A letter to the Pope

Depression is a confusing and debilitating affliction. What is written bellow is un edited letter I wrote to the Pope. I wrote this letter after six days spent in bed, un washed, I had barely eaten or moved, other than to braid my hair into 60 braids and then take it out again……

I had turned my phone off and had barely spoken to anyone.

I had not taken my medication.

It may seem to those who have no concept or understanding of this disease like the self indulgent ramblings of a spoiled middle class brat who does know how lucky she is.

But this is my life, it has been my constant companion for as long as I can remember. It has lost me jobs, loved ones, it has cost me money and my health. it is my Mr Hyde – it is the voice of my other self. And if nothing else it is the most honest thing about depression I think I could ever post.

I do not ask for answers to any of the questions that it poses in my letter to the Pope – I simply offer you a window into the thoughts of someone who has momentarily lost control of their reason and their ability to find hope.

Make of it what you will.

‘Dear friend

I hope that if this does not make it to the Pope that I find in you a sympathetic ear.

I hope this letter finds you in good health.

I am not really sure where to begin and I fear that my note to you may come across as rambling and self-indulgent and for that I apologies.

I have been struggling for much of my life with the concept of purpose. It is something that has alluded me, it plays tricks on me. Sometimes it appears as though it has revealed itself and then it slips though my hands like sand, it is a thought that rests on the tip of my tongue only to escape my mouth in a language I don’t understand.

I have studied religion, I have a degree in philosophy of religion and ethics. I have studied Islam, Christianity and Judaism. I have read about Buddhism and Hinduism and know peoples from each of these faiths. I have visited temples and churches across the world. I have studied science, physiology, philosophy, art, poetry and history. And in all of these things I have sought to find kindness and passion and compassion, peace and purpose. Something beyond hedonistic pursuit of instant gratification. Something more than scholarly soothing, or the illusion of fulfilment through intellectual superiority. I recognise that the purist of wealth and possessions does not make you happy – I am never any happier when I have then when I have not (aside from the basics of shelter and food and healthcare being met for which I am grateful). I have tried living “clean” controlling what I put in my body. I don’t drink, I’ve tried not eating meat. I have tried taking drugs, self-medicating, therapy meditation, exercise, yoga, chanting, fasting. I have tried loving myself first, loving others first, sex, no sex.

But in each pursuit I find corruption, illusion, narcissism, greed, conceit and control.

And I fear my heart is breaking.

Science to a degree offers explanations and theory for so many different elements of life, which can be fascinating and beautiful in its own way. But it reduces love and empathy to a biologically determine necessities for human survival, which contradicts the notion of what I believe love to be – selfish love of necessity by loves very definition cannot be love, but must in fact be something other. Science does not offer us kindness – it give us reason and the ability to create, but it is not kind. It may offer “truth” in a certain sense, but for what purpose I am not sure. It is also used (like with all other things) as a tool for great destruction. Science brought us vaccinations and antiseptics, it helped us grow food and educate people. But it also brought us chemical warfare, eugenics, nuclear weapons, it created plastics which are killing our planet. But science is not a moral agent, it does not make choice it simply exists as our tool.

So then what about religion. Religion has offered people purpose, a “higher power” a reason to live one’s life in a certain way. But find me a religion that treats women equally to men – that is easy to interpret, that has not been distorted and manipulated past the point of reasonable purpose. Find me a religion off the back of which people have not; enslaved, tortured and killed. Find me a religion that does not condemn others to torment, oppression and humiliation either in this life or the next and I will dedicate my life to that cause.

I like the idea of Jesus – and there can be no doubting his existence (even if one chooses not to believe he was the son of God) but it hurts my soul to see the way the life and purpose of this man has been distorted and manipulated in such a manner.

Whatever one might believe about the divinity of Jesus – he was in my mind a man of great passion, kindness and humility. I studied “historical Jesus” which sought to understand Jesus within the historical context of 1st century Palestine. This highlighted the true significance of so many of his acts and what it truly meant for him to have washed someone’s feet and to have healed a man on the Sabbath. Jesus hung out with criminals and prostitutes and those with leprosy. If Jesus were alive today do you not think he would be kind to those with aids, and people who are gay or transgender? I do not think Jesus was a man who hated people and to see “Christians” hold up signs saying “God hates Fags” is a revolting insult to the memory of this revolutionary man.

What I do not understand is how there is such a capacity for greed and hate, and I am not just speaking on the larger more obvious scales, like torture and rape and murder. The level of every day unkindness and cruelty that exists everywhere is staggering and suffocating and it breaks my heart every single day.

The lack of want of people to recognise their privilege or try to understand the lives of others is exhausting. It makes me question what any of us are fighting for.

I am sure you have heard of the famous Milgram experiment; in which an American scientist wanted to establish after the second world war if there was something distinct about the German population that could have driven them to participate or be complicit in the extermination of so many. Unfortunately what Milligram discovered was that it is innate in most of us to follow orders to the point of the absolute extreme. I guess it is probably in all of us to be cruel and thoughtless, and I do not excluded myself from this. I am no better than anyone else.

But what pains me most in all of this; is the idea that the very people that I wish to defend and protect are the same people that if put in the position of privilege might be the ones who become the oppressors. Which makes me wonder who exactly anyone is fighting to protect? Do we only notice oppression when we are its victims? And why do we fight so hard to protect the illusion that we are good people. The race issue in America is a fantastic example of this.

You may be wondering at this point what the purpose of this note is. I have come to the conclusion that I can get no further with my search for purpose or compassion or love. I feel suffocated by empathy, I feel the pain of others like it were my own, I feel it like I were breathing it in. but I also feel their malice and their cruelty.

I am Alice and I have stepped through the looking glass, and now I am past the point of pretending like I don’t care. I can’t go back, I can’t focus my life on getting a house, and “living for the weekend” of working 9.00 – 17.00 and doing yoga on the weekend and drinking juice to somehow pretend that I am spiritual (a spirituality that is in fact in a lot of respects a cultural appropriation anyway).

I am Socrates dissatisfied praying I could be the pig.

So I have decide to look to others – to seek out the advice and opinions of those who are far greater than I.

I value you opinion and I ask of it now.

We are strangers but we are both people.

So I ask you- how did you find purpose in your life. How did you find God.

How do you love others without it hurting, and how do you stop your heart from breaking and the suffering and the madness of it all.

YoursForever searching.’