By Andrea Guachalla
Recently I decided to touch on a controversial topic on a podcast episode which brought me quite a bit of criticism. In said podcast I did an analysis on the recently released documentary of Selena Gomez, My Mind and Me, where she talks about her life and her struggles with mental illness.
I’m not a fan of Selena or care that much about her work as an artist, but there is one thing that troubled me about her documentary, and it was the harmful message she leaves at the end: be your best version. That was supposed to be the right mindset to overcome mental illnesses, and low self-esteem.
It troubled me because I know so many young women look up to celebrities like Selena, and are willing to follow any type of advice she might give. And that is partly the reason I decided to speak about her. In the analysis I argue that Selena’s mental illnesses, which include depression and bipolar disorder, are not necessarily due to her widely known struggles with Lupus, or her celebrity status, but rather her struggles with her own sin.
If you want to go more in depth on my arguments, I elaborate on them here. For now, it is enough to mention that people were angry about those claims. Part of the disdain came from things I affirmed that were actually untrue, reason for which I partially retracted some details I gave about Selena. You can see that here. But overall the criticism came more as a roaring complaint that I was minimizing mental illness too much, and being unprofessional.
The most criticized claim was that mental illnesses that are so frequent these days are really a result of our own sinful behavior, not from external sources or trauma. I also claim that we can overcome these types of illnesses by repenting, taking a different path than the sinful one we were in, and stopping to focus on ourselves and focusing on glorifying God and helping others.
In a world where we are told that every reproachable thing that we do is a result from the bad things others did to us, or the harsh circumstances we once faced, it comes as no surprise that people would reject the notion that we are actually responsible for our actions and that we need to stop justifying our sin. The notion of total depravity has no place in the minds of many generations nowadays.
And I believe that is tragic…
The reason I’m writing this article is to offer a different perspective on the issue to young women, and perhaps offer some help to those who believe they have the right to engage in sinful behaviors under the excuse that they have been either diagnosed with a mental illness, or because they think they have one. And though I’ve been accused of not being empathic, I ask you to take this from someone who has struggled with mental health before, and who has seen others struggle with it from as close as you can get.
Perhaps mental illness is not the real problem?
Looking back on the toughest years I went through I am 100% sure that if I had gone to a psychologist or psychiatrist I would have been diagnosed with one or several mental disorders. As a healthcare professional, and as someone who has seen mental illnesses be treated from up close, I am sure that I, too, would have been medicated.
The thing is this: getting medication to treat this sort of issue is only a quick fix, but it doesn’t deal with the real problem. Many people know this, and most healthcare professionals acknowledge it. But then, why are so many patients quickly treated with drugs?
Is it a fixation on pharmaceutical industry revenues? Perhaps…
Amidst this chaos I see women, older and younger than me, trapped in a vicious cycle of sinning, suffering the consequences of their sin, thinking they are mentally ill, trying to treat their “mental illness” without actually acknowledging that there is a bigger problem.
Now, before I go any further, I know what some of you might be thinking: there are mental illnesses that actually need to be treated by specialists, and that are very, very complex. I’m not referring to those types of diseases here. But rather to the ones that have been on the rise these past decades in the younger generations: depression, anxiety, eating disorders, and substance abuse.
Several sources have found that these are often overdiagnosed or mistakenly diagnosed. One issue that exacerbates the problem is that self-reported symptoms are many times taken as the main factors to diagnose an illness. Hence, treating these disorders the way so many mental health professionals do often lead to substance dependance or abuse.
Talk to any mental health professional who dares to challenge the general protocols followed for treatment, and they will likely tell you you are better off dealing with your symptoms a different way. No health care professional who actually cares for you will advise you to go on medication as soon as you present symptoms of any of the aforementioned disorders (and perhaps some other ones too).
But then… How should we deal with what we perceive to be mental illness or the factors contributing to it? Especially in a world that is trying to normalize these types of illnesses through social media and entertainment.
Please allow me to suggest this:
Stop blaming your circumstances and people around you
One of the things that I’ve noticed in people who are emotionally or mentally unstable is that they try their best to track down what they perceive to be a mental illness to trauma from their childhood or youth, or interactions they’ve had with people in their past. They see themselves as victims of their circumstances.
But… Are they?
See, it is Ok to look back on what your life was when growing up and tracking some of your behaviors down to specific experiences you’ve had, either good or bad. There is a place for that, and I’ve personally benefited from being introspective in that sense, but here is the problem: many people don’t stop there and go on to EXCUSE their sinful behavior and unhealthy habits with trauma they went through. Furthermore, once many young adults are diagnosed with a mental disease they use the diagnosis as an excuse for their behavior.
A case that I saw up close was that of a person who was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, and immediately started blaming their inability to keep a job, lack of interest in pursuing a career, and inability to be responsible with their finances to the fact that they were diagnosed with said disorder. Cases like that one are incredibly frequent, and have been widely reported on academic research on the topic. People who believe they have a mental illness, even if it hasn’t been formally diagnosed, underperform at work, in their studies and even in leisure activities like sports.
The reason they underperform is not that the perceived illness makes their body unfit to function normally, but rather that people use it as an excuse to get away with anything. You lack self control? Blame it on a bipolar disorder. You are irresponsible? Blame it on your depression. You tend to get violent when you disagree with someone? Blame it on your violent father.
Does this sound coherent to you? Hopefully it doesn’t so you can go on to acknowledge this:
YOU ARE A SINNER
And you must recognize it.
Every person on earth has faced traumatic situations and harsh circumstances. Everyone has lost loved ones, or went through chronic or acute diseases, faced financial challenges, or went through times of tremendous lack. If anything, in modern times we at least have all sorts of commodities and goods that people in previous decades didn’t even dream of, therefore we should be better equipped to deal with daily life difficulties.
Even if you feel like your life has been a disgrace, believe me, you only need to look around you and ask some of the people close to you what their childhood was like and you’ll note there are people who had it way worse than you. And, if after asking around you still think you had the worst life one can think of, do yourself a favor and read Yeonmi Park’s book “In Order To Live” where she, a North Korean defector, details how her life went on in North Korea and when she escaped. And if you still need more examples of lives filled with suffering you can go ahead and read the book of Job or Jeremiah. How much pain and suffering did they have to face in order to come to a point where they both curse the day in which they were born?
With all of this I don’t mean to say that you shouldn’t be sad or reflect on the trauma you’ve been through from time to time. But I do think that getting to know others’ experiences should at least give you a more realistic view of what life is. You were never meant to live a perfect life, because we don’t live in a perfect world with perfect people. We rather live in a fallen world filled with sinful creatures, including ourselves.
My argument here is that things like low self-esteem, suicidal thoughts, panic attacks, anxiety, and depression don’t come from your external circumstances, but rather from how you decide to deal with them. And, let’s be honest, we often deal with all of those things with a sinful mindset: we are over self-centered, we set unachievable standards of perfection for ourselves, out of pide we decide to isolate ourselves instead of sharing our struggles with family or friends. And worst of all, we follow the advice of celebrities like Selena Gomez and try to be “the best version of ourselves”, ignoring that nothing good can come from us, but only from our Father above (James 1:17).
As an overflow of that sinful mindset we engage in sinful behaviors and habits: we sleep poorly, we eat junk food, we waste time on senseless entertainment, hang out with friends who we know will prompt us to sin, we jump from job to job, and relationship to relationship, unwilling to commit, we ignore exhortations of people who love us, and what have you.
Can anyone in their right mind say that all of that is because of the traumatic experiences they had? Isn’t it rather because, when one is given the choice to sin or to be faithful to God, our natural tendency is to choose the former? As a Christian woman, don’t you have the ability to be disciplined and sleep earlier, eat healthier, not to engage in friendships or romantic relationships with people who you know will celebrate your sin and listen to those who call you out on your sins? Who is forcing you to do all the bad things you do?
Please, recognise that to sin is a personal choice and the easiest way out. Please, I beg you, recognize that it is the sinful thinking patterns you allow yourself to have, and the sinful habits and behaviors you allow yourself to engage in that are literally making yourself sick. The problem is not your “mental disorder”, the problem is YOU.
Once you recognize that you won’t have another choice but to deal with your sin.
To finish up let me encourage you with this:
As Christians, we are no longer slaves to sin
Remember what Paul wrote to the Romans about continuing to sin:
“What shall we say then? Are we to continue in sin that grace may abound? By no means! How can we who died to sin still live in it? Do you not know that all of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him by baptism into death, in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, we too might walk in newness of life.”
Romans 6:1-4, ESV.
Here he explains the difference between the life we had before, and the new life we have now where we have been baptized into the death of Christ. Through whom we have been enabled to walk into a new life.
Apostle Paul continues to say:
“For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his. We know that our old self[a] was crucified with him in order that the body of sin might be brought to nothing, so that we would no longer be enslaved to sin. For one who has died has been set free from sin.”
Romans 6:5-7, ESV.
If you have truly put your faith in Christ for salvation, and you have truly understood that life is not about pleasing yourself but about pleasing and glorifying God, then you must know this: you have been set free from sin, and through the Holy Spirit and the knowledge of God’s Word you can overcome the sins in which you keep falling and that dishonor your heavenly Father. If you look to the cross and make it your purpose to glorify God and love his commands, you’ll see how little time left you’ll have to focus on your past traumas and present issues in a sinful way.
Occupy your mind with the Word of God, not with yourself. Use your time to serve others, not to try and be your “best-self” (whatever that means). Rejoice that you can now be a slave to a holy, righteous God, you have been given a new identity. Rejoice that you have been enabled to break free from sin.
