Instead of prayer, more and more of us are turning to another “P” – psychiatry. There is an interesting article in one of my journals that talks about an “epidemic of psychological and psychiatric addicts” hooking their children on a lifetime of “counseling sessions”. These children in need of therapy range in age from 10 to 36. I guess if I had a thirty six year old son living in my basement I might send him to a psychologist as well, but the whole thing seems to me to be overblown at every level. The children in need of therapy all seem to be mixed into the “low self esteem” basket and of course nothing boosts your self esteem like pouring out your deepest fear to a stranger. Insurance companies seem to be actually supporting this as well, thanks to some government intervention, and of course the psychiatrists and counselors love it. Nothing says I care like a $150 an hour gab fest. The verdict is still out on the folks going to the counseling but my guess is that they love it too. All that attention and your peers knowing that you go to a “shrink” is pretty heady stuff. I have never yet met anyone in a counseling session, or out of one for that matter, who has too little self esteem. It is the opposite. They are pretty hot stuff and they are depressed that the rest of the world doesn’t see it.
Of course low self esteem is a joke. We suffer from the opposite. We want control. We want acknowledgement. We want everything and then some. When we don’t get it, all hell will break loose. If you think I am writing metaphorically here you are sadly mistaken. We, human beings who do not get our way, will literally raise hell.
Luther had a way of getting to the “nut” of things, no pun intended. To those who go to counseling to “find themselves” Luther should be required reading. He wrote a commentary of Psalm 5:2-3 that is really quite amazing. The problem of human beings is that we all perversely seek divinity and we make ourselves to be “unhappy and haughty gods.” He uses remarkably psychological language 300 years before psychology was invented. He says that God works to “to lead us back to a knowledge of ourselves”.
How God does that is the subject of the next blog.
Oh! Pastor! About mental health! How did you ever discover my pet subject to write about?? I loved my counselor! I had 13 yrs of weekly therapy. The only one who was truly happy was my behavioral health counselor. For $300 bucks a pop she told me all I wanted to hear. “You’re the most important person” was one and “do something for yourself” was another it was a balm for a self centered mind set. That is what depression actually is a mind turned inward on itself.
Granted I had every reason to be depressed. After all raising two special needs kids who both had a death prognoses at one time was not easy to deal with. My husband was a small grains farmer who also had a dairy herd with another brother which was anything but a sublime partnership. Then throw in some significant loses.. Well none of it really helped. The big player in my very depressed mind was a small adenoma growing on a parathyroid gland. Now I tell everyone caught in the grips of a bad depression to go get a good thyroid work up those little glands have a lot to do with mental health. I had one gland removed but still it took a long time to get my mental health back.
I was so needy when battling the depression and feeling safe within those walls I could say everything noone else had time to hear or cared to hear. Even though this counselor was a god to me I did worry if something happened to her what would I do for I thought I would surly die without my weekly sessions. She was my savior. I was not at peace with this because I knew she couldn’t supply all my needs and I did search the scriptures for help but I was just caught in ugly self pity. I did contemplate suicide many times but even at those times I realized the irrational thinking I was locked into.
I did attend church but really didn’t dig deep in any kind of study it was dull to me.
The neighborhood gals started a women’s Bible study one fall and I went and the studies didn’t really click with me then but I continued and all of a sudden in the middle of one I won’t elaborate on the author other than to say it was not her charisma or anything this person said, it was in the realizing once again that scripture is alive and God breathed. He was speaking to me through His Word. Slowly things begin turning around. First my cocktail of antidepressants and antipsychotic drugs begin to slow down and eventually stop all together. Now when you are diagnosed as bipolar (which you are called when the mental health people don’t know what else to call you) care must be taken not become a “Jesus freak” or it will be considered just another manic episode. One January day probably five years ago now I walked into my psychiatrist’s office(yes I had one of those too!) He looked at me closely and said “Betty, I see sitting here a gal who I once wouldn’t have given any chance of surviving her mood swings. I see someone who is perfectly normal in her speech patterns, I see no angst or depressed emotion. I have never seen this before in my practice tell me what has done it?” I took a big breath as I was not at all sure he was Christian and I said “it is all found in Jesus Christ”. Chills raced up and down my spine and it was such a good moment. I walked out and never looked back.
I have to say this and I know this is controversial but a big majority of people today are over medicated and over counseled. Now I do know there are legit mental health diseases goodness knows I saw the gambit in psych wards but today’s fad or spending thousands at counselors is a big waste of money. drugs can exacerbate a depressed mood and even make you worse off than before.
I find my answers now in Bible study. I love to study and if I were a young person I would go into some type of full time church work whether it be the deaconess program or mission work. It is still all about Jesus the Wonderful Counselor. Hearing the Word and partaking of the Sacrament are two things I will not miss if I can possibly help it. These speak life to me they speak a peace the world and no other counselor can ever give.
So happy to say I am drug free and excited for each new day I can serve the Lord. \
Thanks for this opportunity to tell my story Pastor! It is so needful to hear and tell!
Betty Marschner