On Getting out of Bed

Book Review (O. Alan Noble)

"THE SUBJECT OF THIS BOOK is mental suffering, and its assumption is that everyone experiences mental suffering at one point or another." p1

I first encountered O. Alan Noble's work via his book You are Not Your Own, which was one of my top reads in 2022. It's a great book that deals with a "diagnosis of a societal problem":

From Disruptive Witness to Getting Out of Bed

That problem is that we live in a world fundamentally organised and structured to make life suck for human beings. And he offers what he calls not a solution, but a response, a way of seeing the world that runs counter to that - that our lives fundamentally do not belong to us, but that Christ is our only comfort in life and death.

This is in some ways a follow-up book, that attempts to wrestle with the question of how to endure - how does one get out of bed each day and 'do life', in the midst of mental suffering. Noble doesn't go into the details of his own struggles in this book, but it's clear that he has them. For myself, I come to this book as a person who doesn't suffer significant mental illness, I don't have clinical depression or anxiety, and I'm aware that some of what this book addresses just hasn't been my experience in life so far. I have experienced a good deal of emotional and mental anguish brought on by life circumstances these last 15 months, which for me has been a sometimes overwhelming experience of sorrow, pain, grief, and helplessness. I'm also very conscious that in the grand scheme of things and in comparison to others, my own suffering is relatively minor. I say all this not to either downplay nor up-play my own context, but to help situate myself as a reader of this book, so that you see where I come from as I read this book.

When Noble says "mental suffering" he means a rather large basket - yes, certainly diagnosed or diagnosable mental illnesses and disorders, but also undiagnosable ones, people with problems or issues or affliction or just general hardships that don't get a name or don't typically have the dignity of being "worth worrying about". I appreciate the broadness of this - life is difficult and we, almost all of us, simply struggle with life some of the time. And Noble's main thesis is simple but beautiful :

your life is a good gift from a loving God, even when subjectively it doesn’t feel good or like a gift, and even when you doubt that God is loving. p3

I don't want to attempt to summarise the whole book, or even road-map it, so much as highlight a few things I found helpful, insightful, or valuable in it.

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In chapter one, Noble outlines a shift in his default assumptions - from thinking that people with suffering, difficulties, tragedies, etc., were outliers, and that default, normal life was mostly trouble and suffering free, to the realisation that "suffering—even profound mental affliction and personal tragedy—is a normal part of human life." (p8) That's just life in a fallen world. And most of the time it's unseen. You just don't know. I have shifted my understanding in this direction - I just assume that most people I meet or talk to or have a casual conversation with, probably are struggling with something or other in their life: illness, loneliness, anxiety, depression, chronic medical issues, complex family situations, emotional or mental anguish, grief, etc. etc.. Even if I'm wrong, even if the person in front of me is doing really well and has a mostly trouble-free life, I'm far better off assuming this and being wrong, because the odds are in my favour, and better to be sympathetic and compassionate on false grounds, than to be hard-hearted and dispassionate and be wrong.

Think about someone you know who is living the good life: someone well dressed, confident, smiling, high achieving, maybe even attractive and intelligent and funny. Nine times out of ten, they are carrying around something unspeakably painful. And often, when you learn what that pain is, it’ll be something completely unexpected. p9

Noble starts from here and then asks the question - why life? why get out of bed? why bother at all? This is not just a book about not committing suicide, but a book about and against all the other ways we destroy our lives, slowly and subtly, and how we could possibly choose to resist.

remember this: tremendous suffering is the normal experience of being in this world. Beauty and love and joy are normal, too, but so is suffering. p27

If this is the normal experience, then all of us need an answer to the challenge - why go on? This book is an attempt to do that. Part of that answer, which Noble draws out of McCarthy's novel "The Road", is that the choice to live is a witness that life is good and worth living, even in the midst of great suffering. Our life is always a witness, but what is it a witness to? The way we respond to suffering is a witness, and remembering that our life is a gift from a good God who loves us, despite the lies our mind may tell us, is a resource to endure suffering and keep going.

When we act on that goodness by rising out of bed, when we take that step to the block in radical defiance of suffering and our own anxiety and depression and hopelessness, with our heads held high, we honor God and His creation, and we testify to our family, to our neighbors, and to our friends of His goodness. This act is worship. p42

Another point that resonated with me in the book was this:

remembering that your suffering is unique but not special. I suppose that’s sort of the point of this little book. p55.

Yes, whatever you're going through is unique to you, no-one else has your particular set of difficulties, sufferings, circumstances, trials and tribulations. But it's not special - the world is full of people suffering like you in their own unique ways. And,

implication: if our suffering is common, then we should not hide it but instead help others bear it. p56

This has been, and is, a hard lesson to learn. I have spent the year slowly opening up to a few people, choosing as wisely as possible, sharing judiciously, more with some than with others. I've had no choice, the burden needed to be shared. And it's been a blessing too - the joy of being cared for is one that I have not often felt in life. It doesn't always work out - I remember distinctly an encounter with someone who expressed incredulity that I hadn't simply gotten over it and moved on. On the other hand, firmly etched in my mind is the voice of another friend recognising and affirming that it is right to lament when things aren't right. I suppose this fits with something that Noble writes about in chapter 5 - that chronic suffering becomes tedious - both to you and others. And while you may be in the midst and the grip of a real (even if irrational) episode, those around you carry on as normal, and become inured and just tired of your suffering. I can think of another friend who had just this experience, tragically - that their church community just kind of got sick and tired of caring for them. That sucks. It's suffering compounded on suffering.

It is pride and selfishness not to allow others to enter into your suffering. Who are you to hinder someone’s chance to sacrificially love you? Besides, none of us can make it without the help of others. p68

What challenging words! I know that I am shaped very much by a culture of don't share, don't allow others in, don't let others carry you, remain silent and struggle on. It's a challenge to be told that that is both pride and selfishness. "Enduring requires you to share your suffering with others." (p76) I definitely have felt the guilt of taking up people's time, of telling them once more just the things they'd already heard me say, of bothering them with my troubles, when obviously there were far more important troubles they could be spending their time on. Noble won't put up with that nonsense. Not that, he recognises, you should make much of your suffering. He speaks plainly and honestly about how we can in fact use our suffering for self-attention and aggrandizement. But, at least for myself, the temptation is not to make too much of it, but too little. Enduring doesn't mean hiding.

The hardest but most loving thing is to speak honestly and personally, sharing your burdens with those who have earned your trust—neither advertising nor hiding your burdens. Neither looking to your suffering for significance nor denying your need for help. And never apologize for needing help. p79

I won't dwell on it, but Noble also goes to the depths: what about when you are so paralysed by mental suffering that you can do nothing, when life seems absolutely meaningless and pointless. Here his wisdom is direct and acute - you need professional help and you may need to give your own agency into the hands of those who can care for you.

This is a short(ish) book (120pp), and as it moves to the end, it also moves to the point, which was there in the beginning all along. The only way to keep living is to live for God. That could be a trite and complacent platitude, but it's not, not when it's given a full-bodied content. And Noble does this admirably. In his final chapter he contrasts this with living for the World, the Flesh, and the Devil, by exploring what that would look like - for each of these idols we only have value so long as we are useful to them, useful to the economy, to society, to pleasure, even to the utility of being life-destroying and -denying. But to live for God involves a recognition that we are not, in fact never can be, useful to God. Our existence is purely gift, good gift from God. And so we are called to live as a witness to the goodness of that gift.

Your task is to be faithful: to do the next thing. And when you cannot get up on your own, let someone carry you, knowing that in due time you will be called on to do the same for others. And when you are blessed with the responsibility of carrying someone else, then your own experience with suffering, your own experience of depending on others, will give you the wisdom and empathy you need to love them well. Christ’s body here on Earth is one of His greatest mercies to us. It’s the only way we make it through. p104

I’m going to end with Lecrae: