I'm a facebook junkie. The first step to fixing a problem is admitting you have it, right? Anyway, one of my friends posted her status the other night, and it got up under my skin in ways I can't imagine. First, let me disclaimer this with a few things.
1) I love this person to pieces. This is ABSOLUTELY nothing against her personally...it just hurt my feelings and stuck in my craw. If I had wanted to call her out, I would have, but I didn't b/c I love her and know where her head was at. Which leads to #2...
2) She had no intention of hurting anyone, she was just expressing her own joy. I'm glad for her, truly.
3) I'm just a mite hyper-sensitive to this subject, and I accept that. I know it, and I really hate it about myself. But it's true.
She posted (and this is paraphrasing) that she "just got home from Bible Study, and it was wonderful!" (here's what needled at me.) "You don't need a shrink when you have God to turn to for all of the answers!"
Wow, I wish I could have expressed then (or now) how that hit me, how that cut me.
See, I've struggled with emotional issues for years and years. When I was a teenager in church, I remember being told to pray about it, that God held all the answers. At that time, I took it completely, 100% literally. I felt like if I prayed hard enough, was a good enough Christian, did exactly what the Bible told me to, etc...I wouldn't feel the ways I felt anymore. There were exhilirating, unspeakable highs followed by paralyzing, equally unspeakable lows. I remember a suicide occuring in the church family, and being completely confused about that person, who was as model a Christian as could be. This person followed all the rules, got right with God frequently...why? What happened? Didn't he pray enough? What went wrong? He loved God, I know he did. How could this have happened? More importantly, what happens to him NOW? Does suicide send you to hell? (For the record, I recieved both answers.)
This person and I were not close, at all. We had a passing-in-the-aisle speaking acquaintance, but his death affected me deeply at a time when I was most impressionable, emotionally. I don't speak of it often, but I think of him quite a bit. I'll never forget him, and even if the rest of the world has let his memory fade...he, in his death, shaped my life.
As a young adult (as many churches do), the church seemed less interested in keeping my attention and attendance. So, during that awkward spiritual time of the late-teens and early twenties, I attended sporadically. I also had even more intense emotional struggles. It began to occur to me that perhaps this wasn't normal teenage angst and confusion, perhaps I needed help. But I'm supposed to just pray about it, right? God holds all the answers, right?
I spiraled deeper and deeper. I found my own rock bottom in my mid-twenties; at a place where my most cherished relationships were either in ashes or damaged to the point that they're still scarred. I was left with very, very little (including family) in an extremely unhealthy place. I still pay for the choices I made under the influence of an unchecked brain disorder every day of my life. Finally, I rejected the idea that praying to God would solve everything, and I sought outside help. It was the best decision I could have possibly made for myself.
I felt better, but guilty at the same time. What is a Christian doing seeing a doctor, taking medications? It has taken years to dig myself out of the black place I found myself. And it took me a long while to reconcile myself to the one major point I want to make here. I won't get into specifics...partly because many of you know them, and partly because they're irrelevant.
My point is this; As a Christian, I believe in the power of prayer. I believe in God, that he holds the answers. I also believe that the human body screws up on us left, right, and center, and the brain is no different. God gave the doctors the talents, skills, and knowledge to treat a HOST of medical disorders, and mental health issues/brain disorders are absolutely included in that.
If I had found myself with serious issues with my thyroid, I could have gone directly to the doctor, had surgery, taken medications, done whatever the doctor said, and found myself fearless of persecution by my church family and fellow Christians. I would have been bathed in prayer, (and gratefully!) but no one in the church would have frowned upon me seeking the help of a medical professional for medical problems.
However, when I sought help for my problems that stemmed from a chemistry imbalance in my brain that needed correction, I have felt (and still feel) the stigma attached to that, particularly by Christians. I have been encouraged to stop talking about it, to shut up, to keep it to myself. I have been told that "that's just something you shouldn't talk about." I feel shy about what has happened. I feel afraid to let people know that I have struggled with this issue for years. Yet I find it ironic that it's almost chic to discuss cancer survival, and support the stamping out of it. (I, too, support cancer research. See my blog about cord blood donation.) They're both disorders, both ruin lives of the person with the disorder AND the family members...yet one is swept under the rug. Why? Why is one socially acceptable to have but not the other? Why would you be willing to bring a casserole to a family who had a family member that was diagnosed with some sort of physical illness (say, a lung issue that would be re-occurring), but not to a family who had had a member diagnosed with bipolar disorder or schizoaffective disorder? Even depression?
I said all of that to say this; Stigma has the ability to kill - even when it's not an intentional stigmatizing. The shame people feel about the WAY they are feeling can prevent them from seeking help, leading to disastrous results. Some people need *more* than a prayer group can give them for thier emotional issues, just as they might need more than prayers when they are dealing with diabetes or anything else. The two, God and medicine, can work hand-in-hand, and do not have to be mutually exclusive.
