Let’s Talk about Mental Health

It’s Ok to Not be Ok

I spent a significant amount of time during my teenage years in a Mental Health Hospital. Some Sundays I sat in worship next to the Bishop of Canterbury on one side and Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz on the other. The next Sunday it might be General George Patton or Jesus himself. Often my dad’s message was interrupted by an adult walking up to him asking permission to go to the bathroom. Sometimes they would just stand next to him while he preached imitating his mannerisms and gestures. And when my dad led them in songs of praise, they would gather around him in droves smiling and singing at the top of their lungs.

Oh how those patients loved my dad! That meant they loved me, the Chaplain’s son. They were not all so cognitively impaired that they took on a different persona. Some were severely depressed. Some had threatened to harm themselves time and time again. Some were paralyzed by anxiety and fear. Many of them were law abiding, productive citizens whose minds had been traumatized in some way or another. A legacy of chronic family dysfunction, abuse, abandonment, war, bankruptcy just to name a few. Others were born with a cognitive impairment that would forever stunt their mental development.

The hospital community was made up of unwanted widows and orphans, misfit teens, forgotten single grandparents, homeless military veterans, struggling addicts. Few of them ever had visitors or phone calls returned. More than once I saw my dad weeping for these children of God who had been written off by families and a society who wanted to sweep them under the rug and get on with their lives.

Mental illness is also swept under the rug by most churches. People who are depressed, anxious or beleaguered by PTSD, often feel shamed because of their weak faith. Pastors and churches don’t know what to do with them so they unknowingly project a “you are not welcome here” or “there is something wrong with you” attitude.

Every week, people with cancer and other life threatening diseases attend churches and receive prayer, compassion and emotional support. But in many churches, the minute you mention depression, anxiety or some other form of cognitive disorder, the uncomfortable facial expression speaks a thousand words. Mental Illness of any kind is not a sin. Mental illness of any kind is not a sign of a lack of faith. Mental Illness is just that, an illness.

A Psychiatrist and Christian by the name of Scott Peck said, “Mental health is dedication to reality at any cost.” In other words, Mental Health is dependent upon radical honesty and transparency by the one who suffers.

Carl Jung once said, “Neurosis is always a substitute for legitimate suffering because life is difficult, reality is painful, and the truth is often so hard for us we don’t want to look at it.” The Church won’t get any better at caring for the Mentally Ill if we don’t talk about it. So we are talking about it in our “It’s Ok to Not be Ok” message series.

We need honest conversations about chronic grief, depression, anxiety, loneliness, severe relational dysfunction, doubt, PTSD, perfectionism and irrational guilt. We need to open our doors, our minds and most of all our hearts to those whose painful life experiences we do not understand yet need a safe place to be radically honest about what they are thinking and feeling.

More than once I was present when different patients had extended moments of sanity and self-awareness. They knew who they were and why they were there. They were reasonably happy and pleasant. They knew God loved and cared for them. And every time I got to witness that moment, it happened in the context of worship when they experienced the patient, unconditional love of my dad.

“By this everyone will know you are my disciples, if you love one another.” John 13:35 It’s time to talk about mental health. It’s ok to not be ok. I am praying for you, please pray for me. Rick