My Mental Health Disorder and My Christianity

Today was a difficult day!

Have you ever tried to explain something to someone who has no clue what you’re saying, yet insists they do? There is nothing more irritating or discomforting than to be around a fellow believer who lacks compassion or empathy. As weird as this sounds, I found so MUCH more comfort and support inside the Eating Recovery treatment centers for eating/exercise disorders and OCD in 2016 and 2018 than I have yet found within the Body-of-Christ! One weekend, back in 2018, I came home for a “trial weekend” from the treatment center. I went to church, the one I had attended for thirty years. While I was there, I found myself lost, alone, and misunderstood. I knew so many there who lived to “diet and exercise”, and to “fast and restrict”, who lived to be thin and attractive or strong and masculine. These mind-sets were MY HELL. I wanted people to sit and eat donuts, to stop complaining about calories and talking about fasting (because underneath their “fast-plan” was a diet plan). When I left treatment, I sought to learn how to live. It was exceedingly difficult to live as a Christian and try as hard as I could to not care about my body. But every time I walked into church; I was aware of my outward appearance. But when I was around those outside the church, and who understood mental health issues, I felt accepted. I tried to stop exercising -which I did successfully for three months. But as my body began to change and as I was around other Christians, I ended up running and watching my weight once again.

I desperately desire to not care. I desperately desire for Christians to not care about their physical health. I desperately desire my brain or mind which gets “stuck” to no longer get stuck. If anxiety and deep-rooted issues of insecurity from childhood were supernaturally removed, I would no longer run. I run 6 days a week and lift weights in-between and on Sundays. I run, run, and run. No matter if I have pneumonia, Covid, if it’s 110 degrees or freezing cold and thirty below. I’ve done this since 2009, every day until 2018, when I stopped running on Sundays.

Today I had a situation that alarmed me and sent me into panic attack mode as I thought I might not be able to run.

I have not had to face this for years. But today, I thought I might have to stay home. And, just like used to happen when I was working and suddenly there was a work meeting, or suddenly the family needed something, or someone wants to meet for coffee, or a multitude of sudden changes that might come up that would create the perfect storm inside my head, and I would not be able to do my routine, I went into full panic mode, shaking, pacing, trying to breathe but all I could say was “I call on the name of the Lord” over and over. FINALLY, once again, just like she used to, my wife said “honey, go, I’ll meet with the person who is coming over, I love you” And she helped me so much. My wife has been my emotional support for almost 19 years now. She has lived with a husband who lives by a specific, set, schedule every single day. Certain things sit in certain places in our house. Certain things are not touched or moved. Certain foods are eaten, and others not eaten, and certain programs are watched or listened to, and others are not. I have an anxiety disorder and in 2009 my anxiety disorder became an eating disorder with compulsive exercise and specific foods. I wear specific clothes and wear them on specific days. Everything in my day is “specific.”

Though I still live with OCD and eating disordered behavior, I LIVE FOR the presence of the Lord! Due to my insecurity issues, Jesus is my “safe-place.” Due to anxiety, OCD, and deep insecurity, I spend hours in prayer and study of the Word every morning, I sit, or walk, and go on prayer walks, enjoying His creation. I talk and listen. My intimacy with God is like breathing! I love being in the presence of the Lord because I am unable to face life any other way. And due to the hope, joy, peace, and acceptance I find in His presence every morning, and due to my study of the Word every day, and due to the Bible teachers I have learned from and listen to and watch every afternoon and night, over and over and over for thirty plus years, I am a walking Bible and ready to pray with someone and boldly testify to the gospel and the power of the gospel every day on social media and every Sunday at Church and every Bible Study and in the group I lead!

I do not know why I am still the way I am. I don’t know why the Church still cares about the outward appearance of an individual. I don’t know why Christians still pretend to know things they do not know. But I do know that I want those who know me to understand me and not try to get me to go here and there, and join this or that, or to adjust my routine in order to do something. I just want them to love me and somehow realize that mental illness issues are real, painful, confusing, and lonely. And yet, for the individual who has these kinds of struggles, God is more precious, more beautiful, more satisfying, more necessary, and more comforting than those who don’t have these struggles can ever know.

I am thankful, but exhausted.