This week, Bring Change 2 Mind.org launched a national campaign of public service announcements to raise awareness concerning mental illness. Though one in six adults and one in ten children suffer from a range of illnesses such as schizophrenia, bi-polar disorder and clinical depression, often these treatable conditions are ignored and denied. Reasons vary as to why this is the case. But in too many cases it has to do with the social, cultural and religious stigma that persons associate with mental illness.
In my own religious background, for instance, mental illness is often linked to spiritual deficiency. Mental illness is not a disease, but wrongly interpreted as a condition persons can be delivered from via a combination of prayer, fasting and confession. Or, as I’ve heard a million times, “Jesus is the great mind regulator!”
Unfortunately, similar to the ways faith communities once interpreted cancer as a result of sin, or HIV/AIDS as the judgment of God, persons are still being taught that “bringing one’s burdens to the Lord” is a sufficient way to deal with an illness that can be treated with medications and psychosocial therapies.
Indeed, I believe in the power of prayer. But for a large number of our mothers, brothers, and cousins who are living under the burden of mental illness, we also must accept and encourage professional help when we get up from our knees.
Tags: mental illness, prayer
Mental illness from my point of view is not something thatr can't be taken care of. Surely it depends on what type and how severe, but in most cases which are common it is caused from lack of spirtuality.
The mind needs to feel secure and with spirituality comes belief which is a great source of energy and stability.
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Today, most of us do not think of symptoms or severely limiting conditions as a path of healing because there is so much suffering and limitation involved. And yet with respect to the mentally ill, the disrupted sense of self and the search for a core self is, in fact, such a path. It creates a great need to find one’s way back to a more solid footing in relation to the external world and also in relationship to the self. With this in mind, we can begin to think of mental and emotional disorders as both a problem, and an answer to a problem. The problem is visible; that it is an answer, most often is not. As we enter a new era of oneness with each other, based on the greater recognition of the Divine nature of each living being, a spiritual perspective such as this is a natural outcome. Such a perspective would help remove the stigma of separation that so persistently follows those who manifest mental or emotional disturbance. In its light, we would come to see each one who has chosen this path as the individual soul that they are. We would see more of their strength, we would see their beauty, and we would feel their kinship to us within the planetary family of which we are each a part. And with this, if we are experiencing some difficulties, we could always ask for their guidance or support. If they are far, we could still feel their presence with the new technology we have such as cell phone that will be easier to communicate.
Danny, with all due respect, I do not think you have ever been mentally ill, unless. at some time, you suffered from mild depression.
I have friends and relatives and several students who suffer from mental illness. What speaks to me most about the topic of mental illness is the non-acceptance of the mentally ill person by those who are not mentally ill. The "brain-healthy" are not necessarily unkind people. Most people are the first to offer consolation and support when they learn that someone has a terminal illness, for instance. I have learned over the years, however, that mental illness is also a terminal illness.
Without treatment, that that person will commit suicide, or be imprisoned (possibly for a lifetime) for criminal acts, rejected by friends and family, and, if the mentally ill person does not first commit suicide, the life that person knew, before he/she became mentally ill, is also terminated. Even brain-healthy individual can terminate the mentally ill person's life by rejection, fear, disgust and ignorance, lack of empathy and sympathy, and judging mental illness as God's punishment for great sin.
Not to say that prayer is not the answer; it just cannot be the only answer. Psychological and psychiatric counseling and medication still need a prominent place in helping the mentally ill. Those mentally ill relatives and friends, whom I personally know were kind, good and religious people before they were struck down with mental illness.
Most mental illness is evident by the age of 14 years. Babies can be born with a genetic predisposition for mental illness, certainly not the fault of their own actions. Of those people who are homeless, as many as 45% are mentally ill, while a July, 2009 study published by the W.H.O. showed twice as many veterans of war are likely to commit suicide compared to the general U.S. population.
Post-partum depression after a baby’s birth is relatively common and most mothers (yes, even atheist mothers) “snap out of it“ in three months, after hormone levels return to normal. Yet, post-partum depression can also, for some, evolve into a bi-polar disorder and the victim cannot even remember what she did in her manic state. A person in a manic state has such an extreme change of personality (without medication) that it would be impossible to convince that person to pray and try to become “more spiritual.” Mental illness, such as Situational Distress Disorder—often found in the armed forces after a bloody battle--smacks you right in the face while praying for deliverance. Psychological and psychiatric counseling and medication still need a prominent place in helping the mentally ill, after the extraordinary anxieties of battle.
For cancer, blood diseases, heart failure, etc., it takes a medical team to save the patient. We collect a group of expert surgeons, a variety of medical technicians, and nurses, etc. but we pause for a while, tending, instead, to discuss the true necessity of the mentally ill’s need for treatment. We don’t refuse medical treatment for the physically ill, yet we tend to question the illness of the mentally ill, and suggest that a greater spirituality by the patient is needed to save her life, indicating, in my opinion, there is a possibility that this patient just might have brought it on herself. Why is that?
I have a cousin who has Bi-polar Disorder. When without her medicine one day, she punched her mother out, ran naked through a hotel lobby, and got handcuffed in a police station. With her medication, she is bright, energetic, cheerful, and, best of all, she is able to return to church and pray.
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