Tag: Church

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A Life Of Fighting

‘Desperate times cause for desperate measures’, that’s what the quote says anyway. Here I am at Robin’s, sitting alone, sipping a coffee and writing; like I was getting paid for it. I’m expecting the roof to blow off the building any minute, the wind is blowing so hard. I’m here trying to put my thoughts together but nothing seems to work. If I’m getting paid per word for what I’m writing, then my pay won’t be much today.

I’ve just experienced two horrible weeks of depression and nothing I do helps. When you are feeling depressed; ‘to do’ are the last two words in your vocabulary. You really feel totally disabled, not that you don’t want ‘to do’ something, you can’t do it. It’s like your body goes in shut down mode and you find it next to impossible to function. Nothing brings you joy, you feel numb but mostly you feel angry and guilty because you feel this way. I know it’s not my fault, this illness has captured my mind and as held me prisoner for most of my life.

Major depression is not a once in a lifetime occurrence or at least it hasn’t been for me. I guess I can compare it to a roller coaster, with many ups and downs; with the downs a lot lower then the highs of the ups. The scariest part of the ride is, you have no choice in when your ride will end and you can get off. Yes, you will experience times when your depression goes into remission as it were. You know it’s still there, but you can live life with a little more  ease. Those are the times when you have to enjoy life to it’s fullest because you don’t know how long this reprieve will last. And  then that disabling, crippling, ugly beast of depression returns in all it’s fury; that’s where I’ve been for the past few weeks. I call it a veil of sadness.

What happens to me during this period of time? I change! I find it difficult to laugh, but yet normally, I love to laugh. I love to make other people laugh; so much so that I started a YouTube channel called, ‘Walter on da line’ and it’s all about laughing. But when I’m in this pit of despair I cannot even play the part but yet I miss it so much. I’m hoping this cloud will soon lift and I can get back to playing my character, ‘Walter’, once again. Then, I didn’t go to church on Sunday, and I rarely miss. But I just could not go, I couldn’t be around large crowds, just too overwhelming. The darkness was starting to close in, the dark night of depression was creeping in. When this happens I find it really hard to see the sunshine, even when the sun is shining. I love bright sunny days but when depression strikes, the darkness hides the sunshine. I want to just run and hide. I ignore the phone, not that  I don’t want to talk to the other person but I just can’t. I just want to sleep and isolate; but I know if I do, depression will take over. So now I am becoming very frightened, scared and panic is setting in, I’m terrified that I’m relapsing, that I’m returning to that place I call hell. I can’t go there again, ever! I know now I have to see my doctor. I make my appointment.

The night before my doctor’s appointment, I sat down and tried to the best of my ability, to write what I thought he needed to hear, in order to help me.

Once inside his office, I sat and pulled out my letter of ‘confession’ and nervously let him hear what I was feeling. ‘My doctor appointment note’:

‘Lying in my restless bed last night, I turned over at least a thousand times. My appointment with my doctor this morning was enough to give anyone nightmares. I felt my life was on the line but how would I make him see that. And if he did, what good would it do, if any? Had my diagnosis been written in stone and this was my lot in life? Six months had gone by since my last appointment and here I was again, waiting impatiently in the waiting room.

What as happened in those six months that he would need to know and that I would need to tell him, in order for him to understand where I am today, in my somewhat mental health. I guess those pass six months have proven, I’m not suicidal because if I were, I would not be sitting in this chair today and he would have lost one of his many patients.

But how have I improved or declined since my last visit? Mental health isn’t as black or white as other physical illnesses and therefore much harder to explain and pinpoint. For me each day and everyday is a fight and a struggle to survive this war within. Some days very intense, others maybe not so intense, but a struggle none the less. It’s a fight to function, to move, to feel happiness, to perform. Some days I do fairly well, others not so well.

The last few weeks I have found myself spiraling downward into a deep hole of despair. Wanting to sleep more, to escape the pain. Longing just to feel okay. Not being afraid to face the day, just to know I can do this. But lots of my days I loose my fight, I run out of ammunition, there’s nothing left to fight with. I’m exhausted, tired, frustrated and lots of times hopelessness creeps in and tries to steal that little bit of ‘being’ that I have left. But I won’t let go, I hold on tight.

My pain becomes real through my tears. I have moments when I have to let them escape and let some of the pain go. Sometimes I think I feel healing in my tears. Some people may call that weakness but I call that strength. Keeping it all inside is weakness; not wanting or knowing what to do with the pain. Finding ways to cope, to heal, to be okay; is strength! On most days, that’s how I have functioned.

But the scary days come when you feel you are loosing control, when you are loosing your battle and you have no strength to fight back. That’s the scary days and that’s where I am today.’

I believe he heard me, he was listening. But I also believe that he knows that this is really what my life is, was and always will be. I will have good days and bad days, but I have to accept that that’s the way this illness works, much like any other illness, you have it and you just have to learn to live with it. Right now I feel really low but I have to believe that I will bounce back again. That the light will shine again, that the spark will come back into my eyes, my energy and drive will increase and life will be restored to my being.

I know what I have written is very personal and some would call private. But if I am going to be honest and expose this horrible disease for what it is, then I have to tell it like it is and hide nothing. Good days and bad days. If I have to sacrifice my own privacy to help others to see and feel this misunderstood, stigmatized and cruel disease, then I will do so.

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Two Shoes

Today is Church day, a day of rest; not in our case. Lauren dictates the mood of the morning, and so would I if I were in a body cast. Her bath now consist of a bed bath and her hair being washed in the kitchen sink by lying her on the counter and her head in the sink. You do what you have to do, it definitely takes two of us to accomplish this task.

Her bed bath doesn’t go all that smoothly; pain, hurt, and discomfort seems to be the order of the morning. This is a timely procedure, with her popping tears from her eyes as big as raindrops. And you are holding back tears because you know if you start, they will never stop. None of this makes any sense and life seems so unfair, for a little child to have to suffer so.

Then its time to put on her Sunday best and top it off with her princess shoes. But then she realizes; I only have one shoe on and I have two feet. She can’t understand the concept that one cast practically covers her foot, while the other foot is totally exposed. So she cries all the way to church because she only has one shoe.

I explain to her that we can’t go into the Church with her screaming and if she doesn’t calm down, we’ll have to go back home. So she seems to understand and stops crying. By this time I am so frustrated, heartbroken and helpless; I don’t know how I’m going to go inside and pretend that we are having an amazing morning. And put on my ‘expected’ Christian smile and worship.

I make it to the doors, with my my anxiety through the roof, and without turning around  and making a run for home; I enter the Church. I’m already  late and that doesn’t go over well with me, my anxiety requires me to be there ten minutes before church starts. But not this morning.

I wheel us into our usual spot and take a breath; a big, deep breath. I lean over and she quietly says, ‘I want two shoes’. Now I can’t hold back the tears anymore, I am totally overwhelmed with the situation and life.  Right at that moment it was more then I could bare. So I thought, what do I do? I was at the end of my resources and I felt Lauren’s doctor’s were playing Russian  roulette with Lauren’s mobility. As a family we could not take anymore, nor could we do anymore.

I decided there and then; well if we can’t , Jesus can. I had to believe that. He was our only resort, our only hope. Quoting Pastor Isaiah, ‘So when we are at the end; Jesus is at the beginning’ (something like that). So without any hesitation, I brought my little girl to Jesus and I have to believe that He met us there at the front of that Church; I laid her on the altar (not literally), I gave her back to God. Me with my broken heart and broken mind and Lauren in desperate need of a touch from the Master. I pictured Him taking Lauren up in His arms and saying, ‘It’s going to be alright my child’. I prayed so earnestly for God’s intervention in our lives because without Him, we were falling apart. Our family was torn apart by life’s trials and only He could fix it.

Eventually Lauren will get to wear two shoes, but not only wear them but walk in them. If I don’t see it here on earth, I will see it in Heaven; we will cross the finish line one way or another. But we will win!

Isaiah 35:6 ‘Then will the lame leap like a deer, and the mute tongue shout for joy. Water will gush forth in the wildness and streams in the desert.’

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Mental Illness and Spirituality

I’ve written a couple of blogs before entitled; “The Church and Mental Illness” and “Be Anxious For Nothing”. Please read them again or read them for the first time, if you haven’t already read them. I believe there are so many misunderstandings, misconceptions and lack of education when it comes to Mental Illness. I’d be the first to admit it is a very complex and complicated issue to deal with. I don’t fully understand it myself and I’ve experienced a mental illness all my life. But I feel compelled to write another blog on this topic, in hopes of helping us to understand, to educate ourselves on the issue and to help us better relate to someone with a mental illness.

This no doubt has been a very difficult week, I have fought my anxiety with everything I have in me. There were moments I felt I was loosing the battle. There were times when I thought my strength was gone and I could fight no more, I was so exhausted and fed up with life that I couldn’t understand the purpose of it all. It was all so overwhelming. The more I prayed to God, the further away He seemed. I felt like Job, when his wife said to him, “Curse God and die”(Job 2:9) But Job said,(Job13:15) “Though He slay me, yet will I trust Him”. It’s so easy to trust when everything is going fine, but trust when everything seems out of control; that’s another story. But I will trust, even when my faith  is small and discouragement comes in like a cloud. I will stand fast and believe His promises, even when things are bleak and uncertain.

The church in general tend to expect a Christian not to feel this way. Christians should not be anxious or depressed. Because the Bible says, Philippians 4:6,7 “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus”. So why do I feel this way? I certainly have made my requests known to God. Does God not answer my prayers?  Does God not care about me? Do I not matter to Him? If I took these verses literally, all hope would be gone and I would give up and die.

I wish it were that easy and all I would have to do is give it to Him and BOOM! It would be gone. Sorry people/church but that’s not the way it always works. I have an anxiety disorder that is not gone away, I would hope and pray it would but God did not take this illness away from me. No more then He doesn’t always heal someone with cancer or any other illness, He can but chooses not to. But because mine is a mental one, I’m supposed to be rid of it by just making my request to God and it’s gone. That could work maybe for someone who has a math exam and are anxious but being anxious and having an anxiety disorder are two different things.

It would be so easy for me to be a Christian if God answered every requests I make to Him. But God doesn’t work like that, His will must be done. And in this life we will have trials, tribulations and sickness for which we may never understand. But being able to still believe in God when our requests are not granted is what I believe makes us a stronger, wiser and more compassionate Christian. Believe in spite of it all!

So if you’re a Christian and you are experiencing an anxiety disorder, depression, and any other mental illness. Then God still loves you even in your brokenness and if you haven’t had a healing, remember God is in control, He has no respect of persons. Believe in your heart that God will see you through no matter what the illness; deliverance or no deliverance, healing or no healing. You are a child of God even in your illness, God loves you!

Some churches (and I’m generalizing) have tried to explain it away by saying, “There must be sin in your life”. To that I would quote John 9:1-12, “Jesus saw a man who had been blind since birth. His disciples asked Him, “Rabbi, who sinned, this man or his parents, that he was born blind?” Neither this man nor his parents sinned, said Jesus, but this happened so that the works of God might be displayed in him”. Oh that God would use my illness to bring Glory to Him.

And then there’s the explanation of “You need to have more faith’. To which I would quote Matthew 17:20 “I tell you the truth, if you had faith even as small as a mustard see, you could say to this mountain, “Move from here to there and it would move”. So our prayers aren’t answered by the amount of faith but by having faith.

This blog is not an attack on any church, but is meant to bring us all to a better understanding of God’s love, compassion, grace and mercy shown to each of us through His Son Jesus by whose stripes we are healed. And sometimes I believe that healing comes from acceptance of our illness and not a total miraculous recovery. I have said this many times before but it needs to be said again; “Mental illness is not a spiritual battle but an illness”. Until we come to that realization, the stigma of mental illness within the church body will  forever be present.

 

 

 

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The Church and Mental Health


In our society today and throughout history it’s been the consensus that Christians are not supposed to be depressed or have anxiety; we are supposed to have it “all together”. In our culture at large, there is enough of a stigma surrounding mental illness that it becomes more difficult for sufferers to find the support and understanding that we need. You would think that the one safe place that a person suffering from mental illness could find support would be the church. I am happy to say that I have found much support and encouragement from the churches I have come in contact with and I applaud them! But sadly to say that is not always the case. Just as prejudice, stigma, ignorance, misunderstanding and lack of knowledge is still found in our society(somewhat to a lesser degree but still a long way to go) so it’s also found in the church.

It’s true that the scientific community as yet to come to a universal agreement on the nature and causes of depression. The general consensus is that depression is a medical condition and not a personal or spiritual failure.

Does the church give the impression that anyone who decides to follow Jesus must have perfect mental health? Can we break down the walls/barriers that threaten to keep sufferers isolated and alone. The church needs to start looking at this as an illness, not a spiritual battle or a personal flaw or weakness. Then people will come out of the woodworks and seek help and know that God loves them just as they are, in all their brokenness. And not feel like the church is somewhere they don’t belong or feel welcomed. Our churches should be a place of refuge and encouragement to all who seek God, none to be secluded or left out.

Then there’s the healing issue. “Well if you had more faith you would be healed or you need to pray more…”. As with any illness; not everyone is going to be healed, mental illness is no different. It doesn’t mean that God loves me any less, it just means God knows best. Now that’s a tough statement for me to say because I want to be healed/delivered from this hellish existence more than anything. But that’s not for me to decide. “Thy will be done on earth..”. But if healing is not in the plan then I ask for His strength and wisdom for every day.

I grew up in a generation where mental illness was looked upon in a negative manner. If you suffered “bad nerves” then you were missing some of your marbles; you were not considered “normal”. Especially if you were a Christian how could you be depressed or anxious? In the same way we experience other illnesses; our hearts malfunction, our kidneys fail, our liver stops functioning or we break a bone. Things can go wrong with our brain, it’s an organ like any other organ of the body. It’s our misconceptions that cloud our judgement of this illness.

I cannot change my illness by Will-power, no more than someone with a physical illness can heal themselves with positive thoughts (it might help, but will not cure). The church has the tendency to put this pressure on mental ill persons by invoking the idea that we can heal ourselves if we just pray harder and more often, have more faith, think positive etc. Let’s stop right there! God is our healer, it’s His will, when and if we are healed.

There is another issue that needs to be addressed. It’s a one I was going to omit because I didn’t really know how to address it. But let’s start by saying the church, society and culture has most definitely come a long way when it comes to mental illness. I myself have come such a long way; I have become more educated on the topic and my life experience through living with this illness as given me an whole new way of looking at it. The issue I’m referring to is a one where mental illness was and still is to a small degree looked upon as some form of demonic, devil possessed or entrenched in the dark side. Let’s be very careful here; don’t give the devil so much credit. When sin entered the world, so did all sickness; this was not the plan of God but when Adam and Eve fell that’s where it all began. But because they fell, God did not leave us to our own demise. He is still all powerful, all knowing and everywhere present. And in the end God as the last word on mental illness, not satan. “And by His stripes we are healed”.

Let us(and I’m speaking for myself) to stop playing God and think we have all the answers, because we don’t. This illness is so complex, misunderstood and complicated that we don’t have the mental capacity to fully understand it and thus is best left to the omnipotent God; who is all knowing. I am not referring to any particular church, I am talking about the church in general. It’s not meant to be offensive but it’s time to look at mental illness in a different light; with understanding, compassion, love and acceptance. To broaden our minds to see things from a different perspective.