Heat Priest's Killer

My battle with depression

Translated by Lin Yu

▲"Be careful, the pastor may kill you." The pressure that comes with pastoral care, if not properly controlled, can really make the pastor extremely depressed and even cost him his life.

Is the Pastoral Council going to kill you?

Next to every certificate of ordination, there should be a sign: "Beware, the pastor may kill you!" Unfortunately, this happens to many pastors. They fall into such deep depression that they end their lives.

This inner change is accumulated bit by bit. The enthusiasm for serving, helping the church run affairs, caring for and visiting... gradually became a heavy burden. They were tossing and turning due to extreme anxiety and unable to sleep. In the past, various challenges in the church could be handled easily, but now they have become so many mountains that I get heart palpitations just thinking about them. Preaching became a constant struggle, with panic attacks having to be calmed in the pastor's office before the service even began. In order to prevent the church members from seeing the panic that could not be hidden in the pastor's eyes, they had no choice but to avoid them. He turned out to be an unshakable pastor in everyone's minds.

Once word gets out that a pastor is afraid of making daily decisions, he is fired and replaced. This thought loomed like a dark cloud, deepening the panic. I am afraid that this inner enemy is getting stronger and stronger. The inner criticism of "loser" and "failure" ruthlessly mocks the pastor and undermines his self-confidence. The "fight or flight" function in the brain releases adrenaline, which increases blood pressure. The night is more cruel than the day, the bed is like a wooden dog torture, and nightmares trigger anxiety and panic. When morning finally comes, the tired body has to get up and face the reality of another day. The feeling of fear of "fear" accompanies every decision and every challenge we face.

Unable to deal with it, unable to see a way out, with no one to talk to, and God seems to turn a blind eye to this struggle. Death seems to be a tolerable ending, at least more attractive than the embarrassment, disgrace, and mental hospital after the truth is exposed.

This was my story, and I survived.

From the inside out

When a pastor is young, energetic, and full of vision, it is easy to gloss over or ignore the pressure that comes with serving. Even if we seem to ignore stress, it can gradually erode our health, damaging our bodies, neurotransmitters, self-confidence, and emotional well-being. Church life and pastoral service endanger our lives little by little.

Stress is like termites invading a house. They cannot be seen or heard, but they eat away at the entire house from the inside out. If it is not discovered and not dealt with, one day you will wake up and realize that the house is about to collapse.

Everyone has pressure, but it is magnified several times in the life of pastors because they not only have to shoulder the responsibilities of their own families, but also bear the burden of the entire flock. Congregants come to you with a variety of problems: family, marital, financial, emotional, physical, psychological, and spiritual. Their needs are so great and continuous. Pastors need to learn to manage and recognize stress and set boundaries to avoid burnout. For example:

‧ Delegate tasks instead of doing them all.
‧ Learn to say “no” to those members who take up a lot of your time and need extra grace.
‧ Say “no” to emergency demands.

Learning these strategies can help priests avoid being overrun by the termite hordes of stress, which can otherwise wear down the priest to the point of complete collapse.

▲Stress is like termites invading a house day and night. If it is not dealt with early, one day it will completely collapse your life.

hit rock bottom

Over the past thirty years, I have planted and pastored three churches, moved five times, and spanned five states. I went through two church splits and finally fought against the biggest "termites" - personally supervising the construction of my house. When I moved into my new home after completion, I hit rock bottom. At the age of fifty-two, I suffered a nervous breakdown.

By the grace of God, the day after the collapse, an old pastor friend called me. He asked me if I was okay, and I told him, "Things are not good." He pressed further, and I confessed that I had been suffering in silence for four years and it felt good to be able to speak out. He immediately pointed out that I was suffering from depression. He had the same experience and recognized the symptoms, but has now recovered.

He advised me to walk for an hour every day to burn off the adrenaline in my body and relax my body. At that time I was like a taut bow. He explained that a chemical problem in my body was affecting my brain. The stress accumulated over the years was not dealt with, causing the neurotransmitters to lose their chemical function. These words poured hope into my heart, and he assured me that this was not insanity. What I was experiencing was a physical problem that prevented my brain from functioning properly. He even gave me the psychiatrist’s phone number and urged me to make an appointment to see the doctor. I obeyed immediately, but had to wait until I got back from my walk.

Psychiatrists specialize in treating people with mental health disorders like mine, and they also prescribe medications to help patients regulate chemical imbalances in their bodies. My doctor diagnosed me with general anxiety disorder and prescribed medication to help me regain my cognitive and coping skills and calm my nerves, as well as medication to help me sleep. I also made adjustments to my diet, cutting out fried foods and desserts and eating more vegetables and salads. Coupled with daily walks, my physical and mental condition gradually recovered.

The old pastor friend who initially announced that I was suffering from depression continued to care for me and called me at least once a week to have in-depth discussions and provide spiritual guidance until I returned to normal.

Before this, I always thought that treating depression with medication was a sign of weakness. To me, depression seems to be a normal part of life, going hand in hand with the call to pastor. Just grit your teeth and trust God. I was afraid that using drugs would lead to addiction and that if the church found out, members would leave.

After personal experience, my perspective changed.

▲Race walking for one hour every day can properly consume adrenaline in the body and avoid the problem of chemical imbalance of neurotransmitters caused by accumulation of excessive stress.

unexpected side effects

After three weeks of treatment, the medication began to take effect, my mental state stabilized, and my joy returned. However, what surprised me was that this actually aroused my wife's anger. We both found it baffling at first. It wasn't until we asked a psychiatrist that we understood the cause of this anger. I never thought that while I was struggling with my illness, my wife was responsible for the secrecy, shame and great pressure of the entire incident. Like me, she had no one to talk to.

As a real estate agent, my wife has been unwilling to disclose that the transaction has fallen through in the past. I am afraid that once I find out, I will be worried about the financial situation of my family. Her income provides half of the family's needs. My fear of failure during depression heightened my fear of not being able to provide for my family's needs. She brokered the house under such pressure so that the family would not be wiped out in debt, and she did not want to see me deteriorating.

When the extreme anxiety becomes severe at night, I often wake her up to pray for me, which greatly affects her sleep. I am no longer the husband she is familiar with. The stability, strength, and reliability of the past no longer exist. Now my wife must become the rock of the family. She wanted to persuade me from the brink of collapse, and she wanted to maintain the stability of the entire family. Otherwise, we will both be destroyed.

As soon as my condition improved, her pent-up anger could no longer be contained. She no longer needs to hold up the scene, now it's her turn to have a mental breakdown and I'll take care of her. For a while I didn't understand why she said something like, "Great, I'm glad you feel better. So where are my happy pills?" She didn't understand herself why she hated my recovery so much. After getting an explanation, her resentment gradually subsided.

▲Experiencing the nightmare of depression, Pastor Jin Jie walked away from fear and moved towards love. His relationship with his wife and God could not be sweeter.

Out of fear, into love

It wasn't just medication, exercise, and diet that helped me recover, it was also having to face my fear of not wanting others to know. In the past, I lived under a mask, forcing a smile, showing confidence, and pretending that life was wonderful. But the pretense cannot last. After the medication took effect, I opened up to my children about my experiences over the past few years, explaining to them the reasons for my physical and mental breakdown and how the medication helped me recover. Next I told the congregation as well. They accepted me, thanked me for trusting me, and were willing to tell the truth. Everyone stood with me.

Once I faced the thing I feared most—congregation rejection—it became the most beautiful experience of God’s love and gave my enemies no leverage to accuse me of taking drugs.

Walking through darkness brought me to my knees and sought God, bringing me closer to Him. The Psalms of David and Mrs. Cowman's "The Fountain of the Desert" are good companions. I cannot survive without God. He gives me hope to sustain me, knowing that one day I will make it to the other side of the valley of the shadow of death and feast in the presence of my enemies. The demands and pressures in ministry are still great, but I have become better able to manage them. The nightmare is over and sleep is restored. A relationship with God could not be sweeter.

Author profile:

Dr. Jay Zinn currently lives in Texas, a college town in North Carolina, and is the pastor of Riverside Church. He is also a freelance art creator and novel writer. He is the corporate editor of the English section of this journal. Contact email: jay@jayzinn.com, personal website:www.jayzinn.com.

Translator profile
Lin Yu, writer.