Forms of Healing and Mental Health

Well to date I'm still hoping for feedback on prior blogs but will continue on with my blogs with a new topic. Todays topic will explore prescription drugs and therapy versus Faith in regards to attaining good mental health and happiness.

I am in the midst of trying to break free from a chronic Depression and Anxiety of which has brung to me self-destruction in the form of friendship loss, self-hatred, and job loss. I had grown up in a household of which one of my parents, my mother, had Major Depression bought about from Post Traumatic Disorder caused by childhood problems. Looking back my mom was plagued by the constant upset that her childhood had frought on her and her thinking about the world. She has been overly nervous, highly anxious, defensive, sad, and angry much of her adult life with mood swings and constant agitation. Thankfully she had the sense to not become involved with drugs (illegal) or alcohol and also reached out to other women with the same problem. Group therapy helped her markedly and then with that knowledge she helped other women as well and made a couple of life-long friends along the way. She was/is also on antidepressants. She once said the drugs were necessary to keep her calm and in control but now with the experience of religion her faith is helping too or perhaps more. My mom will not indicate which is helping her more now, prescriptions or her faith, but both seem to give her solace and a source of inner strength. The religion, Pentacostyl Christian, as I have witnessed is quite rigid and judgemental, something I thought religion should never be although it does seemingly help with keeping order with a person's values and morals. Without this imposed order I would agree that humanity may take a "too" open stance in regards to values, sexuality and certain (sexual or otherwise) behaviors. I believe strongly in a family-influenced upbringing and the role of an adult as responsible and role model for coming generations, whether a parent or not. Perhaps some of this has to do with my rural, christian background, perhaps not. In any event mom has been doing much better personally, physically and mentally, due to her involvement in "faith" healing.

Now for myself, I have been and am in a conundrum for many reasons. In my upbringing and probably substantially due to the influence of my grandmother I was imbibed with religion very early on. These formative years are considered a huge influence and significant source of experience for the rest of our lives according to current trends in psychology and science. In any event I have believed in God and Jesus, in the Christian sense, for the whole of my life. I have used this spirituality to help me along the way and to help others as well through prayer. I will, however, admit that therapy has been an important self-affirming resource as well without of which I wouldn't have understood how certain behaviors will help or hurt me depending on how they are utilized. Before the onset of therapy, with psychiatrists and Social Workers, I wasn't grasping how my "negative" behaviors, thinking and reactions were affecting not only myself, but all those around me, and also my physical health as well. Relationships, both personal and professional, were profoundly affected with results being so bad as to lose friends and jobs along the way. Indifferent at first to prescription medication I reluctantly had begun a regimen of antidepressants and antianxiety relievers, Paxel, i.e., and found out in the course of time that they helped me or even perhaps my thinking they helped me did actually help me. Mind you I don't know if the drug helped me or my thinking the drug helped me actually did the helping of myself along the way but whatever the case I did feel better physically and emotionally. The sluggishness was gone or relieved to some degree; the headaches were decreasing; the nervousness wasn't as evident; and my blood pressure was more borderline than high. I also and still incorporated praying and faith into my thinking but according to my therapists was also told that part of my Depression stemmed from the conflict of religion with my being gay. The right, conservative - christian aspect of my belief system was something I believed in whole-heartedly but it also "said" that I was a sinner and or sick, perverted, a child-mollester, irresponsible, and so on and so forth and it was this dogma that was so defeating in the end. I wanted/want peace with my God/creator and Jesus Christ but didn't know if it was their word or people's interpretation of the Bible which was correct and so the correct path to follow. I do believe in both ways of healng and don't want to think that both cannot be used to meet the same goal. Staunch christians impose so many limitations in the reality of this world that it is difficult for me to believe that this doctrine of behavior is people contrived to justify judgement and hate. It is hard to believe that a God that has created so much besides just people would judge us so harshly based on things such as psychological and therapeutic healing, and label addicts and homosexuals as sinners but again this is a common idea conveyed to the public through the christian faith. Tolerance and pride, qualities that I always thought to be beneficial and caring, are said to be sins in the Christian community. So as time marches on I find myself more and more confused about things. What have others thought is something I hope to find out with feedback to this blog. Please, if you have or have not, felt this way give me some information so that I can see how others have been responding to the world around them in regards to mental health.