Hard Lives

Blankets... you don't wanna see me today

I'm in bed with my Tablet, and I have no idea what I'm going to write. Probably not much.

I feel like my brain hurts.

That makes no sense, of course. It's just a headache, and exhaustion and feeling run down mentally. I've been battling obsessions in the mornings again, from the moment I wake up. I use half a day's worth of my energy to get out of bed.

Today I didn't get out of bed.

I feel like my brain hurts. It's true that I have wacky neurotransmitters. And of course, I also have a chronic bacteriological infection that can cross the blood/brain barrier. So, is the Lyme flaring up? Who knows. I used to blame everything on Lyme disease, perhaps with good reason, but I want very much to believe that we've got that whole business in remission.

The headaches are strange. It's not an intense pain, but more like a draining thing and something that feels... like inflammation. I've had these every so often for years, since the Lyme came along. Eventually they go away.

What about OCD and depression? It's been a difficult winter. There are days (like today) when I feel like I'm walking very close to the edge, but I've been able to pull back. This scares me, frankly. I'm worn out from struggling against this, but I have no choice. Even on the edge, I've got to keep my balance.

I have plenty of respite, though. A lot of the time it's not so bad, and I'm okay if I pace myself and don't push myself too hard (or get too lazy). Sometimes, however, life pushes, and all you can do is spend whatever strength you have, and ask for help when it's needed.

We are a close family. But we're a family with a sick father. Of course, the kids are learning to appreciate their father in different ways and to be compassionate and all that. I know. But it's hard for them, and for their mother. It's not normal. I always write about the funny things, but we have a lot of challenges. And we're not saints. Life is hard.

Many people I know have had hard winters, with kids getting sick over and over again, with crazy weather, with men losing their jobs and women suffering miscarriages, with tragedies to endure. Many people I know have hard lives (everyone does, really, but sometimes things are going better than other times, and sometimes people carry secret burdens).

So we are all together in this, with Jesus.

But my mind is wandering, and I keep typing the wrong letters. I'm going to put this away now. I embrace you all. Let us pray for one another.

The Chain Saw in My Brain

Jesus said to his disciples,
“Things that cause sin will inevitably occur;
but woe to the one through whom they occur.
It would be better for him if a millstone were put around his neck
and he be thrown into the sea
than for him to cause one of these little ones to sin" (Luke 17:1-2).


Oh no. Jesus said, "Woe!" That gets my attention.

<And the mental gears start to turn and turn and turn and SPIN, brroom, brrooooooom!>

"Oh woe, woe... woe to ME. I'm a crummy father, that's what I am, and my little ones are going to sin because I'm not doing enough to teach them, protect them, stop them, help them, love them, give them a good example, work them harder, appreciate them, teach them, show them, help them, I'm not doing enough, I give a bad example, I'm not doing enough, I'm not doing enough...."

<"John, TURN OFF THE CHAIN SAW!"> Says the voice of an old priest friend of mine. Its a voice in my memory, reminding me that my mind is a chain saw that cuts through obstacles and barriers to see the truth of things, but sometimes it gets turned around and then it starts cutting my brain into pieces. Turn off the chain saw! But its spinning around and I've lost control and I don't know how to shut it off!
. . . .

It can be a simple thing, like hearing the reading from this morning's Gospel. Suddenly, I am tempted to feel like Jesus is condemning me personally. I feel like I'm the person who should be thrown into the sea with the millstone around my neck; I'm the goat to whom He says, "Depart from me;" I'm the guy not properly dressed at the wedding feast; I'm the Pharisee, the hypocrite, the one who Jesus looks at and just wants to thrash.

I'm not sure whether other people are troubled in quite this way. But it troubles me. Sometimes Jesus in the gospels feels like He's hard to get close to. I feel like He's saying, "I'm not going to love you and be your friend until you straighten out your life. Go away and fix yourself and come back when you are worthy."

But I know that He isn't saying that to me.

The devil would like for me to believe these thoughts. The devil wants me to be afraid of Jesus, or to get discouraged and just give up. He meddles in all of this. But he is not running the chain saw. Nor is it (simply) a spiritual bad attitude or a lack of self-esteem or a failure by me to do this or that. Certainly my failures are abundant. But that is not where the root of this problem lies.

My brain is "tilted" -- the images and the words get associated with the wrong memories, and certain problems (that may have some basis in reality) are filtered through a hormonal/neurochemical matrix that distorts them or exaggerates their intensity. And thus the images pour through my brain and the ideas and judgments arise in my mind. Intelligence and freedom are on the scene here, but they are limping badly. This delicately constructed body-soul human person has a sickness.

We experience illness in ourselves by self-reflection. If I cut my arm, I feel the pain and I see the blood and I say, "I cut myself." That's simple enough. If I start to lose my hearing suddenly, I might be more confused. I might think, "Why is everything so quiet?" I might tell people to speak louder. I might not realize that I myself have the affliction. When the affliction involves the complexities of the brain, the nervous system, and all the factors that shape perception, it can be very difficult for me to recognize it in myself, to see that there is an illness that is hindering me in the activity of understanding and judging reality and myself.

But even with the reflective effort to understand a "mental" illness, backed by mountains of clinical and scientific study, I still lack the full emotional strength of conviction. Even as I write this, my mind says, "are you sure this isn't all baloney? Are you sure you're not the Pharisee or the hypocrite...?" The illness is so close to my sense of self, much closer than if I just had a broken leg. In the latter case, I wouldn't have these thoughts. I'd just look at my leg. (So would other people, and that would be a lot easier for them too.)

And we have also a real intersection with the self, the conscience, and freedom here. Maybe I am a bit of a Pharisee. But we must lay that to one side for the moment, and face the fact that we are dealing with a sickness. This is not a freely chosen position in front of reality. This is an affliction that distorts reality, like clouds cover the sun.

I don't know how much of a hypocrite I really am. I'm a sinner. I know that. But my mind, with all its rich intensity thwarted by distortion, can take that "negative" factor and blow it way out of proportion and focus.

What can I do, here and now? Before I take Jesus's rebukes and use them to condemn myself, can my reason enter into the matter and at least do some mental pain management?

Yes. If intelligence can still limp, it should at least limp. By limping we can move in the right direction. So in this case, I have to remember that Jesus is speaking to the whole human race, and that there are some very, very, very BAD people out there. Its not judgmental or self-righteous to acknowledge the fact that some people are knowingly and deliberately malicious; there are people who like being bad, people who decide to be bad, which is to say, to oppose what they understand to be "the Good," and not out of weakness but out of strength. Some people are like this... maybe many people are like this.

Jesus warns and threatens in graphic ways because He loves these people too. He's trying to wake them up, not just from sleep, but from a self-induced coma.

This is a reasonable supposition for me to make, but it does not follow that I can sit down and decide who those really, really bad people are. Another person's freedom does not manifest itself so plainly to us. It plays itself out within all the complexity of a particular human person of body and soul and so many hindrances including those I've described above, We know what's good and what's evil, but since we can't read hearts, we can't really judge to what extent someone is willfully bad and to what extent they are afflicted and distorted because they are sick, or wounded by life, or carrying terrible hidden sufferings. Only Jesus can know that. He knows what each person needs to hear.

Jesus is Compassionate Truth: He is
the Truth who comes to dwell with us.
He is Mercy who has come to save us.

I'm a sinner. I want to follow Jesus, but I'm weak. Yes, I sin. Sometimes stubbornly. But Compassionate Truth comes to get me. Truth is hard, but its also my companion that helps me up each step and sometimes even carries me. It deeply understands my weakness and how to work it into strength, with patience. The voice of Jesus to me is always the voice of "Compassionate Truth." I'm a sinner. Jesus loves sinners. He came to save sinners.

If I read the Gospel and feel condemned by it and rejected as an evil person, that is not Jesus talking. Its not my conscience talking. Its depression that's talking; its obsessive compulsive disorder that's talking; its this complex affliction that's talking, blowing my faults completely out of proportion. I'm sensitive, perceptive, and I think deeply, but my neurological / psychological / emotional condition sends all of that down the sink toward the negative: All I can hear is "Maybe I'm the bad one. Why is He so mad at me? I feel terrible about myself!" If I find vanity, self-centeredness, or mixed motives in myself (as I inevitably will), the chain saw starts cutting and digging in to get the badness, to get every bit of it, but it never finds it all, it never gets it out. So it keeps cutting....

And if I happen to be feeling okay with Jesus, I can easily find something else to obsess about and get down on myself: I worry about the next doctor's appointment, the next writing deadline, trying to sleep or accomplish other basic life tasks that should be easy, or getting sick or dying, whatever. The chain saw looks for things to cut. Sometimes I get a handle on it, and I see that it can be used to build, to open up places, and to bring order and clarity to the world outside of myself. But its hard to keep it turned in the direction of reality and the task at hand.

I've had forty years of this kind of stuff (not all the time, but on and off, dormant then triggered... more recently, much better but far from cured). I've learned to deal with the medical and emotional aspects, and do that as much as is necessary. "Success" here is not "being medication and therapy free" -- success is having things more or less in perspective (if meds and therapy are necessary for that, for however long, its no big deal... I thank God for the help).

And I also have to tell my mind: "Listen to the voice of Compassionate Truth, of mercy. Tell the condemnations to SHUT UP!"

Its not easy, but its possible. It can be done. I have learned over the years, however, that it cannot be done alone.

Self-Inflicted Violence: It Doesn't Always Meet the Eye

I beat myself up all the time. Does that sound scary? Yet you won't find cuts or scars or bruises on my body. No... as is so often the case, I'm talking about something I do inside my head.

I think its important to take seriously the metaphor of "beating ourselves up" mentally and emotionally over our own real or perceived failures. These metaphors resonate for reasons that are deeper than we may realize.

Mentally ill people can develop even compulsive forms of interior violence, and repetitive psychological self injury. This can be even more crippling than visible, external self-inflicted violence, although I think the two often go together in life circumstances and illnesses other than my own.

Whatever the nature of the behavior, we need to become more aware of how damaging (and how potentially dangerous) it is to "beat up on ourselves."

I am not a medical doctor or a therapist. I am just a "patient" who has lived with my own mental illness for more than 40 years. All I can do is share what I have learned, what has helped me in my own struggles. And I have certainly learned that beating up on myself is very bad thing. Neurological dysfunctions in the brain can give rise to dark and distorted perceptions or feelings of doubt, which then strive to articulate themselves as compulsive thoughts and emotions.

This can break out into a cycle of interior self abuse that is not only painful, but that causes me to withdraw from my responsibilities and from others who need me. I know that I must try my best to break this cycle, by turning to God in prayer, certainly, but also by sticking with my medications, watching what I eat, following my routine, managing stress, exercising, using cognitive therapy, and relying on people who can help me get back into focus and stay there.

I have never been able to think my way out of this. Help comes from outside, and no degree of illness can take away the personal responsibility that I have to be receptive, to struggle to be open to the help that I cannot give myself.

I know that there are many people who don't worry about much of anything, and who would benefit from a good dose of sober self-criticism (n.b. sober, which means balanced, measured, realistic). And we all feel guilty and ashamed at times simply because we've done something wrong. This is normal and good. But its something entirely different from a pathological and constant interior assault that is all out of proportion to any fault, that seems to block out goodness and that leads to discouragement.

Don't give in to this. Move away from it, even if all you can manage is an inch. Do it one inch at a time. And search for anything that helps you to draw out of yourself. If some of those helps begin with "psych," don't be ashamed of that. Its awkward terminology, but when properly applied these "helps" encompass both corporal and spiritual works of mercy. And we all need mercy. 

It is essential to people with mental illness to remember that God loves them just as they are, and that they must learn to love themselves, to be kind to themselves, and to turn their energies outward in constructive ways. And they must not be ashamed that they need help from others.

From my own experience I can say: It is possible to live in a relationship with God, with joy and patience, and constructive engagement of work and relationships, even with chronic depression, bi-polar, OCD, and other neurobiologically based disorders. It is also possible to be healed greatly from much self inflicted personal damage.

It is an ongoing process, and you can't do it alone. You need help.

Change is Like Brain Surgery

Here comes the summer. I have a very hard time with changes in routine. I keep to my own routine as much as possible, but the rest of the household is shifting. School is over. The weather is flipping over into summer mode, hot and humid.

The office actually just looks like any other office

Thanks to the Montessori Center, I felt like I had something of a school year this past nine months. That was good, even if it was tiring.

Now the Center is moving, so I have to say goodbye to the office furniture (which is not ours) and hope that the new place has as good a chair for me. More changes.

For an obsessive person, change is like brain surgery. Okay, that's a bit strong. But changes in routine require some kind of neurological "rewiring" process, and they affect all of one's carefully constructed coping strategies. Focusing the mind on certain things (and taking it away from obsessive preoccupations) is a daily battle. Habits of thinking -- or rather, of processing one's environment -- are acquired, but changes require new adjustments or even starting from scratch.

I'm also trying to manage another physical downturn. Lately I've had some pain returning. My usually comfortable chair is sometimes uncomfortable now. I spend more time in bed during the day, often in the afternoon.

But these changes aren't so big.

John Paul turns 16 years old. He's probably going to work this summer. Work. A job.

Yeah, the kids are changing too. That's good. I have to rewire my brain for that, but I'll do it because they need me to function. I can't beat up on myself without hurting them, and I'm determined not to hurt them.

I'm determined to help them. I'm determined to live with changes.

Brain Power, Energy, and Love

I'm trying to write things, but its very slow and laborious right now. Forgive me if we are rolling through April with snippets and quotations and pictures. I've been tired, and my brain is just not running very well.

Let me show you some more spring flowers.

There are many projects I want to do, but the energy is just not there.

I continue to study the possibilities of internet media. There is much here, but all I can do is plug away at it slowly. The internet is certainly changing our brain patterns, for better or for worse... probably both. I think that it has been good medicine for my brain, in some ways. It seems to help an obsessive brain to be drawn out of itself and into diverse interactions. But it also uses great quantities of mental energy, or so it seems to me.

We need to maintain the tension toward learning how to discern what is worthwhile in all of this new media, and what is predominantly a waste of energy for us. Applying this discernment in our own lives comes with the development of virtue. Here the grace of the Holy Spirit will lead us, but also there will always be the earthly, human "grunt work" of trial and error and more trial and more error, and learning about ourselves, and listening to others, and helping one another.

People like me have limited physical and mental energy. We must prioritize and learn to measure out what we have. Still, we must give of ourselves. It is too easy to claim a lack of energy when our real problem is a lack of love. Often, for us muddled human beings, it is a combination of both.

There are other people who have a touch of the opposite problem. Their brains are in overdrive. They are a bit "manic," and so they are frantically busy and even successful in building many large projects, but perhaps without sufficient reflection on the real value of any of these things. We must also recognize that some people are simply gifted with energy and good health. Thank God for them! (Thank God especially for the one I married.) We are grateful for their accomplishments. Nevertheless, success and achievement in doing things can also hide a lack of love, or become a substitute for love. Here also it is, for so many people, some combination of both a desire for the authentic good and the subtle tricks of a selfishness that resists becoming a gift.

The point is not to feel guilty because we don't push ourselves to exhaustion, nor is it to have contempt for success, and have no regard for the legitimate fruits of creative energy and hard work. The point is that we all need to grow in love.

Here especially we need to ask Jesus to send the Holy Spirit to work within us and change us. And we need to forgive one another again and again and again.

Thoughts of a Tired and Troubled Mind

I'm plugging along. Some times are better than others. I may as well write something.

I am still a bit too close to the edge of things. Perhaps its better not to write too much. The intensity of my writing turns too much toward brooding right now. Brooding is not healthy. I want to avoid that.

As I have emphasized in my book (in different terms), it is a constant struggle to avoid getting sucked down the hole of ... what is the phrase? ... feeling disgusted with one's self? Something like that.

But it is not a matter of self-pity. I can't emphasize that enough, so let me emphasize it again: it is not a matter of self-pity. This is not something you "do" or "consent to" with intellect and will. It is something that pulls you and eats at you and tries to consume you.

Yes, it can be an occasion for self-pity or other kinds of self-indulgence; these are things you might mistakenly take up as part of the struggle, the effort to block up the hole. I expect it can also be triggered by self-indulgence and sin; there is a mysterious unity of soul and body, and sin can have many kinds of consequences. And Screwtape gets in on the act as well.

But not everyone who sins gets sucked down the hole. Many people sin with a vigorous mental health. And there are saints who are bi-polar, depressed, obsessive, or wracked with all kinds of neurological disorders.

These things are afflictions. They are diseases. Whatever else may be going on in the moral or spiritual realm, you are sick.

If you can struggle against it, then that means the sickness is not so bad.

A lot more people struggle than we realize. The brain is a delicate instrument. It has its strengths and weaknesses and propensities in different people, and we will probably never reach the end of analyzing the material factors that shape it. Heredity is certainly a major factor. We can mark certain overall common tendencies in whole peoples. Brain health is also affected by many things in a person's particular experience; things which a balanced and not overly ambitious psychotherapy can help to identify and modify.

And, please, take the medicine. If you need it, don't be ashamed to take it.

Who knows what role bacteria and other microbial agents might play in all of this? Environmental toxins? Heavy metals? Processed food? Hormones? The crazy, hyper-lifestyle of the contemporary western world? There are all sorts of theories.

In my own situation I have to take into account the possible role of a chronic infection. Its one reason why I need to be especially careful. 

Enough. I said I wasn't going to write too much.

Really, my problems seem like nothing when I hear about what some are called to endure. But who can understand the depth of another's suffering (much less make comparisons)? We cannot even measure our own. The question is not, ultimately, about who is suffering "more" or "less" ...  the truth is very simple: we are all suffering.

The question is: "How can we help one another?" We can stay with one another in solidarity, giving and receiving mercy, embraced by the heart of Jesus.

Ultimately, what is it that gives each of us value and meaning? It is the fact that each of us is loved by Jesus.

Maybe our brains and bodies don't work very well. Maybe we've failed at everything we've done. Maybe we constantly disappoint people. Maybe we are dull, cantankerous, bad company. Maybe we are ill-tempered, or boring, or too intense, or too reserved. Maybe we are uninteresting, uncultivated, poor, wretched human beings. Maybe we're just not very good people.

But Jesus loves, right now, each and every one of us with an infinite love.

Remember this. Remember your dignity. You are loved. Do not be discouraged.

The Healing We All Need: Revisited

Here is an oldie but goodie from last July. A year has gone by. Progress is slow. Jesus have mercy on me.

The human being has a terrible fear of uncertainty.

I know I do. Since I was a child, my introspection, obsessiveness, and anxiety have convinced me that I cannot trust in myself. I cannot be confident about my opinions of myself. I cannot be confident that I am seeing reality in the right way.

Yet I have to judge. I have to act. I have to live my life and attend to my responsibilities. Even in my present, convalescent environment, with external pressures kept to a minimum and reliance on simple routine, still I am a man, a husband, a father, a companion to my wife and an example to my children, and--to the degree that I am able--a help to others. I still must work. Every day, I work on myself. I work on the healing process. I work on projects in the struggle to keep my profession alive.

Yet I often do not feel grounded. For many years, I attempted to trust in a kind of "Christian ideology." I attempted to impose a conception of what was "necessary to be a good Catholic" on the awful ambiguity of my life. It required a fair amount of rationalizing, interpreting, and good old fashioned fibbing to stuff the mess of my life inside this box so that it would not haunt my sense of self-confidence. Alongside of this, of course, God was at work, I was praying, seeking Him, and genuinely desiring (in however wobbly a fashion) to do His will and to trust in Him. Yet the ultimate uncertainty of my ideas constantly undermined my confidence.

Illness has forced me to face the need to rely on other people. What a relief it would be to abandon my freedom to their judgment. There is the temptation here to trust in other people's coherence, as if the reason why I follow the guidance of my wife, my doctors, my friends and my spiritual director is because they "have it all together" and I don't. But this kind of trust doesn't hold up either, because it is clear enough--sooner or later--that they are weak human beings too, with flaws and limitations and failures of judgment.

I have to trust in Jesus. This, for me, is not only a spiritual but also a psychological necessity. I am grounded in Jesus. I cry out to Him and beg for that certainty, and to keep my life centered on Him. In the Church He lives as a Presence for me now: as a way, as gestures, as a companionship. And other persons are given to me by Him to help me to insert myself into that life. It is He who works through them. It is because of His love for me that I can trust them. Even if we make a mistake, I can trust that He is behind us to catch us.

Look at this great mystery: marriage. Eileen and I do help each other and together we carry out the task of shaping an environment in which our children are growing. It's not because we are coherent. It's because marriage is a sacrament. It's grounded in Him. From here, it becomes possible to perceive that my relationships with my other companions are grounded in Him, in the communion of saints; that my relationship with every human person is grounded in Him who is the Savior of the world; that my relationship with reality is grounded in Him who is Lord of all creation.

Beyond any pathological condition, there is that radical anxiety, that radical fear of uncertainty, that afflicts us all. The healing we all need comes from Jesus. This is why He says, "believe in me."

A Child's Pain, and Her Parents' Hope

There's our Teresa, playing with Josefina. Teresa is eight years old. She is the lively, cheerful mischief-maker in the house. She is also thoughtful, sympathetic, and affectionate. She considers things carefully and feels things deeply. Lately she has been worrying about a lot of little things.

But in the last few days, she has been afflicted.

She lays on the bed, with vacant eyes. She looks at me like she doesn't know me. Then she starts screaming. And she won't tell us what's wrong. We ask her and she screams louder. She scared us so much the other night that the only thing we could think to do was to take her to the ER. I know, obviously, that mental illness runs in the family. It runs right through me. But at a certain point one throws assumptions out the window and starts to think, "Is my child having a seizure? Is this going to get worse? Is she going to hurt herself?" Going to the ER is sort of the modern equivalent of calling the doctor in the old days (except you go to them instead).

So now she has seen several doctors and had blood tests, and we are trying to keep her comfortable while we wait to see what comes next. The work of keeping her calm has been exhausting for both Eileen and me. Of course, there are many possible causes for this, and we have to let them look at different things, but I think I know what's going on.

In my book I talk about a range of illnesses which are beginning to be classified as neurobiological disorders--these are "mental illnesses" that are rooted in chemical imbalances in the brain or the failure of the brain to carry out properly its delicate and complex operations. We know that neurological disorders can cause people to have chronic "tics" or muscle spasms. Well, it appears that on a more subtle and "invisible" level the same kind of disturbances in brain functioning can cause "mental spasms"--quirks, repetitions, or distortions in the imaging, impressive, and expressive activity of the brain that accompanies our thinking.

Thinking is fundamentally spiritual, but in the human being who is a mysterious union of soul and body it is something that is done in conjunction with (and is therefore affected by) physiological processes. We all know that drinking alcoholic beverages affects the brain and thereby inclines us to perceive things differently and even to "think" differently. Surely it is possible that all kinds of circumstances that we do not yet understand may affect (and afflict) the brain in more subtle ways. These circumstances may even be rooted in genetic factors, which seems to be the case in more obvious, visible neurological disorders.

Certainly all this has become something of a fad in some sectors of the psychiatric field. These kind of problems are overdiagnosed. They are also overmedicated, or many of the medicines made for them are clumsy and ineffective. Having said that, it must be admitted that the great achievement of modern clinical psychiatric medicine has been the discovery of the neurological basis of many mental illnesses. Moreover, advanced brain imaging technology is confirming the clinical evidence. We are just beginning to learn the need for careful and attentive medical care for the most important and mysterious organ in our body, the brain.

We have learned that the brain can't be ignored. Psychoanalytic therapy has many values, but we know it won't help a person with Tourette's Syndrome. Now we also know that it won't help the underlying condition of a person with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder. The same thing can be said for many (though not all) types of depression, anxiety disorders, and that increasingly expanding category of complex conditions called "bi-polar" disorder. Psychotherapy has its place, especially in helping repair the life damage that comes as a consequence of these conditions. Certain types of therapy may even help stimulate healing processes within the brain itself. But what we know for certain is that in these situations the brain, as a physiological entity, needs medical help.

We are also learning that the brain can't simply be nuked with medications that are designed to counteract artificially its chemical or functional imbalances. "Brain medicine" is a delicate art of integrative health care, and here it is especially clear that it is impossible to be effective without treating the patient as a whole, i.e. as a human person.

It is also worth mentioning here the advances being made in the treatment of brain injuries, e.g. "concussions." If anything good has come out of the recent wars (though, tragically, not good for those who have had to endure them), it is the advancement in the understanding of brain injuries, how they can occur, what permanent damage they may cause, and how they may be related to conditions such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Having suffered and recovered from a major concussion in a car accident in 2005, my personal hunch is that "minor" brain injuries--perhaps even on the internal level--probably happen much more frequently than any of us realize.

The brain is, truly, a remarkable, resilient and durable instrument, for all its complexity and delicacy. I believe there are vast possibilities for healing the brain and supporting the overall health of the brain. We are only beginning to discover them.

Meanwhile the human brain remains much afflicted. I am not a health practitioner at all. I am a sufferer. I try to give an account of this aspect of my debility in my book, Never Give Up: My Life and God's Mercy. My own bi-polar disorder--a complex of depression, anxiety, and obsessions--has a long history in my family, and it has afflicted especially those who also have outstanding talents. It is reasonable to consider the possibility that it has a genetic character. It is a curse, but also a blessing, in my family.

I was ten years old when I first began to experience this problem. So as I watch my Teresa suffer and try to help her, I am not surprised. There may be other, aggravating conditions involved in her case (as there are in mine). But it appears that she has the "family blessing"--a wonderful, precocious, creative, intelligent, imaginative mind that somehow is connected to a brain that does so many things well but doesn't get the seratonin and dopamine flowing properly. Why? Who knows. Perhaps with fallen human nature, these kind of things come as a "package."

Still, we endeavor to heal the sick. And we can have a measure of success. And people who suffer in this way can be helped to live without fear and darkness and the self-condemnation that it can generate. So I have hope for my Teresa.

Her road to healing may be long, though I pray not as long as mine. I am still on the road.

The Healing We All Need

The human being has a terrible fear of uncertainty.

I know I do. Since I was a child, my introspection, obsessiveness, and anxiety have convinced me that I cannot trust in myself. I cannot be confident about my opinions of myself. I cannot be confident that I am seeing reality in the right way.

Yet I have to judge. I have to act. I have to live my life and attend to my responsibilities. Even in my present, convalescent environment, with external pressures kept to a minimum and reliance on simple routine, still I am a man, a husband, a father, a companion to my wife and an example to my children, and--to the degree that I am able--a help to others. I still must work. Every day, I work on myself. I work on the healing process. I work on projects in the struggle to keep my profession alive.

Yet I often do not feel grounded. For many years, I attempted to trust in a kind of "Christian ideology." I attempted to impose a conception of what was "necessary to be a good Catholic" on the awful ambiguity of my life. It required a fair amount of rationalizing, interpreting, and good old fashioned fibbing to stuff the mess of my life inside this box so that it would not haunt my sense of self-confidence. Alongside of this, of course, God was at work, I was praying, seeking Him, and genuinely desiring (in however wobbly a fashion) to do His will and to trust in Him. Yet the ultimate uncertainty of my ideas constantly undermined my confidence.

Illness has forced me to face the need to rely on other people. What a relief it would be to abandon my freedom to their judgment. There is the temptation here to trust in other people's coherence, as if the reason why I follow the guidance of my wife, my doctors, my friends and my spiritual director is because they "have it all together" and I don't. But this kind of trust doesn't hold up either, because it is clear enough--sooner or later--that they are weak human beings too, with flaws and limitations and failures of judgment.

I have to trust in Jesus. This, for me, is not only a spiritual but also a psychological necessity. I am grounded in Jesus. I cry out to Him and beg for that certainty, and to keep my life centered on Him. In the Church He lives as a Presence for me now: as a way, as gestures, as a companionship. And other persons are given to me by Him to help me to insert myself into that life. It is He who works through them. It is because of His love for me that I can trust them. Even if we make a mistake, I can trust that He is behind us to catch us.

Look at this great mystery: marriage. Eileen and I do help each other and together we carry out the task of shaping an environment in which our children are growing. It's not because we are coherent. It's because marriage is a sacrament. It's grounded in Him. From here, it becomes possible to perceive that my relationships with my other companions are grounded in Him, in the communion of saints; that my relationship with every human person is grounded in Him who is the Savior of the world; that my relationship with reality is grounded in Him who is Lord of all creation.

Beyond any pathological condition, there is that radical anxiety, that radical fear of uncertainty, that afflicts us all. The healing we all need comes from Jesus. This is why He says, "believe in me."