People tell me to “find god” to cure my bipolar disorder. I understand that people have various motivations for doing this, and the motivations tend not to be sinister, but that doesn’t make me appreciate this sentiment in the least. These people are imposing and pious, and self-righteous, and as a rule, these are characteristics I don’t care for in people. If you’re looking for a response to people who tell you to find god to cure your bipolar disorder or if you’re the kind of person that offers that kind of advice, read on.
Telling Someone to Find God Because of Bipolar Blames the Patient
One of the problems with telling a person to find god to cure bipolar disorder is that it blames that person for being so sick. It’s saying to that person, “If you only found (the right) god, you wouldn’t be sick right now.”
In other words, your sickness is your fault. You’re not trying hard enough to be well. You’d be well if you just did the right thing. You must not really want to get well. These things are some of the most insulting and invalidating things you can say to a person with an illness of any kind. Bipolar is not our fault. We are trying our best to get well. There is no “right thing” to do; otherwise, we would absolutely do it. We want to be well. It is not our fault we are not well.
Telling Someone to Find God to Cure Bipolar Assumes the Person Doesn’t Already Have a Relationship with God
It’s incredibly insulting and self-righteous to say tell people to find god to cure bipolar disorder because it assumes that the person doesn’t have god in their life already. People of every stripe have bipolar disorder, and that means people who believe in every god have bipolar disorder too. Believing in a higher power is not something that will save you. Believing in Jesus Christ won’t save you. Believing in Allah won’t save you. Literally touching the face of god isn’t going to fix a broken brain. There are priests and nuns and monks, and all manner of religious people who still get sick with bipolar disorder.
The other thing this implies is that the person giving the advice knows of the “right” god. Their god is it, baby. It’s absolutely Jesus Christ that you must believe in, for example (that’s the one that gets thrown at me the most). Believing in anyone else is “wrong” and won’t help your bipolar disorder. This is intolerance of the highest order. If you want to have a religion, that’s your business, but it’s everyone else’s business what their religion (or lack thereof) is as well. There is no “right” diety. As I’ve said, people of every faith get sick, so if your god cures bipolar disorder, he’s obviously slacking.
Fuck You and Your Fucking God Too
I don’t deal well with people telling me what to believe in with regard to anything. I deal even less well with people telling me they have a secret cure to bipolar disorder only accessible to those who “really believe.” This “secret cure” is bullshit. No diety bathed in light is going to ascend from the heavens and cure your bipolar disorder. It’s just not. And by telling people that it will, you just give them false hope that ultimately ends up in self-blame and a crisis of faith. In fact, by telling people that there is a bipolar cure facilitated by god only for those who believe enough, you could actually create such a desperate depression and lack of hope when it doesn’t happen that you could cost a life.
And what really gets on my nerves is that you can’t even talk to these people rationally. That’s because believing that a god has cured/treated/helped your bipolar disorder is irrational. Thus rational thought tends to bounce right off of it. The best you can do is tell the person to politely get lost.
But Finding God Did Cure My Bipolar Disorder!
Look, my job isn’t to tell you what you should believe. My job also isn’t to take away things that work. It really doesn’t matter to me what works for you. As long as you’re not hurting yourself or anyone else, have at it. Bipolar is weird. Brains are weird. Who knows what can help any individual?
This means that if you think that finding god cured your bipolar disorder, that’s fine with me. Enjoy. I’m not going to tell you otherwise.
What I am going to say, however, is that you need to stop bludgeoning other people with that because that does enter into the realm of hurting others for all the reasons I’ve stated above.
People with serious mental illness can be very fragile because they are so sick. These people can be so desperate that they’ll believe anything. They will grasp at any straw just for the slightest bit of hope that they may find some pain relief. And we need to protect people in this state. We need to make it clear that it’s not okay to thrust religious dogma, doctrine, and ridiculous assertions on people. All of us need to take this stand.
It’s okay to have any belief you want. It’s not okay to try to force it on others.
PS: I appreciate that some people don’t like swear words. It’s why I don’t use them in general. However, sometimes I feel it’s important to use them to make a point. Please hold your condemnation for such.
god has a great plan for me WHAT A JOKE!!!!!!!
I admire you for your purportedly, fervent and subjective take on God and/or religion.
Although I as a Christian, see it as pure conjecture, in my mind, beliefs and whole heart,– there is a creator as sure as there is rain. Yes, we suffer. Man, we fucking suffer.
Us freaks of nature, us mind screwed Miserables’ or we, the unwashed peasants. Unless you have it, you can’t know the true definition, feel, taste or smell of insanity.
We have many names and descriptions of ourselves and our conditions don’t we?
In the bowels of our despair we look for comfort, whether it’s a doctor, a friend, a drink, an anti psychotic drug, or a psychiatrist. We look for relief till it passes or eases up. Relief can be found in many ways, but too often there’s no way out.
A dog or cat may help.
We’re stuck in a mad house of mirrors, strange screaming, sensations, hallucinations, twisted logic, confusion, but wait– there’s more!!
You’ve been there; in the mire, –and you others are just the audience, watching us, looking at this 1000 piece puzzle we call bipolar. There’s a few important puzzle pieces missing–but too bad, put your shoes on and march dammit. Find those pieces.
How can you dislike or hate someone you don’t know? How can you detest somebody you don’t believe exists in the first place? There are millions of us who believe there is a God, Christ, creator, Hashem, whatever you call him. He brings comfort to many. Billions even.
Many acknowledge Satan. Without evil there would be no good or love. That’s a Christian speaking, A believer.
When I feel the presence of God, it’s like warm chills in my head, the smell of fresh unpicked flowers or a baby’s clean head.
Fresh falling leaves, white hot stars and the perpetually painted Picasso skies. All that’s beautiful is He.
He gets me thru the walks thru hell. I love Him. Even as I suffer. Especially when I suffer.
Whether you rub your naked body all over with peanut butter or run down your street naked, shave half of your dog, then give him steak, do a native dance for rain and relief, scream, scream, scream, or crap on your living room rug. It’s all good.
What ever gets you thru an episode, for a week or a few months. Do it. Just don’t hurt anyone, and that means you too.
If you feel That feeling — find your doctor, go to a police station or phone a friend for help. Knock on somebody’s door.
But don’t hate God. He doesn’t hate you. You’re of the belief He doesn’t exist to you–remember? You’re wasting your hate.
Hate flat tires, root canals, cancer, disease, suffering, the smell of spoiled meat, or rotting potatoes– think about how much there is to hate, then hate your ass off.
Let others do what gets them thru life when bad things and bad thoughts come alive in our heads. We, the believers are harmless. Just let us believe in peace. If you find one of us annoying you, explain that you don’t believe.
You have legs right? Walk away.
If one of us continues to press, tell him/her to be quiet, you’ve a head ache or your period. I don’t care if you believe.
God bless all of you.
Wow, where do I start? I was a dedicated Christian for around 38 years, and in that time, I had 24 ECT “treatments” when I was 14 years old (nothing against shock treatments, but I didn’t need them), I had GAD (Generalized Anxiety Disorder), I was full of fears, including death, I married my first wife “in the name of Christianity” (which ended up miserably because she told me she didn’t ever love me 6 years and 2 kids later), I had extremely bad panic attacks that forced me to quit my dream job in radio, I got torticollis (Google or Bing it), I got SEID (Systemic Exertion Intolerance Disease, formerly known as Chronic Fatigue Syndrome), I got married again and divorced again (and both were “Christian” marriages, which I didn’t want either divorce), and I got bipolar disorder. But wait, there’s more! Anyway, all of this happened when I was a very dedicated Jesus freak Christian, and I had Christian friends who always told me that God wasn’t healing me because I either held unforgiveness towards other people, I didn’t pay enough tithe, I wasn’t praying hard or long enough, I had “hidden” sin, I was “confessing” these illnesses and “claiming them as mine”, etc., etc. I agree with you, Natasha – “fuck your god”. I could go on and on, but I’ve bored you long enough. I’m now an agnostic and borderline atheist, and I’ve been happier with life in general than I’ve ever been. I sleep very well at night, I have more peace of mind, and I’m not fearing death even half as much. I want nothing to do with any religion, especially Christianity, because they’re the worst at trying to shove it down our throats. Too much judgmentalism for me. [Oh, one more thing: That entire time I had almost exclusively Christian friends who suffered very similar, or worse, maladies than I did, and they’re still doin’ it.]
Hello Natasha. I have been told this including assertions that I was possessed by demons.
I live with schizoaffective disorder which is a combination of both schizophrenia and bipolar.
I used to attend church for several years but ended up leaving as I recognised it was religion not spirituality.
I have a large part of the day devoted to spiritual practice beginning in the early morning and in the later part of the day.
This advice from others is well meaning for the most part but seriously misguided.
I had a friend who used to attend Unity Church in the 1970’s – it was a more progressive church with female ministers.
She was told that if she had of been practicing her Unity principles properly she would not have had a bad life.
She ended up training as a professional astrologer and was able to see all kinds of cycles in peoples lives that accounted for misfortune.
Pre-natal eclipses are usually a good indicator if someone is going to be mentally ill.
There are other aspects in a chart but once you get into applied astrology you can see all kinds of things going on in peoples lives.
Astrology gave me lots of answers that life in general didn’t.
Its a lifetime study and once you get into it you will never read an astrology newspaper column again as that is simply not astrology.
Its what the general public just doesn’t know.
~ Kayleigh
I have “friends” who subscribe to the notion that we somehow attract calamity into our lives, from cancer, to hurricanes, with our negative energy etc. I mean, seriously? I’m more of a “when bad things happen to good people” kind of gal. Thanks for sharing this. You rock.
If you would want to try something opposite-of-fun go to South Carolina. I lived there for 18 years as an adult. It doesn’t get easier. I would have people come to me and say, “You need Jesus in your life.” I would say “He is.” Then they would say something like, “you need to come to MY church. The people there are really nice.” These people have no idea how alienating their words can be. I stopped going to church altogether because they were starting to make me feel like I’m just taking up space on a bench that could be used for someone who is actually worthy. Finally, I got my ass out of there and moved to get away from them. I have to push down the desire to talk about God because of them. I kinda sorta relate to what you’re saying and I understand completely. Great post!
I appreciate the sentiment of this blog for all of the same reasons. No one would ever tell someone with a broken leg that they need to find God for it to heal. It’s just as inappropriate to tell someone who is suffering from the medical condition of having bipolar disorder that they need to find God to get better.
If you would want to try something opposite-of-fun go to South Carolina. I lived there for 18 years as an adult. It doesn’t get easier. I would have people come to me and say, “You need Jesus in your life.” I would say “He is.” Then they would say something like, “you need to come to MY church. The people there are really nice.” These people have no idea how alienating their words can be. I stopped going to church altogether because they were starting to make me feel like I’m just taking up space on a bench that could be used for someone who is actually worthy. Finally, I got my ass out of there and moved to get away from them. I have to push down the desire to talk about God because of them. I kinda sorta relate to what you’re saying and I understand completely. Great post
Hi Allan,
Exactly. The double-standard and mental health prejudice involved are frustrating.
– Natasha Tracy
As a staunch atheist, all I can say is “fucking Amen!” Thanks so much for writing that.
Hi Mark,
I’m glad you liked it :)
– Natasha Tracy