So. There was a discussion on the Facebook a while back about how mental health care is one of the programs to be slashed if we go over the "fiscal cliff." One of my friends (who is very nice, and who always means very well, who loves Jesus and her country, but who sometimes comes across as a screaming lunatic) seemed to think that was a great idea and the healthcare system hasn't done much good anyway, since (as I understand her argument) it failed to keep Adam Lanza from shooting up Sandy Hook Elementary.
Now, I realize it's up top in many people's minds right now, but bringing it up there, when no one had mentioned that tragedy, makes it sound like she's saying that this guy is a great example of mental illness, like he is a representative of that group of people. First of all, there's not much evidence supporting the idea of his even having a mental illness. Asperger's is the word that is getting thrown around, but Asperger's has no connection to violence. It's like saying, "Yeah, he was lactose intolerant, that's why he committed that massacre." (Speaking of Asperger's, here's a great article by the Asperger's guru Tony Attwood about the strengths of Aspies. Reading it made me happy.) Still, there is some hope that this shooting will prompt people to think about giving more support to the mental health professions, as USA Today hopes. With 20 to 25% of the homeless population in the United States suffering from some form of severe mental illness, this is something we need. While I'm not happy about the added stigma being attached to these already-stigmatized disorders, perhaps some good can come out of it.
This business about Lanza aside, here's the dreaded comment followed: "I am simply saying that if parents would teach their kids right from wrong like my parents taught me right from wrong, there would be fewer idiots and massacres in the US alone. Oh, I forgot, there is no such thing as absolute truth anymore. Do whatever the hell you want! It's a 'free' country!" See what I mean about "screaming lunatic?" But let's take a moment to cool down. The Bible tells us to be filled with joy and praise (Philippians 4:4; Romans 15:11), right? God tells us that he will provide for us, that he wants what's best for us, and that no hardships in life are beyond his power. So really, being depressed is a sin, right? People should be able to control their emotions, and their parents should teach them how to do this, right?
I use depression here because it is the most common mental disorder, and probably one of the least accepted. People tend to understand that if someone is standing on the side of the road muttering to herself and slapping at imaginary fiends, she probably needs medical help and medication. But when depression hits, they say, "Buck up. Get over it. Don't whine." Or, "Pray about it. Read your Bible. You're not trying hard enough. Your faith is weak." Depressed people and the mentally ill hear this all the time. All. The, Time.
So here's why it bugged me so much that this discussion was going down that road: I'm bipolar. Most people know what that is. In fact, I'm bipolar II. The gist is that I don't get manic so badly, but I do get the depression pretty bad. It's mostly depression, my manic episodes are both rare and mild, but when they put me on anti-depressants, I flipped right the heck out. So now I'm on something for bipolar. I'm on the lowest effective dose, so I guess my problems are pretty mild. It's been working great for the last few years. It's worked so well, in fact, that it would be easy to forget to take it, because I've been so stable, it seems less important. Thankfully, I'm pretty good about it, and I know that I'll be on the stuff for the rest of my life. I've come to terms with that, and I try not to mess with the system that's working.
My mom and I try to be really open about our problems, because (Especially in the Christian community), mental illness is not very well understood by the general populace. Because it's not something you're supposed to talk about. That's changing, and it's gotten so much better, but it can still be tough. So I've given variations on this spiel plenty of times.
Mental illness is just that: illness. In many cases, there's a physical defect or chemical imbalance that throws people out of whack. Sure, depression is caused by sin. All illness and suffering are caused by sin. But "who sinned, this man or his parents?" Good parenting helps, but it can only go so far. If we don't blame people's parents for their cerebral palsy, we shouldn't be blaming them for their mental illness. The quote, of course, is from John 9, and the answer, of course, is that neither sinned. We don't ask folks to pray their diabetes away, we shouldn't be ask that for mental illness, either. Mental illness is, like all illness, a result of sin, but in a more general sense.
It's a terrifying thing to live in a mind that doesn't belong to you. There are those who claim that God made you that way, and that you shouldn't' try to change yourself. Again, it's as stupid as saying, "God made you with AIDs, you shouldn't try to change that." Come On. Going back to that story of the blind man, Jesus does say that he was born blind so that the works of God might be displayed in him. What were the works of God, you ask? A cure and a faith. Though God created the man blind for a purpose, that purpose was to have his blindness cured. Jesus never suggested that he was meant to be blind, so he ought to have stayed that way. The man's blindness was cured, showing Jesus' power. Afterward, when the Pharisees questioned him, he defended Jesus to them and was able to argue all the better because of the miracle. This man understood what it was to be grateful, and he could come to God with a new understanding because his blindness had been cured. His eyes had been opened to a new life and new understanding.
Now, this is sort of a different subject, but I think it is relevant to the conversation about mental illness. Over this past holiday season, I was traveling here and there and going to bed in all sorts of places at all sorts of times and I'll admit, I wasn't taking my meds as regularly as I should have been. It didn't become a problem until yesterday, when I was driving home from Michigan. It was cloudy, so I'd closed the sun roof to hide the rain, and my fiance was sleeping in the seat beside me. The depression hit me in the gut, totally out of nowhere. I wanted to cry for no reason. I began worrying about all sorts of things that I really needn't have been. I felt lost and unsafe. I suppose it must've been lurking for a while, but I'd been so busy, it was in this moment of relative calm that it reared its ugly head. For all I try to be outspoken about mental illness, I sometimes feel like a little hypocrite. My bipolar is mild, as I mentioned, and I haven't had to deal with a lot of my issues for about 2 years, as long as I've been on the medication. Then I see it start to come back.
I opened the sunroof and put on some Passion Pit (they play very cheerful music). I stopped at a Speedway and put a pump of peach syrup into my Diet Coke (caffeine helps and peach is a cheerful flavor). I talked to my guy a bit, and I remembered that I hadn't been taking my meds, so I was able to put a name on what I was feeling. None of these were cures, but it helped me cope for that moment, and was a great reminder to keep taking the drugs. More importantly, it reminded me of where I came from. As I said before, it is terrifying - terrifying - to be trapped in a mind that doesn't belong to you. Even if you're not seeing demons or hearing voices, to be betrayed by your own emotions, to know that they are irrational and be able to do nothing about it, that is frightening. I lived with that for years before I admitted that I had a problem and sought help. I did the talk therapy for a while, but it eventually became clear that I needed medication.
It changed my life. It gave me a new life and a new understanding. The thing I value most is that I now have the ability to worship God with myself, if that makes sense. While I don't believe that God made us with illness, I do believe that God made us to be who we are. He made us with our personalities and individual talents in mind. To be the best version of you that you can be is an act of worship. We talk about this in terms of using your God-given talents all the time, but I rarely hear people talk about that in terms of personality. Still, I think that if we let our personality be influenced too much by others and don't maintain our individuality, we are losing some of what God intentionally created us to be. There're plenty of everyday things that can get in the way of that, but mental illness does the same thing. And if there's a treatable illness that is preventing us from being who God made us to be, we sure as heck should treat it.
Now, I realize it's up top in many people's minds right now, but bringing it up there, when no one had mentioned that tragedy, makes it sound like she's saying that this guy is a great example of mental illness, like he is a representative of that group of people. First of all, there's not much evidence supporting the idea of his even having a mental illness. Asperger's is the word that is getting thrown around, but Asperger's has no connection to violence. It's like saying, "Yeah, he was lactose intolerant, that's why he committed that massacre." (Speaking of Asperger's, here's a great article by the Asperger's guru Tony Attwood about the strengths of Aspies. Reading it made me happy.) Still, there is some hope that this shooting will prompt people to think about giving more support to the mental health professions, as USA Today hopes. With 20 to 25% of the homeless population in the United States suffering from some form of severe mental illness, this is something we need. While I'm not happy about the added stigma being attached to these already-stigmatized disorders, perhaps some good can come out of it.
This business about Lanza aside, here's the dreaded comment followed: "I am simply saying that if parents would teach their kids right from wrong like my parents taught me right from wrong, there would be fewer idiots and massacres in the US alone. Oh, I forgot, there is no such thing as absolute truth anymore. Do whatever the hell you want! It's a 'free' country!" See what I mean about "screaming lunatic?" But let's take a moment to cool down. The Bible tells us to be filled with joy and praise (Philippians 4:4; Romans 15:11), right? God tells us that he will provide for us, that he wants what's best for us, and that no hardships in life are beyond his power. So really, being depressed is a sin, right? People should be able to control their emotions, and their parents should teach them how to do this, right?
I use depression here because it is the most common mental disorder, and probably one of the least accepted. People tend to understand that if someone is standing on the side of the road muttering to herself and slapping at imaginary fiends, she probably needs medical help and medication. But when depression hits, they say, "Buck up. Get over it. Don't whine." Or, "Pray about it. Read your Bible. You're not trying hard enough. Your faith is weak." Depressed people and the mentally ill hear this all the time. All. The, Time.
So here's why it bugged me so much that this discussion was going down that road: I'm bipolar. Most people know what that is. In fact, I'm bipolar II. The gist is that I don't get manic so badly, but I do get the depression pretty bad. It's mostly depression, my manic episodes are both rare and mild, but when they put me on anti-depressants, I flipped right the heck out. So now I'm on something for bipolar. I'm on the lowest effective dose, so I guess my problems are pretty mild. It's been working great for the last few years. It's worked so well, in fact, that it would be easy to forget to take it, because I've been so stable, it seems less important. Thankfully, I'm pretty good about it, and I know that I'll be on the stuff for the rest of my life. I've come to terms with that, and I try not to mess with the system that's working.
My mom and I try to be really open about our problems, because (Especially in the Christian community), mental illness is not very well understood by the general populace. Because it's not something you're supposed to talk about. That's changing, and it's gotten so much better, but it can still be tough. So I've given variations on this spiel plenty of times.
Mental illness is just that: illness. In many cases, there's a physical defect or chemical imbalance that throws people out of whack. Sure, depression is caused by sin. All illness and suffering are caused by sin. But "who sinned, this man or his parents?" Good parenting helps, but it can only go so far. If we don't blame people's parents for their cerebral palsy, we shouldn't be blaming them for their mental illness. The quote, of course, is from John 9, and the answer, of course, is that neither sinned. We don't ask folks to pray their diabetes away, we shouldn't be ask that for mental illness, either. Mental illness is, like all illness, a result of sin, but in a more general sense.
It's a terrifying thing to live in a mind that doesn't belong to you. There are those who claim that God made you that way, and that you shouldn't' try to change yourself. Again, it's as stupid as saying, "God made you with AIDs, you shouldn't try to change that." Come On. Going back to that story of the blind man, Jesus does say that he was born blind so that the works of God might be displayed in him. What were the works of God, you ask? A cure and a faith. Though God created the man blind for a purpose, that purpose was to have his blindness cured. Jesus never suggested that he was meant to be blind, so he ought to have stayed that way. The man's blindness was cured, showing Jesus' power. Afterward, when the Pharisees questioned him, he defended Jesus to them and was able to argue all the better because of the miracle. This man understood what it was to be grateful, and he could come to God with a new understanding because his blindness had been cured. His eyes had been opened to a new life and new understanding.
Now, this is sort of a different subject, but I think it is relevant to the conversation about mental illness. Over this past holiday season, I was traveling here and there and going to bed in all sorts of places at all sorts of times and I'll admit, I wasn't taking my meds as regularly as I should have been. It didn't become a problem until yesterday, when I was driving home from Michigan. It was cloudy, so I'd closed the sun roof to hide the rain, and my fiance was sleeping in the seat beside me. The depression hit me in the gut, totally out of nowhere. I wanted to cry for no reason. I began worrying about all sorts of things that I really needn't have been. I felt lost and unsafe. I suppose it must've been lurking for a while, but I'd been so busy, it was in this moment of relative calm that it reared its ugly head. For all I try to be outspoken about mental illness, I sometimes feel like a little hypocrite. My bipolar is mild, as I mentioned, and I haven't had to deal with a lot of my issues for about 2 years, as long as I've been on the medication. Then I see it start to come back.
I opened the sunroof and put on some Passion Pit (they play very cheerful music). I stopped at a Speedway and put a pump of peach syrup into my Diet Coke (caffeine helps and peach is a cheerful flavor). I talked to my guy a bit, and I remembered that I hadn't been taking my meds, so I was able to put a name on what I was feeling. None of these were cures, but it helped me cope for that moment, and was a great reminder to keep taking the drugs. More importantly, it reminded me of where I came from. As I said before, it is terrifying - terrifying - to be trapped in a mind that doesn't belong to you. Even if you're not seeing demons or hearing voices, to be betrayed by your own emotions, to know that they are irrational and be able to do nothing about it, that is frightening. I lived with that for years before I admitted that I had a problem and sought help. I did the talk therapy for a while, but it eventually became clear that I needed medication.
It changed my life. It gave me a new life and a new understanding. The thing I value most is that I now have the ability to worship God with myself, if that makes sense. While I don't believe that God made us with illness, I do believe that God made us to be who we are. He made us with our personalities and individual talents in mind. To be the best version of you that you can be is an act of worship. We talk about this in terms of using your God-given talents all the time, but I rarely hear people talk about that in terms of personality. Still, I think that if we let our personality be influenced too much by others and don't maintain our individuality, we are losing some of what God intentionally created us to be. There're plenty of everyday things that can get in the way of that, but mental illness does the same thing. And if there's a treatable illness that is preventing us from being who God made us to be, we sure as heck should treat it.
beautifully stated. also hugs.
ReplyDeleteI'm doing a lot better now. The meds kicked in :)
ReplyDelete