The Christian and the Psychiatrist

Isaiah 26:3

Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee: because he trusteth in thee.

1 Cor. 2:16

For who hath known the mind of the Lord, that he may instruct him? but we have the mind of Christ.

Romans 12:2

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Luke 8:35, Mark 5:15

Then they went out to see what was done; and came to Jesus, and found the man, out of whom the devils were departed, sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind: and they were afraid.

2 Cor. 10:4-6
4 (For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal, but mighty through God to the pulling down of strong holds;)

5 Casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ;

6 And having in a readiness to revenge all disobedience, when your obedience is fulfilled.

I'm gonna talk about something that is a bit taboo both within and outside of the Church/Christian circles: Psychiatry and mental illness.

I think I can understand why these things are taboo within the Church: I think the assumptions are 1. if you're "crazy" or mentally ill, you must be demon possessed or demon oppressed. 2. There's no ill that Jesus and the Word of God can't cure, so if you're a Christian and you're suffering from mental illness, you must be carnal, weak, spiritually immature, and/or not fully utilizing your faith, the Word of God, and the power of the Holy Spirit.

I can actually understand the reasoning behind these arguments and I don't completely disagree with them...more on this in a minute...

Outside of the Church/Christian circles, that is, within the general population or society, mental illness simply frightens people--understandably so. Furthermore, if you suffer from mental illness or need any form of psychological or psychiatric help, you are perceived as being weak, unstable, maybe even dangerous. This negative perception can adversely affect individuals within their professional and social circles--nobody wants to hire or be friends with a crazy person!

By the way, I'm using the term "mental illness" to describe the entire gamut, from depression to schizophrenia.

So, last week, and the past couple of weeks in general, have been super stressful for me: I had job interviews, I had to fill out (and refill out, and refill out) background check forms (if you leave out the slightest bit of information, the form is rejected and sent back to you. You have to fill in the missing information and resend the form back to the investigating team. I had to do this so many times, I lost count!). I had to drive to Timbuktu to be fingerprinted and to submit to drug testing (different locations), I had to fill out other job paperwork, scan the forms to pdfs, email them to the recruiter, etc., etc. In the midst of all of this, something else strange happened last week:

My job asked that I, and several other employees, work from home for almost a week. We were told that the government had dragged its feet in pushing through the funding for our portion of work, so we weren't allowed to come into the building. Meanwhile, I wasn't sure what was really going on. I didn't know if I was about to be laid-off or fired. If I was being laid off or fired, how long would I be out of work before the new job started? My family lives paycheck to paycheck! We also weren't allowed to work on current projects (just refresh old projects), so I started falling behind in my current projects. On top of all this, I still don't have the start date for the new job (and thus, I still don't know when to give my current employer notice; I'm also anticipating the background check team calling my current employer before I've had a chance to give notice--how awkward will that be?!). I still think I might be in over my head with this new job, I still haven't secured a new place to live, and so on and so forth...

With all this going on, my brain and emotions have been all over the place. It's been hard for me to concentrate, to focus. While I was on that semi-layoff, one of my coworkers emailed and called me to ask about a current project; out of frustration, I got a little snippy in my communications with him. I really regret this, as this employee and I have had a cool rapport in the past (he was even the only one at the job kind enough and supportive enough to buy my book!). Now things are a little awkward and tense between us, and I probably ruined a perfectly good witnessing opportunity. I'm praying that God bring peace to the situation, as I'm not quite sure how to approach him.

In the midst of all this going on, on more than one occasion, I found myself seriously craving a lorazepam. When I was a plaintiff in sexual harassment litigation a couple years ago, things got so ugly and stressful for me, my doctors prescribed lorazepam for my nerves and temazepam to help me sleep (these were only two drugs among several that were prescribed to me at different times for my anxiety, depression, and insomnia).

This was my first experience using psychiatric drugs. It was an interesting experience.

Lorazepam, I gotta say, can be a sweet drug. Within minutes, it calms your nerves down, totally takes the edge off. Within minutes, lorazepam makes you feel like you're floating on a cloud. You can scarcely feel the floor beneath your feet.

Temazepam is an incredibly powerful sleep aid; without fail, it knocks you out within minutes. Problem is, your body can become addicted to it within days of using it, and you experience intense physical pain as your body begins to withdraw from it.

Side note: My experience with psychiatric drugs actually made me more compassionate toward drug addicts. I used to shake my head when I saw drug addicts on skid row; they were in their current predicament because of lousy choices they'd made. But now, I understand how a person can so quickly and so easily end up in the downward spiral of drug addiction: You start out just wanting to ease your emotional pain, to quiet the noise in your head, to soothe your nerves, maybe to get some sleep--and before you know it, the substance has taken complete control of you. If you try to stop using it, the emotional pain and noise flare up one hundred fold, like pouring water on a grease fire, and the physical pain from withdrawal can be so intense, you pray for death!

So, when I was super stressed out the past couple of weeks, I reminisced about the lovely tranquility that lorazepam brings, and it seemed easier to just pop a pill to take the edge off, than to stand in faith, on the Word of God. Popping a pill seemed easier than just quietly, patiently, lovingly waiting on the Lord. My emotions were raging. I needed an immediate fix!

I didn't have any lorazepam to take, so I had to wait it out, in crying, grouchy, moody, depressed fits. I'm actually still waiting it out, although my emotions have calmed down a bit.

So what is the deal with Christians and psychiatry? Is psychiatry out of the question for the Christian? Is psychiatry sometimes necessary or permissible for the Christian? Does it matter if the Christian is treated by a Christian psychiatrist versus an unbelieving psychiatrist? Does utilization of psychiatry depend upon whether the individual suffering mental illness is a baby Christian versus a more mature believer?

Should mental illness be handled like demon possession (as with the maniac at Gadara) or as a physical illness (a physical problem of brain/body chemistry) that needs healing? Or maybe it depends on the situation/the individual; maybe some people suffering mental illness are demon possessed while others have a physical affliction (a chemical imbalance or brain abnormality).

I think these are difficult questions and I don't pretend to have all the answers...

I do think some psychiatric disorders/mental illnesses make the sufferers dangerous (to themselves or others), violent. In these instances, medication might be a good idea until the individual is fully delivered from the affliction by the name of Jesus, the Word, and the power of God.

And what about demon possession? Kimberly Daniels is a minister with which I'm only slightly familiar, as I only heard her briefly, when she appeared as a guest speaker on Harry R. Jackson's television program. Anyway, she said something I initially rejected, as a knee jerk reaction, but as I thought on it, I couldn't help but wonder about her theory and be intrigued by it: I'm not quoting her verbatim, but she sort of implied that a Christian could be demon possessed (or perhaps she said demon oppressed?). Now, of course, I immediately rejected that as false doctrine, but then Daniels went onto explain that though a person's spirit could become born again, the person's soul (and body?) could still be under demonic captivity or influence. In any event, Daniel stated that this could explain why certain ungodly behaviors seem to have a stronghold on some Christians: homosexuality, abusing oneself, tendencies toward other perversions or violence, etc.

Indeed, perhaps, rather than demon possession, some Christians can have a stronghold of demonic oppression or demonic influence. This is why renewing one's mind is so important. We have to scrub our brains with the Word of God, get all of the junk out of our minds and emotions, and this will inevitably manifest itself, positively, in our behaviors. On the flip side, if our minds and emotions are saturated with darkness, ungodliness, and perversion, these will also manifest in our behaviors.

So what's the answer?

I don't know all there is to know about the human brain or human body, and I don't know all there is to know about demonology, but I do know this:

There is nothing on this earth that is greater or more powerful than the Lord Jesus Christ, the Holy Bible, and the Holy Spirit--not psychiatry or psychiatric drugs, not demons, not a chemical imbalance, not a brain abnormality.

There's nothing the Lord Jesus can't handle, can't fix!

So no matter the affliction or the circumstance, the solution remains the same.

I may or may not be bipolar, but my symptoms aren't so extreme that I can't wait on the Lord and hope in His Word. Yeah, it's hard, yeah, it hurts like crazy, but it's doable. In my case, it may have been a little bit of laziness, a little bit of wallowing in self-pity, in frustration, and in anger, wanting the easy way out--the ease and convenience of popping a calming pill. After all, we're a culture of pill poppers, a culture of ease, of convenience, of quick fixes. Faith and waiting on God require time and effort.

So while I don't want to say that I'm completely against psychiatry, temporarily, for some cases of mental illness, I do think that the rest of us--those of us who suffer from occasional bouts of depression, those of us with mild bipolarity--just need to keep scrubbing our brains and emotions with the Word of God. 

The Gadarene was found "sitting at the feet of Jesus, clothed, and in his right mind." That's exactly where we need to remain--at the feet of Jesus--and we'll end up with the exact same result!

Malachi 4:2
But unto you that fear my name shall the Sun of righteousness arise with healing in his wings...

Luke 4:17-19, 21
17 And there was delivered unto [Jesus] the book of the prophet Esaias. And when he had opened the book, he found the place where it was written,

18 The Spirit of the Lord is upon me, because he hath anointed me to preach the gospel to the poor; he hath sent me to heal the brokenhearted, to preach deliverance to the captives, and recovering of sight to the blind, to set at liberty them that are bruised,

19 To preach the acceptable year of the Lord...

21 And he began to say unto them, This day is this scripture fulfilled in your ears.