6 Things you should not say to a depressed person.

"Reckless words pierce like a sword,but the tongue of the wise bring healing" (Proverbs 12:18 -NIV).

If you are familiar with this blog you know that I have had some severe episodes of  depression in my life. I have had many would be comforters.  God wants you to draw near to a person whose brain has failed them and comfort them by your words.  Robyn and I in our book, Broken Minds Hope for Healing When You Feel Like You're Losing It often talk about having empathy with those whose brain is broken. It is used in counseling others around the world.  If you don't have the book, just put bloem, broken minds in a Google search.














I have found a good article in the Huffington Post that warns against saying the wrong thing to a person who is suffering from depression. It is not biblical but it has some good truths in it. It is a short article.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/01/29/what-not-to-say-to-someon_n_4675854.html

This seminar will change your life and put you in touch with people who struggle with mental illness.

Depression, It just won't go away, look at these 5 steps to finding out how to fight depression.

 This a repost, copyright 2015 Steve Bloem, all rights  reserved



1. You should have a complete medical examination to rule out other causes of clinical depression. A leading expert tells us about some of these; “Thyroid conditions are extremely common in the adult population in the United States and they can often lead to depression, both an overactive thyroid and an under active thyroid can lead to depression. And a simple blood test can diagnose hypothyroidism or hyperthyroidism and lead to appropriate treatment that may be very helpful for relieving the depression.

2.  Is the idea that any kind of structural brain problem can lead to depression. Examples of these include a stroke, brain tumor or multiple sclerosis. Degenerative brain diseases, such as Alzheimer's, dementia, Parkinson's disease or Huntington's disease also frequently cause depression, as does traumatic brain injury. Cardiac conditions often are often associated with depression and treatment for the cardiac condition and the depression should begin aggressively and at the same time.  Psychiatrists need to be thinking as medical doctors when they approach their patients who are complaining of depression. And at times they may need to order a variety of blood tests, brain images or EEG to rule out seizure disorders. And in many cases psychiatrists need to collaborate closely with primary care doctors and other medical specialists to clarify the diagnosis and to find and implement the appropriate treatment.

3. You should never settle for having a doctor/psychiatrist tell you, “I don’t know what else to do; you are just going to have to live with the symptoms.” Top researchers tell us that  the goal of today’s psychiatrist is to control/arrest all of your depressive symptoms. If you have depressive symptoms you should always be working on a treatment plan to alleviate them. Research suggests that more than half of treatment non-response can be attributed to either poor treatment adherence to a medication regimen and/or to severe side effects.  Before making any changes to a medication regimen, the clinician should first ensure that the patient took the prescribed medication consistently and correctly; that the recommended dose was at least a moderate level; and that the patient took the medication for a sufficient duration typically considered to be at least 8 weeks.

 If you would like to purchase a copy of our book, Broken Minds Hope for Healing When You Feel Like You're Losing It, please do the following: For a hard copy new, go to our website http://heartfeltmin.org/author-page.html
It retails for $16.00 + $3.00 shipping (In USA). If you would like a Kindle copy, please visit - http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Minds-Healing-Youre-Losing-ebook/dp/B004EPYNLE/ref=tmm_kin_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=&sr=

D Martyn Lloyd Jones

 4..You should consider the possibility that your depression (or part of it) is a spiritual depression. The causes and cures of spiritual depression are numerous. Some of which are: chastisement,vain regrets, false guilt, not understanding what constitutes the doctrine of justification, demoralization, weariness in well doing and so many more. See Spiritual Depression, Its causes and cures.






5. The cost is too much – This is one of the most difficult barriers to beating a treatment resistant depression. First, let me say that the evangelical church must concern itself with this blatant need. The Bible tells us, we are to contribute to the needs of the saints (Romans 12:13). We are to love our brothers and sisters in Christ and be compassionate towards their suffering (Colossians 3:12). We are to bear one another burdens, and thereby fulfill the law of Christ (Galatians 6:2). The government funds for effective treatment of mental illness are drying up. People will be looking to religious non profits to take up the slack. Psychiatrists will need to volunteer time in faith based clinics, pastors will need to be trained in the dynamics of mental illness and depression. If you can get a job, look for one with insurance benefits. If you are poor, apply for Medicaid, or for Medicare if you qualify. You should find out who the Gate Keeper of public mental health is in your county or state and tap into the resources they have to offer. It would be advantageous to get a copy of your County services that are available through the United Way. There are sliding scales for low income persons.  Either you or someone else needs to contact the drug company that makes your medicine and check their programs to help those who do not have insurance. You can also call 211.

Please go to our web site heartfeltmin.org

Another Chinese Pastor who is being harassed by Chinese Government agents.

RFA: Chinese Protestant Pastor to Face Trial on 'Fraud,' Public Order Charges

ChinaAid Contacts
Bob Fu, President
Tel: 1+ (888) 889-7757 | Cell: (267) 205-5210
Email: Bob@ChinaAid.org
Website: www.ChinaAid.org | www.MonitorChina.org

Zhang Shaojie

Radio Free Asia
Jan. 15, 2014

Authorities in the central Chinese province of Henan are preparing to put an influential detained pastor who defended his church's land rights on trial on public order and "fraud" charges, his lawyer said on Wednesday.

A criminal charge sheet issued recently by a court in Henan's Nanle county accuses Protestant pastor Zhang Shaojie of "gathering a crowd to disturb public order" and committing "fraud," his lawyer Liu Weiguo told RFA's Mandarin Service.

"I requested a meeting with Zhang Shaojie today, but the detention center staff wouldn't let me visit him," Liu said. 

"They said I would have to get the agreement of the court."

He said the detention center was in clear breach of provisions under China's Criminal Procedure Law relating to meetings with lawyers. "I have already given my letter of instruction to the court, and I will go back this afternoon to request a meeting again," he said.

The Chinese authorities had been cracking down on Zhang's government-approved Nanle church for about a month before his November detention following a land dispute that pitted the popular preacher against the county government.  The crackdown on a state-approved church surprised many observers as the Communist government officially allows Christians to only worship in such churches, while unregistered congregations tend to be harassed. Church supporters say the county government reneged on an agreement to allocate Zhang's church a piece of land for the construction of a new building.

Denying charges
Liu said the authorities had repeatedly obstructed Zhang's contact with lawyers appointed by his family.

"The prosecutors and court both lied to him, and didn't inform him that his family had already hired lawyers," he said. "The court told him [on Tuesday] that his family hadn't found lawyers for him, and that the court would appoint a lawyer for him." Zhang is denying all charges against him, he said.

"He says there is no evidence of 'serious consequences' to [an open-air church service he conducted] and that he never carried out the actions described on the charge sheet," Liu said.

"He also denies the charge of fraud, which is written in a very vague way on the charge sheet, which runs to three pages but which you could say is very slapdash," the lawyer added.

The five people detained alongside Zhang, some of whom are his relatives, have yet to be charged, Liu said.

Church crackdown
Liu's charges come after local officials detained him on Nov. 16 and later seized control of the state-sanctioned church, sealing it off from the congregation. Hundreds of Protestant worshipers from Shenzhen, Shanghai, Jiangsu, Hebei, Shandong, and Beijing converged on Nanle county over Christmas to show support for the church, which is a member of the ruling Chinese Communist Party's Three-Self Patriotic Association of Protestant churches. But they were banned from using the church premises, which have been sealed off by local officials, who are watching the buildings to prevent anyone going in, local congregation members said.

Dozens of people were surrounded by more than 100 police after they tried to hold a Christmas service in the open air instead. Lawyers for Zhang and the other detainees were beaten by government-hired thugs and themselves detained after they protested being denied the right to visit their clients.

Another preacher, Shenzhen-based pastor Cao Nan, has also described being tortured with pepper spray while in police custody. Nanle church-goers have previously accused the government of targeting the church's property under the guise of other charges.A Nanle county Protestant worshiper who declined to be named said he was very angry at the news of charges against Zhang.

"It looks as if the Nanle county government has already concocted some fake evidence, so as to 'prove' Zhang's guilt on all counts," he said. "They are despicable, shameless scum, to do this," he added.

Lawyer faces loss of license
Meanwhile, a second defense lawyer, Xia Jun, faces losing his license to practice after being accused of "stirring up trouble" in Nanle county and inviting other lawyers to get involved in the case.

Xia said he had recently received a call from the head of his Shenzhen-based law firm saying that the city's justice bureau had received a letter from Nanle county lawmakers and political advisers calling for his license to be canceled. "They are going to pursue me legally," Xia said. "They even said I got a group of lawyers together and a crowd of people and inciting them to cause trouble [in Nanle county].

"[They said] I disturbed public order and sought out foreign journalists, and they have demanded that my lawyer's license be revoked," Xia said. Liang Jiangzhou, who heads the Shenzhen-based law firm Puluomi, said the situation was "still unclear." "I have no opinion right now," Liang said. "The facts of the situation really aren't clear, and I can't make any comment."

Asked if Xia would lose his license, Liang replied: "We will have to see what happens."

Reported by Qiao Long for RFA's Mandarin Service. Translated and written in English by Luisetta Mudie.

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Robyn and Steve invite you to see some  reviews  of the their book (the picture) Broken Minds which is a personal, biblical and clinical account of their battle with a formidable  foe.  It talks about the Christian and Mental Illness.  Its largest chapter is on suicide and how by God's grace, Steve escaped it.

 

http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Minds-Healing-Youre-Losing/dp/0825421187/ref=tmm_pap_title_0

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Key topics, bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, obessive compulsive disorder, research on mental illness, depression and the Christian. Panic disorder, the church and mental illness.  The stigma of mental illness.

Table of Contents

Contents
  Foreword 
  Preface 
  Acknowledgments 
  Introduction 
Part 1: Descent into Night
 1. A Dream Lost 
 2. Stress and the Gathering Storm 
 3. A Cloak of Darkness 
 4. The Alluring Song of Suicide 
Part 2: Walking Through the Mist
 5. Drawing Back the Veil 
 6. Still in the Dark 
 7. Learning to Live in Grace 
 8. Loving and Accepting in Family 
Part 3: Penetrating the Darkness
 9. The Chemical Response to Mental Illness 
 10. The Inpatient Response to Mental Illness 
 11. The Interpersonal Response to Mental Illness 
 12. The Frightening E.C.T. Response to Mental Illness 
 13. S.A.D., Panic Disorder, PTSD, and OCD 
Part 4: Broken Minds and the People of God
 14. Laid Off, Benched, or Fit for Ministry? 
 15. A History of (Mis)treatment 
 16. Christian Counseling: A Treatment Smorgasbord 
 17. The Biblical Evidence 
 18. Reclaiming the Puritan Care of Souls 
 19. Depression and the Ekklesia of God 
  Appendix A: Terms Relating to Mental Illness and Its Treatment 
  Appendix B: Ten Recommended Web Sites 
  Appendix C: Thomas Manton and Thomas Goodwin on Isaiah 50:10 
  Appendix D: Substance Abuse and Mental Illness
  Endnotes 
  Select Bibliography 

Library of Congress Subject Headings for this publication:
Mental health -- Religious aspects -- Christianity.

Mental Illness leaves carnage in its wake but it does not have to be.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Huffington Post - All rights reserved
THOSE of us in the pundit world tend to blather on about what happened yesterday, while often ignoring what happens every day. We stir up topics already on the agenda, but we falter at calling attention to crucial-but-neglected issues.

 

My own suggestion for a systematically neglected issue: mental health. One-quarter of American adults suffer from a diagnosable mental disorder, including depression, anorexia, post-traumatic stress disorder and more, according to the National Institutes of Health. Such disorders are the leading cause of disability in the United States and Canada, the N.I.H. says. A parent with depression. A lover who is bipolar. A child with an eating disorder. A brother who returned from war with P.T.S.D. A sister who is suicidal.

America and the world more likely to cry quietly in bed than speak out about mental problems.

All across America and the world, families struggle with these issues, but people are more likely to cry quietly in bed than speak out. These mental health issues pose a greater risk to our well-being than, say, the Afghan Taliban or Al Qaeda terrorists, yet in polite society there is still something of a code of silence around these topics.

Media covers politics more than mental health issues

We in the news business have devoted vast coverage to political battles over health care, deservedly, but we don’t delve enough into underlying mental health issues that are crucial to national well-being.  Indeed, when the news media do cover mental health, we do so mostly in extreme situations such as a mass shooting. That leads the public to think of mental disorders as dangerous, stigmatizing those who are mentally ill and making it harder for them to find friends or get family support.

In fact, says an Institute of Medicine report, the danger is “greatly exaggerated” in the public mind. The report concluded: “although findings of many studies suggest a link between mental illnesses and violence, the contribution of people with mental illnesses to overall rates of violence is small.”
 

Most of mentally ill are not violent but many kill themselves
Put simply, the great majority of people who are mentally ill are not violent and do not constitute a threat — except, sometimes, to themselves. Every year, 38,000 Americans commit suicide, and 90 percent of them are said to suffer from mental illness.

One study found that anorexia is by far the most deadly psychiatric disorder, partly because of greatly elevated suicide risk.

Mental illness causes multiple problems such as homelessness.

Mental illness is also linked to narcotics and alcoholism, homelessness, parenting problems and cycles of poverty. One study found that 55 percent of American infants in poverty are raised by mothers with symptoms of depression, which impairs child rearing.

So if we want to tackle a broad range of social pathologies and inequities, we as a society have to break taboos about mental health. There has been progress, and news organizations can help accelerate it. But too often our coverage just aggravates the stigma and thereby encourages more silence.

Mental illness can be effectively treated.

The truth is that mental illness is not hopeless, and people recover all the time. Consider John Nash, the Princeton University mathematics genius who after a brilliant early career then tumbled into delusions and involuntary hospitalization — captured by the book and movie “A Beautiful Mind.” Nash spent decades as an obscure, mumbling presence on the Princeton campus before regaining his mental health and winning the Nobel Prize for economics. Although treatments are available, we often don’t provide care, so the mentally ill disproportionately end up in prison or on the streets.

One example of a cost-effective approach employs a case worker to help mentally ill people leaving a hospital or shelter as they adjust to life in the outside world. Randomized trials have found that this support dramatically reduces subsequent homelessness and hospitalization. Researchers found that the $6,300 cost per person in the program was offset by $24,000 in savings because of reduced hospitalization. In short, the program more than paid for itself. But we as a society hugely under invest in mental health services.
 

Children in particular don’t get treated nearly often enough. The American Journal of Psychiatry reports that of children ages 6 to 17 who need mental health services, 80 percent don’t get help. Racial and ethnic minorities are even more under served.

So mental health gets my vote as a major neglected issue meriting more attention. It’s not sexy, and it doesn’t involve Democrats and Republicans screaming at each other, but it is a source of incalculable suffering that can be remedied.  Now it’s your turn to suggest neglected issues for coverage in 2014. I’ll be back with a report.


Nicholas Kristof

 

Pastor in Nepal is discourged in his imprisonment. Will you (watch) pray for him?

Romans 15:28-33, (NIV) - So after I have completed this task and have made sure that they have received this fruit, I will go to Spain and visit you on the way. I know that when I come to you, I will come in the full measure of the blessing of Christ. I urge you, brothers, by our Lord Jesus Christ and by the love of the Spirit, to join me in my struggle by praying to God for me.




Pray that I may be rescued from the unbelievers in Judea and that my service in Jerusalem may be acceptable to the saints there, so that by God's will I may come to you with joy and together with you be refreshed.The God of peace be with you all. Amen.

Pastor Chhedar Bhote Lhomi was arrested for eating beef and sentenced to 12 years in prison. The 37-year-old pastor and his wife were ministering in a remote part of Nepal among Tibetan people. They established a church there which met regularly.

Pastor Bhote and his wife are from an area of Nepal where eating beef is permissible, but in other areas, local Hindus do not eat beef because cows and oxen are sacred as symbols of the gods. In October 2012, local villagers discovered that Chhedar and his family had eaten beef. In an uproar, they accused him of killing the cow himself, and they destroyed his home and everything he owned. The locals handed them over to the Hindu committee, who called police and had him arrested. He was given a sentence of 12 years in prison.

When a VOM representative recently met with Chhedar, he was sad and discouraged. Chhedar’s family is struggling without him. He is worried about his children’s future and his wife’s ability to provide for them. The other students tease and mock his three children, ages 10, 8 and 7, relentlessly.
Our VOM representative wrote, “Please help to get more letters in the jail so that he will know he has believers around the world who are praying for him.”

 
 

http://www.prisoneralert.com/vompw_prisoners.html?countryID=163&_nc=0.0933706926161





|Pastor Bhote



 

How should Christian Counselors deal with psychotic people?

Nouthetics: Schizophrenic and Mania

The problem is that nouthetics was designed with everyday problems and mood swings in mind.  It seldom concerns itself with the difference between feeling “down” and clinical depression. Nouthetics doesn’t accept that there are differences between the two levels of depression, for it recognizes no physical causes for clinical depression or most other illnesses.

Nouthetic counselors surely do run into persons who have made a break with reality, but the nature of the counseling seldom brings counselors face-to-face with schizophrenics so conceptually disorganized and paranoid that they can't function. With Bible in hand, counselors would not get very far with persons whose auditory hallucinations make it impossible to concentrate. Bringing spiritual reality into a severely psychotic or manic person's world is like standing at a fixed point and talking to someone who is riding a merry-go-round. The person counseled might be able to comprehend a simple verse or biblical concept, but there is little ability to focus and the merry-go-round never slows. I've listened to the nonstop monologue of someone in a manic state without getting in a single word.

The rationality needed to hear this type of counsel and meditate on Scripture simply does not exist for such a person. Such lack of rationality and inability to concentrate indicate that there might be a flaw in the theory that mental illness relates strictly to spiritual need and will go away as Christians grow in biblical concepts. This material was taken from Steve and Robyn Bloem's book, Broken Mind Hope for Healing When You Feel Like You're Losing It.  It is copyrighted by Kregel Publications:Grand Rapids, MI (2005). The page is 184.





If you would like to know more about the book Broken Minds please go to this link:
http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Minds-Healing-Youre-Losing/dp/0825421187

Don't forget our seminar,Whispers in the Foyer, An Honest Look at the Christian and Mental Illness.   The date is February 22 2014, 10:am-4p.m. with an hour lunch.
http://sbloemreflections.blogspot.com/2013/12/our-seminar-whispers-in-foyer-honest.html

Adoption by Watson

Thomas Watson

 
We may know God is our Father, by resembling Him. The child is his father's picture. ...every child of God resembles the king of heaven... Herein God's adopted children and man's differ. A man adopts one for his son and heir that does not at all resemble him; but whomsoever God adopts for His child is like Him; he not only bears his heavenly Father's name, but His image. "And have put on the new man, which is renewed after the image of Him that created him" (Colossians 3:10). "He who has God for his Father, resembles Him in holiness, which is the glory of the Godhead, Exodus 15:11. 


The holiness of God is the intrinsic purity of His essence. He who loves God for his Father, partakes of the divine nature; though not of the divine essence, yet of the divine likeness...He has the print and effigies of

His holiness stamped upon him."{Watson, Thomas, (1620-1686). The Lord's Prayer, (c 1962.)  London: Banner of Truth Trust, p. 9,10

Announcements- Don't forget our seminar which will be held at Boca Glades Baptist Church, February 22, 2014. Registration is at 9:30 a.m. and the seminar is 10 a.m.-4pm/ pm. Lunch is on us.

Robyn and Steve Bloem will be presenting important material and testimony. There is always good fellowship at our seminars.  There will be no condemation of mental illness your expense. For the seminar please go to http://sbloemreflections.blogspot.com/2013/12/our-seminar-whispers-in-foyer-honest.html




 

To read more about our book follow this link: http://www.amazon.com/Broken-Minds-Healing-Youre-Losing/dp/0825421187

 

Persecution and taking the Shield of Faith

 

 



 

A well known hymn says, "If through fiery trials your pathway should be".  The history of the Church has much to say about "fiery trials."   The apostle Peter in the fourth chapter of his First epistle uses that expression in the twelfth verse: "Beloved, he says, "think not it a strange concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing happened to you." 



It is not strange, it is the lot of God's people. It always has been, it always will be.  "Yea, and all that will live godly in Christ Jesus," says Paul to Timothy, shall suffer  persecution"( 2 Timothy 3:12, KJV).   The wicked one can bring these things suddenly to bear upon us.  By these means Satan tries to alarm us, tries  to fill us with fears.  Do our enemies intend to kill us?  Do they propose to take everything from us? Am I going to lose my position because I am a Christian?  Or will you be troubled about your wife and family? Will you be troubled about your church, about the whole cause of Christ? Terrible periods of persecution come to the Christian Church.  Again there may be long intervals when there is no persecution except some minor matter, just an occasional shot here and there.  But sometimes the devil, as it were, has been preparing a great mass of fiery darts, and he hurls them all together at the same time; and the onslaught may continue for a period...

The Apsotle's teaching is that there is only one way to deal with these attacks.  W must take and use the shield of faith.  It is the only thing that can quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one..., What you must do is to take you shield.  and hold it up, so they they may hit against that portion of the shield which is specifically meant  to deal with them as they burst against it, and  so do you no harm...  These excerpets are from The Christian Soldier, An exposition of Ephesians 6:10- 20.
The author is D. Martyn Lloyd Jones.  It is published by Kregle Publications, 1978, pp. 303, 304.



» 01/02/2014 10:56
SYRIA
2013, the bloodiest year for Syria with more than 73 thousand deaths
Most of those killed were military or armed rebels , but there are also tens of thousands of civilians among the victims. International community accused of being concerned about use of chemical weapons, but not about massacres.


Beirut ( AsiaNews

The Observatory has also updated the figures on deaths throughout the war period : 130 thousand , mostly soldiers and rebel fighters on both sides. The group criticizes the international community because "it is not in taking serious action to stop the massacres that have been committed and continue to be committed ."

The international community - continues the group - focused on chemical weapons and on their dismantling , but "forgot all the massacres that have killed thousands of Syrians ."

Don't forget about our seminar in Boca Raton, Florida. It is called Whispers in the Foyer an Honest Look at the Christian and Mental Illness. All you have to do is go to this link and then click on seminar.   http://www.heartfeltmin.org/#!events/c15sx