She didn’t say a word at first. She just placed a photograph into my hands. I looked at the face of an attractive women I took to be in her late thirties. “This was my daughter,” she said. “She took her life seven months ago.” I held her as she sobbed and waited for her words to come. They came like pain-filled rifle fire. “She was struggling with depression-on the staff of a large church-asked for time off to get help-told they don’t believe in that-she should pray, she should pray! Now she is dead.” I wept too for I have heard these stories before. I have been featured in these stories before.
I was hospitalized in 1992 with severe clinical depression. I went from being co-host of the 700 Club on the Christian Broadcasting Network one morning to being in the locked ward of a psychiatric hospital that night. I felt as if I had gone to hell. My father died in a psych hospital when he was in his thirties and for me they are the place of nightmares. In truth, God took me to a prison to set me free. He showed me that even if I make my bed in hell nothing can separate me from his love. I believe I met an angel that first night. I pulled the covers off the little bed and sat in the corner of the room so afraid, so alone. At about 3AM a young women walked into my room and placed a small, soft toy into my hands. It was a lamb. As she turned to leave she said to me, “Sheila, the Shepherd knows where to find you.” I never saw her again.
I learned so much about depression and other mental illness during my month stay. I learned that I was struggling not because of a lack of faith but a lack of Serotonin, a chemical needed for proper brain function that some of us do not produce enough of. I learned too that there is still such ignorance about such illnesses and crippling stigma within the church. I have no desire to be the poster child for depression or medication but I still take my pill every morning with a prayer of thanksgiving that God had made this help available for those of us who need it. My hope is this, you may not understand this illness then find out what you can so that we, as the church can be a place of healing and hope not shame and judgement. As I think of the young women whose photograph I held I know this, she didn’t have to die, she just needed help. I want to be part of that army