good reads {mental health and the church}

As someone who majored in an applied psychology at a religious university, I'm always interested in the conflation of psychology and Christianity.  To be honest, many times I cringe when I hear advice that Christians have been given in regards to mental health.  Mental health is always, always a difficult topic and there are a variety of opinions.  When you add in Christianity, the subject becomes even more difficult to navigate.

This week many Christians writers/bloggers have been addressing mental health as the son of a famous pastor died by suicide after a longtime battle against mental illness.  My deepest condolences go out to the Warren family during this time.  I am also remembering the many other families who have lost loved ones to suicide and (perhaps due to the callousness of the Church and poor theology) were left mourning in silence and, sadly, even shame.

Take the time today to read these post about mental illness and the Church.  It's an important topic and it needs to be addressed.  I've included an excerpt from each post.

Rick Warren (in an email sent out to his staff seen here at CNN)

I'll never forget how, many years ago, after another approach had failed to give relief, Matthew said " Dad, I know I'm going to heaven. Why can't I just die and end this pain?" but he kept going for another decade.

Ann Voskamp (A Holy Experience): What Christians Need to Know about Mental Illness

There are some who take communion and anti-depressants and there are those  who think both are a crutch. 

Come in close — I’d rather walk tall with a crutch than crawl around insisting like a proud and bloody fool that I didn’t need one.

Al Hsu (Christianity Today): When Suicide Strikes in the Body of Christ

Novelist Willa Cather, in her book My Ántonia, offered this prayer at the funeral of a suicide: "Oh, great and just God, no man among us knows what the sleeper knows, nor is it for us to judge what lies between him and Thee." 

Kristen Howerton (Rage Against the Minivan): Rick Warren's Grief: The Comfort and Cruelty of Speculating on Suicide

When we hear about grieving parents it can be so tempting to try to assign blame, because if they aren’t to blame, then we have to grapple with the reality that sometimes, tragedy is senseless. This is an uncomfortable truth: awful things happen to children that parents cannot prevent.  It’s a truth so painful that we would rather throw grieving parents under the bus than face it. Searching for a familial reason for Matthew’s suicide allows us to believe that if we can avoid their mistakes, we can feel confident that mental illness will never ravage our own child.  We assuage our anxiety with the false notion that, if we do this parenting thing right, our child will be spared from ever struggling with depression or suicidal thoughts. 

It’s comforting, but it is a lie. A lie we fuel through speculation at the expense of grieving parents.

Dianna E. Anderson (Faith and Feminism): Other People's Reasons and Our Narratives: On the Appropriation of Suicides

But consider this: whose story is it to tell when a person commits suicide? What right do we have to ascribe a meaning to their personal tragedy? 

Surely, the appropriation of another person’s story – especially to support a point about selfish willfulness – has to be considered, has to be weighed, and has to be understood. Surely, this distilling of a person’s story – complex, multi-faceted, and ultimately tragic – into one line is a microcosm of everything wrong with how we tell, appropriate and understand each other as people, as complex human beings, as sisters in Christ. Surely, we need to discuss how we talk about and handle suicide and depression.

Amy Simpson (Her.Menutics): Christians Can't Ignore the Uncomfortable Reality of Mental Illness

Recently, I've spent a lot of time writing and speaking up on behalf of people affected by mental illness and their families. I want to see the church embrace these people as we never have before, in keeping with our mission in this life.... 

As followers of Christ and as his representatives, we are called to follow his example. We are called to reach out to suffering people, to stick with them rather than shrink away. We are called to believe that no one is ever beyond hope, past the point where God's grace and love apply to them. God does not give up on people, even if they give up on themselves. After all, we are not called to have all the answers, understand all life's mysteries, or fix everyone's problems. But we are called to love.

Rebekah Lyons (CNN Belief Blog): My Take: Let’s Stop Keeping Mental Illness a Secret

As people of faith, let’s talk about mental illness, giving others permission to do the same. Let's release the stigma that keeps this a secret, holding untold millions captive. All secrets lose power when they exit the dark. The church is a place where we should be able to come as we are, with our longings for what we hope to be. Jesus always pursued the weak with open arms. When we are broken and fragile, He draws us closer to Him in ways we’ve never known. 

Let's not shame mental illness with the judgment of spiritual weakness...Faith should never undermine the necessity of doctors, of medications and therapy, because we must deploy every effort afforded to us when we tackle our brokenness.  

**If you are struggling with suicidal thoughts, I urge you to talk to someone!

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline (24/7)
 1-800-273-TALK (8255)
 http://www.suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

currently reading: My Lobotomy

Title:  My Lobotomy - A Memoir
Author:  Howard Dully (with Charles Fleming)

Genre:  Biographical Non-Fiction
Pages: 304

As a psychology major, I've been interested in this book for awhile.  Each time I saw it on the shelf of Barnes and Noble or another bookstore, I made a mental note to look for it at the library, but never followed through on that idea.  A few weeks ago, Borders was having a huge going-out-of-business sale.  And guess what was one of the few books still left on the almost-bare shelves?  This one!

I started reading this on the flight to Tampa for our honeymoon.  And I finished it a few days later on the cruise.  It was a fairly quick read, although it took a little bit for me to adjust to the style of writing.  It is written as if Dully is narrating it, which made it a bit hard to follow at times.

Dully describes the events leading up to and the events following his lobotomy.  At the age of 12, Dully was  admitted to a hospital where Dr. Walter Freeman performed an "ice-pick lobotomy."  This essentially means that Freeman took a "knitting needle" type object and poked it through Dully's eye socket and rotated it around in his brain for a few minutes.  Dully did not "qualify" for a lobotomy (a procedure which  is no longer valid in the medical world - it does more damage than good).  Freeman was eager to have a patient to work on and Dully's step-mother was eager to have her step-son "altered" or forced to move away.  Dully began a journey to find out about his lobotomy (and why is was ordered) which was documented by NPR.

This book is chilling.  The account is so personal and you cannot help but sympathize with Dully.  I could not help but wonder how Dully slipped through the cracks of doctors, teachers, social workers and government workers.  Dully wrote multiple times that no one ever taught him responsibility and that he had never learned a skill.  Didn't any of the people around him see that?  This made the book personal to me.  I was forced to ask myself, "Are there people standing right in front of me who are just as in need of help as Dully was?"

I really appreciated the ending where Dully wrote about being a victim.  He wrote that while horrible things happened to him, he saw that we were all victims at some levels or another.  I thought that this was an appropriate ending to the book as it was a challenge to all readers and as it issued freedom for Dully - he no longer needed to live in the shadow of his past.