I would like to tell my testamony. I have had ongoing mental and emotional health issues since I was younger. I am 39 years old now. I was very depressed and lonely. I lived with guilt, fear, and condemnation because of bad things that happened to me and because of my own failures. I’ve gone through a lot of rejection and stigma because of how I was. I was so stuck in the past that my whole entire life ended up in a rut.

I want to say that there is a Help for mental problems without worldly methods. The Lord knows, I’ve tried every worldly method to no avail. I even tried self-help and reasoning with myself about my issues and what I thought “I” needed to do to get well. I escaped into all kinds of weird things to cope ’cause I hated myself and how my life was. Though I’ve gone to church often while I was growing up, I really got saved in 2004 but was still struggling with my issues up until very recently.

Until I surrendered myself completely to Jesus Christ and got my mind off of my own pride and selfishness,I was fighting a losing battle with myself. All of my issues came from trying to live without God, and riding on my own pride and selfishness,even after I got saved.I was lost within myself. I had to let go, turn myself around and completely embrace the whole Gospel.

I had to learn to turn to Jesus,alone for help. Not just the bible, not just religion WITHOUT God or any of my own plans. I had to be born again for real! Without an intimate relationship with Jesus, we can never really understand the bible or live an effective christian lifestyle. Once we get saved and get in relationship with Jesus, He helps us with our religion and everything else in our lives. Including our mental and emotional health. Jesus has a special place in His heart for the “poor in spirit.”

Read 3John 1:2, Matt 5:3

I also had to learn that we humans are products of how we think, and whatever we cherish in our hearts is what we will eventually do.I was all messed up because I was viewing life from the wrong perspective: MINE!!! And I had all kinds of wicked desires in my heart that I didn’t even know were there until Jesus freed me from them.I was in the wrong place spiritually. That is why I was messed up mentally! I had to shift my focus from myself to Him.

I had to learn how to forgive everybody who mistreated me. I was very hurt, angry and bitter because of things that I went through.I had to learn to own up to my own responsibilities in life, too. I used to blame everybody else for my problems and thought that the world owed me something because of my miseries. My heart was so hard and I thought everything was all about ME.

I WAS MY OWN WORST ENEMY!!!

As I was reading some of the other comments, I noticed that many of you who are in church but still are having issues. My heart goes out to you all, but here’s the thing. Many of you are dealing with doubt and unbelief. That means that you may think that you are believing but you are really NOT believing Him all the way. I used to be like that, too. You all MUST really believe that Jesus helps mental problems as well as everything else! You must believe it even BEFORE He does anything for you! DO NOT BELIEVE THE LIES THAT THE WORLD SAYS ABOUT THERE NOT BEING A “CURE” FOR MENTAL ILLNESS! “ONCE A NUT, ALWAYS A NUT” DOES NOT HOLD WATER WITH JESUS CHRIST! JESUS CHRIST IS THE CURE!YOU MUST WANT HELP AND BELIEVE THAT YOU CAN BE HELPED IF YOU WANT TO BE FREE. I HAD TO UNDERSTAND THIS FOR MYSELF!

At one time, I had not learned to fully trust Jesus for myself. I had not really recieved His love, grace, and forgiveness for myself. I thougt I was too hopeless and too crazy for Him to reach me. I did not think I deserved Jesus because of my craziness. I had to learn that He loves me and accepts me anyway, whether I deserve it or not. I was going by what I could do in my own strength instead of resting by faith in His grace. I thank Jesus loving me unconditionally.

Jesus payed for my sins when He died on the cross, so I do not have to keep punishing myself for my failures. Jesus took care of EVERYTHING for me. He forgave me! He cleansed me! He gave me a sound mind and a new heart! He gave me a second chance to live! I really had to understand that!!I just lay hold to Him and ALL of His promises. He will do the same thing for everybody who will just simply BELIEVE Him all the way.
Read Isaiah 53:4-6, James 1:5-8

Thanks and God Bless You All,
Sheila

First, psychology is not psychiatry. They have some overlap, but they are distinctly different fields, and one often covers areas the other totally ignores.

That said, I agree with Michael for the most part. The DSM-IV-TR criteria are more often than not a constellation of signs and symptoms that are grouped together and named.

It can, and should be, useful for Christians to know such categories, and respect them for what they are – clinical terms used to describe discrete groups of signs and symptoms.

Now as for the use of such terms among laypeople, I do think that it is wise to be careful about how we talk about such things, and possible root causes for someone feeling “depressed.” Depression may be purely a physiological derangement due to funky neurotransmitters and receptors, or it may be purely an emotional problem, or (more likely), it is some combination of physiologic, emotional, social, and other factors which have come together to “cause” a person to be in a sitution where they feel a certain way, exhibit certain symptoms, etc.

This doesn’t necessarily apply to ALL DSM-IV dignoses, either, as there are relatively larger and smaller bodies of knowledge regarding the causes of various disorders. We know some are more likely mostly physiologic, or mostly emotional, and other things that we have no clue, and all sorts of stuff in between.

Yes, medication is a wonderful thing. It can give lives back. It’s also
often not enough (and most psychologists, secular or Christian, will say
so). I had to go through a long period of teaching myself different
thought patterns, and not letting myself talk me into a depressive state.
I learned to monitor my moods, and recognize when a mood was just
chemicals going crazy in my head, and when it was real and relevant.

Not sure where I was going with all this, but…yeah. Psychology, like any
field of science, has brought great beneifts, and while it can be
misused–and often is–we shouldn’t draw back from it in fear.

If he is still falible, after having been forgiven and saved, how much more so than I? And yet, it provides great hope to know:

2 Timothy 1:7 – For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.

Now, he gives you the sound mind, as he gives it to me. That doesn’t mean that occasionally I may, if by nothing else than my actions, respond “No, that’s OK God, I think I’ll just be crazy for a bit here”, but it is something that he Has given, and is, therefore, something that I can always return to.

It is just like those people who swear. The Bible is quite clear that the tongue is evil, so why should it surprise us that God says quite clearly:

James 3:8 – But the tongue can no man tame; it is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.

And yet, at the same time, it also says:

1 Peter 3:10 – For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile:

But wait, I thought no man can tame it, so how then are we supposed to refrain it from evil? Because it isn’t us that does it, it is God that works in us. We can still slip sometimes, and we all will for we are all sinners, but He is always right there, ready to restore us.

I mean heck, I have outlined enough of my own faults here. I had the same struggle that you did. Yet that said, I don’t believe that such disorders (aside from those that are medical in nature, mind you, such as MS and other such mental aflictions) are just the results or consequences of sin, but that giving into them is sin. Just like the people who were homosexual that get saved. They may stop committing the acts, but that doesn’t mean that they don’t, sometimes at least, feel the same way. But giving into them is sin.

We don’t stop sinning when we were saved, though how I hope that it was true… we’re merely forgiven, and that is why grace is so very important. God’s grace to us, but also our grace toward others, for even if we didn’t struggle with the same thing as someone else, we all do have our struggles, and you never know, they may not share yours. So if we all struggle, then just have grace toward them.

I’m very glad to know that I’ve misunderstood you. What concerned me was statements such as this:

“God’s word says that he has given us, those of us who believe in him a sound mind. If you disagree with that, you aren’t disagreeing with me, but with the Word of God. Another version says self control, as opposed to sound mind. In either case, both mitigate directly against any ‘mental disorder’ overtaking a Christian, or do you not know that He who is in me is greater than he who is in the world?”

and

“It is selfishness. I was always thinking about me first. And in the end, I have yet to meet someone who had ‘mental problems’ who wasn’t in the exact situation. It is all an extreme focus on the self.”

These and similar remarks read very much as if you are saying that those who believe will always be free from pathological mental, psychological, and/or emotional affliction, and that such disorders cannot be suffered by a Christian; and that such disorders are consequences of sin and selfishness. I’m keeping in mind that I have misunderstood your posts somehow, so I’m not accusing you of saying these things; only that I find it difficult to understand your posts to be saying something else. Maybe further explanation would help.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/074324785X/103-1922875-4948600?v=glance&n=283155&s=books&v=glance

I am about half way through it and it is helping in some small ways to mold my thinking in reference to what you are talking about Michael.

[QUOTE]
Does that mean that I am free from all my struggles? Absolutely not, but because I am not I know that I have to run to the cross every time, for that is the only thing that will save me.
[/QUOTE]

I am still an absolute failure. There is nothing in me that is good but Him, but then again why should that be a surprise, the Bible states quite clearly that he chose the foolish things of this world to confound the wise.

All I said was that He would take it away, because he works to make all of us perfect in his image. But since I haven’t died yet, I obviously haven’t reached that point. If giving you a child was the means by which He helped you, then praise to God for that.

As with me, as I stated, before I was a Christian I hung out with people who drank blood. Now, I had dabbled in that a bit before hand, but thank God, that is one of the things that he cured me of very quickly. I also stated that I struggled with depression myself, that is not something that immediately went away, and unfortunately I struggled with that for some time afterward. In your case He gave you the baby. In my case it took me realizing that depression is an absolute form of self-absorbtion, because I was always thinking about myself.

I had to learn the hard way that we are to have joy. In fact, there are quite a few verses that talk about having joy:

Romans 5:11 – And not only so, but we also joy in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, by whom we have now received the atonement.
Romans 14:17 – For the kingdom of God is not meat and drink; but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.
Romans 15:13 – Now the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, that ye may abound in hope, through the power of the Holy Ghost.
Galatians 5:22 – But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, gentleness, goodness, faith,
1 Peter 4:13 – But rejoice, inasmuch as ye are partakers of Christ’s sufferings; that, when his glory shall be revealed, ye may be glad also with exceeding joy.
1 John 1:4 – And these things write we unto you, that your joy may be full.

Now, is it instantaneous? For me it wasn’t, I failed greatly in this, so how could I ever begrudge someone else who has the same problem now? No, instead it is better to have great compassion for them, to pray for and with them, and to keep pointing them to Christ. No one can take the joy that Christ gives you away from you, but you can give it up by looking to yourself, and that is what I was doing in my depression. It was a long hard road for me to learn to look away from myself for that, but I am grateful that I had to go through that, because I learned a lot through it.

The fun thing is that every time it seems that I overcome something in Christ, there is something else to overcome. He begins to point out something else to me in my life, and so the process never seems complete. Though in the end, I wish that it was as you thought I had meant before, that by coming to Christ I was made instantly perfect, instead of just positionally perfect thanks to his blood. It would save me from a lot of hard lessons. Instead, I get to go through the lessons, but after you are through them, they don’t seem so bad anymore, until the next one.