A searchable, downloadable PDF of the original article appears below. Kit Schindell has worked as a nurse for many years in adult psychiatry facilities in B.C. and England. She and her husband and daughters attend Fairview Church in Vancouver. She is the Book Review editor of Channels.
A Season of Suffering. John H. Timmerman. Multnomah Press, 1987, 221 pp.
Oh, no! Not another review that says “This book belongs in every church library.” Well, sort of. This book needs to be taken out of every library, and taken home and read — and returned for the next borrower.
No congregation has been spared the anguish and uncertainty that occurs when a member develops a mental illness. I would dare to suggest that no family in any church has not been affected, in one way or another by some type of emotional upheaval. And yet, while we blandly discuss details of our operations and teach our children about AIDS (remember the teaching you received a generation ago?) there still seems to be a resistance, a murky fear about discussing psychiatric difficulties. (“Let’s pray for Ron, who’s just had a heart attack, and is in ICU, and Alison, who’s had her breast removed, and Carol who has slashed her … er… ah… Carol, um, this dear sister who . . . well, she really needs our prayers, too.”)
The Timmermans could be the people who sit in the pew in front of you, the family every congregation would enjoy. Husband, a professor and writer and member of the church softball team; wife, a former nurse, Sunday School teacher, Bible study leader, friend, listener, and mom to four kids who help fill the Sunday School and nursery. (A late-in-life baby came as a joyful surprise to them.) These are people who love the Lord and his church, people whose home is filled with love — and laundry. This is an ordinary family — like mine, or yours. And a couple of months or so following her baby’s arrival, Pat Timmerman was admitted to a psychiatric unit with a diagnosis of post partum depression. Her “two weeks probably” hospital stay drifts into three, five, then seven weeks. She received group therapy, antidepressant medication, “shock treatment.” Eventually she recovered and returned to her family.
The book is sub-titled “One Family’s Journey through Depression.” Depression (as with any severe illness) affects not only the individual but also one’s family and associates. John Timmerman attempts to carry on at home, new baby and all, and clearly outlines the fatigue and fear and frustration; a day to day attempt at walking against the wind. The baby won’t sleep, the housekeeping is close to the edge, the other children need support and reassurance. There are too many pizza dinners, too many dirty dishes, too much grim, foggy existing, living lives that “would never be the same.” Excerpts from Pat’s journal kept while in hospital open to us her experience, her progress, her setbacks, her loneliness and sorrow, her great love for her family.
This is not a maudlin or sensationalistic story. You’ll frequently find yourself nodding and smiling as you read. In between anecdotes and reminiscences of their journey through the fire (actually Timmerman uses the theme of water, not flame; chapters are titled “Adrift at Sea”, “The Grip of the Undertow”, “Steps Toward the Shore”, etc.) Dr. Timmerman offers valuable and accurate information concerning depression and its causes, treatment, and prognosis. He discusses what a congregation can do to help, what an individual can offer. If you are hesitant about visiting someone in a “psych” ward, Timmerman gives sane, gentle and helpful advice.
This is a story with a happy ending. Pat Timmerman did get better though her recovery was not without difficulty. But her story is a message of hope.
Do be encouraged to read this book. Timmerman’s excellent writing is an unexpected pleasure (like a surprise gift). Walter Wangerin Jr.’s introduction says more in two pages than others say in twenty. Deena Davis’ editing has helped produce a clean, flowing narrative, and Bruce deRoos has produced a powerful and appropriately disturbing cover design.
“The story does go on. There may be uneven sketches. But as Scripture authoritatively promises us, the Christian story can have only one ending: the huge joy that lies beyond human conception in the eternal story which has no room, no pages at all, for sorrow and suffering. ‘He will wipe every tear from their eyes . .. ’ ” (Revelation 21:4).
It would be a great step toward a better understanding of mental illness if you bought and read this excellent book — and a great gift to your congregation if you then donate it to your church library.