Several years ago I began an article about finding meaning in a life with bipolar disorder with the following words, “Mental illness is not all bad.” I truly regret having written those words today. Although it was not my intention, using those words made it look like I was making light of disorders that I […]
Mental Illness: How Can Congregations Respond? Part 2 of 2
Read part 1 Christians who try to help a friend with mental illness need to remember how Job’s friends treated him and learn from that story. In his introduction to the book of Job in The Message, Eugene Peterson wrote, “The moment we find ourselves in trouble of any kind sick in the hospital, bereaved […]
Mental Illness: How Can Congregations Respond? Part 1
A friend emailed me about an acquaintance who had been newly diagnosed with bipolar illness. Bill had struggled and suffered a lot in the previous years with undiagnosed severe depression. Although the bipolar diagnosis was hard to live with he realized that he needed to accept it and learn to manage it. Writes my friend […]
Carrying each other’s burdens: Christian support for people with depression
“I felt like a car was parked on my body. I couldn’t move.” “I couldn’t feed or dress myself. A friend had to come by every day to feed me.” These are the words of two people who live with depression. When I have gone through depressions as part of my struggle with bipolar disorder, […]
No Longer Alone
Marja has recently written a follow-up article to this one. You can read it here. The first time I knew I was sick, I was nineteen. Psychosis had taken over my life before anyone, including me, knew what was happening. It was 1965 and I was a second-year student at the brand new Simon Fraser […]