Mental Health and the Church: What Would Jesus Do?

I was talking with an acquaintance from church recently. He's a bit of a health nut: he exercises almost as religiously as he reads his Bible, carefully watches what he eats, and even drinks dreadful veggie-based smoothies every day in an effort to stave off illness and prolong his earthly life.

We chatted a bit about ailments that seem to be so prevalent today, like cancer. He hoped that his strict regimen would help him avoid some of these things. He even mentioned mental illness, remarking that it seemed that depression, anxiety, and other mental disorders were almost pandemic.

His remarks made me start thinking about mental illness. Personally, I wonder if mental illnesses such as depression are really that much more prevalent now than they were 100 years ago. I'm certainly not a medical professional by any stretch of the imagination. But I would conjecture that perhaps mental illness is NOT more common in 2009, but rather, much more talked about.

It also got me thinking about my own experience with mental illness. I was diagnosed with clinical depression in 2002, shortly after the birth of my third child. It turned out that what I had thought was simple post-partum depression had much deeper roots.

As my doctor and I explored this new revelation in my life, I began to realize that I'd actually suffered from clinical depression most of my life. I also came to understand why it took me twenty years to identify the problem in my own life.
If you're like most people, you probably think of clinical depression the way I once did: it means that the victim lies around in bed all day, cries for hours on end, and generally has trouble going about daily living.

I, on the other hand, was really nothing like this. While I have learned over the years that I require more nightly sleep than the average person (8 1/2 to nine hours minimum), I've never suffered from lack of motivation to get out of bed in the morning. Quite the opposite in fact: I have always been quick to jump out of bed and pack my day from start to finish with non-stop activity.

This, I came to learn, was my coping method. But instead of making me feel better, it produced such severe anxiety that I began to be unable to sleep at night, even after my new baby finally began sleeping through the night himself. I would lie awake feeling nervous about whether or not I would be able to keep up with my hectic pace. I would suffer frequent panic attacks. I would yell at my kids and make unreasonable demands of my husband, blaming everyone around me for making me feel so lousy.

It was a simple ten question quiz in a parenting magazine that finally made me realize that I was suffering from clinical depression, which manifested itself in my life as severe anxiety. I was shocked and relieved at the same time. There was hope! There really was more to life than constant panic attacks and dissatisfaction with my circumstances! Medication and therapy has done an amazing job of getting my depression/anxiety under control.

Statistics suggest that some ten percent of North Americans are currently receiving some type of treatment (medication, therapy or a combination of both) for clinical depression. They also estimate that 10-25% of all women and 5-12% of all men will experience a bout of clinical depression at some point in their lives.

Think about those statistics in relation to your church. There are roughly 600 people in my own church. That means there are probably about 59 other people sitting in church with me every Sunday morning who are dealing with the same thing that I am. 59 people! This is more than a mere handful. And yet, I can think of less than five people who have ever admitted aloud to me that they do indeed suffer from clinical depression.

So why is it that mental health issues are still so hard to talk about in the church? I consider myself fortunate to live during a period in history where mental illness doesn't quite have the same negative social stigma attached. Had I lived one hundred years ago, I would most likely have been labelled as "delicate" or perhaps as being "not right." I most certainly would not have had access to the same kind of treatment that has helped me so greatly today.

And yet, even as I write this, I realize I have now "put myself out there." While I've never been one to shy away from talking about my experience with mental illness, I haven't been quick to take out a billboard ad either. What will my church think? Horror of horrors.... pastor's wives can be clinically depressed????

I guess my hope is that by opening up about my own experiences, I might inspire others in the church to realize that it's okay to talk about mental illness. Not only is it okay to talk about it, it's okay to BE mentally ill. Mental illness is as real a medical problem as the flu or a broken leg. And like broken legs, mental illness can be treated. What it SHOULD NOT be is hidden or ignored. You'd never walk around on a broken leg. It would be painful, foolish, and would lead to much more serious problems in the long run. No one in his or her right mind would ever consider simply ignoring or "shaking off" a broken leg. And yet, this happens time and time again with people who suffer mental illness.

Admittedly, there isn't a lot said in the Bible about mental illness, or what the church's response to it should be. However, in my own studies I have become convinced of a couple of things. First, I've come to believe that David, he of kingly heritage, sheep and harp-playing, was clinically depressed, perhaps even bi-polar. If you don't believe it, consider some of his writings:

"I am in distress; my eyes grow weak with sorrow, my soul and my body with grief. My life is consumed by anguish and my years by groaning, my strength fails because of my affliction, and my bones grow weak. Because of all my enemies I am the utter contempt of my neighbors, I am a dread to my friends, those who see me on the street flee from me." (Psalm 31: 9-11)

I have thought and felt similar things during some of my own dark moments. I identify very closely with David in many regards, and have come to take great comfort in the Psalms, knowing that I am not the only person in history to have felt such overwhelming heaviness, and also knowing that I, like David, understand that on the flip side of the coin there is hope:

"The righteous cry out, and the Lord hears them, He delivers them from all their troubles. The Lord is close to the brokenhearted, and saves those who are crushed in spirit. A righteous man may have many troubles, but the Lord delivers him from them all." (Psalm 34: 17-19)

The other thing that I have become convinced of is that the church needs to respond to mental illness with compassion. Again, there's not a lot about mental illness in the Bible. However, there is a great deal in the Bible about responding compassionately to people in other awkward and socially-stigmatized life situations. Take Jesus' encounter with the "sinful" woman, whom we assume to have been a prostitute or of similar ilk, who wished to express her deep love for Jesus. Those around him were disgusted when she began weeping uncontrollably at his feet, washing them with her tears and drying them with her unbound hair.

Jesus fellow dinner guests were appalled, questioning his very divinity ("If this man were a prophet, he would know who was touching him and what kind of woman she is." Luke 7:39) They chided her wastefulness when she anointed Jesus' feet with expensive perfume: "It could have been sold for more than a year's wages and the money given to the poor." (Mark 14:5)

But Jesus rebuked them, responding with compassion to this woman who understood more than anyone else at that table that she had been rescued from so much.

In other instances we see Jesus extending compassion to social outcasts like lepers, offering healing and forgiveness of sin and even skin to skin contact, something that was so socially repulsive that it was actually forbidden. We see him reacting in love to those who were possessed with evil spirits, drawing physically and emotionally near to them when no one else would.

I can't help but believe that this is what Jesus wants us to do with those who suffer mental illness. Instead of ignoring it, pretending it doesn't exist, or relegating those who suffer it to the very fringes of our congregations (much as the demoniac who was forced to live in a graveyard), I believe Jesus calls us to embrace those who might otherwise be deigned social outcasts, to acknowledge their sufferings, and to show love and compassion.

Mental illnesses like clinical depression are difficult to understand for those who haven't suffered them. I think it's okay not to understand. (I don't understand what it's like to have a broken leg, having never broken a bone in my lifetime.) But the church is still responsible to reach out in love to the mentally ill, like I think Jesus would do, with love and compassion and a great deal of grace.