CAN A CHRISTIAN HAVE A MENTAL DISORDER?
Some years ago, I was visiting a client for intake as a Family Based Clinician. Intake process in therapy is an avenue to know the family and gather information about them. It is also an opportunity to complete and sign all paper works. In the process, her son increased the volume of the television and I politely asked her to reduce the volume. Her reaction was unbelievable. She started to scream and to curse me out. At a stage, I had to cancel and reschedule the appointment. When I got to the office, I reported the incident to my supervisor and specifically requested that the family should be assigned to another team.
My supervisor called her and she told my supervisor that my instruction to her to reduce the volume of the television was a trigger to her. That immediately I made the statement, she remembered the abusive relationship she went through in her previous marriages and that anytime a man gave her instruction, she believed it was a form of power/ control and she resisted such with all power within her. From her discussion with my supervisor, we realized that she experienced domestic violence that was yet to be addressed and treated through therapy. I learnt a lesson and since then I was mindful on how I relate with opposite sex until I am used to such person.
In the case of Sandy, she did everything to extremes; Very dramatic, loving and at times enthusiastic. She was divorced twice. Her two previous husbands are abusive and controlling. Then she would become angry, obnoxious and belligerent. She has held a lot of different jobs and attended a lot of different churches. She was known among the local pastors as quarrelsome and trouble maker. She finds it difficult to relate with others because of her negative behavior.
While Samuel works in a plastic manufacturing company and recently went into a rage. His co-workers described his bizarre behavior to a manager. One person reported he seems crazy, angry and talking wildly and he would not listen to others and when he is corrected, he is defensive
The above three incidents can be described as Mental disorder
Thank you for the details of your question. I will mention without mincing words that you are not alone in this type of dilemma. In some of my Seminars and Workshops, this question comes up on a regular basis. Some of the participants would tell me that as a Christian that you could be ‘equally’ yoked with a Christian with good standing with Jesus and the marriage can still fail. They also claim that having a relationship with a fellow Christian does not mean that the marriage would succeed. I do not dispute their claims because recent Statistics from www.religiuostolerance.org, www.dalrock.wordpress.com and many other sources have shown that failure of marriages among believers is on the rise. Although, the questions I always ask such people are, because people are involved in vehicular accidents, does it mean that they should not ride in their vehicles again? Or, because Christians are not perfect people, does it mean that they should not go to Church again? I believe that the reverse is the case.
WHAT IS A MENTAL DISORDER?
A mental disorder is characterized by thoughts and behaviors that cause individuals to experience extreme problems in functioning in significant area of their lives – relationships, employment, education, financial wellbeing, even spiritually, among others.
Mental disorder is not short term but they are also not necessarily permanent. It must endure for a certain minimum period of time before it can be resolved after treatment either through counseling, medication, or simply the passing of time. Other mental disorders are life long and cause ongoing problems for those afflicted with them and for their families.
It should be mentioned here that if someone has a mental disorder, he or she is not simply ‘odds’ but can be irrational at times and such a person cannot be labeled without a professional assessment. Some common types of mental disorder are:
- Psychotic disorders
- Mood disorders
- Anxiety disorders
- Personality disorders.
Psychotic disorders are those that result in bizarre paranoid or delusional thinking. The most common one is schizophrenia. Individuals with psychotic illnesses manifest the symptoms most often through
thought of ‘crazy’ tendency – seeing or hearing things that aren’t there, making bizarre connection between unrelated events, or showing grossly inappropriate responses to ordinary occurrences. A case of a driver seeing himself employing his boss as a driver.
Mood disorders are those that primarily affect a person’s emotional stability. The most common are bipolar disorder (formerly called manic depression). Individuals afflicted with depression feel discouraged and hopeless almost every day, have lost interest in activities in which they used to take pleasure and sometimes consider or attempt suicide. Unfortunately, many are depressed but we tend to ignore such through denial.
Anxiety disorder is characterized by extreme nervousness, panic, or phobias. Persons suffering from anxiety disorders cannot calm down, feel panicky most of the time, and have physical symptoms of constant nervousness. Because of the nervousness, they are prone to accidents and mistakes.
Personality disorder is disturbances in thinking and behavior that are a part of way of understanding and acting in the world. They result in life long patterns of counterproductive thinking and behavior that will impact their lives and relationship with others in a negative way. Such type of people will always see failure instead of success in any endeavor or undertaken.
To be continued.