The Fear Spiral
Have you ever been so afraid of something that you feared for your life? The closest I’ve ever come to this kind of life-threatening situation is a roller coaster…Not really a true emergency. For most of us, our worst fears are internal and harder to quantify, but that does not invalidate the very real effects fear has on our lives. Today we are going to see how fear plays a role in instigating depression. While fear is not the singular root cause of depression, we can trace its contribution toward depression in Elijah’s case. If this particular root of depression does not resonate with your experience, there will probably be other causes that will more closely parallel your own story from our study of other Biblical characters. However, please take note of these symptoms anyway even if they are not currently applicable. I have found that even if I don’t struggle with every one of these causes every time that I am depressed, I might be better prepared to spot a recurrence of depression the next time by noticing these symptoms as they progress.
Elijah’s life of obedience has shown us that depression is not due to a lack of faith. In fact, Elijah’s situation immediately before his depression required immense faith. In 1 Kings 18:20-40, Elijah met with Ahab, the people of Israel, and the prophets of Baal at Mount Carmel for a showdown of the gods so that Israel would no longer vacillate in who they chose to worship. The god who answered his prophet(s) with fire to consume their offering would reveal himself to be the true God. Ba’al was typically worshipped as the storm god who controlled the rain and maintained the fertility of the crops. Yet Israel was currently in a drought—without rain for 3 years—that had led to a severe famine in Samaria (v.2b). Already the situation in Israel called into question Ba’al’s true power over rain and fertility if a prophet of Yahweh could command such a drought and famine. The showdown at Mount Carmel would be the ultimate test to prove or disprove Ba’al’s impotence once and for all.
If you think about wood that has been without rain for 3 years, it’s bone dry; it doesn’t take much for it to burst into flame. Yet even this little bit of fire was too much for Ba’al to accomplish during an entire day that his prophets spent praying. Meanwhile, Elijah has the wood on Yahweh’s altar drenched three times until a trench of water surrounded it. After Ba’al’s prophets have been dancing, shouting, and flagellating themselves to no avail, Elijah merely prays to the LORD, and God immediately responds with a fire that consumes the offering…as well as the stones of the altar…and the trench of water surrounding it. God’s response reminds me of what the New Testament teaches that God is able to do: “above and beyond all that we ask or think” (Ephesians 3:20).
Again, Elijah experiences the awesome power of the LORD. A miracle happens at his word. And this time, it seems that Israel has been drawn back to the LORD, proclaiming Him as the true God and seizing the prophets of Ba’al to be slaughtered. You’d think that a display of such awesome power would confirm to Elijah the effectiveness of his ministry and the surety of God’s intervention to bring an idolatrous Israel back to Himself. But this is where our story takes an unexpected turn.
“And Elijah said to Ahab, ‘Go, eat and drink, for there is the sound of a heavy rain.’ So Ahab went off to eat and drink, but Elijah climbed to the top of Carmel, bent down to the ground and put his face between his knees.
’Go and look toward the sea,’ he told his servant. And he went up and looked.
’There is nothing there,’ he said.
Seven times Elijah said, ‘Go back.’
The seventh time the servant reported, ‘A cloud as small as a man’s hand is rising from the sea.’
So Elijah said, ‘Go and tell Ahab, “Hitch up your chariot and go down before the rain stops you.”‘
Meanwhile, the sky grew black with clouds, the wind rose, a heavy rain started falling and Ahab rode off to Jezreel. The power of the Lord came on Elijah and, tucking his cloak into his belt, he ran ahead of Ahab all the way to Jezreel.
Now Ahab told Jezebel everything Elijah had done and how he had killed all the prophets with the sword. So Jezebel sent a messenger to Elijah to say, ‘May the gods deal with me, be it ever so severely, if by this time tomorrow I do not make your life like that of one of them.’
Elijah was afraid and ran for his life. When he came to Beersheba in Judah, he left his servant there, while he himself went a day’s journey into the wilderness. He came to a broom bush, sat down under it and prayed that he might die. ‘I have had enough, Lord,’ he said. ‘Take my life; I am no better than my ancestors.’ Then he lay down under the bush and fell asleep.
All at once an angel touched him and said, ‘Get up and eat.’ He looked around, and there by his head was some bread baked over hot coals, and a jar of water. He ate and drank and then lay down again.
The angel of the Lord came back a second time and touched him and said, ‘Get up and eat, for the journey is too much for you.’ So he got up and ate and drank. Strengthened by that food, he traveled forty days and forty nights until he reached Horeb, the mountain of God.”
While the miracle at Mount Carmel ended the drought and famine in Israel, Elijah incurred the wrath of Ahab’s wife, Jezebel, for the death of her prophets. As we have seen previously (cf. 1 Kings 16:31-33), Jezebel was the impetus for Ahab’s idolatry. She was the puppet master behind the scenes. Although Elijah was fearless in calling out King Ahab, a threat from Jezebel terrified Elijah so much that he ran for his life.
While we might expect Elijah to see the miracle at Mount Carmel as a victory, the intervening circumstances pulled Elijah’s focus away from what God had done to what he feared. And that fear overwhelmed him into avoidance. He fled. Along the way, he chose to leave his servant and continue into the wilderness alone. He chooses isolation. I can imagine his servant protesting this. “No, my job is to protect you, sir. I can’t help you if I am not with you. How will I know if you live or die?”[1] Elijah is insistent though; he will continue alone. Perhaps at this point, Elijah already doubts he will return; his life is essentially over. Why would he need a servant any longer? Once he had gone a day’s journey away, he sat down under a broom tree and prayed that he might die. In his eyes, he has failed in his mission to draw Israel back to the LORD; he has not lived up to the expectations he had for himself. So, he lays down and goes to sleep (19:5a).
Later we will dive into the irrational beliefs behind Elijah’s statements in v.4, but for now, we can see how Elijah allows that initial chain of events to ignite an internal chain reaction in himself:
Now that I have had a few years to observe my own cycles of depression, I can see this same internal chain reaction in myself. Let me give you an example that happened to me just the other day.
Stage One: A kernel of fear. Mine is usually something along the lines of “I can’t do this,” “I’m not good enough,” or “You are going to let everyone down.” In this particular instance, I was getting overstimulated at work until it felt like everything was coming at me all at once. My brain said, “You are not safe here. You can’t do this right now.”
Stage Two: Avoidance of the trigger. That kernel of fear pushes me to avoid the situations that trigger those thoughts. I left work, but that was not enough to calm the fear, so I went to my second-tier strategy: Distract myself. This time it was with re-runs of a TV show I’ve seen a thousand times and a cross-stitch project.
Stage Three: The peak of avoidance in isolation. Avoiding triggering situations leads to isolating behaviors. I can’t let anyone down if I don’t let them in. I don’t have to handle anyone else’s emotions if I’m alone. So, I avoided my normal phone chat with my mom, went to sleep early so I didn’t have to talk to my husband much, and ignored texts from my friends.
Stage Four: Despair of Change. Having backed myself into a corner and blocked entry to anyone who might help me, despair sets in. I realize there is no escape. My therapist uses the example of a dog chained to a specific point in the ground. Day after day, if you take one chain link out of their chain, the dog will acclimate to its new limitations. Once you have trained the dog, you can restore the length of the chain, but the dog will still act like he is limited to the area that smaller chain allowed. Once I’ve avoided myself into a corner, it feels like nothing can change, and I will keep hitting this wall over and over again. So eventually, I stop trying.
Stage Five: Full-blown depressive episode. By this point, depression has taken over the spiral and will feed on itself unless I manage to stop the cycle. As we saw in our group session this week, one way we can do that is to arise and take care of our physical needs.
Sometimes, avoidance of triggers is necessary, especially when you are healing from trauma or setting up boundaries with toxic people in your life. However, what I am referring to here is the kind of avoidance based on an irrational thought like “I’m not good enough.” This use of avoidance can spiral into the isolation and despair that we see in Elijah’s story.
As you become more adept at recognizing this spiral in your life, it gets a lot easier to halt its progress. The example I gave did spiral into depression, but there have been other days that I have caught myself before depression hit. Sometimes, it is at the first kernel of fear, that irrational thought, and I can compare that thought with reality and realize it’s not true. Sometimes I don’t catch the spiral until I start avoiding and isolating, so I will intentionally try to reach out to my family or friends even if I don’t talk about my own struggles. The simple act of connection helps to remind me that I am not alone. Sometimes I’m all the way into despair, and I have to climb through the other layers to get out on the other side where life is not so bleak. All this to say, this cycle is not inevitable. If you find yourself on its descent after you are in a place of health and security, there are still opportunities to truncate the spiral.
Today we have traced Elijah’s frame of mind through his mountaintop experiences of God’s miracles to being overwhelmed by fear until he spiraled into depression. As we return to God’s command to Elijah to “get up and eat” (19:5, 7), why was this God’s prescription to stop Elijah’s spiral of fear and depression? Next time, we will address the first part of God’s command: Arise.
[1] C.F. Keil and F. Delitzch, Commentary on the Old Testament, trans. James Martin, 10 vols. (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 1986), 3:253-4.
