global mental health

I’m back from the annual Marda Loop Justice Film Festival, hosted by our church here in Calgary. Jem and I went to watch a film called Hidden Pictures which takes a look at global mental health. It was directed by Delaney Ruston, who shares snapshots of the faces mental illness can take on in countries around the world. You can read more about it and watch a trailer here: http://www.hiddenpicturesfilm.com/

Let me tell you first of all that it meant a lot that my husband wanted to come to that film with me. Christie and I are planning to do a series of entries on the best and worst ways to support someone with a mental illness. Showing concern and interest--enough interest to educate yourself about mental illness--is one of the best ways to support someone. Educate yourself, and keep an open mind about it. My husband is an incredible example. Before he married me, he did not have personal experience with mental illness, and he certainly could have come with a lot of preconceptions, and yes, even stigma. But he showed so much grace and empathy and understanding. There were many times I was surprised to hear him voice more clearly than I could have what I was thinking. He kept an open mind, chose to believe that I was still the same woman he married, and was able to see the illness for what it was: an illness, and no choice of mine.

Jem and I came away from the film with a lot to think about, and I came away with a lot of blog material!

This film highlighted the fact that mental illness is not just a first world problem. I've encountered this attitude, one that says essentially: “Your mental disorder is just a 'first-world problem'—the type of pseudo-problem rich people in rich countries like to complain about because they have no other reasons to complain.” That attitude hurts. And it’s just plain wrong. Delaney travels all over the world, including India, South Africa, China, and France, and she finds people suffering with severe mental illness everywhere. I think this shows once again what doctors are telling us: that mental illness is biological, and not just a mental and cultural construct.

Another significant point for me in this film was Delaney's visit to South Africa, where she met a woman who had been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. When this woman initially experienced distressing symptoms, her first reaction was to go to a local healer. Traditionally, many Africans interpret every event or situation in life as having a spiritual cause. If an individual gets sick, they wonder who might be jealous of them, who might want to put a curse on them. This South African woman understood her illness in the context of evil and curses. She went to a traditional healer for herbs and incantations that would stop the curse, but it didn't help. Her symptoms only got worse. She finally decided to seek medical help. The effect of the medication she received was immediate, she said, and she is today symptom-free.

Sometimes I think we need what seems to us the blatant errors of another culture to help us see our own cultural blind spots. In Africa, mental illness is overly spiritualized. Often, those with mental illnesses are ostracized, fringe individuals who make easy targets for accusations of witchcraft.

We might not realize it, but our culture, particularly our Christian church culture, also tends to over-spiritualize mental illness. We may not look for the witch who cursed the sick person, or accuse the mentally ill of witchcraft, but we see mental illness as essentially a spiritual problem. A person with an illness like diabetes or cancer will have the freedom to talk about their illness without being judged for being sick. Their church friends will pray for the doctors to have wisdom, for the medications to work, for healing. A person with severe depression on the other hand often faces disapproval and blame, and suggestions that they could be free from depression if they only trusted God more, or read the Bible more, or prayed more. The mentally ill receive prayer not for healing, for treatment, for restoration of the chemical brain balance, but for spiritual deliverance.

When I was first in the hospital for an eating disorder, I was told that I might be under demon oppression. The story I believed was that the obsession with food and weight loss was sin, and I needed to repent and be forgiven. This story filled me with constant guilt and made the recovery that much more complicated. The better, truer story, the story my family and the medical community graciously told me again and again was that I had fallen ill, I had no control over it, and I needed to heal.

This time, when panic attacks, OCD and an anxiety disorder set in, the story told to me was similar: worrying is sinful. Fear is not of God. You are not trusting God as you ought. You clearly don’t believe that He is sovereign and in control. You have allowed the sinful attitude of worry to control your life.

This is not the full or true story of mental illness! Thankfully I and my husband Jem were a little more ready to tell myself the fuller story this time. No, fear and worry are not of God, but we live in a fallen world. The surge of strange hormones and chemicals from the pregnancy had set off the balance in my brain, and filled me with fear and panic. The terrifying experience of a horrendous bout of fever and dehydration during pregnancy, away from my husband and any medical safety nets I was used to had also affected my brain, and I believe left me dealing with some Post Traumatic Stress. It was not my choice to live in fear, but this, as with any other struggle or pain, is an opportunity for me to learn to trust God more.

I had to fight hard for faith. While fear and guilt flooded, I clung to the cross of Christ. And I prayed for healing and sought medical help, just as Christians affected by a variety of illnesses have done for centuries.

Yes, chronic anxiety is a spiritual issue, but only to the same extent as any illness, or any factor of our lives is spiritual. We are spiritual beings, living in a world full of spiritual forces. But as Jesus and Job teach us, sickness is never a necessary indication that we are being disciplined for sin, nor that we are lacking in spiritual disciplines. The Church is far more likely to acknowledge this idea in the face of "normal," "physical" illnesses. The very term "mental illness" suggests that it is NOT physical, and people assume that anything "mental" can be controlled by the spirit of the individual. While we are spiritual beings, we are also physical beings, meaning our spirits and minds are all tangled up in our bodies. So yes, mental illness is mental and spiritual AND physical.

So please, if you know someone who is mentally ill, tell them the true story. And if you have been diagnosed with a mental illness, tell yourself the true story. An illness is never someone's choice, and a mental illness is not an indication of an underlying spiritual issue any more than any "normal" "physical" illness.