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.