Category Archives: mental illness

Feb 10 2012

Loneliness and Depression Are Best Friends

Depression and loneliness walk hand-in-hand.  When one of them pays a visit, the other is ready to join in.  Often when we try to deal with our loneliness we’ll find depression just around the corner waiting. How ironic is this?

Depressed people tend to suffer in silence and isolate themselves from the outside world. When you are depressed, you feel less motivated to go out, make contact, socialize or participate in activities, or doing anything at all. Days, even weeks can go by without wanting to see anyone or talk to anyone and this aggravates feelings of isolation. Often depressed people do not want to talk about their problem or simply feel misunderstood.

Similarly, prolonged and intense feelings of loneliness can lead to depression. Treating the symptoms of depression is likely to resolve the problem of loneliness. If the reasons of loneliness are well understood (this requires some soul-searching and questioning oneself) and if methods of overcoming loneliness are applied, it is very likely that symptoms of depression will become less or disappear.

Beating depression or loneliness does not start with having more friends, or a relationship, although it can help. It really starts from within and is a process that takes time and care. Asking the right questions and doing the right things as part of this process is one of the keys to healing. Humans go through life in patterns by doing the same thing over and over again. Even in different situations, these patterns will be repeated and simply generate the same results.

A pattern is a repeated response to a situation in life or a series of activities that are repeated over and over again. They are formed by what we have learned from the past, what we know now, what we feel comfortable with and what our beliefs and values are. If any of these remain unchanged we become “fixed” in our ways. That’s why many of us have a hard time making lasting changes. The challenge is to break a pattern and gain new, life-changing insights.

It is a good thing to know that Jesus Christ sees and understands.  But its good to have someone with skin on.  Someone you can see and touch.  Thats precisely why we have the Church.  People who believe and touch each other deeply, helping each other up.  Loneliness does not do very well in the true Body of Christ.

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Feb 8 2012

Evil Gets a Makeover

by Catherine DeMonte LFMT

God delights in changing evil things into good. He has this crazy habit of taking dark things and making them new. Many of us have a checkered past, many hurtful and ugly things have been committed on us, as well as by us. We have been wounded, and we have hurt others.

There are some of us with a mental illness. And some with a chemical dependency. These have been a factor in our sin, but they are not excuses. The Book of Proverbs describes this “playing with fire.”

“Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned?”

Proverbs 6:27, ESV

The first step we take is to “own up.” But alas, we have hid it for so long, denying and pretending that we have not been harmed, or have harmed others. We are masters of disguise, masquerading as whole people. When I was a boy, I often earned the task of cleaning the barn. You would scrape the manure into the gutter, and then dusted lime over anything left behind. But it was only cosmetic, it was simply covered up.

The deep promise of Jesus is not cosmetic. It is not superficial; it is not just “skin deep.” The profound actuality is that our transformation is inside out. It is a work that starts in our heart, and then works itself out where people can see. We have all tried to clean things up, but what we don’t need is more lime.

The love and forgiveness of our Lord is what we really must have. Our sins are making us very unpleasant people. As we get older we find that our evil has been compounded and extrapolated. The infection only spreads, and it gets worked throughout our lives and relationships. This is ruinous, and David understood.

“Then I confessed my sins to you
and didn’t hide my guilt.
I said, “I will confess my sins to the Lord,”
and you forgave my guilt. “

Psalm 32:5, NCV

We are sinners, and some of us are very talented at it. It is an art form to us. Our entire society, and every social aspect is sick with it. Jesus who knows us completely, and He loves us the most.

“In Christ we are set free by the blood of his death, and so we have forgiveness of sins. How rich is God’s grace,8 which he has given to us so fully and freely.”

Ephesians 1:7,8

“I sinned against the Lord,
so he was angry with me,
but he will defend my case in court.
He will bring about what is right for me.
Then he will bring me out into the light,
and I will see him set things right.”

Micah 7:9, NCV

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Feb 3 2012

Antidepressants for Believers?

What do you think of Christians taking antidepressants?

By John Piper, given on March 30, 2010

The following is an edited transcript of the audio.

What do you think of Christians taking antidepressants? I have been on them and have been accused of not relying on God.

That relates to an earlier question about how any physical or personal means that you use can signify that you’re not relying on God. So eating might be a failure to rely on God, because he might just fill your stomach by miracle, and you don’t have to eat. Or not sleeping would be a way of relying more on God, since you don’t have to have your psyche made stable by sleep at night. And so on.

God has ordained physical means. Aside from the ones that seem more natural, like food, there’s medicine: aspirin, Nyquil, etc. This water is helping my throat right now. [Sips it.] Was that sip a failure to rely on God?

Could be. “Just throw this away and rely on God! He will keep your throat moist. You don’t need to be drinking. You’re an idolater, Piper. You’re idolizing this because you’re depending on it.”

Well, the reason that’s not the case is because God has ordained for me to thank him for that. He created it and he made this body to need a lot of fluid. And it’s not a dishonor to him if I honor him through his gift.

Now the question is, “What medicines are like that or not like that?” Taking an aspirin?

My ophthalmologist told me about 4 years ago, “Take one baby aspirin a day and you will postpone cataracts or glaucoma or something.” He said, “I can see just the slightest little discoloration, and the way it works is that circulation helps.” So he told me to pop one of these little pills in my little vitamin thing. And I take it every day. And I just said, “Lord, whether I have eyes or not is totally dependent on you. But if you would like me to use this means, I would.”

My answer is that when you start working with peoples’ minds, you are in a very very tricky and difficult situation. But I think I want to say that, while nobody should hasten towards medication to alter their mental states—even as I say it I think of caffeine, right?—nevertheless, I know from reading history, like on William Cooper, and by dealing with many people over the years, that there are profoundly physical dimensions to our mental conditions.

Since that’s the case, physical means can be appropriate. For me it’s jogging. I produce stuff in my brain by jogging. But that might not work for somebody else, and they might be constantly unable to get on top of it emotionally. I just don’t want to rule out the possibility that there is a physical medication that just might, hopefully temporarily, enable them to get their equilibrium, process the truth, live out of the strength of the truth, honor God, and go off it.

When I preached on this one Easter Sunday a woman wrote me, thanking me that I took this approach. She said, “You just need to know that I live on these things, and I know what it was like 20 years ago and the horrors and the blackness of my life. And now I love Christ, I trust Christ, I love my husband, our marriage is preserved, and I’ll probably be on these till I’m dead.”

So I’m not in principle opposed. I just want to be very cautious in the way we use antidepressants.

 

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Jan 27 2012

When Your Name Gets Changed

“So Naomi and Ruth went on until they came to the town of Bethlehem. When they entered Bethlehem, all the people became very excited. The women of the town said, “Is this really Naomi?”

Naomi answered the people, “Don’t call me Naomi. Call me Mara, because the Almighty has made my life very sad.

When I left, I had all I wanted, but now, the Lord has brought me home with nothing. Why should you call me Naomi when the Lord has spoken against me and the Almighty has given me so much trouble?”

Ruth 1:19-21

*******

Naomi has traveled from Moab to her hometown of Bethlehem. People were pretty excited and made it a point to bring out the crowds. It’s great for her to be around happy people, who were definitely pleased to see her again.

But Naomi makes it clear that something has happened. She has been fundamentally changed by the Lord. She can no longer be called “Naomi” but insists she is now “Mara”. Her reasoning is painfully clear, she grasps the reality of her condition. “I am now Mara (“Bitter”), that is my new name.

Call me by this new name, because the Almighty has acted “bitterly” against me. I am not the same person I was went I left here. I am different, when I left here I was prosperous, everything was going very well. But now, its different, and I come home with absolutely nothing. And it’s all because the LORD has hurt me deeply.

I read this the other day, and was intrigued by her perception, and of her theology that recognized God’s handprints on her life. I believe she was a broken person, and therefore essentially changed. I believe she had a measure of peace in seeing the Lord was in control. It wasn’t fate, karma, or destiny. It was God!

As a mentally ill person, I find a comfort in this. God has touched me, and I am not the same person I was five years ago. I know hard things, even bitter things, about myself and the world around me. I went out healthy and strong and have returned weak and empty. Bipolar disorder will do that.

I’d like to encourage you to recognize and announce your weakness and your brokenness. See God’s hand in your bitterness. You will be surprised at the release that will come to you. It shouldn’t engender anger, but surprisingly it can bring you healing and salvation.

“God rescues us by breaking us, by shattering our strength and wiping out our resistance.” –A. W. Tozer

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Jan 25 2012

In Pursuit of Happyness

By CARONAE HOWELL, From the New York Times, dated July 20, 2009

flight1

To fly away

I’m the kind of woman who spends entire days thinking of nothing but birds: woodcocks, goldfinches, kingfishers. I look for loons everywhere I go. Sometimes I find herons in Central Park and they are mysteries. There is one thing in this world that I envy: the hollowness of bird bones. In the three milliseconds of liftoff, a bird separates itself from its problems. The sky is the freest part of the world.

I have always been depressed, and I have always wanted to fly — not to emulate Superman or to travel faster. I want to fly because of the elation. In my dreams I am a butterfly or a fairy or a honeybee. Depression, for me, is when you want to be a bird, but can’t.

There is a specific moment in which I became a woman. It was February — always the worst month with its aching light and its slip-induced bruises. I had been trying to fall asleep for at least four hours. At 3 a.m., I found myself sobbing and shaking and confused, sitting on my metal dorm bed in the bird-with-a-­broken-wing position. I dug my fingernails into my forearms, leaving shell-shaped trenches behind. I have the kind of skin that refuses to heal, just stays eternally raw and mottled. It was five weeks into my fourth semester.

In late January, a freshman hanged himself in my old dorm. I found myself asking, really, how hard is it to suddenly find yourself perched on a sink, rope around your beautiful neck, ready to fly? How hard? My dad drove through four states to pick me up the next week. On the way home I had tea and ice cream. He asked me if I remembered the time he took too many of his antidepressants. I did not. Nor did I remember my uncle’s suicide (gun to the cerebrum) or my sister’s delicately sliced arms and hips. These were things I had only been told. The space between my skull and my irises hurts sometimes — hurts like the shatter of a tiny bird that has fallen midflight.

And so it was that sour February night that I took the delicate step into the adult world: realizing that I was too depressed to stay at college was realizing I had not only lost my flock; I had fallen from the air entirely. Michigan has many birds. My favorite might be the wood duck, with its banded neck and flat little wings. When I watch birds take off, I hold my breath. They always make it to the sky.

Every Monday morning at 9 I see my therapist, mug of green tea and honey close at hand. I take new pills now. I have a routine: oatmeal in the morning, Wednesday nights with my father. I tell my therapist about Toni Morrison’s “Song of Solomon.” Who isn’t searching for their people? I arrange my thoughts. (No, I have never been in love and I am, in fact, afraid of men; I panic in Times Square; I grow attached to almost everyone I meet.) I have feathers and questions.

I moved to New York City for college in 2007. School did not grow me into an adult, nor did voting for the first time or doing my own banking. These things were not confrontations. How did I arrive at the place where I could look at my disease and say, “Yes, you are here, but I will not let you take the joy out of looking for birds”? I like to think it was New York, or my newfound discipline, but it was a more internal revolution. I acknowledged my traumas: I was not crazy, just damaged. I was molting. Columbia gave me many new things: a copy of the “Iliad” with a note saying the first six books should be read before orientation, a job in the oral history office, a sense of time management.

But without my sanity — without joy — these things had little value. I knew nothing until I knew I was hardly living. Hobbes and Locke and all the philosophers in the world could not matter when each day was insurmountable and burning. In my year and a half at Columbia, I began to learn how to love myself. I tell my therapist about my earliest memories and the bizarre geography of my family. I’m anxious and I have no self-esteem. But I am mending. Fifteen lost credits is a small price to pay for happiness. Perhaps I am learning how to fly. My bones may not be hollow, and joy will never come easily, but the beauty is in the struggle. The birds are everywhere.

Caronae Howell, Columbia, class of 2011, history major

Jan 24 2012

Thinking About What Could Have Been

Regret is an ugly thing. Dictionary.com describes “regret” as, to feel remorse for, or to feel sorrow over. It is a difficult emotion for us, as there can be a dissatisfaction, or sorrow or remorse over, it can be a paralysis of sorts. It is the kind of personal sorrow about ones behavior in a certain situation, that can be overwhelming. There will always be a deep sense of loss for “what could have been.”

I regret many things, my mind works as a “way too active recorder.” Future life continues its relentless advance, and there is from the past a constant awareness of darkness, failure and sin. Life advancing is hard enough on its own. But it gets terribly complicated when the past becomes mixed up with the future. It is hard to think. And I behave in the present moment poorly.

There are some who have no idea what I’m talking about. I might as well be speaking Chinese. But there are others who will “spark” on what I have just stated.  Regret for many of us, is savage and bitter. Not a day goes by when the voice of darkness doesn’t speak to us. My thinking is that it may be more reasonable to take a baseball bat across your femurs, and dealing with broken legs, than handling regret gone viral.

We think “about what could have been.” We imagine life without regret, of things we might have done not having this dark burden. However, these possible choices are things we can never be sure of. They stay, as they should, undefined and unrealized.  But honestly, dear ones, we try to retain a sense of what might have been.

In my younger days I dreamed of attending college, and then going to seminary. I really thought that I wanted to be a pastor, in some small Lutheran church in the Midwest. But this would never happen. It was just an aspiration, a dream. And it wasn’t reality (even though I wish it had been).

This is a poor example, and to me is a bit contrived. I have to admit, but I assure you there are much nastier and blacker regrets, there are things of which I am profoundly ashamed. But my point is this, they exist, they do unsettle us, and the present moment is corrupted by my past behavior.

OK. How do we sort through this very present darkness? Perhaps we need just to acknowledge this as a weakness. It exists, and according to 1 Corinthians is that every temptation is common. You are not unique or alone. There are millions of sincere Christian believers who face what you are facing.

“The temptations in your life are no different from what others experience. And God is faithful. He will not allow the temptation to be more than you can stand. When you are tempted, he will show you a way out so that you can endure.”

1 Cor. 10:13, NLT

I must tell you that there is a spiritual war. Satan or Lucifer is the enemy of our souls. He will bring to your mind fear and confusion. He has a spiritual “paint brush” which he tries to coat us with his darkness. In scripture, he is called “the accuser of the brethren.” He has a diabolical ministry is to bring you down. He is pure hatred, and he will never show you mercy. He is completely destructive.

We had better be developing a more scriptural method of wrapping up our minds in God’s Word. It stops and then alters the spiritual radiation from the enemy. I worked a couple of times in Radiology/Imaging in the army. Lead was the only thing that could protect, not “paper or plastic.” When your slinging atoms at people’s chests, it is very helpful if you and they are protected in the right way. I hate to tell you this, but the “x-ray waves” of our present darkness saturate everything on this planet.

I would love to keep on my present ramble, but I will sit with this and then see what is percolating. There is so very much in this, I guess it just opened up for me as I started to see it through.

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