Symptoms of Melancholy: Hyper-Fear
Descriptions of those who struggle with depression, anxiety, and spiritual warfare
They are often fearful without cause, or without sufficient cause.
Everything they hear or see is apt to increase their fears, especially if fear itself was the precipitant, as it often is.
- Richard Baxter
They call it the “memory palace”. It is a method for how to better memorize relevant information for the sake of accurate recall. The idea is to literally imagine a palace with very particular (and oftentimes caricatured) details where you can “hide” or “put” memories, facts, or truths in a picturesque way in order to have a mental-visual reminder of what you want to remember.
In his fantastic and funny book Moonwalking With Einstein, Joshua Foer talks about his experience with men and women who compete in memory competitions. He describes the wild and even absurd details competitors would use in their “memory palace” in order to remember a long set of numbers.
This idea of the memory palace is fascinating for numerous reasons and a theme that we can carry forth as we describe this first symptom of melancholy.1 The idea that the mind can be pictured as a palace can help implement this imagery of the mind almost being a world in itself.2 And in this imaginary world of the mind there are tame animals and wild beasts, friends and foes, sunshine and darkness, places to stay and places to stay away from. The mind is often like an ocean: There are parts of it that are beautiful, peaceful, and a delight to play in but there are also parts that are dark, murky, and prime for intense storms.
It is when we are struggling with melancholy that we can find ourselves leaving the comforts of our “palace” and entering into the darkness of “What If?” Land.
As I tell people all the time, nothing good ever happens in the dark forests of “What If?” Land. Yet, time and time again we leave the palace of the gospel and enter into the place where very little light reaches the ground and where haunting shadows and noises move all around.
This is where we can see our first symptom of melancholy develop.
But first, a word on metaphysics…
The Reality of Metaphysics
When we remember that we are made up of body and soul we must remember that “metaphysics” matters. What is “metaphysics”? Metaphysics is the study of those things that cannot be reached through mere objective research of physical-material studies. Metaphysics brings in the reality that there is more to creation than merely the physical-material. There is also the spiritual.
Why does this matter? It matters because God made angels. And not all the angels stayed in the state in which they were created. We know that Satan and a whole host of angels fell from heaven (Rev. 12:9). Not all the angels fell but a significant number of them did. What that means is that there is the “demonic realm” (Eph. 6). Demons are fallen angels and they attack God’s people. That is what spiritual warfare is.
The Reality of Spiritual Warfare
Spiritual warfare is not what you see in horror movies or what prosperity gospel teachers say. Matter of fact, it is far more normal, explainable, and every day (1 Pet. 5:8-10). Spiritual warfare is far more about putting on the Armor of God (Eph. 6) and standing firm in the gospel of grace by the power of the Holy Spirit. Satan and his army wants to attack our faith and disturb our experience of salvation.3
To be sure, spiritual warfare is not the only thing happening whenever we experience melancholy. We believe that there is a three-fold evil attack against God’s people at all times—The World, the Flesh, and the Devil (Eph. 2:2-3). It is most healthy to remember that all three of these parties are attacking all the time. Sometimes one of these might seem more evident but as long as we are on this side of heaven then we can believe that all three of these enemies will be attacking us simultaneously in different ways.
Because we are made up of body and soul, we believe that what happens in the body tends to affect the soul and what happens in the soul tends to affect the body (2 Cor. 12:7-10). Sometimes the body or the soul can be seen to be the more clear origin of melancholy while other times it is almost like the “chicken or the egg” conversation—you’re not sure which one started things.
This is very important for this discussion on melancholy. Since the Enlightenment, our Western world has tried to do all it can to do away with metaphysics. We have brought that into the realm of psychology. In our modern age, every mental issue is merely that—a mental issue.4 It rarely (if ever) takes into account the spiritual realm and the sinful flesh. This has been a real tragedy in the Church today.5 What has often happened is that we excuse sin, adopt a victim-only mindset, or put the blame on the chemicals in our brain (although new studies show that depression might not be because of chemical imbalances).6
To be sure, we must always encourage people to go and see trusted doctors when and if they are able. At the same time, we never tell them to do either/or but rather both/and with solid biblical counseling. Medicine alone cannot solve the problem anymore than merely going to church can solve the problem.7 At the same time, Martin Luther used to tell people that they cannot expect to find true healing from their struggles with melancholy if they were forsaking corporate worship.
It is true, there have been seasons in the life of Christ’s Church where the blame was put too much on the Devil. But, I think we are seeing the opposite of the pendulum swing in our day.8
If we are to see perseverance and progress in our fight against melancholy then we must remember the reality of spiritual warfare. That is why I will seek to speak about all three enemies when dealing with the symptoms.
Back To “What If?” Land
To repeat our first symptom that Richard Baxter gives for melancholy, it is: They are often fearful without cause, or without sufficient cause. Everything they hear or see is apt to increase their fears, especially if fear itself was the precipitant, as it often is.
Too often we loiter in “What If?” Land. We go there (although we forget what brought us there—maybe a song that reminded us of something, maybe because of something we saw on TV, or maybe something we read on social media) and when we arrive in “What If?” Land we tend to aimlessly linger. And that is when the fears set in.
We can get in mindsets where we fear the hypotheticals rather than the actual. How often have we done this at night whenever we’ve finally turned over our phones and it becomes just us and our thoughts until we finally fall asleep. We begin to think about family members or friends dying. We begin to remember the shame we felt whenever we failed at something. We begin to fear what the news will say the next day. We begin to tremble with anxiety because of our past sins revisiting us in the future.
Whenever we’re struggling with melancholy we often see a significant rise in fear. This is often due to having too many “what if?” type of thoughts. The terrifying part about “What If?” Land is not only that we know we’re not God but also that we forget our God altogether. Oh, we might think about a “God” but often times in “What If?” Land our minds don’t picture the God of the Bible but rather a God of our own making. We tend to neglect His good and wise sovereignty and providence. We tend to forget His unending grace and unceasing love. We tend to despise His holiness and beauty. Rather, He turns more into a monster and we begin to wonder if He is out to get us.
The difficulty of this is that these thoughts feel so real. Our thoughts are the loudest speakers in the world. They also seem to never run out of batteries. They are always there whether we like them or not. This is why we absolutely must learn to not passively listen to our thoughts but rather speak the truth back.
When we fail to bring the gospel into the picture these fears can grow into giant-sized mental monsters. And these fears seem to be the only thing that enter into our mind’s ears. We then begin to turn small things into massive things, weaknesses into grave danger, a simple decision into a heinous crime.
In this mindset, behind every bush is a bear and every mole hill becomes a mountain. We quake with fear whenever we receive a text from someone asking if they can talk with us. We shiver internally whenever we see something or someone that reminds us of our past sin. We cringe in our conscience whenever we experience a “trigger”.
Even the good things in life can seem threatening. We develop the mindset that we shouldn’t get too comfortable because surely something tragic is about to happen.
All of this escalates whenever we live with a sinful fear of the Lord.9 We don’t even want to think about praying because the God we imagine is the God who is ready to strike us down in His fierce anger. We steer clear of the Bible because there is bound to be a verse in there that will pummel us with condemnation. We avoid other Christians because as soon as we ask for their help we think they will respond with: “What sin did you commit in order to be so fearful?”
The hard part is that as long as we continue to avoid the means of grace amidst Christian community the longer we go without finding healing for bruised souls. These sinful fears never tell the true story about who we’ll find in prayer, what we’ll read in Scripture, and the type of advice and counsel we will receive from mature Christian friends and faithful pastors.
All the while, the world continues to endorse the message of fear, our sinful flesh believes lies about God, and Satan tries to make God look more like a demon than like what He really is in Jesus Christ.
How Do We Fight?
There are many strategies for fighting that I will write about in the coming weeks. But, there is one that can be immediately implemented as you grow in your understanding of spiritual warfare and melancholy.
In her insightful book, A Still and Quiet Mind, Esther Smith gives four ways we can battle unwanted thoughts. For every troubling thought, ask yourself:
Is this thought true?
Smith says, “God directs us to think thoughts that are true (see Phil. 4:8). We can assess if a thought is true by seeing whether it aligns with Scripture (see John 17:17) and by asking people we trust if we are seeing things clearly (see Prov. 12:15).”Is this thought helpful?
Smith says, “It’s not enough to think thoughts that are true. We have to apply wisdom and sensibility to our true thoughts by thinking them at the proper time in the proper context and with the proper motive.”Is this thought appropriate to my situation?
Smith says, “When a difficult thought arises, we should also remember that our ultimate goal is not necessarily to make our thoughts more positive. It can be appropriate and biblical to think sad, negative, unpleasant, angry, or fearful thoughts…Our thoughts should appropriately reflect our circumstances.”Is this thought complete?
This is the most important question in my opinion. Smith says, “One reason we need this question is because we sometimes begin to think that half the truth represents the whole truth. In reality, ‘a half truth masquerading as the whole truth becomes a complete untruth.’”
Dear weary soul, I know it’s hard. I myself have often struggled with this. Though our exact experience is very different we stand in this same fight with countless others. Part of the good news is that if you are able to see that these fears have no basis then you have all the authority in the world to do away with those thoughts. If these thoughts do not lead you to Jesus then have nothing to do with them. Yes, that is most difficult but you can be sure that God endorses you in your fight against those thoughts.
Michael Lundy says, “Melancholy (elsewhere referred to as melancholia), as [Baxter] uses it, includes depression, bipolar disorder, anxiety disorders, and psychotic disorders” (Michael S. Lundy & J.I. Packer, Depression, Anxiety, and the Christian Life: Practical Wisdom from Richard Baxter, p. 73, footnote 2).
This is merely imagery rather than scientific. I am mainly doing this for the sake of giving an memorable picture of what it’s like to struggle with melancholy.
It is very important to note that Satan cannot take away our salvation but he does try to hinder our experience of salvation.
For more on this topic, see David Powlison’s most important work Seeing With New Eyes.
For more on this see David Powlison’s great and short treatment on spiritual warfare Safe and Sound: Standing Firm In Spiritual Battles.
See Michael Emlet’s work Descriptions and Prescriptions.
For more on this significant topic, see Craig Carter’s phenomenal work Interpreting Scripture with the Great Tradition.
See Michael Reeves’ excellent work on this topic: Rejoice & Tremble.