The New Year Blues

Every year around this time I go into a minor stage of depression. I think it’s the high holiday liturgy that gets to me—I just feel like I’ve been such a bad person all year, and I get disgusted with myself. Usually I’m able to dig myself out of my morbid anger, but when I was a teenager I was a lot less capable of seeing over the huge grotesque obstacle in my way (my own poor behavior) and for a few years I was clinically depressed.  During the years when I was depressed, I remember that when we got to the vidui part of the service where we knock on our chests and list the things we’ve done wrong all I could think was how I had actually done all of those things. I hadn’t, of course, but somehow hating myself was very important to me. It’s been a long time since then, but when I think about how much depression effected me it’s really terrifying. I’m thankfully unable to access that kind of self-loathing anymore (though if you want to read more about it, check out this post from one of my favorite blogs. The post is called, “I’m the Guy Who Sucks Plus I Got Depression” which is a reference to an Acheworld comic) but instead I worry about other people who struggle with depression, and as Y-Love reminded me over at Jewschool, being religious or part of a religious community doesn’t save you from the jaws of depression. I did some digging online, and unfortunately there aren’t a ton of great Jewish resources out there. YU has some lectures posted online about depression, and I listened to one, but it opened with a note on how more religious people don’t get depressed as much because they have such strong faith in God. Maybe on a statistical level that’s true, but I know plenty of depressed frum people. Also the rabbi referred to depressed teenagers as, “everything bagels” (seriously). Ohr Samayach has a kind of dvar Torah posted online about depression, but it’s also pretty simplistic. MyJewishLearning, RitualWell, and Beliefnet are all silent on this one, probably assuming you’ll just go to a secular source for help. There are some great blogs about Jewish life and depression, though, so I direct you to Haazina Tfilati, which is a Jewish woman's struggles and successes dealing with life, God, and depression. I think her saddest and most important post is this one. There’s also Everlasting Passing Days, which is insightful as well. So please, during this time of renewal and reflection, look out for other people in your community who might be feeling less than cleansed, and who might be reaching out for help. You can find a detailed list of depression’s symptoms here.