Okay, I do not disagree with that. Mental illness would not exist in a perfect world and I'm not arguing against it. You made several good points, most of which I agree with. But what about people like me and like my dad who were raised from birth in good Christian homes and committed their lives to Christ at young ages but still struggle with mental illness and have struggled since we were kids? Again, I know that mental illness is a product of a flawed world but the way your post was worded made it sound like it's a direct consequence of something the mentally ill person has done, some sort of sin they've committed whether that's listening to the devil's lies or what have you. My only quarrel with that line of thinking is that I was just a kid and can't imagine what could have happened when I was so young to lead my depression/anxiety issues if mental illness is a direct consequence of my actions. Is it a direct consequence of sin in the world? Yeah. But of a specific action or sin done by someone? I'm not so sure.
I don't know if that makes sense, I'm trying to articulate it the best I can haha
Second, I agree that sometimes Christians rely too much on secular diagnosis's but I don't think there's anything wrong with seeking medical help for an issue. There are Christian psychologists and I believe that psychology and Christianity can find a way to work in harmony. However, that's a completely different discussion and one that I don't want to get into here. While I see your side of that statement, I still believe that there's nothing wrong with medical assistance as long as you remember that your help truly comes from the Lord and no one else
The Lord is Word (John 1:1).
Word is speech: expression of the intention of the spirit, according to the knowledge and character of the person through whom it speaks.
So, I am saying that as a child, your mind is shaped by the word (whether the Word of God coming through the spirit, or the word of another coming through self-interest).
A child is born without any corruption in their thinking. That is why we put age restrictions on certain media (consider the purpose of that word! : "mediation" is a guided effort to bring two minds to agreement).
The corruption of thinking comes as the world teaches us to think in ways that are not godly. What you have described of your condition (that you have obviously described more to others than you have to us, so I am speculating a lot): .. you seem to not be comfortable with showing the world who you truly are. You present an image of yourself according to what you think is appropriate for the company, and sometimes mimic their personality so as to be liked.
If you wouldn't say I am wrong in that assessment, my analysis would show that your condition is rooted in a fear of being put down for who you truly are. You weren't born that way, is all I am saying, and I am further saying that if you had never seen a person put you down for who you are, then you wouldn't have any fear of being who you are. (You have to tell me if I have got the wrong idea though! .. this is the idea I got from what you told us in this thread).
The particular culture of the society in which a child grows, and especially the micro-cultures of the family and friends, has a huge impact on the way they think. For this reason, I read an article in the newspaper that shows an 18 year old who has just encountered for the first time, a realisation that he doesn't have to come home and be all macho and rude to his family, because for the first time he has just realised that men don't have to be that way. He was raised to think that's the way a man should be.
So the way we think comes about through our daily encounters with the world. Events and things that people say have the effect of triggering us to think. Sometimes there is an event of trauma or a word that confuses us, that we then have to think about heavily and solve the problem. As I reflected upon the way my thinking was formed in order to understand how it had become so wrong, that is what I found! .. I identified a series of things that people said, and the events in my life, and I saw the moments at which I made decisions to think in a specific way that caused my thinking to go forward with confidence on the path that later on, The Lord brought knowledge to me that likewise caused me to solve that problem and "
repent" ("show penitence for", return with contrition).
.. So there is that ongoing battle for our minds in that way, between God's work "the spirit of truth" and the spirit that is operating in the world (Ephesians 2:2-3) .. that each is sowing seeds of word and events in our mind, through the agency that they possess.
So that's the nature of the mind. We have our way of thinking, and it isn't necessarily all "right".. but it is who we are. That can change whenever new information provides for a reconsideration of our way of thinking.
But we also can sometimes have a struggle against that change, if we have somehow become defensive of the way we think.. and I sense that maybe you're being tempted by that a little bit by my having used the expressions "sin" and "demonology".. that there is a meaning in those words that is different to you than it is to me, and that's not uncommon. Most Christians are raised to think that demon is a cuss word, that is only used to condemn a person. But I don't use it that way. I have learned that it's actually the reality of what happens when people choose to resist the knowledge of truth that God expects them to receive (1 John 4:-6).
A Christian psychiatrist is trying to join two opposing approaches to mental health, and most likely doesn't know it (although it isn't impossible). The only way to heal a mind is to change it's way of thinking - that means counselling to identify the cause of the problem, and to sow seeds of word that God can use, while also identifying the origin of the words that are contributing to the opposite way of thinking.