Mental distress
Anne Adams writes about mental health issues
I became interested in mental health when I was quite young, as I seemed to be peculiar in some way I could not explain. This led me to train as a psychiatric nurse, and later to have a great deal of psychotherapy and analysis. So much more about the brain has been learnt since then that it is difficult to know how much is due to the structure and physiology of the brain and how much to environmental factors.
We still do not understand how this small mass of grey matter, weighing about 1.3 kilograms, works and is coordinated. How can these myriads of little cells connected due to ions of sodium, potassium, and other elements, together with chemicals known as neurotransmitters, bring about consciousness, new ideas, creativity, social interactions, spirituality, concepts of morality and ethics, and so on? The brain is said to be like an ecosystem, everything being connected to everything else, so that we cannot say exactly which functions take place where. When the brain works it seems like a miracle, but although it rarely malfunctions, such malfunctions are possible and have serious results.
According to one writer, where we used to seek psychotherapeutic treatments, we should now be looking for physical or chemical changes in the brain causing confusion of thought processes resulting in false beliefs and so changes of feeling. Schizophrenia is said to be due to faulty perception, causing inability to communicate normally. False beliefs can result in paranoia and panic.
A friend once came to me late at night, believing that the mercury in her teeth was poisoning her. She spent the night rinsing her mouth quite frequently but went home in the morning, apparently reassured. It was, presumably, what is called a ‘psychotic episode’. Neither of us referred to it again.
One problem is the stigma often still associated with mental illness. So, I was pleased to see in a recent Big Issue a note by a seller saying: ‘I am forty-nine years old and have paranoid schizophrenia which is largely under control by the correct medication.’ It seems to be quite rare that a person would face up to such an illness, but it is essential if we are to help people with these conditions.
I am finding the little booklet Encounters with mental distress, produced by the Mental Health in Meetings Cluster of the Quaker Life Network in 2015, very helpful. It gives moving and courageous accounts by people who have suffered from mental distress, and their relationships with their Meetings. Several of the accounts are from people who have suffered from severe depression, which can cause overwhelming feelings of unworthiness and guilt. Some removed themselves from the Meeting, and even resigned from it. One said she tried to explain things by saying it was like a brain injury, as this was more understandable and can reduce a feeling of stigma. Physical illnesses can be more easily talked about and understood.
Differences of opinion within Meetings due to strong feelings can cause great distress to all concerned. Are feelings due to past experiences or to physiological changes in the brain? Which comes first, the chicken or the egg? People can behave in what seems like an ‘unQuakerly’ way. The ego can refuse to be mollified.
We have, as Quakers, a lot more to learn about mental distress. I find Jocelyn Burnell’s 1989 Swarthmore Lecture, Broken for Life, very helpful. It deals with suffering in a very deep and thoughtful way. We are bound to suffer during our lives, and it is how we respond to it that is important. It can be an opportunity for personal and spiritual growth if faced up to with honesty and courage. Jocelyn Burnell asks: ‘How do you live with wounds that won’t mend quickly, or at all? Some situations have no happy ending. The wounded may also bring healing, and brokenness has its own part in the wholeness of life’.
It is very worthwhile thinking about.
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