If feel some churches are one of the worst places to be when depressed

[dms1972]

Decided to delete this as it was a bit critical and more a product of my low mood.

 

[Press On]

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[JCFantasy23]

I think that it's hard to connect to people, or communities, in general when badly depressed. It's definitely an isolated feeling, and I've found most of my friends don't seem to get what I mean when I talk about my past experiences with it. With what you are bringing up with church, I'm sure that can also be an issue because people are so divided on it in church. Some think you are healed if you just come to have a good relationship with God, some believe that if you just think positively you can heal yourself, if you focus on Jesus you can be healed, or some even think demons are to blame instead of mental illness. This can be frustrating for the depressed or mentally ill person at church. What do you think your church can do to help you feel more accepted and be more understanding?

 

[Jeshu]

Yes Churches can be notoriously bad to accommodate mental ill people. Its best not to fake it but to be honest about how you are feeling. You can therefore only go when you feel up to it. At one stage i didn't go to Church for years, now i go when i feel up to it not otherwise. There ought to be no shame for being ill but sadly there is and fellow brothers and sister can be very uncaring about our suffering realities.

Maybe visit the pastor and have a talk with him in private about how you are feeling. If he had depression himself he might be more understanding when you reach out.

But yes Churches are very disappointing when it comes to dealing with Her mentally ill brothers and sisters. That is my experience as well.

Not sure what the best solution would be, better training of Church leadership perhaps? It has to do with being loving and caring many Churches falter on these grounds.

Peace

 

[dms1972]

I think that it's hard to connect to people, or communities, in general when badly depressed. It's definitely an isolated feeling, and I've found most of my friends don't seem to get what I mean when I talk about my past experiences with it. With what you are bringing up with church, I'm sure that can also be an issue because people are so divided on it in church. Some think you are healed if you just come to have a good relationship with God, some believe that if you just think positively you can heal yourself, if you focus on Jesus you can be healed, or some even think demons are to blame instead of mental illness. This can be frustrating for the depressed or mentally ill person at church. What do you think your church can do to help you feel more accepted and be more understanding?

Thanks for your kind words.

I haven't been to church for over a year, in the last one this woman keeps says to me if I am not there every week "were you sick?" she means well, but she means physically ill - but they are not people I would talk to about depression. And just make me feel under pressure to be there every week.

Then sometimes people say stuff like "oh so and so never complains" and its like they are held in high regard for never complaining. Is that realistic? It's true we can moan too much, but on the whole I am more likely to say "fine" if asked how I am, even if I am not. I just can't even tell people how I am to be honest, I seem too out of touch with myself to know.

 

[dms1972]

Yes Churches can be notoriously bad to accommodate mental ill people. Its best not to fake it but to be honest about how you are feeling. You can therefore only go when you feel up to it. At one stage i didn't go to Church for years, now i go when i feel up to it not otherwise. There ought to be no shame for being ill but sadly there is and fellow brothers and sister can be very uncaring about our suffering realities.

Maybe visit the pastor and have a talk with him in private about how you are feeling. If he had depression himself he might be more understanding when you reach out.

But yes Churches are very disappointing when it comes to dealing with Her mentally ill brothers and sisters. That is my experience as well.

Not sure what the best solution would be, better training of Church leadership perhaps? It has to do with being loving and caring many Churches falter on these grounds.

Peace

I don't go to that church anymore, they reach out and welcome others they haven't seen in a while, but after 8 years going / praying for their minister / helping with bits an pieces about the place - after a while absent, most of them either had forgotten me, or had no interest.

The thing with depression mainly is you don't know how your are feeling, at least thats the way I am most of the time, I've spent 20 years trying not to feel anything!

My doctor won't even agree I have mental health issues, he says its a personality disorder. Maybe it is.

 

[yeshuaslavejeff]

crap .. typo in first line ..should be "I feel..."

My experience in churches I have been to is such that they are one of the last places I want to go when depressed. Of course my experience is limited, and does not reflect every church and while I have not found what I am looking for I can't say every church is the same.

But these are some of my experiences.

A church I attended some years ago, I joined house groups within it. I don't feel I can fit into these, they are too intimate and I dislike that (just me I perhaps, but I have also heard of ministers say they dislike them). Once I joined I felt always was under pressure to go (to the house group) because it could not just be a time of fellowship take it or leave it, come when you want... but had to be doing everything together, thus if you drop out for a while, you spoil the 'community building' going on - how do I know this - for this reason one of the leaders told me the sense community kind of went after I joined. Cheers mate! I was encouraged to join it, they wanted me to come to it I was told. Another one I went to I had only arrived one day when one of the members started to make a joke that I had been out drinking the night before. I hadn't. I rarely drink alcohol. Maybe he was projecting the antics of his own teenage children, or himself when he was young on to me, assuming everyone to be the same. I said nothing.

The minister I thought would understand depression, since he had experienced two bouts of it during his life and was out of ministry for months. But he kept assuming since I was at the church that meant my depression had gone. People like me have a way of pretending to be ok when out, doesn't mean we are!!

Some churches are the last places you want to appear not to be OK when attending - they can't cope with un-OK people very well - so we have to keep pretending. Then we get told the Gospel is all about authenticity - well let them come round and visit and I'll be authentically un-OK with them for half an hour. But then again I probably won't I'll just pretend all is fine and they won't have anything difficult to deal with. I went back to this church after a while away, and hoped maybe some people would remember me, and speak. But it felt like hell staying behind for chats when they all get into their twos and threes and fours. I was told you better go up and talk to people. Not so easy sometimes.

I am just dead inside, a walking zombie at times who tries to appear normal, so as to avoid the "what is the matter with you?" type questions, the "SMILE!!!" comments (I used to think I was a christian, and had an interest in church) - I have no zero interest most of the time in what people are saying, I hate faking that I am interested, but I do, its complete fakery, I could not give a s**t about what they are talking about. I had gone to this church for eight years I offered to help (and did help) with activities.

Pastoral care manager told someone else to go to visit me as she "doesn't really know this guy".

Yet another church the Minister decided to announce that he was reading the whole bible through in one year - his preaching team seemed to be required to do this also. Personally I see no requirement for anyone to do this, and especially if you are suffering from depression, take it from me - you don't no matter who else is. However some of his team must have been miffed as they said something about no reason that anyone in the church could not also read it through in one year. Do these people have any clue that some people in their congregations are suffering with depression? Do they even understand anything about depression? Instead he should have without fanfare and announcement got quietly on with that if that was his goal, I mean some ministers have time to do this if they want, others don't and his preaching team all had their own full time jobs!

From this post, it would be a challenge for any group of believers to know how to help you and how not to be hurt themselves(most groups don't have any idea it seems, and few are either grown-mature enough or trusting the Father enough) . It will take constant prayer each day to get through each day and to learn from the Father in heaven what to do, to receive His Help in Time of Need, every day.

 

[Daniel Marsh]

look for a church with a stephen ministry.

 

[dms1972]

From this post, it would be a challenge for any group of believers to know how to help you and how not to be hurt themselves(most groups don't have any idea it seems, and few are either grown-mature enough or trusting the Father enough) . It will take constant prayer each day to get through each day and to learn from the Father in heaven what to do, to receive His Help in Time of Need, every day.

I honestly don't know whether I still believe in God. I shouted out once "God is dead". I force myself mostly to go to church, just seems like maybe that is the place to be if my faith is ever going to be restored, but I doesn't feel like the preaching or fellowship reaches me.

 

[Jeshu]

I shouted out once "God is dead".

Yes Nietzsche found that to be the truth of God as well. It is true we killed God with our lies we are the murderers of God out of our own hearts. The good news is that faith in God's love - Jesus Christ - can resurrect God from the dead and we can feel His Good Life inside of us again. Greatest feeling ever!

i do understand how dead and dull depression can become and how it can erode our faith. For once after seven years in the pit many of those years suicidal i realised that i had killed God's goodness in my life listening to the negativity of this world and my depressed mind.

The truth of God's word pointed out to me that i had heeded my depressed feelings and not His Spirit of loving truth and how it had landed me in my deepest pit unable to get out.

So i began to build with God's tools. i build with God's truth in love and let Jesus resurrect good life in me along the way. Focusing on God's love grows us a better life, more able to cope with hardships and set backs. The good news of a life with Jesus always survives the onslaught of depression and He somehow manages to get good life out of it any way. This more than anything convinced me the truth of God's love can be trusted to help us in times of distress.

Depression is a good life killer, but God's truth is a good life bringer and the good life He brings always comes back again when i come back after i have been drifting off once again. Honest dear fellow struggler fight for faith in God's love, much more than a religious straitjacket you find personal and spiritual freedom.

His love is awesome and His promises come all true.

Isaiah 55
Come, all you who are thirsty,
come to the waters;
and you who have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without cost.
Why spend money on what is not bread,
and your labor on what does not satisfy?
Listen, listen to me, and eat what is good,
and you will delight in the richest of fare.
Give ear and come to me;
listen, that you may live.
I will make an everlasting covenant with you,
my faithful love promised to David.
See, I have made him a witness to the peoples,
a ruler and commander of the peoples.
Surely you will summon nations you know not,
and nations you do not know will come running to you,
because of the Lord your God,
the Holy One of Israel,
for he has endowed you with splendor.”


Seek the Lord while he may be found;
call on him while he is near.
Let the wicked forsake their ways
and the unrighteous their thoughts.
Let them turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on them,
and to our God, for he will freely pardon.


“For my thoughts are not your thoughts,
neither are your ways my ways,”
declares the Lord.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth,
so are my ways higher than your ways
and my thoughts than your thoughts.
As the rain and the snow
come down from heaven,
and do not return to it
without watering the earth
and making it bud and flourish,
so that it yields seed for the sower and bread for the eater,
so is my word that goes out from my mouth:
It will not return to me empty,
but will accomplish what I desire
and achieve the purpose for which I sent it.
You will go out in joy
and be led forth in peace;
the mountains and hills
will burst into song before you,
and all the trees of the field
will clap their hands.
Instead of the thornbush will grow the juniper,
and instead of briers the myrtle will grow.
This will be for the Lord’s renown,
for an everlasting sign,
that will endure forever.”

 

[HisGraceAbounds]

When my bipolar II cycles towards a low-point, I can't go anywhere near a church. The people at church notice I'm low and they try to help...entirely too much. They make things worse.

 

[StarCrossed213]

Seems awfully interesting how some of these church people read every single day on the importance of loving one's neighbor as themselves, and then set out to intentionally do the complete polar opposite. The story of the Samaritan is being replayed constantly, such a crying shame that the average modern Western Christian is nonequivalent to the Samaritan.

 

[MissRowy]

I think its not the church itself but the people who go there that I want to avoid. I went to St Pauls Cathedral in Melbourne when my partner and I were there and it was so relaxing and I just meditated