The invisible issue

I was delighted when I got the message over Facebook—it made my day in fact.

An old member of my youth group from 20 years ago got in touch. We had been very close when he was a teenager, but he had dropped off the radar completely. But as we nursed our drinks and he filled me in on what had been going on in his life for the last two decades, the alarm bells started to ring.

He told me about a failed marriage and roaming from country to country. He hinted at plots and dark forces that were following him around. He talked about members of a secret security agency that had tracked him to England and were shadowing his every move.

The penny dropped.

And I walked home filled with sadness that his life, and the lives of many others, had been so blighted by the mental illness that now dominated every thought in his head...

This week is mental-health awareness week. And there is a lot we need to be aware of. Not just extreme cases, like my friend above, but the ongoing struggles that many people have. Here are some raw statistics published by UK mental-health charity Mind. They make surprising reading. Here is the annual incidence of mental-health problems:

• Depression 2.6 in 100 people
• Anxiety 4.7 in 100 people
• Mixed anxiety and depression 9.7 in 100 people
• Phobias 2.6 in 100 people
• OCD (obsessive-compulsive disorder) 1.3 in 100 people
• Panic disorder 1.2 in 100 people
• Post traumatic stress disorder 3.0 in 100 people
• Eating disorders 1.6 in 100 people

Some other problems are asked about over a person’s lifetime, rather than each year:

• Suicidal thoughts 17 in 100 people
• Self-harm 3 in 100 people

The upshot is that, at any one time there are likely to be upwards of 10% of your congregation that are struggling with one of these issues, and over the course of a year, a quarter of them will have been affected by one or more of these conditions at some stage or other.

An admission from the front of church that these things are a reality can massively help someone who is feeling alone and isolated because of a hidden struggle.

How to help
Over the next few days, we'll be posting some thoughts on helping with some specific issues, but in general, there are three things that churches can do to help.

• Talk about it publicly. Many people will suffer in silence, fearful that they will be labelled or judged or abandoned if they admit to their struggles. This can be worse for Christians who can feel that "everybody else is happy" in the buzz of conversation after a service. And it can be compounded by a false sense of guilt that life with Jesus should not be like this—and therefore it must somehow be my fault. An admission from the front of church that these things are a reality can massively help someone who is feeling alone and isolated because of a hidden struggle.
• Pray about it publicly. Several times when I have been leading prayers at church, I have prayed for those living with depression and other illnesses. Each time I have done so, I have had a number of both sufferers and carers thanking me profusely in person and by email afterwards. They are just so relieved that someone recognises and understands their plight.
• Offer help. And by help, I don't mean a cure. We can too easily jump in with a simple answer which may actually make matters worse. By help, I mean the commitment of a listening ear, a teapot, and some compassionate understanding. And I mean the willingness to weep with someone, read the Bible with them, and gently but persistently to remind them of God's enormous love and grace towards all of us. To remind them no matter how broken we are, we are still treasured enormously by a God who loves us, and died to make us whole.

For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed … but with the precious blood of Christ… 2 Peter 1 v 18-19

This article is posted today as a series of articles to help Christians think about how to help those with mental health struggles. You can find some resources we have available to help on The Good Book website here