Mental illness and faith are hard to reconcile. They feel like two of the biggest things that make me who I am. My mental illness is my battle of a lifetime, it's the thing I can't get rid of no matter how I change my hair or my clothes or my face. My faith is who I am, inside and out. The two stand in opposition, they grapple and fight and I am taken between them and tossed wherever they go.
When I am depressed, I'm hopeless. I'm turned inside out with exhaustion and breathing feels too hard. My hopelessness, however, doesn't extend to my faith. I know that my God is on my side always, I know my salvation is firm, I know my final destination. But the thing that trips me up is that the hope I have in Christ does not cancel out or lessen my depression. I can lay in bed sobbing, heartbroken and exhausted and also know that God loves me. Sometimes when people hear what I'm going through, they seem to think that if I'd just pray more my depression would go away. As if I don't lay in bed sobbing, gasping for air, screaming in my heart for God to fix me, begging for relief, aching with fervent prayer for a reprieve? Being clinically depressed is not the same as being in the darkness without God. Being clinically depressed while also trusting in Christ's salvation is sitting in the darkness, unmoving, broken, with Jesus's arms around me while I fight through the side effects of a sick mind. In my experience, when I ask God to help me with my depression, God has not taken a Mr. Clean eraser to my brain and cured me. He has, instead, lead me through prayer and supplication to open conversations with my parents, to therapy, to working myself into healthier mindsets. When I talk to people who tell me I need 'to give it to God,' I get discouraged. As if I didn't think of that? As if I haven't already? As if that wasn't my first line of defense? As if I would be 'cured' if I just had a little more faith? No. People who say that are people who don't understand what I'm going through. People who say that fail to see that God has already got it, already provided for me, already helped me even though he didn't 'cure' me.
Anxiety is hard to reconcile with faith. How can my Creator, who sent his Son to die for me let me feel so worthless for so long? Does he forget about me? Has he left me? Does he even care? These are questions I ask about everyone in my life. Questions my sick, tired brain asks about my parents, my best friends, my most cherished people. And my sickness extends outward and asks the same questions of God. It confuses me, and it makes me feel like I'm weak in my faith even though I know it's not my rational brain who's asking. My rational brain says that God looked down through time and ordained the exact circumstances that lead to my birth because I am worthy, because I am loved, because I am His. My rational brain knows that God knows me, personally, individually, and he has plans for me. My rational brain knows that God promises he will never leave me or forsake me. And yet, my rational brain is not always in control. My anxiety often makes me feel like a fake when I sit in a church pew where I should feel most at home and can barely sit still because anxiety is eating me up telling me that no one wants me there, that I am in the way, that I am nothing. I stand between God's people-my family-and I feel nothing but judgement that my brain has convinced me lurks in their eyes and their words even though I know better, even though they would hold me and weep if they knew what my brain was saying about me.
Sometimes, my fellow Christians are the ones who misunderstand my illness the most. They know that I have the insurmountable joy of God and the peace of Jesus living in me and they can't understand why that isn't enough to make me feel better. Honestly, I can't understand sometimes either. When the darkness takes over, when I've spent my days counting in eights to keep my mind busy and popping my fingers to keep my hand busy and taking measured breaths to stay on my feet, I wonder why I don't have the "peace" that everyone else seems to have. The reality though is that I do, my peace just looks a little different in the scope of my anxiety and depression. My peace is my therapist that makes me feel incredibly safe and helps me learn how to deal with my illness. My peace came in the form of parents that didn't bat an eye when I told them I was sinking and needed help; they just said "whatever it takes to get you feeling better." My peace comes in the form of friends God strategically placed in my life who prove time and time again that my anxious shutdowns will not scare them away and who reassure me of their love as often as I need. Sometimes they tell me 'just listen to God' like I've been ignoring him all my life and he's been saying "feel better" the whole time. I have listened to God, I have followed his leading. His hand in my healing wasn't an instantaneous cure. It is an ongoing process of trusting him while retraining my brain and clinging to him while relearning what life should look like.
Mental illness and faith can coexist. They DO coexist. It's not pretty. It's complicated. It's something I never see or hear talked about and it's something I have such a personal connection with. I guess that's why I'm here, writing this. I believe that God looked at my life, knew the battles I'd face, and gave me this outlet as a way to help people. I have the chance here to educate people who don't fight these battles on how to talk to me, how to help me, how to understand me. Even if only one person reads this and realizes something new, that's enough.
I also have the chance here to talk to my brothers and sisters in Christ who have these same struggles and let them know: your fight with anxiety or depression or any other mental illness doesn't make you any less of a Christian. Your fight doesn't mean you've failed your faith and it doesn't mean God has abandoned you. He chose us to exist. He looked at His creation and decided that it needed you and me. We are not accidents, we are not extras, we are not by-products. We are Creations of the most high King who holds time in His hand and calls the stars by name. We might have been chosen to fight some of the hardest battles, but we are not a forgotten regime left to fight and die.
We are known. We are seen. We are valuable. We are not alone.
I am known. I am seen. I am valuable. I am not alone.
