For as long as I can remember, I have been a little bundle of emotional dysregulation.
Emotions seem to be something that happens to me in a similar way that a whirlwind happens to an environment; destructive, unrelenting, and chaotic. When I was 19, I was diagnosed with anxiety, got a healthy dose of therapy and medication, and I was free to live my new, medicated, emotionally regulated life… well sorta.
Following my brief visit to therapy and settling into my new medicated life was extremely difficult. It was hard work to unlearn harmful behaviors and lean on my coping mechanisms, but I figured it out for the most part. I still experience anxiety in situations of heightened emotions, and I am no stranger to the feelings of depression, but I can handle myself a lot better in these situations.
What does this have to do with religion? Hold on, I’m getting there.
I really started growing my personal relationship with God at the beginning of this year. I’ve heard people infer that those who experienced anxiety and other mental health issues were not trusting in the Lord enough/allowed the enemy to control them. This immediately struck a chord with me. How could anyone say something like that about something I’ve struggled with for so long? I had to stop and ask myself a couple questions.
“How is mental illness presented in the Bible?” and “How does mental health relate to the devil?”
Here’s what I’ve gathered.
King David is an amazing example of how anxiety, depression, and fear are portrayed in the Bible, specifically in Psalm. It is especially powerful when you take into account that King David was 1) a man that was not afraid to show his emotions and 2) a ruler and influential man of his (and our) time.
Many poems written by King David showcase his mental state when dealing with his adversaries and his relationship with God. He was emotional, he was vulnerable, he was raw. The most notable thing about how King David handled these feelings, is that even in his lowest times, when he felt the most despair, he always turned to God (he was a man after God’s heart after all). King David’s faith in the Lord did not stop him from dealing with depression, anxiety, and fear, but it made all the difference in the way he handled it.
Before I began building my relationship with God, if I was dealing with the extreme lows of depression and anxiety, it was an all-consuming experience. I felt helpless, hopeless, and most of all, alone. The loneliness was the worst part for me. I fully convinced myself (multiple times) that the world would be better had I never existed, that I had no purpose, and that I was a burden on all the people I loved. None of this is true and if there’s anyone reading this that feels this way, know that you are never alone. Jesus is always there, waiting for you, with all the love and grace you’ve never given yourself. He has His arms open wide ready to accept you the way that you are and transform you into the best version of yourself that you can be.
To this day, I still experience the extreme lows of depression and anxiety, but I don’t allow it to consume me anymore. The negative self talk that has plagued me in the past has been thwarted by God’s love. I know that I fill a positive space in this world, I have a purpose through God, and I’m never alone because God is always with me.
I, personally, do not believe that the devil or the enemy is the cause of these emotions, however I do believe that he uses these negative emotions to his advantage.
He fuels negative self talk, he fans the flames of suicidal ideations, he feasts on your vulnerabilities and makes you believe that you are worthless. He loves to attack those that are weak in faith. It’s pretty easy to harm someone that is defenseless, the same applies to us in our faith. When we are unsteady in our faith we are more susceptible to attacks by the enemy because we don’t have anything to defend ourselves with, but when we are suited with the Armor of God, we can handle anything. Of course, having armor on doesn’t mean that you won’t be attacked, but it’s a lot harder to be harmed.
Attaching myself to the Spirit is the only reason why my whirlwind of emotions no longer whisks me away into oblivion. I’ve learned that when I am attached to worldly things (people, objects, money), I am grasping into things that are breakable, fragile, and perishable that’ll get sucked up into the whirlwind with me, and might even end up harming me in the process. But when I’m attached to the Spirit, I have an unbreakable tether to something everlasting, something that keeps my feet on the ground, something the enemy can never tear me away from.