And one trembles to be so understood and, at last, To understand, as if to know became The fatality of seeing things too well. –Wallace Stevens

Matthew Warren, the son of widely-renown evangelical pastor Rick Warren, has taken his life. Only in his mid-twenties, the report from his father was that his son had struggled with depression and “mental illness” for most of his life, often pining for death to ease his pain. I was deeply troubled by this story, so sorry for the young man who was so overcome with the difficulty of life and for his family whose life has now been shaken to the core.

“You who watched Matthew grow up knew he was an incredibly kind, gentle, and compassionate man,” Warren wrote. “He had a brilliant intellect and a gift for sensing who was most in pain or most uncomfortable in a room. He’d then make a bee-line to that person to engage and encourage them.”

This anecdote from Pastor Warren reveals that Matthew was a very sensitive soul, who could be described as “having boundary problems” and taking on the troubles and pain of other people. In my trade, I once heard a psychiatrist describe a similar soul as suffering from “porosity of boundaries.”

I don’t know anything about the Matthew and never will. But I certainly identify with him as I know what it is like to overly-identify with other people and, on occasion to cross a line and take on more of their pain than I should. That is why I was a “mental health professional” and often could have uttered the famous words of Bill Clinton, “I feel your pain.” But, mercifully my “porosity” never reached the extreme of this young man and I’ve never had to battle with suicidality.

Life is really painful. Most people are “blessed” with blinders but some are not so fortunate. If they are lucky, they will be able to channel this anguish into a productive outlet…art, music, “care-giving” professions, ministry, etc….; otherwise, they suffer terribly and sometimes opt for the “bare bodkin” that Hamlet pined for. Most cultures do not make room for young men and women of this cut, those who “see things too well.” This greatly exacerbates their pain, forcing them to suffer in isolation. I’m reminded again of the wisdom of Leonardo da Vinci:

O cities of the sea, I behold in you your citizens, women as well as men tightly bound with stout bonds around their arms and legs by folk who will not understand your language; and you will only be able to give vent to your griefs and sense of loss of liberty by making tearful complaints, and sighs, and lamentations one to another; for those who bind you will not understand your language nor will you understand them. Leonardo da Vinci, from “Of Children in Swaddling Clothes”. Just as Jaspers would note, da Vinci knew that we “have to take it where we find it.”