Love and kindness

By Laura Shodall

“Jesus can do anything!” I heard the middle-aged man declare excitedly. He turned to me and gently poked my head. “And I mean anything.”

No, I am not sitting in a small church on a Sunday morning or sitting in a Wednesday small group with an excessively animated college minister. It is June 7, 2014 and I am sitting in a psychiatric hospital in Los Angeles, California.

I had just turned 19 when I was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. I was supposed to be on the brink of self-discovery, transforming into a “stable adult,” but that expectation came crumbling down as the doctor across from me told me I was showing major indications of the serious mental illness.

This is it, I thought. I’m doomed to become a benzo-queen. I’ll probably become an alcoholic. I’ll abuse my children. I’ll organize a bank heist. I’ll start a murderous cult.

And this is what I believed, because this was what the media and the people around me had been telling me since I was small. The misconceptions about mental illness had caused me to fear a stereotype, and now that I was the stereotype, my life was certainly over. Mention that you have bipolar disorder to anyone and they’ll always have a story:

“Oh, I had a cousin who was bipolar. He beat his kids up real bad and ended up in rehab for drug abuse.”

“My aunt’s bipolar. None of our family members speak to her anymore.”

“I worked with a guy who was bipolar. He got committed because he tried to light a squirrel on fire in the office.”

I hadn’t been aware of anti-psychiatric rhetoric within the church until after my diagnoses. I had opened up to church members here and there the year afterward, and I almost always received the same answers; that Jesus was all I needed, and if I placed enough faith and trust in Him, then He would heal me. I didn’t need doctors. God would make it all go away. “Don’t forget who’s really in charge,” they would say. “He controls everything. Do not discount Him.”

I never thought that seeking psychiatric help meant I was questioning the almighty power of God. No one being treated for any kind of mental illness particularly enjoys medication, and I certainly wasn’t making it my God, but the believers around me did. That made me feel different, excluded, and weak. I began to feel that God was punishing me for past transgressions, and unless I got it together and started believing in Him just the right way, He would continue to plague me.

So how did I end up in a psych ward in the middle of Los Angeles with a schizophrenic man named Daniel pressing his index finger into the middle of my forehead? Fall and spring semesters flew by, and I emotionally and mentally began to deteriorate. I was fighting to get out of my bed in the morning. I began abusing benzodiazepines. My mood swings became more frequent and increasingly serious.

I completely lost my grip. I somehow made it through the semester and moved back home, where I completely shut off all emotion. It was easier to feel nothing rather than everything, and one day, I decided my time was up. I was going to take my own life.

I grabbed a bottle of one of my medications and started to swallow each pill, one by one, until something inside me told me to stop. So I did stop, throwing my pill bottle across and room and calling my mother to take me to the ER. The four days I spent in the psych hospital seemed like years, and when I got out and back to school for the fall semester, I didn’t adjust well. The people who loved me didn’t know how to either, and it truly was a semester of the blind leading the blind.

How do we, as a Christian family, respond to mental illness and crises like these? I love this generation of young people because I think we have a greater understanding of mental illness than any generation before us, but sometimes we get lost trying to deal with a friend who struggles. Do we treat them like they’re made of glass? Do we let them be?

Many people who do not struggle with mental illness just want an answer as to what they are supposed to say or do to reach a brother or sister who is hurting. The truth is, there aren’t magic words that you can say. There isn’t a script you can follow. The answer is actually simpler than that, and can be found in abundance throughout the Bible: love and kindness.

The greatest thing my friends ever did for me was love me. They didn’t need to throw me a parade, they didn’t need to drown me in affirmation, buy me gifts, or text me every second to make sure I was alive and functioning. They loved me when I couldn’t love myself, and they displayed kindness when I wouldn’t display an ounce of kindness to them. And this made me feel normal, accepted, and gave me an overwhelming sense of certainty that I was going to be okay.

I’ve acknowledged that bipolar disorder is a part of me, but it does not define me. Sometimes it gets heavy, but I take solace in the fact that the creator of the universe wants to see me make it. Thankfully, I have people and health professionals working with me to help me recover, but sadly that is not the case for many who fight the same fight.

Mental illness is being openly discussed now more than ever, and this generation of young adults is making it easier for those struggling with mental illness to heal and feel accepted. Let’s transform the church body, making it a place of understanding and healing rather than a place of judgment and scrutiny.

Just because you cannot cope with the pain of mental illness without a psychiatrist does not make you any less of a believer. It doesn’t make you weak. Taking Prozac doesn’t mean you don’t have faith in God’s power, and asking for help doesn’t make you a disappointment.

And for those struggling to reach their friends who deal with mental illness, take comfort in the fact that you can help in a meaningful way. Let Christ’s example of love and kindness work through you.

And for those struggling with mental illness, help is always available and there are people around you and a God above you who absolutely love you. Do not lose hope. Every morning there’s a new sunrise, and it’s got your name on it.

 

Laura Shodall is a junior at Oklahoma Christian University.