Ep. 182 - Anna Gazmarian ”Devout: A Memoir of Doubt” pt. 1

[00:00:00] At Parker, our purpose is simple. We want to make the world a better place. By working more efficiently. By using more sustainable practices. By developing better technologies. We keep moving forward. With each new idea, innovation, and partnership, we're one step closer to fulfilling our purpose every single day.

[00:00:22] To find out more, visit Parker.com slash purpose. Parker, engineering your success. Do you want someone who understands you like no one else? Someone who can make your wishes come true and wants to experience the most beautiful adventure of your life with you?

[00:00:40] The Shopify commerce platform revolutionizes millions of companies worldwide. With Shopify, you can create your own online shop without programming or design knowledge. Thanks to the efficient setup and intuitive social media and online marketplace integration, you can advertise and sell via Instagram, eBay, and Co.

[00:01:01] Reaching new target groups has never been so easy. Shopify offers all the tools to build your online business on a single, secure platform. Test for free and present your business to the world. Visit shopify.de slash try. Simply enter shopify.de slash try and get started.

[00:01:22] Made for Germany. Powered by Shopify. Even more debilitating than the actual depression was just the self-hatred that I had and just feeling like this was all my fault. And even like now, I will have my psychiatrist tell me sometimes,

[00:01:38] like Anna, this isn't your fault because I'll keep looking at my situations and being like, well, if I handled this differently, if I handled this differently, then this wouldn't happen. I wouldn't be here. And he's like, that's not how this works. Like, it's not how mental illness works.

[00:01:53] And I think it's this desire for control and answers. And I think it's really hard for Christians to know, and people in general, how to be there for people that are suffering in ways that they can't fix. Welcome to the Deconstructionist Podcast. I'm your host, Jon Williamson.

[00:02:20] And this week, we are back with part one with an all-new guest. But before we get to that, if you enjoy the work that we're doing, please consider rating, reviewing, subscribing, and sharing with a friend. We are a completely grassroots independent podcast,

[00:02:34] so doing all of those things helps us to be seen and heard. Secondly, it has come to our attention that our website has apparently been hacked. So we're working on getting that fixed and back up and running. In the meanwhile, we are still on all the socials

[00:02:47] and the podcast is still readily available on all major podcast platforms. In fact, we even have a brand new web store that offers fast shipping all over the world with tons of new designs and options. This week's guest is author and all-around awesome human being, Anna Gasmarian.

[00:03:02] Anna's new book, Devout, A Memoir of Doubt, is a deeply personal story about her evangelical upbringing and her struggle with mental health and how the two eventually collide. As longtime listeners know, we're huge advocates for mental health awareness and resources,

[00:03:16] so this was a natural fit for the show. Anna brings a ton of wisdom through her experiences that I hope people find helpful. Anna holds an MFA in creative writing from the Bennington Writing Seminars. Her essays have been published in The Rumpus, Longreads, The Sun, and The Guardian.

[00:03:32] We had a really great conversation. So without further ado, let's get to it. Here's part one of my conversation with Anna freaking Gasmarian. All right, Anna Gasmarian, thank you so much for spending some time with me today and coming on the show.

[00:03:58] Thank you so much for having me. Your podcast actually has been really helpful for me in my deconstruction era. So I really appreciate being here. Oh, gosh, thank you. That means a lot. So when I was super excited about Hell episodes, that was like what I did.

[00:04:18] Like, what do I think about Hell? This is what I need to figure out. So yeah, listen to all of this. Those are some of my personal favorites too. It's like it's like the most like extreme part of Christianity and like reflecting on what does it really mean?

[00:04:34] You know, it is always interesting. And I actually, ironically, just got another book by another scholar on the topic. So might be revisiting that one again soon. So yeah, absolutely. But we're here to talk about your new book, which is awesome, by the way.

[00:04:52] And it's always like I'm always impressed with authors who can go to a place that's very, very vulnerable. And a memoir is just that, you know, you're pulling from your own personal life and kind of laying it out there for the benefit

[00:05:04] of others. And I do think like, you know, conversations like this are super important and helpful, especially for folks who are listening who may have come out of a similar evangelical background where we were just taught like you just need to pray harder and it'll go away.

[00:05:20] You'll get your sadness will turn to joy, you know, and all this stuff. And instead of like seeking out like people with God-given gifts who can help you. And so I appreciate you writing this book.

[00:05:33] And I think to start off, let's tell folks a little bit like what was your background like? What was your upbringing like in regards to like church and faith? Yeah, so I was born and raised in the South and I went to multiple non-denominational churches.

[00:05:51] I was, I mean, my entire framework around life was the church and I had a lot of anxiety from a younger age and like craved certainty and structure.

[00:06:03] And so for me, religion back then and faith was very much like a rule book and I could check the boxes and that's kind of how I structured my life.

[00:06:15] But there was also just this overwhelming sense of doubt and everything that I was being taught didn't align with my experiences, which was really difficult for me.

[00:06:27] Like I was, you know, on mission trips and did all that whole thing and thought I was going to be a missionary. And I remember going to places and everyone would be like, oh, I see God in this. And I was just like, I just see the pain.

[00:06:39] And as an Enneagram 4 in an evangelical space where all I see is pain and death, it just didn't really work for me. And I guess my strategy was just to keep learning more and pouring myself in more. So I got really into the apologetics movement.

[00:06:57] And every doubt that I had, I tried to combat that with some sort of defense because there were many moments where I was like, oh, I don't know if I believe in God. And so then I had to go and read C.S. Lewis.

[00:07:11] So I feel like, yeah, that went well. But I feel like I, yeah. And there was this sense of belonging that I got from that.

[00:07:24] And I think something that I really wanted to capture in my book and in my writing is that, I mean, I think I'll focus on this more. But there is still this sense of nostalgia that I have and this like deep love that I have for those spaces.

[00:07:38] There was obviously a lot of harm done. But I can see that the way in which the harm was done, even though there was a power dynamic, even though there was indoctrination,

[00:07:49] there was also, in their perspective, they were doing the best that they could and they thought they were doing the most loving thing. And so I kind of want to capture the inner logic of the evangelical experience.

[00:08:01] And I think it's really reductionistic to just say, you know, these are evil, bad people when from their perspective, they're doing everything out of love. Yeah, that I think is probably the internal struggle for a lot of people coming out of that background.

[00:08:16] It's like, you know, I was talking to a good friend of mine the other day and I still have a ton of friends who are still, you know, deeply entrenched in sort of the evangelical world who are some of the most loving, like incredible people I've ever met.

[00:08:30] Where we might disagree on some theological concepts, but they're good people who are well-meaning. So, you know, I think it kind of goes back to that. You can't, it's hard to paint in broad strokes for that reason.

[00:08:45] You know, so like, you know, can we appreciate the things, the faith of our childhood and still acknowledge that, well, it doesn't work for us today. You know, we've evolved to a different point, you know.

[00:08:59] And it's really easy for me to look back at points and be like, okay, none of that. I didn't believe in anything. Like all of that was an illusion. Like it wasn't the real God that I believe in now.

[00:09:07] But I think in writing this book, I'm seeing that like there always was an aspect of faith in my life. Even if my view of God has evolved and changed and I don't really see, I don't believe at all the God that I believed when I was younger.

[00:09:21] I think our relationship is constantly changing and I'm trying really hard to have grace with myself for that, for those beliefs when I was younger. Yeah, absolutely. One of the points in your book that I kind of laughed a little, hopefully that's okay.

[00:09:38] You talk about this TV show you used to watch where Doubt was depicted as a villain with a cape and all this stuff.

[00:09:45] And I'm like, man, no wonder, like, you know, just the even asking a simple question, you know, or like raising any kind of doubt, like was demonized from an early age. So, of course.

[00:09:58] Yeah, and I think it's hard because I mean, my parents have read my work and they're all, I think they're surprised by some of it. But I just felt so much shame and guilt around the questions that I had.

[00:10:09] And I feel like I put religious authorities above my parents almost. And so whenever they told me something, I just assumed that's how things were. And I never went to my parents and been like, is this true?

[00:10:20] It was just like, they speak over my parents, they know what's right and wrong. And so I didn't really give them room at all to speak back or help challenge some of those beliefs. Yeah, absolutely.

[00:10:34] So talk a little bit about like, so, you know, well, before we talk about like bipolar disorder, talk a little bit about like, you know, as you're getting a little bit older, you know, growing into like your teenagers and stuff.

[00:10:50] Like, when did you first start to notice like, hey, there's some symptoms here that something's maybe just a little off? When were you first like diagnosed? Because you talk about like in childhood, you're initially diagnosed with ADHD, which I think when we were younger was pretty widely diagnosed.

[00:11:09] But talk about like when you first started to notice, hey, something's a little different here. Well, even when I was younger, like, when I was on ADHD medicine, I didn't know if it was my medicine or not.

[00:11:20] Like, I just remember going like every day in the bathroom and crying and not knowing why. And people were like, well, this is just because you're like hormones. And it just wasn't normal. I was like an emo kid, emo youth group kid. So that was hard for me.

[00:11:36] And I kind of put this facade on because I was like, I'm supposed to be joyful, I'm supposed to be happy. And so I was really good at disguising that and like developing a persona. But I was really hurting and I didn't know why.

[00:11:49] And I couldn't really voice that to anyone. When I was in college, so my mom had been sick throughout my life. And so that was always a trigger for me. And then I was in this really bad relationship.

[00:12:03] And like the way it was handled was really, really bad. And I lost a lot of people because of that. And so in the beginning, like I was really depressed. And I stopped going to classes and I was someone that was really into school.

[00:12:18] And I stopped going to classes and I just would sleep all day. I started having suicidal ideations. And I kind of was really confused because I just, I think, you know, being on missionships, all these things.

[00:12:32] I saw people with so much worse than my conditions that I couldn't accept that I was hurting as much as I was. Because I was like, but these people I met in Kenya were so joyful and they had nothing.

[00:12:45] So who am I to be this hurt and not understand why? So I think that was really hard for me. I think I did start having like manic episodes where I would just stay up all night and paint.

[00:13:00] And I think because of my controlled environment that I had grown up in, like I was able to kind of channel that energy and not do anything incredibly erratic.

[00:13:12] But yeah, it was like I just felt completely out of control of my mind and I didn't know where that fit within Christianity. Like I knew that I did go to a secular therapist on campus and he was just outraged and worried about me.

[00:13:29] And I just was like, this isn't integrating faith at all. So I just can't have this. Yeah, that's one of the interesting things that you talk about in the book is sort of like this sort of internal struggle between what you know from your youth.

[00:13:47] And you talk about even going to like a Christian therapist and like the reactions in the community around you when you first told like your youth pastor and your parents.

[00:13:58] And then, you know, sort of the secular doctor who, you know, finally figures out like what's going on and is trying to treat it.

[00:14:06] And so like that had to have been incredibly difficult, like to kind of bounce back and forth between the two and sort of that, you know, that struggle.

[00:14:17] Yeah, I think the hardest thing for me to grapple with was I was taught from a really young age that people that die by suicide go to hell and it's an unforgivable sin. And I was having all these ideations.

[00:14:33] And the thing I didn't realize until retrospect is that like certain SSRIs can increase suicidal ideation. And a lot of times they don't tell you that. And so I didn't know where it was coming from.

[00:14:44] And like I couldn't drive down the road without feeling like I was going to like go run off the road. And for me, it was like these obsessive thoughts and I didn't know where they were coming from. And I just assumed it was from Satan.

[00:14:56] And so I felt like I was under spiritual attack. And I had people telling me that I was under spiritual attack. And so I didn't know where medication and all these things fit into that.

[00:15:08] Because I thought, okay, if I just have more faith, these things are going to go away. And so I went to a Christian therapist and she just used the Bible and she didn't talk about mental illness. She just kept saying that I needed to do these things.

[00:15:21] And at that point, I had gone on an antidepressant because I couldn't keep up with school and I felt really guilty about it. I felt like I was cheating by doing that.

[00:15:32] But I was going to this therapist and I don't know, honestly, I had to be God that I was just like, I can't do this. And it was the first step of me really stepping out of that community. And no one told me to go to a psychiatrist.

[00:15:47] I didn't tell anybody that I was doing it. And I didn't really believe like when I went there and she was like, yeah, you have bipolar. I didn't immediately believe her. But everything she was saying to me made sense of my experiences.

[00:16:02] But then there was the dynamic of like how much faith do I put in medication and how much faith do I put into science? And how does this connect with my own faith?

[00:16:11] And I think in the book, I wanted to capture also like it's not one or the other. And there is danger for me in putting all my faith in science and thinking that that can save me.

[00:16:23] Just as it is to think that faith is like the only coping mechanism to deal with mental illness. At Parker, our purpose is simple. We want to make the world a better place by working more efficiently, by using more sustainable practices, by developing better technologies.

[00:16:41] We keep moving forward with each new idea, innovation and partnership. We're one step closer to fulfilling our purpose every single day. To find out more, visit Parker.com slash purpose. Parker, engineering your success.

[00:17:22] Thanks to the efficient set-up and intuitive social media and online marketplace integration, you can advertise and sell via Instagram, eBay and Co. Reaching new target groups has never been so easy. Shopify offers all the tools to build your online business on a single, secure platform.

[00:17:40] Test for free and present your business to the world. Visit shopify.de slash try. Simply enter shopify.de slash try and get started. for everything and it seemed like they just wanted you to get better, whatever that looked like.

[00:18:25] Yeah, I mean, they have been supportive and they wanted me just to get my treatment. And even when I came home and told them, like my dad's saying, let's get a second opinion.

[00:18:37] I know my dad well enough to know it's like him saying, I want to make sure that this is for sure. And I want to make sure that this is the best doctor out there. Let me do my research.

[00:18:47] And I think my parents, of course, were confused and scared. I mean, any I think the thing that's really scary about mental illness, at least for me, is that like it did alter a lot of my personality and the way I occupy the world.

[00:19:00] And like, I think as a parent now, like, I think that would come with a lot of grief of watching your kid kind of change before your eyes and not knowing, like, is this a permanent thing or is this just temporary?

[00:19:15] Yeah, that's a really interesting thing that you bring up is, you know, we've talked about this on the podcast before, this idea of sort of grieving what you thought was going to be or like who you thought your child was going to be.

[00:19:30] And then eventually coming to the acceptance of like, well, this is who they are, though. And that's OK. It's just different than what we thought it was going to be. Yeah.

[00:19:43] So tell people a little bit for folks who aren't as informed on like what bipolar disorder means, because I think my issue with the term, I think in general, in general society is that I think it gets thrown around too much.

[00:19:56] You know, you hear somebody's like, oh, that person's bipolar or whatever without really having a comprehension, like a clear comprehension of what that actually is. So can you tell people a little bit about like what that means, what it looks like?

[00:20:09] Yeah, I mean, I think it's different for everybody. I have type two bipolar, which means that I experience hypomania, which is like a milder form of mania, which often involves racing thoughts, excessive energy.

[00:20:26] I mean, for me, it looks very similar to my personality, but at a heightened level.

[00:20:31] But I think a lot of people expect because I remember before brain diners, I thought people with bipolar just were constantly having these huge mood swings and you never knew when it was going to happen.

[00:20:39] For me at this point in my life, like I haven't been manic in several years. It just involves long, long, long periods of depression. And they're just set off by random things. So, yeah, I think it looks different for everybody.

[00:20:57] And I think what's scary for me is whenever I have a manic episode, it's followed by the depression. So the manic episode for me is like this heightened sense of reality.

[00:21:09] And it's almost like I wish that's where I stayed as dangerous as it is because once you're in the depression, you just don't know when it's going to end. Yeah, yeah, I can relate to that from that perspective, just dealing with depression.

[00:21:24] And similar to you in the sense that I wasn't formally diagnosed until much later in life. I was in my 30s by the time I was formally diagnosed. But yeah, you're right.

[00:21:35] It's just this weight on you that you don't see coming and you don't know how long it's going to last. And it's just you cannot function. You can't get up. You can't do anything. You can't be productive. Nothing is enjoyable.

[00:21:49] For people who've never suffered true depression, it's really hard to describe what it's like. Yeah, yeah. So talk about some of the... I think there's some similar intersections here with... We've had some people on before to talk about grief and grieving. And it seems like...

[00:22:13] And again, not to paint in broad strokes because every church is slightly different. Every sort of different variation of Christianity is slightly different in the approach. But it seems like there's a lot of very unhelpful reactions from Christians.

[00:22:29] And you talk a lot about in the book, similar to the way we handle grief, it's super unhelpful platitudes. Like, well, you know... And you mentioned one of them too, which is one of my favorites. And it's nowhere in the Bible.

[00:22:41] God can't give you more than you can handle. Oh, really? Because I'm pretty sure if I was one of the parents of Sandy Hook, that's way more than I can handle. Yeah. So talk about sort of that reaction and ultimately,

[00:22:55] I feel like that's something that as a community, the Christian community at large, that we can do so much better. So like the toxic messages that I was given? Yeah. Is that what you're asking? Yeah, because you mentioned them a couple times.

[00:23:13] You got them from sort of your community, but then you talk about joining Campus Crusade for Christ. And even folks within that group were doing the same thing. They're like, well, I'll pray for you. And then like, ta-da! Don't you feel better? Yeah.

[00:23:29] Yeah, I think what was really dangerous was the idea that one day this suffering will go away and that no tear will be shed anymore and you'll be in heaven and everything's going to get better. Because for me, it was like, okay,

[00:23:43] but what's the point of me being alive now? And how is this supposed to make me be able to grapple with that pain any more than I already am? And how is that supposed to make me want to be alive?

[00:23:56] So that was a really dangerous message for me and I was getting that everywhere. And then the idea that everything happens for a reason, I mean, Kate Bowler covers that really well. But I kept looking for a silver lining

[00:24:10] and I kept looking for signs, like some sort of, I think I wrote something in my book about this where it's like I viewed faith as almost this jigsaw puzzle where I was constantly just looking for where does God want to take me?

[00:24:24] What path am I going to take? And I had a lot of friends that would respond and be like, oh, are you reading your Bible enough? Are you reading scripture enough? And the reality, I wasn't. Like, I couldn't dive into that because I was so afraid of that.

[00:24:40] Because I felt so guilty to be struggling with what I was struggling with. And I was reading to John Piper at that point and he has that book, Don't Waste Your Life. And that was the overarching thing, was like I was diagnosed in college.

[00:24:52] That's the time where you're supposed to be focused on building your life. You're supposed to be focused on the future and I couldn't do any of that. And so in my mind and in John Piper's mind, I felt like I was wasting my life

[00:25:04] and I couldn't get out of bed. I couldn't do any of these things. And so even more debilitating than the actual depression was just the self-hatred that I had and just feeling like this was all my fault. And even now, I will have my psychiatrist

[00:25:18] tell me sometimes, Anna, this isn't your fault because I'll keep looking at my situations and being like, well, if I handled this differently, if I handled this differently, then this wouldn't happen. I wouldn't be here. And he's like, that's not how this works.

[00:25:32] That's not how mental illness works. And I think it's this desire for control and answers. And I think it's really hard for Christians to know, and people in general, how to be there for people that are suffering in ways that they can't fix.

[00:25:46] And I felt like a lot of my friends I lost or I needed to take space because they were just exhausted and they didn't know how to be there. And I've been on the other side of that and it is really hard to navigate

[00:26:00] because everybody needs to be there and it's really hard to navigate because everybody needs something different. And I think especially when you're in it for the first time, you don't know what you need and a lot of it is trial and error

[00:26:11] and it's hard to have grace with people because you're hurting so much and that hurting even more kind of crushes you. And so I think I reached a place where I was like, I'm not putting God at the center of my mind because that was another thing.

[00:26:31] I was trying to be centered on God and all my thoughts were centered on being alive. And so I felt really selfish and I felt like I was doing the opposite of what I should be doing and I isolated myself a lot because I just felt like

[00:26:45] I'm not a good spiritual influence on these people and that they deserve better. When did the size of our buildings become the foundation we laid? And oh church, tell me what made us think that we could keep others away in the name of some so-called safety?

[00:27:28] Cause we sold our souls for a little bit of power and control and we left a hole and those were called to love. Oh church, what have we done? No church when will we ever see until we're all treated the same that nobody is actually free?

[00:28:27] Oh church, you started to pave the way to our irrelevancy cause we've driven the other away. Cause we sold our souls for a little bit of power and control and we left a hole and those were called to love. I guess they're not enough.

[00:29:25] Oh church, what have we done? But there is hope somewhere to go someone to feed someone to lead someone to close and who are we if not redeemed bringers of peace and justice sweet and holy love? Oh church, what have we done? No church, what have we done?

[00:30:07] May we sell our souls to be rid of all the power and control and may we lose ourselves for those were called to love. Oh church, let that be us.