Mental Illness

I sat in the cramped ER room holding her hand as she kept apologizing.  “I’m so sorry.    I’d been praying and praying, but nothing seemed to work,” she kept repeating.  I was thankful she was alive.  Her family had found this grandmother in her bed earlier in the evening after she had taken an overdose of sleeping pills.  “I just wanted to go to sleep and not wake up,” she continued.  “Why don’t my prayers work, Pastor Eric?  I read my Bible.  I pray earnestly for God to remove these racing thoughts and take away this depression.  What can I do?”

Mental illness is one of the hardest diseases a pastor or family ever has to face.  There are several reasons for this.  1.  Mental illness is a reoccurring disease.  While doctors, counselors and pastors can work together to help the symptoms of mental illness, many times this does not heal the disease completely.  Patients and families have to remain constantly vigilant, fighting together for wholeness and health.  2.  Treating mental illness is as much of an art as a science.  Each person and their disease are as unique as a snowflake.  Finding the right treatment plan of medicine and counseling takes much trial and error.  3.  Mental illness remains in the shadows.  As a society, we do not talk about mental illness.  Both families and patients often experience shame about the illness.  They believe the community around them expects them to control this illness on their own.  Failure to do so means spiritual and emotional weakness.  This creates an isolation which many times only exasperates the actual illness. 

When I minister to families struggling with mental illness – depression, bi-polar, schizophrenia, anxiety, to name a few – I try to help them bring the illness out of darkness and into the light of God’s presence (John 3:21).  Moving out of the shadows into God’s light allows families to seek the help they need.  God’s light helps them see their illness from a broader perspective, discovering they are not alone (Did you know depression is the leading cause of disability in the U.S and abroad for people over 5 years of age?).  Mental illness becomes just another illness - like cancer and heart disease.  Often, this one discovery allows patients to begin new and healing conversations with their family, friends, church and pastor. 

My friend in the ER ended up spending a week in the mental health wing of her local hospital.  The doctors and therapists in the unit reviewed her medicine and taught her coping skills for managing her illness.  The other patients helped her grasp a broader perspective on her illness as they cared for each other.  As her pastor, I spent time in prayer and conversation with her during the visitation hours helping her to see God’s work and healing in her life.  Today, she lives with strength and hope every day, managing her illness and loving those around her.  Thanks be to God!

To be printed in the Northeast Georgian on July 15, 2011