The Break-Up Survival Guide (Depression and Anxiety Edition): Have a Little Faith

So, today I want to talk a bit (that is, a lot) about faith. Since faith does include religion and the spiritual, I am going to be talking a lot about my thoughts and experiences as a Christian, so most of this post will probably be most relevant to other Christians. However, since faith also encompasses things that aren’t strictly religion and because there is a lot of crossover between the psychological and the spiritual, I’d like you to read the full post even if you don’t identify as Christian because I find faith, spiritual or otherwise, is essential in combating depression.

Firstly, this break-up has had a huge impact on my prayer life. I did pray regularly before, yes, but my prayer life has definitely been more constant and frequent this past year or so. Honestly, I can’t work out all my thoughts on prayer and I still have a lot of questions about how it works, whether it works, why it works, whether it’s real, all in my head, or both. I’m the most skeptical Christian I know.

Despite that, prayer is what I automatically turn to in times of trouble. It’s instinctive, like pulling my hand away from a hot dish or calling my mom because I’m hurt or scared and I don’t know what to do but maybe she will. And though I don’t have, y’know, scientific proof or anything, I find that for me, prayer does help, which is part of why I do it every night and several times throughout the day.

But I have to do it right. Prayer isn’t just spiritual. It’s cognitive. It’s a thought pattern and has a real effect on your brain.

Sometimes when I prayed, it was an obsessive thing, a desperate bid for control in a situation where I didn’t have any. And when I mean “obsessive”, I mean “straying into OCD territory”.

See, Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder is characterized by obsessions and compulsions. “Obsessions” refer to distressing thoughts that you can’t get out of your head. “Compulsions” are things you do, both physical acts and mental ones, to get those thoughts out of your head. You feel compelled to do them, that terrible things will happen if you don’t do them and though you can’t say how those things will happen, you know it will be awful. So when you perform the compulsion, you feel a sense of relief because you’ve done it now, it’ll be okay… for now. Until the obsession returns and the cycle repeats.

Just to be clear, compulsions are different from actual problem-solving skills. If, say, I have a small swelling on my eyelid and I’m not sure what it is, there’s a few things I can do to deal with it. I can enter my symptoms into Google, ask my medically-minded mom or nurse sister what it could be, or, if I’m especially concerned and it hasn’t cleared up after a few days, go to the walk-in clinic to see what the doctor thinks. I can make sure to wash my hands frequently, especially before and after touching my eyes, make extra sure to get nutrition into my system, sleep when I’m tired and wear my glasses instead of my contact lenses, and stop wearing makeup until my eye returns to normal. I can ask myself “Are my contacts or my makeup getting too old? Did I wash my makeup off properly? My sister had pink eye a few weeks ago, maybe I caught this from her? Do I have allergies? Is this a response to the constant smoke in the air?” to put together a history for the doctor.

These are all normal, healthy actions to take given the situation. Clearly, taking action to handle a situation is a good thing and if I don’t make changes, my eye infection will get worse.

However, compulsions aren’t like what I described above; they’re more like “I have a swelling on my eye, so I can’t step on any of the cracks on the sidewalk or else I won’t get better. And I need to wash my hands for a full ten minutes under scalding water every time I touch something.” That is, compulsions are time-consuming, harmful, and not realistically connected to the problem you’re trying to solve. The not stepping on the cracks is not realistically connected to the eye swelling. The handwashing, though it is connected, is cripplingly time-consuming and, because of the damage it’s doing to your hands with the heat and frequency, is actually harmful and could result in introducing more infection.

So, now that we’ve defined obsessions and compulsions, you might be able to see how prayer can be a compulsion. I’d find the thought of my ex with his girlfriend constantly popping into my head and what if they stay together? What if they never break up? What if they do break up but he won’t consider me again anyway and just jumps straight into another relationship like he did last time, or he does consider me but I can’t be with him because he’s done too much and I’ll just be waiting for the other shoe to drop the whole time?

And this whole nasty train of thought rips through me and so I pray, please, please God, don’t let it be so. I would beg and plead for God to break through to this man I love so much, if there was any way, any way at all to have him back, for us to be happy together, please, please, please…

But a prayer like this will not bring you peace. It will torment you, waiting for an answer. And though I believe a sense of control is important to your health and perhaps is even part of being made in God’s image, trying to seize control through prayer may only give you the illusion of control and with that illusion comes responsibility and with that responsibility comes stress, because that’s a responsibility you’re not meant to take on.

So now I’ve been doing different prayers. I still pray for my situation and that my ex’s heart will soften and that people will hold him accountable for his actions, that he will come to the end of his stubbornness and pride, that God will introduce people into his life that will help him become the man he’s meant to be, and provide him with the good, godly friends he clearly needs. But I pray it, then I let it go. Just pray it a few times throughout the day, just a short quick prayer on that subject, then move on. (As opposed to the constant stream of worry that my prayer was before)

Now that I’m praying less about that, what else am I praying about?

I started by focusing my prayer mostly on myself. That might be an idea that takes getting used to; I know many Christians are taught that praying for yourself is too selfish. But God loves you too as much as He does anyone else and wants good things for you and I don’t think He has any problem with hearing your wants and needs from your own lips. I mean, my mom likes it when I open up to her about the things I want and would much rather me tell her what I’d like for my birthday then say “I dunno, you pick, whatever.” and if that’s how my mom feels about it and God loves me even more than my mom does, I’m guessing He would like me to be as open and honest with Him as I am with her.

I pray for strength and for wisdom and guidance. I pray for God to speak to me and teach me and prepare me for the work I am to do and to help me become the person I’m meant to be. I pray that He will keep my heart soft and my thoughts and actions kind. That He will heal me, and bless me. That He’ll fight the battle on my behalf because I’ve done my best and it’s still not enough and I can’t do this anymore.

I think this has been one of the most useful prayers for me because it’s a prayer of laying down my burdens and laying down responsibility that maybe never should’ve been mine to begin with. Ultimately, prayer should be a place for you to lay down your burdens. If your prayers are obsessive like mine were, you will instead be picking up burdens that aren’t your responsibility and it will wear you down instead of build you up.

I think of this one verse where God says His yoke is light and this depression has been so heavy on me. It’s not His. So I’m asking him to lift it off of me and place His yoke on my shoulders instead because His yoke is one that I can handle, because it’s the one I’m meant to carry. Your prayers should not weigh you down. If they do, I think that’s indicator that maybe you’re not doing it right.

See, prayer is as much for you as it is for God and remember, joy is one of the fruits of the Spirit. If your prayers are depressing you, they’re probably not thoughts from God.

And remember, prayers are thought patterns and the Bible tells us to think upon things that are good. I once read that the Hebrew word translated as “good” actually translates more literally as “life-giving”. So by this translation, we’re instructed to think thoughts that give us life, that make us feel alive and want to be alive and helps us do things that spread life to others.

Really, the more I think on the Bible I realize that a lot of the verses aren’t necessarily about sinfulness but about how to live a life of health. Which is why I’m going to leave one of my general rules of dealing with mental health here: “If it’s not helping you, don’t do it.” Seriously, if your prayers are making you that miserable, take a break. God understands and He’s not sitting there waiting to smite you with all the powers of heaven and hell the moment you stop praying. Just say, “Hey, I’d like to be closer with you, but I’m really a mess right now and I don’t have it in me to talk to you right now.” I’ve done that too; it’s okay to need your space for a while.

Now, my prayers doesn’t always “work perfectly”, even if I’m “doing it right”. Sometimes, it gets to a point where I don’t know what to pray anymore or what to ask because I doubt that I can even figure out what’s best for me because I look at all the possibilities for my future and don’t really like any of the options I see. Then my prayer becomes really simple: “Please, Jesus, work in the hearts, minds, and lives of everyone involved in this situation, even in mine. Have your way here. And help me! Bless me! Please! Amen.”

The power in this prayer lies in the fact that I’m trusting God to do what’s best for me. And maybe you don’t have a relationship with God or believe in Him, but I believe the element of trust is necessary to your recovery regardless. Maybe you trust in God, or fate, or chance, but it’s so important to have some trust in and faith in your life getting better, that maybe your future will be something beyond what your limited depressed brain can come up with right now.

I’ve come to the point where I can say “I am depressed. My brain is broken. Sometimes I am wrong. And I have faith that I will be wrong and my life will turn out better than I think it will.” Beyond faith in God, I have faith in the world, in the existence of true goodness, in my family and friends, in the kids I teach, in the next generation, in our ability to learn from our mistakes, and in myself. All this faith gives me such strength and resilience so that I must declare it a necessity. It gives me life.

To wrap up for today, I’d like to leave you with a verse that is really annoying when people quote it at me but really speaks to me and lifts me up whenever it pops into my head on its own: Jeremiah 29:11–“For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “Plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.“

Annoying Things People Say After A Break-Up: “There are other fish in the sea.”

“There are other fish in the sea.”

First off, I find it so bizarre that people keep saying this to me. I get that it’s an idiom and all but come on, you’re talking to a person who doesn’t even like fish! I can’t stand the taste or smell of fish and think fish make the most boring pets ever, so I can’t fathom why people think telling me this is going to have any positive impact on me or resonate with me at all because I am the last person who would be looking for other fish in the sea.

I know, I know, I’m taking it too literally. But really, why are you comparing potential romantic interests to an animal I couldn’t be less interested in? It’s a horrible comparison and no, you haven’t given me a life-changing insight that makes me never want to go back to my ex again.

Then again, the Venn diagram of people who say “There are other fish in the sea” and the people who want me to date people I’m not interested in dating is a circle, so maybe comparing partners I’m not interested in to animals I’m not interested in makes perfect sense.

Really, though, I don’t understand the push to get me dating again. I’ve already stated that I don’t feel ready. People keep interpreting my refusal to date as me waiting for my ex to come around, but I’m not. I mean, not gonna lie, a lot of the time I do still want him back, but I’m not just sitting around pining after him. I’m doing things with my life, making changes that make me feel good about myself. And if I do meet someone that I’m attracted to and can connect with, maybe a I will start dating. But that hasn’t happened yet.

They forget that I’ve spent most of my life as a single person and have been quite happy while being single during those times. I’m not one of those people who’s terrified of being “forever alone”.

Thing is, it doesn’t matter how many fish there are in the sea– there’s only one him.

Annoying Things People Say After A Break-Up: “Give him a chance; you might be surprised.”

“Give him a chance; you might be surprised.”

Just to clarify, people aren’t saying this about my ex (that would be “give him another chance”; I imagine that would be pretty annoying too); they’re saying this whenever any guy within ten years of my age shows any kind of interest in me. Even if that interest if just friendly on his part (No, that coworker who’s eight years older than me doesn’t have a crush on me, he just talks to me because we work together), or, more commonly nowadays, just friendly on my part (I just like talking to interesting people and sometimes, it just so happens  that men are interesting. Shocker, right?), people still think we ought to be dating.

Firstly… Oi! Why are people so invested in me starting dating again?! I spent most of my life being single without anyone being bothered by it, but now that I’ve gone through a break-up, everyone thinks me staying single is a sign of me being unhealthy and is in a hurry to get me dating/married. WHERE HAVE YOU BEEN FOR THE PAST TWENTY-FOUR YEARS?! SINGLEDOM IS PERFECTLY NORMAL FOR ME!!!

I understand that you want me to be happy, but dating before I’m ready and being in a romantic relationship with someone I’m not even remotely attracted to who I can’t even bear to think of kissing is not going to make me happy. I don’t know everything about what I want for my life, but I do know that.

Second, why is it that whenever a guy who’s any kind of decent shows interest in me, I have to give him a chance? I don’t hear guys being told to ask out a girl he’s not attracted to just because she’s nice, to “just give her a chance”, but if a guy I’m not attracted to asks me out, I’m just supposed to go along with it just because he’s nice? Sweetheart, “nice” is setting the bar pretty low. Almost everyone I know is “nice”. Just because we’re both straight and in the same age bracket doesn’t mean we want to date each other. Being a straight woman doesn’t mean I’m attracted to anything male that moves and possesses some kind of conscience, I’m a little more selective than that.

“You might be surprised.” Orrrr maybe I won’t? Maybe I’ll meet, date, and marry a guy that I was attracted to right from the start and we’ll commit to each other and do what it takes to make each other happy and stay in love and we’ll be married for the rest of our lives like my grandparents are (ahem, another attraction-from-day-one success story) and I’ll be laying on me deathbed and beckon for you to come closer and then with my dying breath, whisper “I told you so.”

Really, I’m just so sick of hearing this, so sick of wondering what’s wrong with me, why I can’t be attracted to these nice, kind, and interesting men who want me, because let’s face it, that’s what happens in my head every time I’m told “Just give him a chance.” Then I remember that my ex was nice, kind, and interesting, so it’s not like I’m attracted to the mythical “bad boy”. I’m not attracted to what’s not good for me. My spidey-senses are working just fine, thank you.

This whole give-him-a-chance thing also causes a lot of confusion for me. I feel guilty for not giving him a chance, then guilty when I do give him a chance and it turns out I’m not attracted to him and can’t do this relationship thing with him after all, then it’s “You shouldn’t have led him on” when I’m just doing exactly what people are badgering me to do: giving him a chance.

And it’s so annoying because the people I hear this from are people who are in long-term romantic relationships with people they were attracted to right from the start! I don’t know how you can feel that attraction, that love, that passion, and then turn around and tell someone to settle and live without it. And I’ve had that attraction, that love, that passion, I know what it feels like and how to recognize it and I refuse to enter a relationship without it.

I know that it takes more than attraction to make a relationship last, I’m not an idiot, but attraction is still important and should still be a part of it. I mean, isn’t attraction one of the things that sets romantic relationships apart from other types of relationships? If so, than attraction must be part of the equation, and attraction can’t be flipped on and off like a switch whenever you want.

“But maybe you don’t know how to be attracted to someone because you love him too much?” Okay. Maybe so. In which case, I’m in no state to be dating again anyways so the point is moot.

Really, this is all a head trip that I don’t want to be on.

Annoying Things People Say After a Break-Up: “He’s not a good person.”

“He’s not a good person.”

I’ve heard this one too many times.

Firstly, I wish people would stop acting like everyone fits into these neat little categories of “Good” and “Not Good”. Everyone has good and not good things about them. The percentages of good and not good might vary, but everyone is a blend on a spectrum. This dichotomy of good-not good doesn’t capture the complexity of human thought and behaviour.

So when you tell me “He’s not a good person”, my instinctive response is that what you’re saying isn’t true. I am fully aware of the bad things my ex has done. You really think that I’ve forgotten? And if he’s not a good person and not not a good person, then what exactly is he? It just prompts more analysis than what I should be doing right now.

Secondly, there are things you don’t see. Yes, he left me. Yes, he moved onto someone else quickly and shamelessly. But I still have the memories of when we were together. I remember all the times he’s comforted me, the times he’s picked me up in the middle of the night when I was upset. I remember him grabbing all these blankets for me because I was cold and him bundling me up in them and holding me close and teasing me about how I’m always cold. I remember waking up with his arms around me and him waiting for me to wake up before getting out of bed even though he wasn’t very comfortable (it was a small bed and his collarbone was broken), all because he didn’t want me to wake up alone. I remember him giving me shoulder massages when he noticed I was stiff or sore (I didn’t even have to ask). I remember him slipping gas money into my bag and texting after I dropped him off “Take a look in your bag” when I was stressing about my tank being empty. I remember that on the rare occasion that there was conflict, that he was always the first to say ‘I love you’, even if the conflict wasn’t resolved yet. I remember the dates before we said ‘I love you’ for the first time and the way he would stop what he was doing and just look into my eyes, open his mouth like he was going to say it, and then close it again, still looking right at me like he wanted me to read his mind and see the words he didn’t say yet. I remember date number four, when he noticed that something was bothering me and asked me to tell him; I told him, “That would take a while.” He said, “I’ve got lots of time.” And he listened to me complain about being poor and how I hated living where I did and school and how stressed out I was and he genuinely listened. He didn’t tell me to stop crying or offer pat answers. He just listened and held me. And he’d only known me about a month at the time. He was seventeen years old and shouldering an emotional burden that people much older still don’t even know how to handle.

So there’s these two versions of him in my head. There’s the one that cares about me and the one that doesn’t anymore. And they’re so different I can’t reconcile them. I’m confused. It’s like I’m dealing with two separate people.

So, “He’s not a good person” only winds up confusing me and making me miss him more. (General rule: if it confuses me, you shouldn’t say it. Confusion is intolerable to someone with anxiety.)

Annoying Things People Say After a Break-Up: “You’re too good for him.”

“You’re too good for him.”

Thanks, but that doesn’t make me happy. It makes me feel worse. It makes me wonder what’s wrong with me and why I still love someone who’s not deserving and why my taste in men sucks.

And, as already mentioned, love is not about deserve. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things (1 Corinthians 13:7).

And sometimes I wonder if I’m one of those “too good for this sinful world” types. Thing is, I don’t want to be one of those types because those types always wind up miserable and dead. I don’t want to be Saint Irene, I don’t want to be a martyr– I want to live and love and be happy. But this “deserve” thing just makes me wonder if there is anyone out there who is “worthy” or if I’m going to be alone forever while other (apparently less worthy) people get to fall in love and get married and be happy.

I once heard this thing about how valuable girls are like the best apples grown on the top of the tree where they are made yummy and ripe by the sun or something like that and most boys are too lazy to climb the tree to reach her and so they pick the ones closer to the ground. It’s supposed to make you feel better about being single because hey, you’re a yummy, nutritious, sunkissed apple, but girls and apples really aren’t comparable. See, when apples aren’t picked, they fall off the tree and rot. And when apples are picked, they get eaten. If the apples aren’t used for eating, they’re considered wasted. And I’m sick of boys always being the “pickers” in these stories and girls always filling the role of “inanimate object”. So I find this analogy rather sexist and depressing.

And whenever people say “he doesn’t deserve you”, they always suggest I go out with men I have no romantic interest in just because they’re nice guys and I’m just really sick of it because if I’m going to spending the rest of my life with this person and having sex with him, I’d better be attracted to him and going out with someone just because they seem nice is setting the bar pretty low. I mean, if I choose my life partner based solely on whether or not they’re “nice”, I’ll be married to pretty much everyone I know(#necessarynotsufficient).

And I get going out on a date isn’t the same as committing to marriage, but I just don’t see why I should act like I’m romantically interested in him when I’m not. It doesn’t seem fair to either of us. I mean, if he wants to keep hanging out knowing I’m still in love with my ex half of the time, on his own head be it, but to act like there isn’t still anything between me and my ex and to act like I’m more gung-ho to be this new date’s girlfriend than I actually am… Because I recognize that I’m dealing with another human being here, someone with thoughts and feelings who is capable of being hurt by my poor decisions, I don’t feel right about that.

“Well you can’t be expected to be interested in him after only a couple conversations!” Really? Guys get interested enough in girls to ask them out after one conversation but if I expect to be attracted to him right away, like, around the time I have to answer yay or nay to a date, I’m expecting too much? You don’t think that’s a double standard at all?

Ugh.

When Philosophy Students Get Set Up On Dates They Don’t Want

So, in philosophy, we have these terms “necessary” and “sufficient”. “Necessary” means a certain thing is needed for an event to happen. “Sufficient” means a certain thing guarantees that event will happen. These categories of “necessary” and “sufficient” are not mutually exclusive, so a lot of new philosophy students, including myself, were confused by the whole thing.

My professor gave the example of fire. Oxygen is necessary for fire to exist, but it is not enough on its own to be sufficient. It also needs fuel, like wood or gasoline, and a catalyst, a spark, in order to exist. So any one of these ingredients is necessary, but not sufficient on its own. However, all of these ingredients are sufficient when they are taken together. That is, they are necessary and jointly sufficient.

However, it wasn’t until my friend’s mom kind of tried to set me up with this guy that I understood it. She says she wasn’t trying to set us up, but this one time I come home from an event with her family and the whole way home we’re listening to this Jewish matchmaker CD and then I’m carsick and drinking water on their couch and she plops down across from me and starting singing this guy’s praises–“He’s so sweet, he just came over out of the blue to mow our lawn for us! And he’s learning Hebrew!”. After that, the times I come over just so happen to be the times he comes over.

I talk to my friend about this turn of events and she says “Yeah, Mom thinks you two would be really good together.” I was horrified. See, he’s a lovely person and all and treats people with kindness and respect and is very generous with his time and labour, but there is no attraction whatsoever on my end. And really, I just want to hang out with my bestie, not be awkward trying to interact with this guy who seems very interested in me who I know is really keen on getting married ASAP because he’s in his mid-twenties now and in the Bible Belt, that is officially old-maid status.

And that’s when it hit me: his qualities are necessary, not sufficient. Do I want to be with someone who is kind? Yes. But I also want to be with someone I am attracted to. “Kind” and “attractive” are not mutually exclusive traits, yet people keep acting like I have to pick one or the other and if I insist on being attracted to the guy then I must not really care about whether or not he is kind. But those qualities are not sufficient. They are necessary and jointly sufficient.

And if person A has the quality of being kind, but there is no attraction, and Person B is attractive to me, but is not kind (of course, it’s difficult for me to be attracted to someone who isn’t kind, but let’s just ignore that for the sake of this thought experiment), then you know which one I pick? Neither! Because picking neither is totally an option!

I’d sure love to have a spouse to do things with and have all kinds of fun and adventures with, and honestly, sex sounds kinda cool too, but you know what? I don’t need that to be happy. I’ve gone a lifetime without sex already and am doing fine, though I do miss kissing and stuff. I have family and friends to go on adventures with (a friend and I are planning our Disneyland trip for one of the summers in the next couple years), I have a cat to snuggle, I’ve got a job I love and I’m getting an education, which means it’s only a matter of time before I get a second job that I love (!!!). I’ve never wanted to get pregnant, so I don’t really feel my “biological clock” ticking and if I really want kids, I can adopt, provided that my financial situation is stable. And between two jobs, I should be able to manage having my own place; it’ll be tight, but it’ll still be my own. So I don’t need a significant other to accomplish most of my major life goals.

I really want to get married and yes, I do have a wedding board on Pinterest, but I want the person I choose to be the one who has everything I’m looking for, not just one thing. And I don’t think that’s unreasonable. I mean, there’s seven billion of us. Surely someone out there fits the bill?

And if nobody does then I guess it’s good that I live in a time and place where I don’t have to marry to survive and that I have such a positive outlook on my life. I can be happy, with or without a husband. I am free.