RELIGION VS MENTAL HEALTH
I learnt something that day. Just because you tell someone that Jesus loves them or that they should “pray, believe in and trust God” does not mean that their clinically diagnosed mental illness would suddenly disappear. Dear ‘children of Zion’, psychiatry is healthcare!
If, while reading, you sense that this article’s tone is anger then you are actually quite right. In truth, I’m more than angry, I’m livid. I’m also very frustrated with the aggrandizement of religion in my society and the presentation of, in this case, Christianity as a ‘one size fits all’ universal panacea especially, as it now seems, in the case of mental health and psychiatry.
I live in Nigeria, a country ranked number 2 in the top 10 most religious countries in the world according to Nairaland.com. Religious practices are recorded at an incredible 93% with 50.8% of Nigerians as Christians and 47.8% as Muslims. Other religions and beliefs share the remaining figure. It is no surprise then that Nigerians vehemently believe that all their problems can be solved with religious activities and prayer. I for one have no problem with prayer in itself but evidently, prayer has not done anything about the alarming 20 million Nigerians who suffer from mental illnesses with a large number of these people undiagnosed.
A large percentage of these people do not seek help for several reasons and then those who are brave enough to are constantly met with a load of bullshit ranging from the expensiveness of mental health care, the ridiculous ratio of mental health professionals to those who actually need help, stigmatization as though the mentally ill person went to the market to shop for schizophrenia or bipolar disorder and then the most infuriating bullshit of all, religion.
I had initially meant to title this article “religion has stolen our parents” but that would be misleading because every day, I am faced with the glaring fact that religion like cancer is eating away, slowly but surely, at every facet of society and taking people hostage. The scariest part is that it has gotten into our health care system and taken a hold of our medical practitioners. Who would cure the cancer if all the doctors and nurses in the world are dying of cancer?
Once, I had paid a routine visit to the hospital that I frequented at the time and I met with an unfamiliar doctor. This was not unusual since this hospital was a federal one and I didn’t have access to just one doctor as my psychiatrist; it was rotational and as such, you made your complaints to whichever doctor was “on seat” at that time because after all, they all did the same job and had your file for reference anyway. Let me quickly add here that this doctor’s job was simply to prescribe medication, increase or reduce dosage and evaluate any side effects that a patient was experiencing from current medication but somehow I spent nothing short of an hour listening to this woman tell me how I was too young to be having depression and anyway didn’t I believe in God because if I did then depression should not be a part of my life. She went on to educate me on how even though she had an extra year in medical school, she went ahead to turn her life around and now she was a medical doctor. Oh, and anyway medication doesn’t really do anything for mental illness as prayer was the only medicine I truly needed. Thinking back now, I am angry that I didn’t remind her that she was my healthcare provider not my spiritual mentor but sadly back then, I was incredibly timid and afraid that speaking up would offend God because after all, I was a ‘Christian’ and “prayer is the key”. Believe it or not, I had gone to the hospital with thoughts of self-harm and when I left, I was more determined to hurt myself. I actually went through with it.
I learnt something that day. Just because you tell someone that Jesus loves them or that they should “pray, believe in and trust God” does not mean that their clinically diagnosed mental illness would suddenly disappear. Even in the bible, there are several parts of scripture where “medicine” was “prescribed” for illnesses so where do these “pastors” and “spiritual fathers” get the idea that medicine denotes a lack of faith in God? Insert really long hiss here accompanied by a super dramatic eye roll.
As in the case of a lot of Nigerian parents, kids are unable to talk to their parents about their struggles with mental health because they would probably have to go and see “daddy in the Lord” who would call them Satan and ask them to fast so that the agents of darkness could leave them alone. In my own case, I have never been able to have a proper conversation with my mom about my suicidality because every time there is a suicide in the news and I mention it, she says something like “God forbid o. May we not see evil”. Then she mutters some prayers under her breath in her native dialect and then tells me to stop talking about it because there was no way that wasn’t the work of some dark forces. You know what that does? It reiterates to me that my illness and thoughts are evil, an evil that I needed to protect her from seeing; it reminds me that I needed to hide myself and my struggles. It reminds me that I am alone in this battle for my life.
The worst part is that this reality isn’t mine alone. Back in 2017, a dear friend started experiencing PTSD after being sexually assaulted. In her words, “I remember feeling very afraid but do you know what mother did instead of asking what I really needed? She took me to church for deliverance. The pastor told us that the guy was a cultist and he wanted to use me for ritual…but I don’t even blame her, I blame my mom; she didn’t listen to me”
Recently, a really good friend of mine reached out to me, talking for the first time ever about his passive suicidality, fears, lack of concentration, palpitations among other things. I am no doctor or therapist but with tons of research under my belt, we were able to analyze his symptoms and reach a conclusion that he MIGHT have an anxiety/panic disorder. Genuinely concerned and afraid for him, I urged him to see a psychiatrist immediately. This friend then told me that he had never spoken honestly about his feelings and struggles because every time that he attempted to, he was met with “you are a child of God, why would you be afraid” from his mom and a bunch of bible verses from his ‘spiritual mentor’ which never left him better off. Learning that his feelings were inappropriate and ungodly, he learnt to keep his mouth shut, praying through the rough patches until his feelings grew into crying regularly, inability to focus on school work, palpitations, feeling unsafe and wishing cars would hit him and kill him. Seeing the need to get help after our conversation, he reached out to his doctor for advice and a possible referral to a psychiatrist or psychologist but instead she gave him some drugs to ‘calm down’ while she went on, in his words, about “God being my father and I should give myself pep talks and that I shouldn’t care what people say or do about me”. This doctor then told him that if there was ‘need’, he would be referred to a mental health professional. Since suicidality, palpitations and paranoia were not counted as ‘needs’, I would really like to be educated on what constitutes a need. After this, my friend was reluctant to keep talking about his feelings. He is still suffering and I still feel helpless and afraid for him. He recently engaged in a self-harming behavior but thankfully, he’s finally gotten on some medication; sadly, that is not enough.
I was angry. So angry that if I had been around that doctor I could have slapped the daylight off her face and then pleaded mental instability in court but here we are, I’m writing an article instead. But if this bothers you, wait until you hear the story of my course mate and friend who had two relatives attempt suicide in the past year; one was an uncle and the other a cousin. Thankfully they both made full recoveries but somehow, in a family full of educated, well to do people, nobody suggested getting these people mental health care. You guessed it. Everyone was talking about God; how they needed to be closer to God, pray more, not think so much because God is in control and trust God. Trust God? Or trust you bunch of religious and societal bigots because as earlier stated, there is still mentions of medicine in the bible. Special advisers to Jesus on medicine and health care issues.
Dear ‘children of Zion’, psychiatry is healthcare!
Completely unrelated to this family is another one who had their daughter attempt suicide. After she got better, my friend who is the girl’s friend paid her a visit to see how she was doing and also advice the parents on how to go about getting their daughter help since she herself has lived with depression for years. She met a pastor there who after praying, concluded that the girl had an evil spirit and needed to be delivered. They rejected my friend’s suggestion of psychiatry and she watched helplessly as they paid this so called pastor.
I honestly wish I was making these stories up but I couldn’t even if I tried. And yet, there are still millions of stories untold. Right now, the world is battling coronavirus, an unprecedented evil and a common enemy but once again, those who manage to speak up about how the pandemic is affecting their mental health are force-fed a couple of scriptures and chastened for their lack of faith. It saddens me and scares me. Suicide is real!
Faith and spirituality is one thing and mental health is another. There is nothing spiritual about mental health! Get yourself and your loved ones medical help! Have you not learned from the many stories of people with illnesses who went to church to drink holy water, lay on the altar or have “pastor” pray for them instead of going to the hospital and they still die? Pray if you want to; it is surely a great way to connect to God and have a surrendered heart about your mental health but it is NOT a substitute for medication and therapy. Untreated mental illness can very easily lead to suicide and so the next time you want to advice someone to “pray through” their mental illness, think of all the suicides that have happened from lack of healthcare.
I have had a particularly difficult time writing and editing this piece because I wanted to make sure that my message was clear enough. The message is not that religion is bad but that too many people, particularly people who live with mental illnesses are constantly suffering at its hands. A change needs to happen and it begins with orientation. If you didn’t know all these before, you know them now; go teach others, please. Someone’s life may depend on it.
Through all these, my personal conclusion is that we need more atheist medical practitioners. They’d be sure to get their job done without religious sentiments.
