Swallowing Grace: A Christian's Thoughts on Mental Health and Medication

The pharmacist passed the brown paper sack over the counter and I stuffed it into my bag like a secret, feeling a stab of grief mildly akin to the emotions that come when the reality of a death sets in and the heart is a sudden well of pain. I stared out the window and cried as we drove away.

In some ways, it was a death—the death of my pride. There in the brown paper bag was the proof that my mind couldn’t function the way it was supposed to, that my psychology was profoundly handicapped. It was the final admission that I could not do this on my own. I needed help, and now help came in the form of a pill.

I felt that I had failed and God had failed me.

I had prayed so many times for the healing. When anxiety felt like knives in my skin while trying to focus on a class lecture, I asked Him for relief. When intrusive thoughts played like a horror reel in my mind, I begged for the strength to fight them. When my emotions numbed out so badly that I couldn’t empathize with the women crying on my bedroom floor, I whispered petitions to feel something, anything but this black apathy. Some days were good and I praised Him for the healing that surely, this time, would last. But then the darkness would choke me back again, and I would succumb.

On these days, I lived in the first half of the first sentence of Psalm 40: “I waited patiently for the Lord...”

Well, almost. I waited, but not patiently. I wanted Him to “turn to me” and “hear my cry” and “lift me out of the slimy pit.” But the response I heard from Him was, “Keep waiting.”

Over the summer, I often felt Him whisper, “Cease striving,” from Psalm 46:10, and in this case He meant, “Stop trying to get better.”

I chafed at this.

“Stop trying to get better, Lord? Are you kidding? If you’re gonna leave me here in this pit, I gotta climb out myself!”

Once, I told Him this to His face (you know—sometimes we say it under our breath instead, even though we know He hears), and He said, “No, Jessi. That is not the gospel. I want you to stop trying because I want to heal you.”

But the healing didn’t come. I waited and pleaded and strove, and it didn’t come.

...

“I think I’m gonna go on medication.” I can’t remember the first time I admitted it to anyone, but I do remember saying it to JenJe one night in my dorm room, after another evening of total apathy. I felt shame all over, and a fair bit of frustration, but JenJe said, “Good.”

“I’m really mad about it,” I said grumpily.

“Jessi,” she said, looking gently into my eyes, “you’re living in a hellish reality. Get the happy drugs.”

We laughed, but inside I shrank from it. When someone else asked me why, I pondered deeply for a long time and then said, “Because then it means the healing didn’t come. If I’m dependent on medication, then the healing never really happened.”

I failed and God failed me. I could hear the hiss of the Enemy somewhere in the back of my mind, but it didn’t matter. That was how I felt.

And so when the pharmacist handed me the two orange bottles of Escitalopram and Clonazepam, I cried, because it felt like the final abandonment of every hope. God had not been faithful. I was broken beyond repair. And now I was saddled with this artificial sanity, possibly for the rest of my life.

How could He be so cruel?

...

I had never been totally against medication for Christians; I just saw it as a drastic last resort. Medication was for people who couldn’t get out of bed in the morning or heard voices that no one else heard. It was for people who didn’t have control of their issues. I could at least pretend to have control of mine.

My resolve had started to break, though. I’ve taken a dozen depression and anxiety assessments throughout my life and I know the indicators for problems: trouble sleeping, little interest or pleasure in doing things, difficulty concentrating on everyday tasks, short term memory loss...I could check off nearly everything on the list, “more than half the days,” and it was affecting my grades, my relationships, and my ministry.

Something had to give.

So I found myself seated on a psychiatrist's couch, tears streaming down my face as I told my story again. She listened carefully, gave me a good diagnosis, and called in the prescription, all within the space of an hour. On my way out, she looked in my eyes and said, "You will get better."

I wasn't sure I believed her.

...

The first night on the meds, I called my small group to come over and sit with me and my heavy heart. “Have you taken them yet?” Zoe came in with the others and plopped into the nest chair, excited for me. She had been one of my biggest supporters in this decision.

“I was gonna wait until tomorrow,” I said. “I don’t know how this is supposed to work.”

“Oh, take ‘em now!” She pulled out her phone as I carefully shook out two pills from the bottles.

“Agh, no pictures!” I protested, shrinking into myself.

“This is good! This is for when you get better!” she said, snapping them anyway. I rolled my eyes and swallowed the medicine, half-believing that “better” would never come.

The most common side effect of the meds was drowsiness and it hit me like a truck as we sat there. My body relaxed, sentenced became harder to form, and my eyelids grew heavy.

I fought it, though, not wanting to be alone. I had been warned about the other nasty side effects possible with antipsychotic meds and I feared waking up in the night in a drug-induced nervous breakdown, or some such dramatic scenario.

“I have to go to sleep, but I don’t want you guys to leave,” I said, blinking slowly.

JenJe looked at me a moment. “We can stay until you fall asleep,” she offered.

“Would you?” I wanted it more than they knew.

She and Katie nodded and within a few minutes, I was drifting off in the lamplight, secure in the fact that my friends were there for me no matter what, even in the grief and uncertainty. When I woke up, they had turned out the lights and slipped out, and it was time to begin this new chapter.

The question loomed in my mind and the minds of everyone who knew: Would it work?

The very first dose! I was mad when Zoe took this picture,
but she was right--I thanked her later.

...

For the first two days, I felt zombified and jittery. The anxiety was there, simmering under the surface, but I was physically incapable of panic. It was one of the more bizarre experiences of my life. I lived in a fog and swore that if it lasted, I wouldn’t be taking the meds anymore.

But gradually, the fog dissipated, giving way to a sense of calm I hadn’t experienced in months. I noticed it two days after the first dose, when, in a class that normally induced anxiety and hopelessness, I laughed, with a lightness I hadn’t known this whole semester.

It continued to improve. My head cleared and homework got easier. Going to bed became a pleasurable experience, rather than a fearful one. I could sit with my intrusive thoughts instead of shoving them away, and eventually they grew less. I began to practice pressing into my own pain; counseling sessions became more fruitful. With the women on my floor, I was more comfortable sitting in silence and asking hard questions. Prayer was possible again—even enjoyable. Everything in me was starting to heal.

Life was beginning again.

...

There were setbacks, to be sure.

Three weeks in, hormones knocked me over and sent me weeping back to God and my psychiatrist, adjusting the dosage and resonating deeply with Psalm 88. I learned not to trust my mood...but I was learning to trust God more. As I regained my balance a second time and the noise of anxiety quieted, I realized more and more His grace in not healing me when I asked. There were lessons written on my heart that I couldn't see until the darkness lifted.

I realized I wasn’t truly open to medication before, not for myself or for anyone else. I would have tried to persuade others away from it and silently judged the people who chose that option long term. Down the road in my ministry as a counselor, I might have eventually withheld a solution that could mean profound healing for my clients. All because of my own pride.

Now, I understood: God was using the medication to answer my prayers for restoration and relief.

If you’re like me, that sentence sounds a little wrong. There is a close tie between our minds and our spirituality in the Christian world, such that we feel hesitant to embrace physical treatment for them. Dependence on medication sounds a bit like an addiction, like not dealing with your problems. God doesn’t heal like that—does He?

Well--no. He doesn't heal through not dealing with things. Medication, though, actually brings things to a level that you can deal with them. Before the meds, rooting out the cause of my anxiety was a painful, panicky experience. After, I could take out the contents of my heart and examining them, without running away from the pain. The meds didn't just deaden my bad feelings--they retrained my brain to respond differently.

There's a scientific process for this. Things actually change neurologically. New neural pathways are born and the old ones—the ones that lead to anxiety—weaken with less use. This allows the brain and body to relax and refocus, instead of constantly dealing with undue stress.

Removing some of the mystery around how the brain works helps me to understand it as a physical process, just like any other function of my body, and allows me to accept medical treatment as God's merciful gift to me. When a friend of mine had cancer, we celebrated and counted as grace the fact that chemotherapy exists. When another friend was diagnosed with epilepsy, we rejoiced when he found a medication that kept the seizures at bay. Though my handicap is perhaps not as visible or profound as these, I can still accept that sometimes God's healing comes through doctors' appointments and prescriptions.

He is not cruel. He is good and sovereign, and I am beginning to see the goodness of his plan.

...

Six weeks after my first dose, taking the meds almost feels like a sacrament, a concrete participation in the healing God has wrought. Do I think I'll be on medication forever? No. But do I see it as God's mercy for now? Absolutely.

I will pause here, though, to add one caveat: If you're going to go on meds, always do it in community. Our healing does not happen outside of relationship. Throughout this whole process, I have been surrounded by a supportive family, active and present friends, a sweet and gracious floor, and supervisors, professors, and counselors that have my best in mind.

I am reminded of the paralytic who was lowered through the roof in Luke 5. Jesus healed that man because of the faith of his friends. Like that paralyzed man, I have been carried to Jesus over and over again by people who will do anything to see me healed. Meds or not, that'll help you see through darkness right there.

I don't expect that my dark days have ended. I'm young and God has a lot of work left to do. I'm thanking Him, though, for the respite of this new season of tangible grace and healing, as preparation for the ones to come.

...

Note: This post is not a comprehensive overview--it doesn't even tell the whole of my own story. Before you choose to go on anti-psychotic drugs, do your research and seek counsel from a good psychiatrist.