Christianity and Mental Health: Do NOT be afraid to ask for help!
Due to the stigma of mental illness, people are afraid to seek help. Just recently, two celebrities (handbag designer Kate Spade and celebrity chef Anthony Bourdain) committed suicide. My friend’s youngest brother struggled with mental illness most of his life and passed away three months ago. I know of another person around my age who I heard committed suicide. I have known other people who lost their battles with mental illness. I find this so heartbreaking because I understand the struggle with mental illness. There are times when life seems so hard and you wonder if it will ever get any better. Even when I had prayed as many prayers as I could pray or meditated on every scripture related to dealing with sadness, I still felt helpless and even hopeless at times.
As a Christian, the stigma of mental health issues can make it harder to reach out to others for help. According to psychiatrist Prakash Masand, the “two main obstacles standing in the way of help” are:
The first is the continued stigma around mental illness. We need to continue to push the fact that the brain is like any other organ in the body. Just as your heart or kidneys may have certain issues, so too can your brain. If the stigma is broken, less people suffer in silence.
The second issue standing in the way of suicide prevention is the misdiagnosis of clinical depression and bipolar disorder. Some patients don’t see their symptoms as abnormal and think this is just the way they are supposed to be.
I can easily relate because I have been on antidepressants since the age of 17 and was told that like other organs in my body, my brain can have issues too. Before I entered a psychiatric hospital during my junior year of high school, I thought the way I was feeling (moody, depressed, sad, and suicidal) was normal for a teenager. I didn’t think mental illness was really an illness. If my circumstances were different or I worked hard to change my feelings, then I would be fine. I realized I could not do any of this on my own, so I sought counseling. As I grew older, I turned to God for guidance.
Mental illness can happen to anyone. While Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain seemed to have it all with successful careers and lots of money, many did not know they struggled with mental illness. As for my friend’s brother and the others I knew who had committed suicide, I was aware of their struggles but I never imagined they would lose the battle to mental illness.
Instead of feeling ashamed for struggling with mental illness, ask for prayer. James 5:13-15 says, “Is any one of you suffering? He should pray…Is any one of you sick? He should call the elders of the church to pray over him and anoint him with oil in the name of the Lord. And the prayer offered in faith will restore the one who is sick. The Lord will raise him up. If he has sinned, he will be forgiven…”
Some of you who are reading this may be thinking, “But I asked for prayer and people [or persons] in the church told me I just needed to pray more and ask God to reveal my hidden sins to me,” or you’ve been told that mental illness “is just the devil living inside of you.” Hey, I’ve been there and I felt even more ashamed because I got the message that struggling with mental illness was a faith issue and not really an illness such as diabetes, heart disease, or even cancer. If any of you have had negative experiences with the church when it came to dealing with mental illness, please do not give up on God’s Word. Use wisdom when asking for prayer. Get to know your pastor, elders, church staff, and other members of your congregation. When you feel you can trust someone enough to open up to them about your mental illness, be willing to ask them to pray for you. Please do not fight this battle alone because the battle belongs to God (1 Samuel 17:47).
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