Do I expect to much

[sheloje]

Ive been a christian for 6years now, I love the Lord Jesus, and feel that my faith is strong, but been in a few churches but always stop going as I get treated wrong-patronising and or sympathy which is not what I need or want. I do have aspergers- but hey we live with it, I learnt social skills and you wouldnt nessecarily know it if meet me, although they can tell something, hence the sympathy stuff etc.
Anyway recently Iv had a really bad time as after months of strange behaviour my daughter had to be sectioned under mental health act,
now Ill get to the point, when stressed I suffer more, so apart from saying they will pray for me and daughter, Ive had no support from them, Im a single person to make it worse, no family to help. Why doesnt the church help people practically- visits, phone calls, etc, or am I expecting too much, I now dont feel like going anymore as dont want to get hurt,
are we supposed to pretend everything alright whilst in church and then go home and suffer.
please id appreciate others opions on this
love and blessings sheloje

 

[Rikki_renee]

Hey there!
I want to start off by saying I'll keep you & your daughter in my prayers, I don't know first hand what it is like, but my sister is the single mother of 2 children and her daughter has cerebral palsy. It's rough, that much I know.
I can also relate to you on the church thing. I have been a Christian for many years now, my faith isn't as strong as it should be, but i'm getting there. I have been in a few churches, but have left just as many. Only because I find that under the roots of the church, the people are either phony and put up a show or just don't care. There are few churches that are genuine anymore.
I have had my fair share of churches that say "if you need anything call me, i'm praying for you, you can talk to me" things like that. But when i needed to talk, when I was down or having problems or just having an awesome day and wanting to talk, no one was there.

But if you would like, i know im only almost 20, but I would love to chat with you. I know how it feels to have no one and to be struggling.

But do keep your head up and pray, pray, pray, because the Lord works in mysterious ways

 

[sheloje]

thankyou Ricki Renee
you are very wise for your age, im stepping up my prays to a new level

 

[Rikki_renee]

thankyou Ricki Renee
you are very wise for your age, im stepping up my prays to a new level

thank you
and i'm happy to hear that

please feel free to PM me if you would ever like to chat about anything and everything, i'm a good listener and I can help in any way I can!

I hope you have a blessed day!

 

[hedrick]

My first reaction on reading this, was "that's terrible. My church would never do that." It's true that my church is quite accepting of people. We have two aspies (officially diagnosed, that I know of), not to mention people with mental challenges of one sort of another. We do our best, and I think generally deal well with them. One of the apies is regularly on Session or deacons. (The other is young enough that he's not willing to commit the time.) One of the people with other mental challenges has recently served as a deacon, and was regarded as one of the more effective ones.

However I can tell you that I've made mistakes in dealing with some of these folks, and I'm sure other people have as well. I had the youngest one in Sunday School in 8th grade. He's now just slightly odd, but at that time he was a handful. I sometimes dealt with that badly. You talk about people sounding sympathetic but not being helpful. I don't know your church. Maybe they really don't care. But our church certainly cares about people, and I'm sure others do as well. I'd like to suggest that you consider that some people might not know the right way to deal with people who are out of their experience. They may show sympathy the wrong way, and they may not know how to help. In retrospect I'm pretty sure I blew the one contact i've had with someone who is fairly severely autistic (not the 2 aspies I mentioned). Just because NT's don't have the specific challenges you do, doesn't mean they always know what to do.

I'm not sure whether I have a practical suggestion here. One might be that you talk with someone in the church, if you can. If the church is any good at all, there's a pastor or an elder who cares about how they deal with people, and might like both some feedback and a chance to do better. Many churches these days deal with email, if you'd rather not do it in person.

 

[MoeSzyslak]

Does your church have a stephen ministers type of program?

 

[TalusJumper]

I have been going to churches all my life- my experience is that they aren't that interested in mental health issues. Not really sure why- they are generally very loving and they cater to the physically handicapped, the drug/alcohol addicts and so forth but not much concern with mental health issues.

After 45 years of attending church, what has kept me going is not to lean on the church at all for support. Don't get me wrong- I feel that church is very important for learning the Bible, worship and praise. But my spiritual strength comes directly through my faith in Christ, not in the church. I don't want to blame the church too much, I am somewhat socially inept so I am sure that I am partly to blame, however, they have never reached out to me after all these years. If I relied on churches as my support structure, I would've quit attending a very long time ago!

 

[TalusJumper]

Ive been a christian for 6years now

Almost forgot to mention- congratulations for becoming a Christian 6 years ago! As a life-long Christian, you have no idea how happy it makes me every time I hear a testimony like this!

I hope you can find at least some support through forums like this one. We are also going through a lot right now with our daughter (now 20 years old). I am not going to go into details right now, but it involves lying, deception, disrespect and so forth between her and us. All we can do right now is show her as much love as we can and pray daily for her.

 

[MoeSzyslak]

I have been going to churches all my life- my experience is that they aren't that interested in mental health issues. Not really sure why- they are generally very loving and they cater to the physically handicapped, the drug/alcohol addicts and so forth but not much concern with mental health issues.

I have been going to church all my life and that has been my experience also. There are a few churches around here that have programs for children on the spectrum or those with mental illness. I don't know what they think happens to us once we become adults. I guess they assume we no longer exist. There are a couple churches around here that have adult groups for people with depression, but that is it. I went to the depression groups a few times, but I am not depressed so it wasn't a great fit.

 

[TheChristianAspie]

You should be able to rely on your church - they are your family. As a member of a church, you are a part of the body of Christ. You are a PART of that, part of the family.

I am sorry that your church isn't meeting your needs.

I have a great church, but I took some time to talk to the pastor and his wife. At first, they did not quite know what to do with me. Now, however, they are very friendly. I also have friends in the church.

I think that what happens is that people meet us and don't quite know what to think or how to act. I had to learn that it is my responsibility to let people know it is OK to laugh when I say something that, to me, is serious. (I also learned to laugh when others laugh at things I say - and when my husband started explaining it from an NT perspective, it is pretty funny).

What I did was choose one person and talk to them. When I was friendly with that one person (I had to learn to hug without flinching - very hard!), then that person introduced me to other people and my "circle" grew.

Maybe take it one person at a time. If you have one person who gets to know you, they can be your "NT guide" and help you with the rest.

 

[dayhiker]

I'd say you have a very good approach ChristianAspie. I really like that you learned to laugh when others saw what you said as funny.

 

[TheChristianAspie]

Thanks. I just figured that is they were laughing, then 1) if I laughed too I would be laughing with them, not them laughing at me, and 2) if they found it humorous, it must be funny to some degree - I know I do things and say things that NTs close to me find amusing (but they don't laugh at me).

Besides, you really can't take yourself too seriously.