Have you seen our new video? If not, I hope you’ll have a look. It tells the story of PT, one of our members. In his own words, he talks about his journey with mental illness and what the ministry of The Well has meant to his process of recovery. We’ve also written a blog to highlight more aspects of his story.
Watching the video again recently, I thought about other Well Members who also have stories to tell. Each is unique and each one’s journey has many twists and turns. But all have some common themes. I hear them throughout the week in comments by our members. Let me share a few:
“One of the hardest things about being mentally ill is letting people know you’re mentally ill.”
“It’s like being on a roller coaster. Up and down, up and down.”
“Unless you walk in our shoes, you don’t know what’s going on.”
“It’s a daily thing we have to live with and deal with. We don’t know what normal is. It’s isolating.”
“When my mental illness hits me, I don’t know that it’s mental illness. To me the abnormal becomes normal, and I get caught up in it. And it takes me where I don’t want to go.”
“I don’t doubt the power of my diagnosis.”
“My brain doesn’t work right and I feel like it makes it hard for people to love me.”
May has been Mental Health Awareness Month across the U.S. I hope you have taken advantage of our posts on Facebook and Twitter to help you grow in your awareness of mental illness. But beyond that, I hope you’ll stop by The Well on a Thursday night and worship alongside Sue and Matthew and PT and James … and become aware of their faces, their laughter and their stories.
Alice