by Steven Gledhill for FREEdom from MEdom Project
As a mental health counselor working mostly with adolescent youth struggling with depression and despair (including suicidal ideation and behavior), my primary objective was to invest in each life through the therapeutic relationship. Most patients on the adolescent inpatient unit are from highly dysfunctional family systems that include addiction, abuse, and abandonment by one parent or both.
The vast majority of the patients have experienced trauma that has, at the very least, impacted their quality of life. There are the empty places in their lives that need to be filled, and the broken pieces that need to be mended and restored. These teenagers are lost and desperately hoping to be found. There is a tremendous need for emotional and spiritual healing; the healing of the soul.
For you have seen my troubles, and you care about the anguish of my soul. Psalm 31:7 (NLT)
My initial step in addressing the needs of these young people is to help sway them concerning the way they see their problem. Escaping their suffering and struggle by ending life truly feels like a solution to their problem but will not, of course result in a life that is any fuller than the hopeless emptiness they hope to remedy. To reframe this dilemma on how to manage immense pain is to redirect someone from believing that they want or need to die as a means of escape… relief. This means changing what they believe about living life; that somehow life is worth living if changing the way their life is lived is truly possible. (You may want to reread these last two sentences to fully catch their meaning.)
When you consider the word ‘nervous’ versus the word ‘anxiety’, the word ‘guilt’ versus the word ‘shame’, the word ‘sad’ versus the word ‘sorrow’, the word ‘injury’ versus the word ‘trauma’, which words sound like they have greater impact?
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted; he rescues those whose spirits are crushed. Psalms 34:18 (NLT)
Words such as anxiety, shame, sorrow, and trauma, are typically the combination of experience and internal thought disorders related to mental health symptoms emanating from circuitry malfunction in the brain that produces maladaptive thinking and behavior. When you are in the presence of the misery experienced by individuals, particularly young people in the depths of this problem, it is something profound to confront, even when educated and trained.
They are overwhelmed by anxiety, stuck in shame, drowning in sorrow, destroyed by trauma, and paralyzed by fear. All of this sinks into what is typically referred to as depression. Depression is described by the National Institute for Mental Health (NIMH) as being associated with the following symptoms:
- Persistent sad, anxious, or “empty” mood
- Feelings of hopelessness, or pessimism
- Feelings of irritability, frustration, or restlessness
- Feelings of guilt, worthlessness, or helplessness
- Loss of interest or pleasure in hobbies and activities
- Decreased energy, fatigue, or feeling “slowed down”
- Difficulty concentrating, remembering, or making decisions
- Difficulty sleeping, early morning awakening, or oversleeping
- Changes in appetite or unplanned weight changes
- Aches or pains, headaches, cramps, or digestive problems without a clear physical cause that do not ease even with treatment
- Suicide attempts or thoughts of death or suicide
Before depression comes enough disappointment, through the accumulation of failed expectations, that someone has become deeply discouraged. To experience feeling ‘discouraged’, according to Merriam-Webster means to be “disheartened, to be deprived of confidence, to be hindered by disfavor, to be dissuaded to attempt do something”. To be discouraged is that profound sense of feeling hopeless. They experience it at their very core.
Most of the youth I worked with were also dealing with severe dysfunction in their family life. There is neglect and abuse in the home. There is too often matters of addiction in the home as it relates to parents, siblings, extended family, and close friends of the family. Most of the youth in treatment are themselves alcohol and drug users. They use to manage and remedy acute discomfort.
These days, I am counseling the adults and families of the young people I worked with. They’ve used alcohol and drugs at tremendous cost to themselves and their families. They too are brokenhearted and too often tortured by addiction, fully aware of who all is hurt by it. They suffer, crushed under the weight of it all. How does anyone get out from under it?
For the The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me. For the Lord has anointed me to bring good news to the poor, to comfort the brokenhearted, and to proclaim that captives will be released and prisoners will be freed. He has sent me to tell those who mourn that the time of the Lord’s favor has come. Isaiah 61:1-2 (NLT)
As a counselor of faith rooted in the reality of relationship with God in the person of Jesus Christ, it is quite challenging. Not only due to working in a secular setting where it is unethical to impose one’s values and beliefs concerning faith, but because most young people dealing with symptoms of mental illness believe they have either been abandoned by God, or struggle to believe that a sovereign creator would allow them to wallow in the depths of their pain.
They have lost so much of themselves that they feel as though they are in fact lost. When someone experiences the real sense of hopelessness in the absence of joy, to him or her it is impossible for hope, peace, and joy to ever be restored. They are overwhelmed by anxiety. They feel that they are all alone in the distress of their disappointment, discouragement, depression, and even despair.
I recognize that depression is something that is more than a cognitive, mental health problem. I understand that there are spiritual forces working against these kids, and that they do not have much, if anything, to defend themselves against a spiritual adversary. They are too often alone and defenseless to ward off the attack of that enemy.
But when Jesus saw the people, He was moved with compassion for them, because they were weary and scattered, like sheep having no shepherd. Matthew 9:36 (NKJV)
It brings to me to the passage from the New Testament told by Jesus as to what it means to him personally; that he takes it personally.
3 So Jesus told them this story: 4 “If a man has a hundred sheep and one of them gets lost, what will he do? Won’t he leave the ninety-nine others in the wilderness and go to search for the one that is lost until he finds it? 5 And when he has found it, he will joyfully carry it home on his shoulders. 6 When he arrives, he will call together his friends and neighbors, saying, ‘Rejoice with me because I have found my lost sheep.’ 7 In the same way, there is more joy in heaven over one lost sinner who repents and returns to God than over ninety-nine others who are righteous and haven’t strayed away! Luke 15:3-7 (NLT)
There is the story of the lost sheep. The shepherd left the flock of sheep that were stable to find the one that was lost. Once finding the lost sheep, the shepherd picked up and carried the sheep back to the flock. Jesus, telling the story, said that there is more joy among the angels in heaven over the one that was lost and found, not because there isn’t as much love for those already found, but because the one that strayed and got lost was brought back home to live with the rest of the family.
11 To illustrate the point further, Jesus told them this story: “A man had two sons. 12 The younger son told his father, ‘I want my share of your estate now before you die.’ So his father agreed to divide his wealth between his sons.
13 “A few days later this younger son packed all his belongings and moved to a distant land, and there he wasted all his money in wild living. 14 About the time his money ran out, a great famine swept over the land, and he began to starve. 15 He persuaded a local farmer to hire him, and the man sent him into his fields to feed the pigs. 16 The young man became so hungry that even the pods he was feeding the pigs looked good to him. But no one gave him anything.
17 “When he finally came to his senses, he said to himself, ‘At home even the hired servants have food enough to spare, and here I am dying of hunger! 18 I will go home to my father and say, “Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, 19 and I am no longer worthy of being called your son. Please take me on as a hired servant.”’
20 “So he returned home to his father. And while he was still a long way off, his father saw him coming. Filled with love and compassion, he ran to his son, embraced him, and kissed him. 21 His son said to him, ‘Father, I have sinned against both heaven and you, and I am no longer worthy of being called your son.’
22 “But his father said to the servants, ‘Quick! Bring the finest robe in the house and put it on him. Get a ring for his finger and sandals for his feet. 23 And kill the calf we have been fattening. We must celebrate with a feast, 24 for this son of mine was dead and has now returned to life. He was lost, but now he is found.’” Luke 15:-24 (NLT)
In the story of the lost son, the young man betrayed his father’s trust while making foolish choices that ruined him. Weak and in pain—feeling worthless and desperate—he began wandering toward home. Then his father saw him and ran to him. The father helped his son to his feet, brought him home, prepared a feast for his hungry boy, and restored him fully as his son, assuring him that all that is mine is yours. The father rejoicing proclaimed, “My son was dead, and now is alive! He was lost and now he is found!”
The other day while showing a new counselor our outpatient program, we ran into a teenage girl in the hallway of the outpatient program she had stepped down to. I had worked with her for a week or so ago while she was inpatient. She looked at me with a big smile while greeting me. Asking her how she was doing, she began to cry. I asked her if she was okay. She said she was “overwhelmed”. I asked her, “What’s going on?” She answered, “It’s just so good to see you.” We talked for a moment. She looked so good. It was awesome!
I thought of her, and so many others, in the context of the sheep that is lost, or the lost soul that needs to be restored and made whole. As mental health workers we stand in the gap as a bridge between where someone is, feeling empty and broken, and where that someone needs and wants to be. As a counselor with the Spirit of God living within me, I believe I relate to the youth I have the privilege to serve in a way that is spiritual, reflecting and expressing the love of Jesus. I believe that to be what overwhelmed that young lady to tears a few days ago.
We each have our role in helping these souls in need to experience their healing. The work can be hard. These are people in our lives desperate for something good to happen. There may be a tremendous gap between hopeless and healing; pain to peace. There are certainly therapeutic methods that someone like myself and others are trained to utilize.
The greatest impact, though, comes in being the bridge from fear to faith. Jesus told the story of the compassionate shepherd who loves the flock enough to not lose sight of even the one that has wandered off. We must trust in this as we are used by God to do what we can in the humility of our personal weakness. God’s grace is sufficient!
I might be someone that plants the seed while working with someone who is struggling in a clinical setting. But when these young people return home and are back in school, usually back into the adversity they came from into treatment, there needs to be someone to water that seed, trusting that the love of Jesus, by the power of who he is as God who heals, will cause that seed to grow and be transformed into something and someone new.
After all, who is Apollos? Who is Paul? We are only God’s servants through whom you believed the Good News. Each of us did the work the Lord gave us. I planted the seed in your hearts, and Apollos watered it, but it was God who made it grow. It’s not important who does the planting, or who does the watering. What’s important is that God makes the seed grow. The one who plants and the one who waters work together with the same purpose. And both will be rewarded for their own hard work. 1 Corinthians 3:5-8 (NLT)
We are the bridge in the gap between those in our lives who are lost, desperately needing to be found… empty and needing to be filled… broken and needing to be restored into wholeness. We serve God who loves his kids with everything He is and has from his endless bounty of resources. We are the reflection and expression of HIS love. God is using each of us to touch those we connect with so that they can be touched by God and connected to the best of everything that God is and has for them.
Now all glory to God, who is able, through his mighty power at work within us, to accomplish infinitely more than we might ask or think. Ephesians 3:20 (NLT)
“The glory of God is man fully alive.” —Saint Irenaeus
