There should be no shame if you have a a mental illness.

If there were a physical disease that manifested itself in some particularly ugly way, such as postulating sores or a sloughing off of the flesh accompanied by pain of an intense and chronic nature, readily visible to everyone, and if that disease affected fifteen million people in our country, and further, if there were virtually no help or succor for most of these persons, and they were forced to walk among us in their obvious agony, we would rise up as one social body in sympathy and anger. There isn’t such a physical disease, but there is such a disease of the mind, and about fifteen million people around us are suffering from it. But we have not risen in anger and sympathy, although they are walking among us in their pain and anguish.

Russell K. Hampton, The Far Side of Despair: A Personal Account of Depression (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1975), 78. Quoted in Broken Minds Hope for Healing When You Feel Like You're Losing It, (2005) Grand Rapids: Kregel Publications

A. M. Rosenthal described the problem quite succinctly in the New York Times in January 1995: “If a person breaks a leg in the street, civil help tends to help him quickly—ambulance, doctors, police. Break your mind and you lie there.”

Quoted in Rosalyn Carter, with Susan K. Golant, Helping Someone with Mental Illness: A Compassionate Guide for Family, Friends, and Caregivers (New York: Random House, 1998), 23. Ibid

These are both reactions to how the mentally ill are treated generally by society. We should be able to expect better from the body of Christ, which has the truth of God and the requirement to love with understanding, godliness, and steadfast affection (2 Peter 1:3–8).

Read about a Golden Gate Bridge survivor

A young man named Kevin Hines, who was eighteen years old, when suffering from mental illness, decided one morning that he was going to end his life. He tells us in this amazing video how he immediately regretted jumping.  The moment he catapulted himself over the barrier fences on the Golden Gate bridge, he knew he wanted to live.

Suicide is a horrendous problem for all the countries of the world.    Please see this video and pass it along to your friends and loved ones. Please go to: 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WcSUs9iZv-g


We would love to send you a copy of our book, Broken Minds, Hope for Healing When You Feel Like You're Losing It. The longest chapter is the one on suicide. We don't want anyone to end his or her life. We will make sure you get a copy of our book for a donation in any amount,http://heartfeltmin.org/resources.html We must all do everything we can to end this epidemic of self harm and suicide. If you prefer  the electronic version, Kregel Publications  has made Broken Minds available in that format as well. Please go to:  https://www.amazon.com/Broken-Minds-Healing-Youre-Losing/dp/0825421187

Responsibility to the Sick in Spirit

Responsibility to those who are 
Sick in Spirit

 

 Proverbs has a word to say about those who fail to comfort the depressed and brokenhearted. Proverbs 25:20 uses a Hebrew root word that sometimes denotes a Jewish bard or minstrel who would go from place to place telling folktales and singing fun songs:

Like one who takes off a garment on a cold day, or like vinegar on soda, is he who sings songs to a troubled heart.

 

How easy it is for those who have not felt the dark gloom and bitter pain of depression to tell the depressed or brokenhearted that they can easily overcome it. Such empty advice is cold comfort that makes matters worse for the sufferer. 

  Does that mean that only those who have experienced depression can understand it well enough to help? A pastor said to me, half in jest, “I haven’t been depressed a day in my life...and it’s not my fault.” This pastor recognized that the one who has not experienced a particular sort of crisis will be less prepared to help others deal with it.

 

 Those who have not experienced mental illness must take to heart Paul’s advice in Romans 12:15,

^"Rejoice with those who rejoice, weep with those who weep."

To show Christ’s love, it is sometimes needful simply to weep with those who are weeping rather than give superficial advice or try to be cheery. Job’s friends were good comforters as long as they sat in silence. It was when they opened their mouths to preach long, superficial sermons that they were used of Satan to drive Job into deeper despair.

The first metaphor in Proverbs 25:20 has particular meaning to those of us who have lived in the northern latitudes, as we did for a while in Michigan in the United States. It can get so cold on January nights that when a heavy mitten falls off, the hand immediately begins to sting. What if someone rips the overcoat off of a fellow traveler on such a night because it seemed that they might feel better without the coat’s weight? The writer of Proverbs says that one who sings vacuous songs to a troubled heart is as unfeeling as one who exposes the person to the cold. Whatever the singer’s intention, there is no help because there is a lack of empathy and sympathy. The word “troubled” translates the Hebrew ra, which means affliction, calamity, misery, and adversity. Please be careful when giving advice to the hurting. Sometimes all they need is your love.
From Broken Minds Hope for Healing When You Feel Like You're Losing It.

 

In our book Broken Minds Hope for Healing When You Feel Like You're Losing It, (Kregel  Publications) Robyn and I talk about the depths of suffering that are experienced by those who are depressed and those who have other types of mental illness. The spirit of a man sustains his sickness but a wounded spirit who can bear, Proverbs 14:12

f you would like to help our ministry, and read about Steve and Robyn's fight with mental illness, please go to: heartfeltmin.org/resources.html and scroll down to the donation button. Our book is being offered at cost (8.00) plus shipping  ($3.00). This sale will not last forever.  You can buy up to ten for the said price. If you prefer doing your reading on Kindle, you can go to:          https://www.amazon.com/Broken-Minds-Healing-Youre-Losing/dp/0825421187