003)
I did experience depressions most of my life, but when I became more connected to myself and accepted myself and the Divine Principle that the human body is an embodiment of, it became so much easier to bear. The book by Victor Frankel, Man's Search for Meaning, helped me in my teenage years. It did so because my parents, like Victor Frankel, were Holocaust survivors and Victor Frankel survived because he created meaning out of the darkest hours. He observed that the people who survived the most difficult situations had something in common, some inner magnet of meaning was pulling them and calling them to continue and say "Yes yes yes" to life in spite of the difficulties.

Now, after years I suffering and inner emotional tidal waves (I actually never took medicine) I found that all of this was worthwhile. It brought me to the place that I am now, and it is a sacred place. Being a college teacher (for 21 years) it puts me in a position that I understand what young people feel and go through and am able to connect with them because my heart is open. And it is open because years of suffering softened and seasoned it. So from my own experience I know that there is light at the end of the tunnel.

Dani Novak
Ithaca, NY

This Is So True (February 11, 2003)
I was very much impressed by the three guest speakers, especially the poetry of Anita Barrows. How I would have liked to have heard such uplifting thoughts when I myself was experiencing the depths of darkness while I was a missionary in the Philippines, as well as a few other times in my life when I was wracked by the inexplicable denseness of the darkness. It is only faith and trust in God, in Whom I had put all my trust that pulled me through: the praying of the Psalms and just being silent in God's Absent-Presence, and the writing of my own poetry as a cry from the depths.

At the time of my ordeals, it seems that I found no one who could understand the depths of pain, sorrow, and aloneness that I was living through. I was just thrown back into a classroom, trying with the last fiber of my living soul to survive and swim to the shore, or to be carried in the arms of God to a place of safety and quiet where I would truly feel accepted and loved for who I am.

Today, as I am often brought to just listen to the depth of pain of another human being, I am able to just be and listen and love the other as my own self. Thank you for this program. I would like to be able to forward it to so many persons whom I know, to give them a drop of life-giving water of hope in the resiliency of the soul.

Sister Helen E. Provost
Thorndike, ME

Wonderfully Captured! (February 12, 2003)
Parker Palmer's writing about depression in Weavings a few years ago, where he shared the story about the neighbor who tended to his feet in silent but healing presence offered transformative space to myself and my spiritual companion when I was in the midst of my own depression and was "in the fire" as Anita Barrows called it. Healing not only for myself but for the relationship and the power practicing presence has to bring it forth, has informed my life to an overwhelming degree.

I now am a holistic nurse practitioner engaged in nursing theories where authentic caring is the foundation for the work I do in wellness education. Thus, my depression "accompanies me" in this meaningful walk through life — ever mindful that the fire is the fire, and helping to quell the flame in the other requires the unique art of practicing presence. It was great for me to tune into the show, and be awesomely surprised to hear Parker! I have read many of his works, but never heard him speak. Thanks for this soul-full blessing!

Rebecca Bell
Hermon, ME

No Easy Way Out (February 16, 2003)
I think the program was very insightful and thoughtful in its presentation. The descriptions of places of darkness were accurate. I am grateful for the discussion's lack of medical sway. I found it difficult to listen to because it transported me back to some very broken, painful times. I could either listen with a painful heart and gain more insight or I could stop and resume my schedule. I listened and realized again that there is no easy way out I need to go though some of those memories again of the depth and breadth of the darkness to continue to understand it.

Although I didn't have any drug therapy, I am certain I would have if I had told anyone how I was feeling or what I was thinking. I often described it as sitting in my grave, waiting for the dirt to be thrown over me. The only reason I started to climb out was my children and how I wanted them to remember me. I also decided from way down deep inside that I wanted to live before I died and I hadn't done that yet. God stayed with me the whole time. I never felt abandoned by God but was concerned that my faith would turn out to be an empty shell and all that I relied on would be a big bunch of nothing! I am grateful that wasn't the case.

So many people helped me in my journey and don't ever discount even a small act of kindness you do. A chaplain at the hospital asked me if she could carry my coat on our way to her office. That was amazing to me that this woman thought I was worthy of having her carry my coat. I still am touched by this act of love. Thank you for this gentle discussion and reminder to be ever observant.

Barbara Spleiss
Minneapolis, MN (KNOW, 91.1 FM)