A Request for Thoughtfullness

[Lizabeth]

I was not planning to mention this, but after some posts I have read, I feel I have to. I am new here and I introduced myself in the introductions section.

One thing I did not say about myself, because I didn’t think it was relevant until I had read several posts here, was that I have a chronic illness. I have Bipolar 2.

Most of you probably are familar with Bipolar 1, formerly known as manic-depression (altho actually there are some differences but thats what they call it now.) Bipolar 2 is also a disease of the brain and like Bipolar 1 it causes mood swings between Depression (Medical type) and Elation. In BP1, the elation is manic and often life damaging–people go bankrupt, ruin their marriages, and sometimes have hallucinations.

In BP2, the elation is Hypo-manic, or as a therapist told me, a BP1 person will drive to the city and come back with a Cadilac, you will buy a new doll for your collection. BP2 people usually do not have hallucinations. The flip side is BP2 people can have more trouble with Depression, and we cannot be treated with standard anti-depressants because they bring on hypomania, or can even push it to full blown mania.

This is a disease of a body organ, the brain, just as diabetes is a disease of the pancreas. They can show brain differences on an MRI scan. I became ill well after becoming a Christian. I am NOT demon possessed and rather than flat out healing me, God has been showing me how He still walks with me and turning some symptoms to his Good uses.

Please be careful when you refer to mental illness. Not every person who does bad things has a mental illness–some people are just evil. Perhaps it is comforting to believe horrible acts come from mental illness, but saying anyone that committs a hideous crime is mentally ill (before any psychological exams are done) maybe comforting in reducing a sense of evil but it also perpetuates a stereotype that those of us with MI struggle against. Most of us are law abiding people who often go thru hell here on Earth to find a medication program that works for us. I am fortunate that my med combo is currently working.

I am really enjoying the fellowship here, its just that every reference to MI I have run into here has been very negative, referring either to demon possession or criminals. Please remember this is the exception, not the rule.

God loves us all.

[Alex_Smith]

I have a number of friends & relatives who struggle with MI and I agree that sadly people (often out of ignorance) can say some pretty hurtful (& often very inaccurate) things at times. I hope people don’t do that here. I’ll try to keep an eye out, but there are lots of active threads so if I miss something please let me know.

I’ll try to remember you in my prayers too, as BP2 sounds like a real struggle.

[corpselight]

there is thankfully a growing awareness here in the UK about mental illness. many people i know suffer from depression or anxiety (or both), including (possibly) myself to some small degree.
there’s no way it’s demonic or anything to do with lack of faith. anyone that says something like that in this day and age is willfully ignorant. to insist that any criminal or evil act is one brought on by MI is insulting.
hope you don’t find much of that attitude. i don’t think i’ve personally noticed it myself, but obviously you have. i will do my best to be thoughtful if i have failed to be so in the past

[Username1]

Hi Lizabeth

I have suffered from a chronic but intermittent anxiety disorder most of my adult life (I’m now 48). But it was only a year ago that I finally went to seek proper medical help and got put on medication for it. Anxiety and depression, including bipolar disorder, are rampant in my family. My grandfather committed suicide, and I have two brothers, various uncles, cousins etc all with varying degrees of mental illness. It is amazing how common such illness is.

It’s great that you have had the courage to speak out about your illness. I think you will find, as James (corpselight) says, that everybody is very supportive here (and not a few of us with mental health problems).

The issues you raise are complex. And one of those problems is that society as a whole still does not understand mental illness, and is very often frightened, even repulsed by it – and by those who suffer mental illness. All totally unfairly of course. For as you so rightly say, there is no material difference between, say, diabetes and depression: they are both manifestations of disease in our organs, just that one of them affects the brain and not body, as it were.

But – and it is a big ‘but’ – it is an undeniable fact that there are some mental illnesses which cause the people who suffer from them to do things which we would call ‘bad’ or ‘evil’. Such people represent a tiny tiny fraction of the total population with mental health problems. But they are the ones who get all the publicity, all the tabloid headlines. And in the process simply reinforce societal prejudice against the mentally ill in general.

For example, here in Britain there is a notorious murderer called Ian Brady. He has been locked up for the past 40-odd years, initially in prison and subsequently in a high security psychiatric hospital. Brady has been diagnosed with a severe psychopathic personality disorder. He has clearly presented a severe danger to the public, hence his ongoing incarceration. It is certain he will never be released.

If you ask people what they think of Brady, most of them – including the tabloid press – would simply say that he is evil, evil beyond belief. Now there is no doubt whatsoever that what he did (he tortured, sexually abused and murdered, I think, five children) was indeed evil. If we don’t call the torture and killing of children evil then the word evil has no meaning.

But is Brady himself evil? I would say no. I would say he is very ill indeed – so ill that he cannot be held responsible for his actions, or ‘blamed’ for them in any meaningful sense. But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel abhorrence for his crimes, or call them evil. As I say, I do, and they are.

But then you have criminals, gangsters, who rob, cheat, steal and murder for personal gain, for money, for power. Or the Nazis, who killed millions out of political ideology. Such people are not, in the main, mentally ill, and hence, in my opinion, we can call both them and the wrong things they do evil.

But even very evil people are not incapable of doing good, even loving things. I don’t know whether you’ve seen those extraordinary images of concentration camp guards during WW2 laughing and playing with their children in houses just outside – or maybe even inside, I don’t recall – the camps in which they supervised the execution of thousands of Jews.

Now to me that is the real horror, the thing I find hardest to understand about human nature. Somebody who truly knows the difference between right and wrong; somebody who has people who they love, and who love them; doing unspeakably evil things to their fellow human beings.

As for the whole issue of demonic possession, well I have made my beliefs pretty clear. I do not believe in demons, or Satan (at least not as ‘personal’ beings), and I do not believe in demonic possession. I think that demonic possession was the way people in less, shall we say, ‘enlightened’ times explained (or explained away) certain forms of mental illness

You are right to say God loves us all, Lizabeth. And that, much as it we may sometimes find it hard to understand or accept, includes Ian Brady as well as flawed messed up Johnny.

And one of the wonderful things about UR is that we believe God loves us all, forgives us all, and will one day cleanse and heal us all too, and make right all the bad or wrong things we have done. All of them. Every single one. Praise Him indeed!

Peace and love

Johnny

[Lizabeth]

Thank you all for your encouraging replies. Recent research indicate psychopathy is in a seperate category with differant causes(other parts of the brain involved-the parts that let conscience develop) than other types of MI and unfortunately effective treatment is not on the horizon yet. These people deserve our prayers as they truly do not comprehend the evil of some of the things they do.

Johnny, I am now praying your treatment will help you. I also have terrible problems with anxiety (its a major BP2 symptom) and for a time I thought it indicated a weakness in my faith. Now I know its a brain problem and I pray for help when I need it in addition to keeping up with my treatment plan.

Alex and Corpslight, thanks again.

I also participate in a Mental Health Support board and many of the people there have been hurt badly by ignorance and prejudice disguised as religion–some of them while they were children. I am reminded of Jesus saying that those who cause that kind of hurt would be better off thrown in the sea with stones around their necks. I am glad He is the one who redeems all as that one is beyond me.

Yes Johnny, I have seen the concentration camp guard pictures. One of my high school teachers was very big on teaching about the Holocaust in the hope that enough knowldge would prevent anything like it happenning again. The lesson I took away was everyone is human and to say anyone is not human is to take a step on a very slippery slope leading to evil. I think WWII was one of the few truly justified wars in history.

When we think of that evil, I think we should also remember the good, people who hid Jewish people, and the countries of Albania, Denmark and some of the Partisans in parts of what was then the Soviet Union who fought with Jewish partisans also.

Once again, thank you for your understanding everyone.

[Sobornost]

Bless you Lizabeth A rich blessing on you!