Michele Gyselinck

  I guess that's where the Mental Health Toolkit comes into play.  Of course, it's unfair to blame everything on the pastor.  I forwarded the Guide to my church council.

I don't have an opinion on this matter. I've never read the confession in question and I don't like to judge something merely on hearsay.

 Abortion is pertinent inasmuch as it is the abortion of children with disabilities such as Down's Syndrome, for example, since a lot of couples will decide to abort a pregnancy when they know that the baby to be born is likely to have the disability.  In fact, some tests such as the one--can't think of the term--where the pregnant mother has some amniotic fluid drawn through a siringe and this liquid is then taken to the nearest lab taped to her body to be kept at body temperature with the purpose of determining whether the fetus has DS or not, so she and her partner can then decide to terminate the pregnancy or not.  I have heard that there are new procedures to make that diagnosis now that are less invasive such as a blood test.

I'm not sure if I commented on this post already or not, but to me point 3 falls in the duh! category.  The medications exist because they were found to meet a need, and while I can see that some depressions could be managed without medication, nobody could do that with major mental illnesses like schizophrenia unless they're anti-psychiatry but that's another horse.  And even depressions nowadays are not what they used to be.  In a program I saw on TVO's The Agenda with Steve Paikin during Mental Health Week a few years ago, three psychiatrists were saying that depression in many cases had become a chronic illness, so even there it might be unrealistic to expect people to get over it on their own strength, so what's the big problem with church members taking meds for mental illnesses? Is it yet another preconceived idea based on an assumption that mental illnesses are moral failures on the part of those who suffer from these illnesses?  Welcome to the 21st Century. 

Man, I'm tired of seeing those old prejudices having to be re-addressed time and time again.  Can we move on to the next level in helping people with mental illnesses than repeating the same arguments?  In Hebrews, when the author wrote to the congregation about their maturity level, he said that although by that time they should have been teaching others they still needed to be taught the basics, and you know why? Because people who don't grow in the faith don't do their homework, and it's the same about ministering to people in the church that have special needs.  Some Christians should know better than to still be stuck at the level of changing their attitude toward other Christians with mental illnesses, but we're going around in circles because those who still need posts like the one above are not growing.  This should be a non-issue for followers of Christ Who never bothered to consider if people who were sick and needed His help were deserving of it.  Who in the Church of Christ is deluded enough to think they have the right to judge other believers because they're mentally ill?

 Well, for my part I sure hope not.  I can't wait to be rid of my schizophrenia.  It's been hell for me, and I don't refer to myself as being schizophrenic.  If some people identify with their disability to such an extent that they can't visualize life in the New Jerusalem without it, that's their problem, but I WANT OUT.  

The impression I get from the excerpts of The Disabled God is that Jesus' stigmata somehow still affect His ability to use His hands and feet as though He were limping along or would have difficulty using His hands to open a jar or drive a nail through a plank of wood.  Yet He doesn't seem to have had any difficulty breaking the bread when He was having dinner with the two disciples at Emmaus.  So,if Christ's scars don't impede His functioning after His resurrection, in what way is He disabled?

 My maternal grandfather developed senile dementia in his last years, mostly from age 87 to 90 when he passed away in 1984, and when I went to see him with my mom he seemed only a ghost of the man I'd known as a child and young adult when he taught me how to make his liver pâté, so we began our mourning process long before he breathed his last.  I wasn't there on that day, but my mom and dad were.  I'm sorry that you're losing your mother that way.  Mine, however, is still "all there" on the verge of her 89th birthday, which will be on January 31st.  She even drives her car still and got a new one last spring.  She's also planning on moving to a larger apartment in her seniors' residence in March that will be closer to the elevator to make it easier because some of the medications she takes for her heart condition make her dizzy and the hallways are long there.  But it IS a seniors' residence and NOT a nursing home.  And it doesn't smell like a nursing home.  

Sorry that the contrast between my mom and yours is so stark, but I'd rather have my mom the way she is than with senile dementia any day, and I imagine you'd prefer it this way too.

  While reading the other comments I was reminded that the word from which we get words like psychology, psychiatry etc. is [psyche].  Please forgive me for not putting it in International Phonetic Alphabet ; I don,t have the characters on hand.  Psychiatry and psychology claim to treat the mind, but the medications also treat the soul to some extent since antipsychotics and antidepressants control the symptoms that make mentally ill people often miserable enough to consider suicide, when they don't actually take measures to end their own lives.  Since depression was my dominant  negative symptom, finding a medication that alleviated that emotional problem helped me to move on from self-obsession to being able to help others AND to want to.  I wish you luck in trying to diagnose moral illness in a society that has pretty much lost its own moral compass to begin with.  I disagree with Rev. Nederhood that abortion is the cause of people choosing to kill children.  In my opinion, it is merely a symptom among others.

 Hi Mark, 

 It must have been very hard to have to make a decision like that on your mom's behalf, and I think you took a load of guilt on yourselves that was unnecessary.  I'm glad that your aunt could comfort you about the decision you made, so you could lay the guilt aside.  Is your mom still alive?

 I think Pat Robertson is a poor excuse for a Christian.  He and others like Jerry Falwell Jr. endorsed Donald J. Trump during the past campaign because he had promised to reverse Roe v. Wade and other decisions on gay marriage.  As if Christianity were ONLY about abortion or homosexuals.  Actually, those issues are often the hobby horses of some preachers with a limited understanding of the Gospel, but a disproportionate salary.  In one of his programs the comedian John Oliver discussed the obscene salaries and lifestyles of some of those preachers who pressure people in their congregations and online to give them money and God would bless the people with wealth and health, and often the people who give money to those preachers have a hard time making ends meet.  

I'm glad you can trust your wife's character if you should ever need her care, Mark, though I hope it won't be necessary.  I think you have enough of a burden taking care of your daughter without adding dementia as well.

 "But I wonder if it’s possible to take that approach too far? Do I convey the attitude that living with a disability is really no big deal? Or, worse, do I give the impression that it’s some sort of heroic existence deserving special admiration?"  

"But let’s be careful not to use that sort of language to dismiss or romanticize the difficulties faced by those with additional impairments. There’s nothing gallant about everyday life with a significant disability."

At first, when I read that I wondered if the author was into ableism or if my blog about the Chronically Normal was the appropriate response.  M disability doesn't make me use a wheelchair to get around or crutches.  In fact, most people who look at me briefly would probably not know I have a disability since it is invisible to the naked eye--unless they see me talking to someone they can't see.  Of course, nowadays with cell phones the fact that someone is talking to someone you can't see doesn't automatically lead people to conclude you're odd, since they would not necessarily see the phone, or that thing that some people have in their ear. from where they sit on the bus.  

But as I got off a bus once in a while I've had people look at me as though I were from Mars or something.  

These days I have bigger problems with side effects from medications than the symptoms of the illness itself.  If I don't get to sleep at a certain time the sedative carries over into the next day.  If I have to get up early for some reason I don't get enough sleep and become testy and impatient.  I also feel I tend to pass gas a lot more lately.