By: Rev. Jackie Hibbard
I cannot imagine that addiction, neurodiversity, loneliness, isolation, disordered eating, anxiety, suicide attempts or completion, depression, or some other kind of mental illness or mental health issue doesn’t impact or affect everyone in this room or everyone watching online. I could ask you to raise your hands if you are impacted by mental illness yourself or a friend or family member but I don’t need to because I know every hand would be raised. You are not alone.
Key Takeaways from the 2023 Study
21% of adults are experiencing at least one mental illness. That’s roughly 50 million people.
55% of adults with a mental illness have not received any treatment.
5.44% of adults experience severe mental illness.
Over 12.1 million adults (4.8%) have reported serious thoughts of suicide. This figure more than doubles when surveying adults who identify as two or more races.
41% of LGBTQ young people seriously considered attempting suicide in the past year—and young people who are transgender, nonbinary, and/or people of color reported higher rates than their peers.
56% of LGBTQ young people who wanted mental health care in the past year were not able to get it.
Key Takeaways from The State of Pediatric Mental Health in America 2023 Report
16% of youth surveyed reported having at least one major depressive episode in the past year.
More than 2.7 million children and adolescents are living with severe major depression.
60% of youth with major depression receive no mental health treatment.
Over 6% of youth surveyed reported having a substance use disorder in the past year. Of that number, 2.85% reported using alcohol, and 4.85% reported using illicit drugs.
1 in 10 children covered under private insurance cannot access care for mental or emotional difficulties through their insurance.
The US Surgeon General has issued a public health advisory about the urgency of youth mental health and called it a crisis.
Leading cause of deaths in children and adolescents in the US - Firearms (suicide, homicide, accidents, undetermined.) Motor Vehicle Accidents. Drug/Alcohol Overdose
Key findings from Kaiser Family Foundation Mental Health & Substance Use Disorder by race/ethnicity:
Rates of death by suicide are rising faster among people of color compared to their White counterparts.
The recent rise in deaths associated with drug overdoses has disproportionately affected people of color.
Overall rates of mental illness and substance use disorder are lower for people of color compared to White people but may be underdiagnosed among people of color.
People of color have experienced worsening mental health during the pandemic.
People of color face disproportionate barriers to accessing mental health care.
And the Psalmist says - Oh God, Every day I call on you. I cry out to you. I spread my hands to you. Every morning I pray to you.
I don’t know about you but as I read that Psalm I had lots of feelings/emotions arise - desperation, hopelessness, anguish, anger, dread, lost, alone, yearning, grief, pain, trapped, despair, and hope. And I can remember times in my own life and of those I love when I or they felt like this. It’s a Psalm we can relate to.
UCC Mental Health Ministry has a wonderful toolkit for Mental Health Sunday and in it someone wrote this, “If you have never experienced the devastation of a serious mental illness, Psalm 88 is one place to begin. … sometimes it is precisely with our wounds and in our brokenness that we are most open to God. When we let go of our need to control and are truly open to God’s trans-forming grace, we find that the darkness becomes a time not of doing and knowing, but of being and unknowing. It is here that we discover the source of mystery that holds us and surrounds us even when we are not aware of that Divine presence.” (from Mental Health and Wellness: Worship Resources for All, UCC Mental Health Ministry)
I recently had a pastoral visit with someone who was living this Psalm. I won’t share details but I will tell you that what I witnessed and heard that day was a person crying out to God for help. A person who was feeling anguish, desperation, despair, and anger. They have asked for help from all the places and professionals. They have cried themselves to sleep. They search within for answers. And they reach out to their community and church for support. They have hope even amidst the challenges and fear and no answers. And I’ll be honest, I didn’t know what to do or say. I listened. I prayed. I sat in the silent moments and didn’t rush to fill the space. And I surely didn’t say “it will get better” because as the poem says, we don’t know that.
At the end of our visit we hadn’t solved anything, there were tears, but there was also curiosity, hope, and a knowing that we aren’t alone, that God walks with us and feels our pain, sorrow and angst.
You know what that visit was? It was church. Holy, worshipful, prayerful, messy, beautiful. God was with us, around us, in us.
The person was not alone but accompanied by their faith community. The person knows their wounds and finds strength and courage as they continue to cling to God and the foundation of their faith even amidst the struggle. Somehow there is hope.
Study after study show that people who live with any kind of mental health issue or addiction fare better if they have some kind of spiritual grounding, faith and faith community. One video I watched had this wonderful quote - “there's nothing in our social or medical sciences that are more protective against the epidemic of despair in our country than accessing our spirituality.” (Dr Lisa Miller - Spirituality, Mental Health and Science Lecture.)
Being involved in a faith community offers a sense of belonging, safety and connection with others. Most people I know living with addiction share that they stay sober because of their connection to a support group and church involvement. It gives a sense of purpose, meaning and teaches service, compassion, forgiveness of self and others and cultivates gratitude among many other things. Our faith can also bring comfort. In our 8am service this morning, Anne read a modern take on Psalm 68 which is the lectionary Psalm for the day. Each line ended with a gratitude to God “Your presence is within us.” It’s a reminder that God is always with us, no matter what is happening in or around us.
What I notice is that asking for help is hard for people, including me. Admitting that they are struggling is vulnerable and opens one up for judgment and shame. And when we as a church community can open up, listen and welcome, who knows what can happen!
Here is another truth for us as a faith community. It can be hard work companioning and welcoming people with a mental health challenge. We’ll make mistakes and have to apologize and repair. Sometimes we feel overwhelmed or inadequate. Sometimes we don’t know what to do. And we have to learn that sometimes we have to set some boundaries and expectations about what is acceptable behavior and what isn’t. And then we have to hold to it even when the person pushes back or blows through the boundaries and set expectations.
What else can we offer? Prayer. A listening ear. Rituals like our worship services to help provide structure, meaning and food for thought and reflection. Spiritual practices like walking the labyrinth, a gratitude practice, meditation, the healing journeys. Companionship, going on a walk, small groups, retreats, or fellowship of any kind. Relationship so that people know they aren’t alone. A job, paid or volunteer, to do so that the people feel useful and that they are contributing in some way.
I can think of no better place than our faith, church and a church community to turn to when one is experiencing any kind of mental health issue or crisis.
It’s either funny or a lesson that as I worked on this sermon and Mental Health Sunday liturgy, that I found myself struggling with my own mental health challenges the last couple of weeks. Some of you have noticed my shoes. I wear them because this morning in the shower it came to me that I needed to share my own story.
I am an over functioner. I learned it as a child and it served me well and has served me throughout my life. I realized this morning that I have been in Wonder Woman mode. Overfunctioning and Wonder Woman mode isn’t considered a mental illness but it surely impacts my mental health and well being. I do more than I need to. Giving 100% isn’t quite good enough. My days get overfilled. I don’t ask for help. My mind races during the meditation time of Breathing Space. I wake up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep. I forget about boundaries. I become overly responsible. I am not conscious about what I’m doing and then get careless and get crabby and short tempered and snappy. I found myself here and struggled and struggled to get this sermon written and doing it “just right.” I’ve been working on this for years but it reared its head.
What woke me up. It took getting kicked by a horse, getting super frustrated in a meeting on Friday and having to turn off my camera and go and yell in the kitchen.
Nicole asking me what she can do to support me. Asking for help from people to muck my horse stalls. Turning to God with prayer. A drive in the mountains. Walking the labyrinth. Coming to the healing journey yesterday. It all came together to get me out of myself and realize that I’m not alone. God is in the suffering. God embraces all of us.
So people of God, keep showing up and being present. keep showing up. With prayer. With boundaries and expectations about appropriate behavior and language. Offer to sit and be present so that the person can get through the next moment. Keep welcoming and holding space, and keep shining the light of God for those broken by addiction or a mental health issue, and shine the light of God on yourself when you find yourself in a time of brokenness.