There remains an unfortunate stigma attached to any form of mental illness; the thought is widespread that if someone is depressed or suffering from mental illness of some kind it is the result of weakness or indicative of some moral and spiritual problem. The thought is that what the person needs to do is to simply \u201csnap out of it\u201d or \u201cget a grip\u201d or \u201cgrow up\u201d or \u201cstop whining\u201d or pray more, or confess their sins.<\/p>\n
None of these sorts of thoughts, no sense of shame, would ever accrue to someone who is diagnosed with cancer, or meningitis. No one tells a parapalegic that they are suffering for their sins, or that they need to \u201csnap out of it.\u201d No one suggests that a person with pneumonia needs to make a choice to be well.<\/p>\n
But a depressed person, a suicidal person: \u201cif only they weren\u2019t so sinful\u201d or \u201cmaybe it\u2019s the way they were raised.\u201d A child suffering from ADHD, well\u2014\u201ckids today are overmedicated\u201d and \u201cif they were just properly disciplined\u201d and \u201cits because kids aren\u2019t being spanked today.\u201d And so on.<\/p>\n
Oddly, no one ever speaks that way to a child in wheelchair; no one goes to Children\u2019s Hospital and berates the kids getting chemo and radiation or suggests if only they had been raised better, or maybe if their parents weren\u2019t such bad people\u2014because obviously they must be bad or their children wouldn\u2019t be sick.<\/p>\n
And so forth.<\/p>\n
Yes, it annoys me; I have two children who suffer from mental illness. It is not their fault any more than it would be their fault if they had chicken pox. If I told someone that one of my children was in the hospital for pneumonia, they\u2019d be concerned and pray and be very supportive. If I say my child is in the hospital because she was talking about committing suicide\u2014the reactions are sometimes quite different.<\/p>\n
There are many Christians who view mental illness as a spiritual problem. There are churches who preach that psychology is evil, that all that really needs to be done is for people to read their Bible\u2019s more and get themselves right with God.<\/p>\n
Such churches, such church leaders, remind me of this:<\/p>\n
The man answered, \u201cNow that is remarkable! You don\u2019t know where he comes from, yet he opened my eyes. We know that God does not listen to sinners. He listens to the godly person who does his will. Nobody has ever heard of opening the eyes of a man born blind. If this man were not from God, he could do nothing.\u201d
\nTo this they replied, \u201cYou were steeped in sin at birth; how dare you lecture us!\u201d And they threw him out.<\/p>\n
It was a common thought among many in Jesus\u2019 day that if a person had leprosy, if they were blind, if they were deaf, then, they must be sinners. Few people today believe that illness is the consequence of a lack of faith or evidence of sin. Few people today judge someone because they caught the flu.<\/p>\n
But when it comes to mental illness, many remain barbarians, both Christians and not.<\/p>\n
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