3 things Christians must recognize about anxiety and depression

Depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses are often misunderstood, even by Christians. Due to the personal and internal nature of the conditions, treatments and attention needed are not what we usually think of; sometimes it takes more than countless of hours of church to help patients. Mental illnesses are also like any other disease but like the others, it requires specific care and recognition -- recognition in order to trace the root of the cause.

MUNTINLUPA, PHILIPPINES (Catholic Online) - Misconceptions about anxiety and depression make things worse, and people afraid to get noted for all the wrong reasons, even in their church, will do things to hide their conditions.

Anxiety and depression are both real, that's one thing we all have to keep in mind. Here are other things, thanks to Crosswalk.com, that we should recognize about the two mental illness.

1. It is not a sin.

Anxiety and depression, as well as other mental illnesses, are usually thought of as sins, especially when at times the church is diagnoses them wrong, due to very short and infrequent discussions. What would be wrong is these patients need our support and we couldn't fulfill it if we treat the condition as a sin.

According to WebMD, depression is more than feeling sad -- it's more complicated than sadness; sufferers lose interest in life. You can see these people smile, but that doesn't mean he/she was just sad for a moment. Anxiety, in this case, is the disorder where sufferers experience too much distress that it begins to intervene with their daily life, lasting for a longer period of time. Fear and worry is constant, which we may believe is something only momentary. Take time observing and talking with the people around you who you suspect may be suffering, and please don't insist that they are just going through a phase that lasts a moment.

3. The church cannot "fix" the mental illness.

What the church can do is give support, warmth and prayers, as well as guidance through their medications, to people suffering from depression, anxiety and other mental illnesses. They need us to understand the situation that drags their life down. Depression will pull down whatever positive feeling one might have, the sufferer may end up with more mental breakdowns if people around him/her are not aware or supportive. Help, not fix, for it could do more damage if we put them into a category of even less hope.

We must pray for each other and for ourselves to see our brothers and sisters' conditions in an enlightened way. They need us and our strength from God to help them out of the darkness of their lives.

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