Today I begin the first part of a two part interview I did with Anne Jackson. I first heard about Anne around two years ago when one of my church 
co-workers Matt Singley kept referring to some blogger named Flowerdust. I was told that she was one of the most popular and influential bloggers on the internet. Immediately intrigued I hopped onto her site and almost immediately felt a breath of fresh air as wrote with an authenticity, vulnerability and purpose that is sometimes hard to find–not only in blogging circles, but the “Christian” world. Since that day Anne is one of my favorite daily reads and I really appreciate her insight and passion that is obviously very contagious among her readership.
As you will see from the two-part interview, my main desire behind interviewing her was because of her often “lone voice” in the Christian blogging circles to openly talk about issues of depression, anxiety, mental health and medication. I think her willingness to talk so openly about these things has resonated with many, many people as is witness by the tons of comments she receives on a daily basis.
Oh, and lest I forget, she’s the author of the new book Mad Church Disease: Overcoming the Burnout Epidemic.
Anne, in a sentence or two, what was the impetus behind writing Mad Church Disease?
It was twenty seven years in the making…from watching my own parents burn out in ministry, to my own stress-induced hospital stay, I realized that left and right church leaders are being taken out – yet nobody is talking about it. I hope this book will catalyze conversations about not only our brokenness, but our health.
As you address the issues of burnout and self-care I was wondering if you have seen a correlation between burnout or lack of self-care and depression? Do you have any personal examples you could share?
Stress, when accumulated over time, can cause chemical changes in our bodies. It increases bad hormones and decreases good ones. As time goes on, these changes can lead to semi-permanent or permanent damage.
Over the two years I allowed the stress to run my life, I noticed how I went from feeling “stressed” to feeling hopeless and unmotivated. At its worst, there were days when I didn’t even leave my bed. Ashamed (and again, unmotivated), I withdrew from my relationships and my responsibilities.
As some of you have been reading on 
