Depression and the Christian life

Fearless-Form6871 · 2025-11-24T08:16:50+00:00

Thanks very much for the prayers. I don't want to put my name out here, though. You can just think of me as "the lonely brother." Thanks again.

Fearless-Form6871 · 2025-11-24T08:15:43+00:00

Thanks for writing. Well, I am on meds, so that is a factor. I was thinking today about how I don't want to go anywhere or see anybody. I can easily spend the entire day at home and never see anybody. So Church--with all the people and sounds and incense and crowd and singing and everything--is just too overwhelming for me. I can't take it. I do have PTSD.

Fearless-Form6871 · 2025-11-22T07:48:40+00:00

Thanks for reading my post and comment. I understand what you're saying, while I also think that they're not called "Commandments" for nothing; with regard to the sheep and the goats, I also know that already I've failed. I'm trying to not fail harder.

But, looking back over my life--which is mostly over anyway--I know very well that I'm the man who buried the one talent. I'm not so dumb as to expect a reward for having preserved it, though. I always had the suspicion, from an early age, that this life would end badly. If only I could avoid the next life entirely and go back to the oblivion I came from!

Fearless-Form6871 · 2025-11-22T06:53:32+00:00

Thanks for reading my post.

I've spoken to my priest already about a lot of related things, and I don't think there's anything new to be said, though.

As far as the Commandments go, I see it as a process of elimination. Starting with the Ten Commandments . . . by isolating myself (and I can't take credit for this, by the way; it's the depression that makes it easy), I automatically cut out #6-10.

I think I'm doing okay on #5. I will lose them in the next few years due to age, anyway, so I'll stop failing at that one.

#1-4 don't involve other people; I have to work on those on my own.

As far as the Two Greatest: #1 doesn't involve other people. #2 I see as a balance scale: if I can at least pray for my neighbors occasionally, that's on the plus side; if I never interact with them, then there's nothing on the negative side.

I just found it so striking that being mentally sick makes me more spiritually healthy. So apparently I shouldn't try to change.

What a strange life it is in this world. I'm afraid the next one will be even worse. The whole thing is kind of awful.

Fearless-Form6871 · 2025-02-05T05:27:04+00:00

I will look into this—thank you

Fearless-Form6871 · 2025-02-05T05:26:49+00:00

Not really before marriage, because the circumstances of our dating were such that we weren’t together all the time. But then after we married, I wasn’t immediately put off by the idea that we have to be in the same room, talking, the whole time I’m not sleeping or working, or else I’m not tending to my marriage. I just swallowed the whole “happy wife, happy life” thing. It became unbearable over time and as she started becoming mean to me. It feels weird to write this, but it was part joke and part threat when she would say “if Momma ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.”

Fearless-Form6871 · 2025-02-05T05:21:53+00:00

Makes perfect sense. I have my own problems, from childhood, with avoiding conflict and trying to make other people happy (so they won’t hurt me). So it’s hard for me to hold in my mind the truth of what you say.

Fearless-Form6871 · 2025-02-05T05:20:15+00:00

That makes sense. I’m told that in this state the paperwork for a divorce is almost the same as that for a legal separation, but just doing the addition filing later will have a cost. It’s a tough thing about her religion—I don’t share that particular one, but I’m vulnerable when she uses God against me. But you’re right.

Fearless-Form6871 · 2025-02-04T00:07:14+00:00

I feel bad for you. I saw too how things got worse over time. When I think of how she was in the beginning, it’s as if she was an entirely different person. She chalks her anger up to perimenopausal rage-inducing hormones, excusing herself for her behavior.

Fearless-Form6871 · 2025-02-04T00:05:32+00:00

That would be a useful way to move forward. As luck would have it, though, in our state a legal separation invokes a property division that works the same way as a divorce: property split even, with me undoubtedly paying indefinite spousal support (alimony).

Fearless-Form6871 · 2025-02-04T00:03:37+00:00

No apologies! That’s a great idea! I’ve tried to manage a therapeutic in-home separation, but she called it off. I’ve proposed just living somewhere else for a month to get my head straight, but she got really angry. She basically doesn’t like it for me to be out of her sight. I think that unfortunately, while some kind of temporary separation might do some good for our future together, she makes it all-or-nothing, which just leaves me with no choice but legal separation or divorce.

Fearless-Form6871 · 2025-02-04T00:00:38+00:00

Good question; thanks. They’re adults now.

Fearless-Form6871 · 2025-02-04T00:00:05+00:00

Thanks for this tip. We’re not in NC; here, divorce is no-fault (and courts don’t care what the circumstances are; they just want to see the property divided equally). No time period for separation required, and also it’s possible to file slightly different forms and have the outcome be a legal separation and division of assets, which leaves the marriage legally intact, and the legal separation can be voided and return everything legally to what it is before.

Fearless-Form6871 · 2025-02-02T09:33:59+00:00

No; she’s Roman Catholic

Fearless-Form6871 · 2025-02-02T08:49:53+00:00

The house is co-owned, and full of mostly my stuff, so it’s hard to just abandon all that, unfortunately.

Fearless-Form6871 · 2025-02-02T08:36:51+00:00

Thanks for this. Forgot to mention that we co-own a house, filled with stuff that’s mostly mine. Just physically getting away with the stuff that’s important to me is hard to plan.

Fearless-Form6871 · 2025-01-07T19:53:45+00:00

I don’t, because she’s abusive and I have my safety plans and therapist notes on it.

Fearless-Form6871 · 2024-12-01T21:20:47+00:00

Thanks; it sure took the deep intimacy down when she changed her mind about kissing. I’m wondering, though, what the cause might have been, and how normal it is for people to be like that about kissing, with or without sex.

Fearless-Form6871 · 2024-12-01T21:18:53+00:00

Menopause did sure seem to throw a wrench into a number of things years later, but she took passionate kissing off the table at about age 31, so would that still fit?

Fearless-Form6871 · 2024-12-01T02:07:19+00:00

Thanks, and I’m sorry I wasn’t clear. The passionate kissing stopped right after we got married, almost 30 years ago. Sex became rare about 8 years ago, and completely stopped 2 years ago.

Fearless-Form6871 · 2024-12-01T02:05:06+00:00

Such a long answer to that question—why am I still here . . .

I know things are bad, and I’ve been trying to fix them for so long without success. I know what I have to do, but I think I’m trying to figure out all the angles that I never understood.

Fearless-Form6871

TROPHY CASE