God blessed us with Doctors and he can/will use medication to help us.
I totally agree. I have prayed so much about this and I know that the Lord wants me to stay on my meds.
I have bipolar type II (mild form) and was diagnosed last year. Since starting new medicine, I have improved in my outlook and I'm a more stable mother and wife.
My mother was bipolar. It used to be called manic depressive. My father was also mentally ill; he was said to be schizophrenic. Mental illness is genetic and hereditary and has to do with brain chemicals. Also, stress or trauma can bring on illness in those who are susceptible or those in which these problems run in the family.
Just as diabetes, cancer, high blood pressure, tendency toward strokes, etc., run in families, mental illness does too. It is nothing to be ashamed of. There is too much stigma attached to mental illness in the church. Of all places, the church should be a place of support and healing and restoration for those with mental illness. Instead, they pray for those who have cancer, etc., and never mention or pray for the people with eating disorders, depression, etc. On a Wednesday night Prayer Meeting, no one would feel comfortable piping up about a child being molested in their family. No one would probably pray. They'd gasp and gossip. It is sad that mental illness is so stigmatized.
I am not ashamed any longer to say these things.
I used to be ashamed that I was so depressed much of the time. Then I learned that as someone with the type II bipolar does stay in depression most of the time, with short periods of mild mania, called hypomania. The medicine helps stabilize me so that I do not get depressed to the same degree that I used to, and help keep me stable.
Anti-depressants are not wrong! Neither are mood stabilizers.
