Imagine: the sound of laughter in a room full of people where you are, yet you feel isolated and alone; feeling divided, separated, never being able to find that focal point of your consciousness with the sunlight gleaming overhead; that you're looking up out of a 6-foot hole in the ground at passersby who don't seem to notice you, and you can't cry for help nor climb out because you're too overwhelmed by trapped emotion; the image of a face half peeled away revealing an inflamed skull, burning in agony and despair.
The last example was a picture drawn by a depressed teenager, and it might have been what Penn State student Timothy Michael Kulp was feeling before Aug. 28, 2001, the day he hanged himself in a Centre County Prison cell.
According to Newsweek magazine, suicide is the third leading cause of death among those between 10 and 24 years old. It's estimated that 10.9 million adults in the U.S. struggle with depression.
No one expected Timothy Kulp to kill himself. For him, words couldn't convey such deep inner turmoil, searching for someone trustworthy enough to be sincerely concerned and not judgmental, because he didn't want to be seen as a mental case. So instead, like Kulp, many of us walk around with a mask convincing everyone that everything is fine, though we're yearning to connect with someone to assist us in finding a way out. Many of us go on this "bipolar" mood swing of ups and downs, others stay fixed to the unwanted end of the pendulum. Some causes of depression have been believed to be negative thinking, Pascal's theory of learned helplessness, Freud's theory of nature vs. nurture, deficiencies (vitamin and biochemical) and genetics. All of these theories have contributed to psychoanalysis preceding the latest: to find the link between neurochemistry and physiology. The "primitive" suggestion of demonic influence has been dismissed, but perhaps it bears some weight too.
Theism, from a scientific perspective, seems primitive. Instead, this has been the "advanced" era of atheism with the word God being omitted from our institutions. Atheism has laid itself atop the theistic foundation of our nation. I'll tell how: Recently, I approached a student in class to inquire about her textbook How Humans Evolved. I asked her if she believed it and she proudly answered: Yes, she wasn't a creationist. Then I asked her if humans evolved from amoebas, then why it is that we're no longer evolving. "But we are," she replied. I said, "I can't tell." But she answered assuredly, "It takes millions of years." Now I must admit I stood aghast at her faith in such an indefinite suggestion. It's my conclusion that indoctrination has been guised in liberalism. So I left the student with her "bible" telling her that evolution has become a doctrine.
Is it not possible for mysticism and science to be combined? The absolutism in some Christian doctrine tells us that God made humans and commanded them to have dominion over the earth. The earth and everything else were spoken into existence by God's word and according to God's will. It seems to me that an omniscient Being granting us dominion would obviously intend for us to question (in wonderment and not doubt) and to discover. As scientific theory progresses, it excludes the idea that mysticism could explain phenomena such as the circadian rhythms -- cyclic responses (like waking and sleeping) governed by a "chemical clock" located in the hypothalamus of the brain. Our nervous system, curiously called an "organic machine," creates and reacts to electrical impulses that are translated into chemical signals, then retranslated into electrical signals. Any "misstep" in this process can lead to a neurological event like depression. Understanding this physiological cause, medicine is able to treat the chemical misstep or imbalance with chemical inhibitors, stimulants and stabilizers. Some of those who haven't been diagnosed to receive treatment suffocate their feelings with drugs or douse them with alcohol. Others cope with some form of cognitive-behavior (talk) therapy.
But the mystery is that if we were just machines, then drug therapy would always work and wouldn't have such varying effects among individuals.
This is where I believe theism comes in. All these phenomena are evidence of something that cannot be felt, seen or recognized by science. Is it not possible that an omniscient Being has given us a will as well so that we have control over our thoughts? I believe that the answer to the link in science's latest theory lies within the idea of bipolarity: Our will fluctuates due to the disjointedness of the two brain hemispheres, or even as Freud suggests, "a conflict between different parts of the self arising in childhood." I believe these parts to be only two, the conscious self and the subconscious self: One is superficial, enjoying the pie of the moment, while the other finds no real pleasure in it. The cure lies in understanding one's grief, knowing one's worth, having hope in regaining control over the mind by merging the parts of self, thereby vanquishing emotional trauma.
From time to time, I've thought of Timothy Kulp and wished I could have been there to tell him there's a sun behind that cloud, the Day-star who is your joy, your hope.
