An interview with Mark Meynell about his new book on the subject of mental illness
After teaching in Kampala, Uganda, Mark Meynell returned to London with his family in 2005 to start working at All Souls, Langham Place.
But within weeks he was experiencing extreme emotional reactions to very mundane situations, culminating in a panic attack in a London art gallery. There was clearly something very wrong, but he had no idea what or why.
Thankfully, he was able to get psychiatric help. He was diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and put on medication. This helped to ease the symptoms and enabled him to both start ministry and get therapy. It is an ongoing battle, but he has learned over the years how to manage it better.
His latest book, When Darkness Seems My Closest Friend: reflections of life and ministry with depression, was published by IVP in May [see review on p.26 ]. His aim in writing was partly therapeutic – the task of trying to articulate what he has experienced has been a very helpful process – and partly pastoral. Depression, as well as other forms of mental illness, is profoundly isolating. To discover that others have known something akin brings its own balm.
en: There’s been a lot of statistics in the press about the prevalence of mental illness, especially among young people. What is your take on that?
MM: It is of course very hard to know how accurate the stats are, but that is beside the point. The fact remains that a huge proportion of the population is likely to experience some kind of mental illness at some point during their lifetimes. Just consider your own fellowship and visualise between 20% and 25% needing support in this area. Obviously, it’s not going to happen all at once (no small relief !), but the fact does expose a considerable challenge, for which many (most?) of us are woefully unprepared.
Then, as you say, it seems to be increasingly prevalent amongst young people and university students. There are myriad and complex causes, but three stand out to me in particular: those peculiarly modern pressures of social media and virtual reality; the accelerating and competitive pace of contemporary life; and the worldview vacuum into which so many in the West are growing up. All have a deeply destabilising effect.
So no youth worker can consider themselves even remotely equipped for this ministry without some basic understanding of the psychological needs of their charges. For it is inevitable that they will encounter issues like eating disorders, self-harming, suicidal thoughts, soon after starting. Without that awareness, it is quite conceivable that they could make matters considerably worse.
If this all makes you feel out of your depth, then join the club! It presents a significant challenge, for which reductionistic or one-size-fits-all solutions are not the answer. But God has given us a whole armoury, and he has given us one another.
en: Christians seem reluctant to seek medical help for mental illness while having no qualms seeking it for physical illness. Why do you think this is? Is our reluctance well placed or unwise?
MM: Breaking a limb might be excruciating. But with basic medical help, the damage can be repaired. What’s more, the convalescence period is obvious to everyone. An arm in a sling or walking on crutches are a give-away, and often elicit sympathy, or at least a degree of accommodation.
With mental illness, there is often nothing to see. And to experience it can be as terrifying as it is disorientating. It undermines your sense of self, your very identity. What’s more, it is usually indescribable. So if you do get to a point of seeking help, what do you actually ask for? What words can possibly do justice to what you are enduring? Then how will they react to whatever words you do find? Illness of the mind can seem so mysterious and threatening that it is unsurprising that discussing it is still a widespread taboo. Admitting it still feels shameful.
This problem is exacerbated by a number of other factors. Depending on your background and cultural context, admitting weakness publicly in itself might be very difficult, if not impossible. Perhaps it’s the stiff-upper-lip syndrome at work, or perhaps it’s a sneaking sense of guilt at seeking help when countless people in our world are suffering far worse afflictions (like the ravages of war, poverty, being a refugee).
But there is a peculiarly Christian element. If God is good and for us, and we trust him and love him, then how can there be a problem? What happened to the joy and peace the world cannot give? So it might seem unspiritual to seek medical or psychiatric help for this. On top of that, some do have questions arising from the philosophical foundations of much modern thinking, or they worry about the apparently haphazard allocation of medications for psychiatric categories that can feel rather slippery.
There are no doubt other reasons for such reluctance.
But this is the bottom line. If you feel that your thinking is disorientating and especially if you have thoughts about ending it all, please talk with someone. Please!
en: How do you answer your Job’s comforters who encourage you to rejoice in the Lord when you are in your cave?
MM: A verse that I am sometimes reminded of is one of the classics in Proverbs: ‘Like one who takes away a garment on a cold day, or like vinegar poured on a wound, is one who sings songs to a heavy heart’ (Proverbs 25.20). It seems that human nature has changed little and nor has poor pastoral practice!
One of the things I say in the book is that on the really dark days, I have been desperate ‘for friends, not fixers’. And the difference between the two can be quite subtle, a matter of attitude or relational posture. Job’s comforters were guilty of presumption, amongst other things: they presumed to know the cause, nature, prognosis, and even a divine perspective on Job’s pain. So they waded in. They didn’t try to understand. They were more concerned to conform Job’s experience to their tight theological frameworks than to listen, empathise and accompany him as fellow-pilgrims. Christ never promises his followers a carefree life; but he does promise to land us safely on Canaan’s side.
So how do I answer them? Thankfully it’s not happened too much! But when it has, I’ve had to walk away, or simply avoid them later. But if I had the presence of mind to discuss it carefully (and the fact that I sometimes don’t is rather the point!), I would want to point to the depth and extent of the psalms of lament as a place in which God has provided us with a liturgy for times of mental anguish.
en: What has been the greatest help and/or greatest discouragement to your wife and children as they accompany you on your difficult pilgrimage?
MM: The hardest thing has undoubtedly been the sense of something being wrong, but without being able to know what on earth to do about it. I simply didn’t have the vocabulary to communicate what it was like; they didn’t have experiences to help them identify with it. It was clearly difficult for the children, especially when they were small, to understand why I always seemed to lack energy on my day off. As they’ve grown older (they’re now nearly 20 and 17), there has been the anxiety of what it all might mean.
We’ve all had to learn to become better at communicating with one another, but one thing I have constantly stressed is that they should not blame themselves for what I’ve been going through. We are all learning and growing together.
