Introduction

My name is Barbara Meyers and I’m living with mental illness. I am a Unitarian Universalist community minister whose ministry is focused on mental health issues. My ministry is largely motivated by my own experience with the subject of this service: living with mental illness.

First, why talk about mental illness in Church? For me, the answer is easy: mental illness can rob us of our spirit. In my own personal experience, connection with a spiritual community helps us to find it again. In my view, this is exactly where we should be speaking about it. I’ll talk more about the link between religion and mental health later.

Today, we will talk about mental illness, some of its history, my own experience of living with it and my vision of how we make our congregations caring places for those with mental disorders and their families.

Mental Illness

When the early and mid-1800’s saw the beginning of compassionate methods of caring for the mentally ill, Universalists and Unitarians from both the medical and social reform communities were prominent in developing and promoting them. A deeply felt religious sensibility, especially the belief in the inherent worth of each human soul, and the conviction that they had a responsibility to improve life in this world, is what motivated this work. These tenets have been and remain at the core of Universalist and Unitarian belief systems.

After an initial building period, many of the asylums became under funded and over crowded, and the goals for humanitarian care were compromised. "Slowly the positive images of hospitals that had prevailed in the mid-nineteenth century gave way to far more negative ones associated with hopelessness, abuse and untimely death. By World War II mental hospitals were identified as "snake pits." By the mid-1900’s the consensus was that the mentally ill could better be cared for in local communities, and a deinstitutionalization of these people began. However, support necessary for their care in the local communities was largely not forthcoming. Many of these people ended up on the streets or in jails. It seems that in some ways, we have come full circle from the time that Dorothea Dix began her crusade. It is widely acknowledged, including by the Surgeon General of the United States, that there is currently a crisis in mental health care in the United States.

So far, I have focused on situations of severe mental disorders. As most of us know, the experience of episodes of milder forms of mental disorder is also the part of many lives. It is probably fair to say that there are only a few families that haven’t in some way been impacted by mental disorders in one or more of its members.

As I can personally attest, living with such a disorder in oneself or in one’s family can be very difficult. There is significant stigma against mental disorders in our society, a stigma which is at its most harmful when it is internalized by those experiencing the disorder or their family members.

Barbara’s Story

I will preface this telling of my story by saying that I wrote much of it about 15 years ago while I was going to the Hayward Church. I shared it with Mark Belletini, the parish minister there, and told him that I would like to do a service on it with him. After setting a date for the service, I started feeling worse and worse, and finally told him I didn’t think I could do it. I put my prepared homily in a drawer and forgot about it. Six years later, we were doing a service on spiritual autobiography at Fremont, and I pulled it out of my drawer and gave it with no problem at all. I was simply ready for it. I’ve heard it said that there is no one without a spiritual or religious need: a frame of orientation and an object of devotion. The person may not be aware if it as a "religion", but it exists: animals, trees, idols, invisible God, ancestors, money, success, power, beauty, class, saintliness, ... The list goes on.

In my case, my religion was "perfectionism" - everything I did had to be perfect, and nothing I or anyone else did ever met these expectations. I went to school, got good grades, got a PhD in a scientific field, and worked very hard at my job, believing that I had to do a perfect job, and that other than my family, nothing else mattered in life. I was totally analytical and believed that all life could be lived that way. Being raised in an inter-denominational Protestant home, I now had no use whatsoever for religion, and occasionally made fun of people who did.

My first experience with psychiatry was shortly after the birth of my daughter in 1978. I had the perfect husband, perfect child, perfect job, perfect home, etc., but couldn’t live up to my own expectations and couldn’t function. I wanted to die.

My psychiatrist quickly stabilized me with a combination of drug and psychotherapy, including a period of hospitalization.

I was deeply disturbed by this experience: it was further indication of my lack of perfection; the other patients frightened me; they heard voices, saw visions, etc. I couldn’t accept my ideal for myself, and that I could be like these people in any way.

From time to time after this experience, I returned to the psychiatrist for help and medications to get over a difficult time, all the time hating myself because I needed to do so.

More recently, in a book by William Styron Darkness Visible: A Memoir of Madness, I recognized many similarities between his case and mine. A hereditary predisposition to depression. In my case, postpartum depression.

A tragic loss early in life. In my case, the death of my first fiancé.

Being helped by other patients.

After several years of hating myself, and having an essentially "joyless" existence, I sat down and took stock of my situation. In the end, I decided that something had to change - I wasn’t willing to live my live this way any more.

I didn’t know how or what the change would be, but it had to happen, and I was willing to do anything required for the change.

I started to go regularly to my psychiatrist to explore myself. I found this a difficult, emotional and fascinating experience.

As a result of this process, I had a revelation or realization that each person is special and unique - special because of, not in spite of, their differences from the "ideal". This is something that I felt at the depths of my soul, and that can still bring me to tears.

And, I realized that I am a special person, too. This was a completely different way of looking at the world - I didn’t have to be perfect, and neither did anyone else!

I began to feel very good, in fact, euphoric. Later I would learn to identify these "euphoric" feelings as the beginning of a manic phase. I thought I didn’t need medications any more and stopped taking them. This was not a wise thing to do.

I ended back in the psychiatric ward, this time for depression and psychosis. But this time, I wasn’t afraid of the other patients: these were all God’s children. Like me. After getting back on medication, I quickly bounced back to "sanity".

After this experience, I had a spontaneous interest in religion. I started going to church at the Hayward Unitarian Universalist church. I originally chose a UU church because I thought that "universalist" was a good description of my new way of looking at the world. It didn’t disappoint.

I feel very fortunate to have found a safe place that I could explore my new spiritual feelings. This was enormously healing for me.

I also became interested in art, and took a class in weaving, and began exploring my "right brain", or emotional side, that I had tried to suppress for so many years.

I learned to balance my life with both rationality and emotion, something I had never done before. It was as if I had been wandering around lopsided for several years and was now standing tall.

I began to be spontaneously happy.

I still have to take psychoactive drugs - in my case anti-depressants and mood stabilizers to continue normal mental function. I feel very fortunate to live in a time and place where I have this alternative.

I’m telling you this, not to convince you about psychotherapy, or to tell you that self-examination brings about stays in the psychiatric ward, but to illustrate that a person can fundamentally change the way that he or she looks at the world - the values that he or she lives by, even the thing most feared, and that this can be a healthy change.

Further, as I have learned on my journey that people with other mental illnesses besides depression can have similar recoveries. That is, they can find a way of living that is positive, fulfilling and productive in the world.

In looking back at this process, I believe I was living life without any healthy spiritual outlet. I was trying to be perfect at everything, and living my life by the principles of science alone. Now, I’m just being me - getting to know who that is, and liking it. It is an adventure - a journey that I am and will always be on.

As a conclusion to my own story, I would like to read a passage from William Styron’s book Darkness Visible speaking about his own experience with depression.

For those who have dwelt in depression’s dark wood, and known its inexplicable agony, their return from the abyss is not unlike the ascent of the poet, trudging upward and upward out of hell’s black depts. And at last emerging into what he saw as "the shining world." There, whoever has been restored to health has almost always been restored to the capacity for serenity and joy, and this may be indemnity enough for having endured the despair beyond despair. "And so we came forth, and once again beheld the stars." [Last line in Dante’s Divine Comedy I - Hell]

Religion and Mental Illness

>h3>Caring Congregation My hope is that we can build communities of faith that can help not only the cause of the most severely mentally ill, but also the overwhelming numbers of people who suffer silently and are afraid to talk about it and allow the healing aspects that religion can bring into their lives. This is why I wrote the Caring Congregation curriculum.

I would like to tell you of a vision that I have for congregations in our denomination to carry this work forward.

I have a vision of congregations which include and address the needs of people with mental disorders to the best of their capability at every level of congregational life welcoming not only their presence, but the gifts of their lives as well.

I have a vision of congregations which assume the presence of people with mental disorders, learn to support them, and, with their permission, include their stories in worship, religious education and other programs.

I have a vision of congregations which encourage development of spiritual resources--exploration of a personal sense of truth and meaning in a place of safety and acceptance--to aid in caring for those with mental disorders and their families

I have a vision of congregations which engage in outreach to those with mental disorders in its advertising and by actively supporting groups that address mental health, both secular and sacred.

I have a vision of congregations which encourage and provide support groups for people with mental disorders and their families.

I have a vision of congregations which speak out when the rights of people with mental disorders and their families are at stake.

Such congregations I would call Caring Congregations, and a religious denomination of such congregations I would call a Caring Religion. By living such a vision, we are following in the footsteps of Dorothea Dix.

Witness

Now, in witness to the effect that mental illness has on the lives of this community, I invite you to stand as you are comfortable if you or someone you love is affected by mental illness.

"You will know the truth, and the truth will make you free."

John 8:32

Thank you.