Charles and Faith

I have several years of experience in the mental health field following a good education; however, I have to admit that I understand less now about mental health than I did upon entering college.  This may be due to the fact that there are mysteries about the mind that we will never fathom. I have also learned that most troubles we encounter are human caused and that the solution is sharing God with others through our relationships with them.

A particular experience with an individual with mental illness helped me to understand the importance of relationship.  Charles was diagnosed with Schizophrenia shortly after returning from Vietnam.  Like the vast majority of people who develop any psychotic disorder, Charles endured a nightmarish childhood of violence and abuse.  He returned from war a troubled young man and spent the next twenty or so years homeless, trying to minimize his time in hospitals and jails.  I met him after the police were called to a grocery store to investigate the behavior of a large, partially clothed man cooling himself in the frozen food section.  Charles later explained to me that doing certain things, such as enduring extreme temperatures helped him to ward off Satan’s attacks.  So I began by introducing myself and trying to determine how we might together help him to feel more comfortable and less susceptible to the devil’s influence.

At no time did I lecture him about the efficacy of antipsychotic medications or the importance of working with mental health centers.  I just sat and listened to him and if he had to jump up all of a sudden to do some shadow boxing and glare at someone, I just figured it was something he had to do.  He had been homeless for a long time and had the scars to prove it.  Homelessness, like war, can be a violent business so being aware of his surroundings at all times was an important skill for Charles.  Patience with one another allowed us to accomplish a lot.  We sat for eight hours outside the VA one day to get an appointment and we prayed, flipped rocks with our fingers for distance and talked about God.  I think he was able to relax and he even consented to stay in the shelter at night as he had discovered that there was a holy vault within my office, so I emptied my trash can and he kept his valuables in there. 

This man was eligible for benefits through the VA although that system and Social Security were things he avoided like the plague.  What I discovered is that the man’s torments might be expressed in delusional terms, but they were real.  In the matrix of bureaucracies in terms of how torturous they are to deal with, Social Security and the VA may well be at the top.  We spent two hours once, most of the time on hold and Charles had to explain to a variety of people that his address had changed.  My own sanity was tested and I remain impressed that Charles withstood the experience.  After hanging up the phone, it immediately rang and he jumped up, nearly fell out of his chair and picked up the receiver before I could get to it.  He shouted out this explicit string of profanity to the caller and I cringed and asked for the phone.  Luckily it was just one of my coworkers calling, who was often irritating to me anyway, so I just said I would call him back later.  I figured I would explain Charles and his profane rant later or maybe not.

Charles was what mental health providers describe as “religiously preoccupied.”  And this is usually considered a serious impairment.  However, in talking to him I learned that through all his trials, he believed that God loved him and would never abandon him.  His faith was something to be encouraged and that gave meaning and hope to his life.  He described our time together as a “Holy Ghost party” to his mother on the phone one day.  This helped him to tolerate me even after I had to testify in court about some of his behaviors as the police persisted in charging him for his public indecency in the grocery store.  Our relationship survived his forced hospitalization and perhaps it was a good thing as they discovered he had a heart condition which was easily treated and improved his health tremendously.  He eventually was discharged to a group home and ended up clearing up amazingly well.  Charles would come to visit me at the shelter at times and expressed gratitude that the program I worked for had been so tolerant of him.

It has often been individuals from outside the field of psychiatry who have done the most good for folks struggling with mental illnesses. The faith community has been responsible for many of these advancements.  The Quakers in the US and England developed some humane hospitals hundreds of years ago that have success rates better than our own modern day hospitals.  Anabaptists that served in hospitals instead of joining the military during war time saw the horrible treatment of the mentally ill and became advocates for improvements in treatment. 

Mental illness, I believe, is not just a medical disease.  A medical focus has led us to search for medical cures, from immersion in ice cold water for long periods of time to yanking out people’s teeth, ice pick lobotomies to prescribing medications that do not have good long-term outcomes and may in fact be worsening the chances that a person with mental illness will ever recover.  Mental illness is a human problem, and, like anything else, requires a human solution through relationships.  There are some countries, like Finland, where they are reducing their rates of certain mental illnesses due to simply talking to people who are first showing signs of psychosis and helping them to develop a way to communicate about their lives for them and their families.

Third world countries generally have better rates of recovery for schizophrenia than developed countries.  That very fact should have the field of psychiatry scratching its head and perhaps kicking its own behind.  The WHO (World Health Organization) has documented this in three studies over three decades of research and follow-up.  The reason people get better seems to have to do with the fact that less developed countries rely on relationships.  In the west we describe someone as “Schizophrenic” and order treatment.  In Colombia, India and Nigeria they work with people who are first sons, daughters, sports fans, engineers, parents and artists who also seem to have some issues with their mental health and may need some extra support.

My pastor once asked me if perhaps we all had the potential to show signs of Schizophrenia or Bipolar Disorder.  I thought at the time this was not so.  Now I think differently.  I think we all have some issues or imbalances.  Sometimes anxiety runs in a certain family, some have temper problems or tend to be shy.  People in my family have a tendency to struggle with depression.  Like everyone else, I have learned about ways to help myself with my mood.  Even though it is hard, I work not to isolate myself and to instead share what is going on in my head.  My writing is a way of processing the world with a brain that seems to be all Right hemisphere.  All imagination, with poor ability to rationalize or process things logically.  And I thank you God.  It is the way I am.  What has helped me is to have people who experience my oddities and love me anyway.  We are all as God made us; it is just that some of us struggle in more obvious ways.  I think about Charles to avoid excessive professional arrogance and remind myself about what helps people to change.  Relationships.