Mental Health: Saying Goodbye to Stigmaنموونە

Day Nine - Community and Support

Proverbs 15:22 - Refuse good advice and watch your plans fail; take good counsel and watch them succeed.

Much to my detriment, I was not good at taking advice and counsel when I was unwell.

Many tried to advise me that medicine was probably a good idea for me to be able to regain a sense of balance and health. I saw this as a slap in the face and a sign that that individual had given up on my mission to live medication-free.

On the other side of illness, now with my feet firmly fixed on solid ground, I can see that all those well-meaning people in my life were trying to counsel me back to health.

If you are struggling with mental illness and poor health in your mind, you mustn't try to white-knuckle it alone.

Proverbs 15:22 could not be more applicable here.

When we are unable to see clearly because of illness, having loved ones around us who we trust means that we will receive the care we need.

This is not simply family and friends. God has done incredible work in our social makeup by constructing systems of support that look like hospitals, doctor’s surgeries, and counselling rooms.

I recognise that allowing other people into your place of struggle and vulnerability is uncomfortable and, at times, very scary. But this journey is not best walked alone.

If it weren’t for my dad, mum, step mum, close friends, church community, doctor, and psychiatrist, I would not be living in a healthy mind today. Each of them has played a vital part in advising, guiding and nursing me back to health. I owe them all a large debt of gratitude.

Scripture says that God sets the lonely in families (see Psalm 68:6). Mental illness of any nature can be a very lonely place. Allow God to set you in a family of friends, professionals, and believers. Allow Him to surround you with people who can speak wisdom into your life at a time when your own thoughts cannot always be relied upon.

He can be trusted with your life and will set others around you who can be trusted, too.