Jesse: Mark, you know about the Bible, right? I mean, you went to Oral Roberts University.

Me: I did go there. I guess I know a little bit. Why, whats up?

Me: Jesse, that doesn’t fit with anything I’ve ever read in the Bible. I’m no scholar, but that sounds awful to me.

Jesse: I mean, why would God make all of this stuff, this great big world, only to destory it? Does that make any sense at all? And how th f@# does he know when its gonna happen? The Bible says nobody knows the day or the hour.

Me: wow have you been reading your Bible?

Jesse: I went to Catholic school. It also says that as it was in the beginning so shall it be in the end.

Me: I think that was Bob Marley that said that.

Jesse: well, its in the Bible too. Anyway, I just want to know why God would make all of this stuff just to destroy it and save a few people?!

You tell me who sounds crazier- my friend with schizophrenia? or the guy he’s criticizing? I have to admit that while it is likely his delusions that lead him to listen to Camping in the first place, I can’t argue with his logic or his questioning. I think he’s actually poking at a pretty important question… I just thought this was an interesting conversation.

1. Politics: When I was a freshman at Oral Roberts University, I remember one day walking to class with my friend Ronnie.  He asked me where I was going, and when I told him English class he responded “are they going to give you a healthy dose of that right wing Christian propaganda?” Even though Ronnie was joking (I think), the answer was of course, yes, because despite the fact that I was studying social work there, it was still a (very) conservative Christian school. And for some reason that question stuck with me. I found myself asking as I walked into my social work classes at Temple, “are they going to give me a healthy dose of that left wing social worky propaganda?”  And the answer was almost always an unequivocal yes. Because Temple was a mainstream social work program and like other social work programs tended to be somewhat biased in the other direction.

So here is my first point: studying social work helped me to reconcile my political and moral/religious beliefs and so reengage in the political process. I once told my dad that politics is stupid and useless, and as politics were presented at ORU, I was correct. I disengaged from politics while at ORU because I couldn’t fit my deepest convictions into  what I was being told was the “Christian political view.” I read a book called So Want to be a Social Worker: A Primer for the Christian Student (a book I read in its entirety while on the toilet) and it helped me immensely. Studying social work helped me to see that my political concerns and my religious beliefs were not mutually exclusive or contradictory. And I have to say that being exposed to two very differing world-views was healthy for me.  Having been immersed in the “right wing Christian propaganda” that my friend referenced helped me to think critically when I was thrown head first into the deep end of “liberalism.” (If only I could describe the scene when I first admitted to my class at Temple that I went to a college that barred drinking, cursing, and homosexuality) I hope that the result has been a word that I have come to love: balance.

2. Confession: Lest you think that I have been changed 100% for the better by my social work education I will now offer a confession. Before I began studying social work I attended Bible school in Dallas, Texas. While I was there my best education in theology occurred when I was on the streets spending time with homeless people. I began to really believe that this was how Jesus would have spent his time. I got to know several homeless folks occasionally giving them some money or lunch or simply hearing their story. In fact, this time of my life was very influential in my decision to study social work. So here is the confession. I realized recently to my dismay that since I left Dallas I have not spoken to a single homeless person just to hear their story or buy their lunch.

For some reason studying social work has caused some kind of disconnect in me  between the problems people face and the people themselves. I got into social work initially because it was the closest thing to ministry I could imagine and yet I’ve been so immersed in social issues that I sometimes have forgotten the actual people that I care so much about. So I guess I know what I need to do now: get back on the streets and hear some stories.

3. Second Chances: Suffice it to say I am a big believer in second chances. Being a social worker requires it as does being a Christian. One of the reasons I oppose the death penalty by the way.  Anyway, studying social work very much reinforced this belief in second chances. And in unexpected ways. First, working with people suffering from mental illness has offered me the privilege to witness some profound things: people in anguish extending grace and, yes second and third and fourth chances to one another. Nothing to do with us professionals, folks. Just people in pain offering each other grace. Can you think of a better metaphor for the Church?

Another way my belief was reinforced was actually literally being offered a second chance. My graduate education was kind of wrought with obstacle. The most difficult time occurred when the building where I worked (and most of our clients lived) burned to the ground. I worked a lot for several weeks. It happened to coincide with a housing emergency my wife and I were going through. And she was about 7 months pregnant. Anyway, while one of my professors allowed me to adjust some due dates on a few things, another led me to believe she was willing to give me an incomplete. When grades came out, I learned that I had failed that course. I thought the best course of action was to take a year off, get things back together, help my wife with our new baby, and get back to work in a year. Well, I didn’t realize that I was supposed to tell people at school my plan and because of that I was almost unable to return. Then I found out that failing a class made me ineligible for student loans, my unfortunate method of financing my education. At Temple there is a professor that is nothing short of a saint. When I went to her office to tell her my situation, she had compassion on me and offered me a second chance. She authorized my retroactive leave of absence and wrote a letter recommending my funding be restored. She basically extended grace. And I hope that in my educational experience what I really learned was how to become a professional second chance giver, or in another way of saying it, a social worker.

Neighbor: “Hey, there’s Ollie! I thought you guys moved or something.”

Me: “No, we’re still here. How’ve you been?”

Neighbor: “Can’t complain, you know. (follows with several complaints) Hey are you still at your job? You know I have an uncle who is retarded too. He can’t talk and stuff and I help him out sometimes. Anyway, its great that you help those people, we both know they need it.”

Me: blank stare.

Neighbor: “so do you have to give them baths and stuff?”

Me: “No, I actually work with people who have issues more like depression, addiction, schizophrenia, stuff like that.”

Neighbor: “Oh! I know what you mean- You know what they need? they need to get a job! I used to work at this place that hired people like that…” (this is followed by the story of the restaurant he once worked at where many addicts and depressed individuals were hired and subsequently cured by nothing more than “a little bit of elbow grease.”)

I know what you’re thinking (possibly). That I’m making too much of this conversation. That my neighbor is just trying to be friendly and I’m being cynical. Perhaps. You may also be thinking that this is a trivial thing to pick on, too minor to include in a list of just 10 myths about mental illness and that what really matters is that the right people are getting help, right? Why am I making a big deal about this?

It comes up all the time when I’m telling people about my job: searching for the right words in an effort to be inoffensive, someone will inevitably call the population I work with “mentally challenged,” “mentally retarded” or any other variation on that theme. I usually reply with a sentence not unlike the one in the conversation with my neighbor and we move on. No big deal. But it is a big deal, so I’d like to set the record straight here.

Mental illness is NOT the same as mental retardation. They may have some similarities, but they are different. Do we in the Church need to know what the differences are? Shouldn’t we just love people regardless of labels and diagnoses? I do think that there is one major difference that we should all be aware of, and that difference is the reason I included it in this list of myths, why I’m saying its a big deal.

Mental retardation, or developmental disabilities (DD- sorry, I have to abbreviate now) are far more acceptable in the Church than is mental illness (MI). No, the stigma has not disappeared from people suffering with a DD. But people with DD are generally not blamed for their problems, not accused of some heinous sin, and niether are their families. We consider it to be an unfortunate thing that just kind of happens. We also share truly inspirational stories in which heroic people leave everything they know to serve people with DD only to learn that they had more to learn than to give (think Henri Nouwen). We have some beautiful examples of people really being the hands and feet of Jesus to people with mental retardation. And we have equally beautiful examples of people realizing just how present God is in individuals who may never speak an intelligible word. In other words, we have learned from people with DD and have grown because of them. Let me ask though, when was the last time you heard someone say “I learned so much from that addict, or that schizophrenic?” These statements are very rare.

Please don’t misunderstand me. I am not at all trying to diminish the wonderful strides we have made in the Church regarding mental retardation. I am also not trying to suggest that we have arrived. In the church that I grew up in there is a young man who had a profound disability. Some of the adults were incredibly loving toward him, hugging and kissing and speaking to him like the part of our family that he is. In fact, watching those adults (including his parents, my parents, and a few other adults I respected) model that kind of love toward him was likely incredibly influential in my own life, though I never consciously thought about it until now. So I am deeply grateful for the hospitality and grace some members of the Church have extended toward individuals with DD, and for the example and inspiration they provide.

But I can’t help asking why we have not been able to extend this same hospitality and grace to those crippled by depression or those hearing voices or having bizarre beliefs. Why do we so rarely hug and kiss and speak to them like the part of our family that they are? It may be because of a fear not dissimilar from a fear we once had toward mental retardation. Or it may be because many people with mental illness don’t have the same obvious physical limitations, so its not as obvious to us that they are suffering.

I want to conclude by saying that I know I just took almost 1000 words to distinguish between mental retardation and mental illness in one way, but what I truly want is for the line of separation to disappear, the separation between all of us that is. There is after all no Jew or Greek, no black or white, no mentally ill or mentally retarded, we are all one in Jesus Christ.

People with mental illness did something to deserve it.

One of the worst ways the Church has historically responded to mental illness is to blame the afflicted for their affliction. To be fair, most Evangelical Christians have been taught that the ultimate cause of suffering in the world is the sin of humanity. But we make a tragic mistake in applying the cause and effect relationship between the global sin and brokenness of the world to the individual. I argue that it not at all helpful (and often not accurate) to attempt to identify a direct causal relationship between an individual’s illness and their specific sins.

I don’t think I actually know anyone who would articulate this out loud, having sincerely thought it through, but I find this myth often comes out in the things people say- and sometimes the things they try to “say without saying”. Many times these statements are immediately preceded by the person lowering their voice and stepping in closer to say something like “well its pretty clear that he didn’t have a chance. You know, given his background and everything.”

Another way I see this myth played out is when the illness itself is minimized and the condition of the individual’s life is thought to be a product of some character deficiency. “If she would just stop acting lazy and get a job…” To me, it gets much more serious when we spiritualize this and say things like “he’s not walking with the Lord right now. That’s why his life is a mess.” I think you’ll sense my frustration when I write, in all caps (my version of “see what large letters I use”), WHAT DOES THAT EVEN MEAN? I fear too often (not always, but especially for us evangelicals) it means that we actually believe that a person is suffering deeply because of not adhering to an arbitrary religious code placed on them by a toxic, shaming church culture.

The truth is that the causes of mental illness are complicated- so complicated that people are still learning, scientists are still researching, and families are still struggling to know if they or their loved one had any role in producing this monster in their lives. Let’s not let the Church, the Healing Body of Christ, be yet another contributor to the confusion that people dealing with this have to face everyday, but let us be instead a refuge.

In the near future I will post about a tried and true model for understanding mental illness called the biopsychosocial-spiritual perspective.

“We don’t talk about that, Mark.”

“Why not?” I asked, honestly wondering.

“We just don’t. Can we talk about something else?”

There is a fundamental question that needs to be asked, if we are to be serious about caring for others. One man in a crowd listening to Jesus put it this way (a paraphrase): “Who is my neighbor anyway?” For our purposes, I’ll frame it like this: “who are the mentally ill anyway?”

The simple answer is that they are our brothers and sisters, our mail-deliverers, our store clerks, our librarians, our homeless, our pastors, our rich, our poor, our middle-class- you get the idea. The statistiscs are truly astounding: About 26% of the US populace suffers from a diagnosable mental illness in a given year, a number just short of 58 million people. Approximately 6% suffer from a serious mental illness, or about 1 out of every 17 people. Among those that meet criteria for a mental disorder, almost half meet criteria for 2 or more.

So given the apparent ubiquity of mental health issues in the world, and more specifically, in our smaller worlds, why does this idea that we don’t know anyone with a mental illness persist? For the same reason that my grandmother would be horrified if she read the beginning of this post: because mental illness is a dirty little secret, or at least we’ve made it one.

I really believe that in most cases this is not intentional (unfortunately in some it is). Maybe its just easier to ignore what we don’t understand. Maybe its too overwhelming to think about. Maybe its so complicated that we think that other people, professional people, are more qualified to think about it, to talk about it, to deal with it. I hope that we are this innocent, or rather naive. Because if its understanding that we lack, there is probably hope for us. Thats why I wanted to start this blog- thats why I want us to talk about this. So lets start talking…