You think I'm crazy?

I have been reading books by a dude called John Swinton recently. He is a professor at Aberdeen University and has written a lot about the need for christian friendship in the lives of those affected by mental problems. As someone who has struggled throughout the majority of my life with some medical mental condition or another I found his work hugely inspiring, thought-provoking and challenging.

Since reading his book "Resurrecting the Person" I have been struck by how many negative ideas about mental problems there are in the world around us. For example, when was the last time you exclaimed that someone was crazy for something they thought/did/said? I do it all the time! But crazy is a profoundly negative word that suggests that someone is not in their right mind. It's the same a using 'gay' as an insult; it just really shouldn't be done.

There is also the idea that somehow people with mental problems need 'fixing'. My sister just the other week told me how, when I was at the worst of my mental problems, she felt as if she had 'lost' me. Swinton points out that people are not a problem to be fixed and shouldn't be hidden by their illness (they are a schizophrenic, she's bipolar etc) but rather should be still treated as a person (that's cindy, she is an amazing artist who also struggles with mental problems).

It's actually a lot harder to do this than I initially thought. It is so easy to look at someone who is a little different in the way they act and react by trying to diagnose them in order to understand them better, rather than getting to know them as they are without a label. And I have had the labels! I know how destructive they are to a person, and yet I fall into this trap as well.

So what do we do about it? Really I don't know. It is one thing to say befriend people and see them for who they are not what is wrong with them, but to put that into reality is a lot harder. The best example there is is that of Jesus. He hung out with all sorts of people that were shunned and misunderstood by society and yet he saw them for who they were and treated them all as individuals. Think of the various women he talked to, seeing them for who they were not what they had done. Or going and having dinner with sinners and demanding nothing but their company. In my head I can see him sitting with the misunderstood person with mental heath problems and just listening to them talk and seeing them for who they are.

I would like to be like that. I would like to take the time to listen and sit and be friends with the people that, let's face it, can be damn difficult to befriend sometimes. I would like to bring life and love. The question now remains, will I?