MY THOUGHTS ABOUT MENTAL ILLNESS

     The title of my blog page is ADVENTURES IN TANZANIA, but I am going to take a step away from that for this blog post.  This post may be more for me to put down some thoughts that have been flowing through my brain than for others, but my hope is that it will be an encouragement to others also.  This past week I have listened to a sermon and watched a video about connections and vulnerability.  I have also read many blog posts and articles about mental illness.  I am on break from school this week, so I have had plenty of time to think about all of these things. 

     Many of you do not see a connection between mental illness, and vulnerability and connection, but to me they are all related.  I grew up with mental illness being a taboo subject.  Don’t talk about it, maybe it really doesn’t exist, but if it does and if you don’t talk about it maybe it will go away.  As I read about mental illness this week there were times that I wanted to scream “NO” at the people writing the articles, and my thoughts started to mingle with the sermon on connection and vulnerability.  Many times in my life I have sat back and listened to people make fun of people with mental illness or try to make an argument that mental illness doesn’t exist, pray more, lean into Christ more and it will go away.  This quote is from the article The Rise of Biblical Counseling by Kathryn Joyce, “ In 2013, 48 percent of self-identified evangelical, born-again, or fundamentalist Christians said they believe that conditions like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia can be treated with prayer alone (http://www.psmag.com/navigation/health-and-behavior/evangelical-prayer-bible-religion-born-again-christianity-rise-biblical-counseling-89464/ ).”  Let me just tell you that mental illness is very real.  Anxiety, depression, and bipolar disorder can be prayed away just as much as cancer, diabetes, and a broken arm can be prayed away.  There are two very important people in my life, and I am finding out there are more, that have dealt with and continue to deal with the reality of mental disorders.  It is not only hard on the person, but also on their family and friends just like any other illness, but what do you do when the Church doesn’t know what to do with it.  Where do these people and their families go for support?        

     Time to be vulnerable and share some of my story…in my experience you can’t just pray it away!  If people only knew that by saying these things you can really cause people to question God and who He really is.  My mom has bipolar disorder.  It is something that my family has had to learn to deal with over the years.  The signs of it started to show up when I was little, when she was first hospitalized.  At that time there was very little knowledge about mental illness not only in the church world, but also in the general public.  Our family kept moving forward and in my young mind I had no idea what happened, but eventually mom came home and everything went back to “normal”.  Many around my circle of influence probably didn’t understand what was happening in their adult minds, so how in the world would you describe it to a young child.  I have no idea how the church handled it at that time, as I don’t have a memory of it.

     I have a fair understanding of mental illness, but I will never be able to completely understand how after a few episodes with my mom things pretty much went back to normal.  I grew up not really thinking much about it.  As I moved off to college, things changed at home for my mom.   I was the youngest and the last one to leave the house.   I am not sure exactly what all caused it but the bipolar disorder came roaring “back” (not sure it ever left).  My mom went from bad to worse during my college years and ended up in the hospital numerous times.  She officially was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and put on medication that was most likely going to be for a lifetime. This past year she went off her medication again, and again ended up in the hospital.  In my experience with this, God for some reason has chosen not to take the bipolar disorder away.  It is something that my mom is probably going to have to deal with for the rest of her life.  I still pray for my mom and bipolar disorder, but my prayer is that she would realize the importance of her staying on her medication.  I pray that with the help of God and the medication that she would be able to live a “normal” life.  

     That is how vulnerability and mental illness relate in my life.  This has been HARD, to say the least.  It has been a journey that often times my family and I have had to walk through alone.  It doesn’t surprise me that almost half of evangelical Christians believe that things like bipolar disorder and schizophrenia can be prayed away.  I have experienced it.  I started believing that in college, if I just prayed harder and relied on God more the bipolar disorder would go away.  It didn’t go away and it actually got worse.  In the past few years as our family has walked through this I have learned to keep information guarded, because not everyone believes in mental illness.  The people around us at times have actually made it worse on us as a family saying things like, “you really don’t need to take medication,” to my mom.  Medication helps people with bipolar disorder, depression or any other mental disorder attempt to live a normal life.  My mom would go off the medication and go downhill and the people who believed that medication is bad and that mental illness doesn’t exist would unfortunately not be around to deal with the aftermath. 

     Why share all of this?  First of all I think people need to know they are not alone.  There are many people out there that are personally struggling with a mental disorder or who have family members who are walking through it.  They need help.  They need to know people are there for them, and they need to be treated like normal people.  Also as I have listened to sermons and videos this week I have been reminded of the importance of vulnerability in relation to connectivity.  In order to be connected you need to be vulnerable.  My mom dealing with bipolar disorder is a huge part of my life story.  I don’t want this to be a taboo subject.  I want people to freely express what they are experiencing and going through so we can help each other along in this journey called life!