Believer's Brain

Bumpiness on the Road of Mental Health

It has been a long time, far too long, since I last posted here. My last post was on July 22nd, and it is now 4th November. At one point I updated this site with new content every two days, and then that gradually became once a week, and then nothing at all. A large […]

Not Feeling Too Well

I meant to post more often after my last post, but things haven’t been too good here. The UK has been going through a heatwave, so I haven’t been able to sleep very much, although it has cooled down a bit now. I’ve started volunteering for the Citizen’s Advice Bureau in my town, which should […]

A Week of Slight Mentalness, Sorry

Well, it’s been a while. Longer than I intended, in fact, since I last posted. I usually try to post at least once a week, but this has been a strange week! I wrote earlier about coming off risperidone and last week was the one where I finally came off the last of it. And […]

Why, Lord?

I hate suffering. I hate it when someone – even me – comes down with depression, anxiety, psychosis; with an illness that is stigmatised and life-changing and will never fully go away. I hate all illness, sickness, death. I hate wars and famine and natural disasters. I hate the evil that man does to man, […]

The End of the Party

I saw the best minds of my generation destroyed by madness, starving hysterical naked, dragging themselves through the negro streets at dawn looking for an angry fix … –Allen Ginsberg, Howl I am no Ginsberg, and my concerns are not the same as his – but these lines have been been thundering through my head […]

Lifestyle & Anxiety

As I write this, I’m really supposed to be packing for a trip to see my old friends in London. I’m really looking forward to it, and it’ll probably be a bit of a wild time! I often feel as though there are two sides to my life – the church side of me, and […]

Ambition

What did you want to be when you grew up? My earliest ambition was to be an acrobat – which made my mum laugh, as I was an abnormally clumsy child! Later, I dreamt of writing a novel, of being a politician (!), of finding a fulfilling and intellectually stimulating career where I would be […]

The Bible and Medication

I have been suffering from withdrawal side-effects from medication this week. My doctor was supposed to reduce my risperidone from 3mg to 0 by 1mg a month, as per my consultant’s instruction, however he didn’t reduce it at all for three months, then when I reminded him he reduced it to 1mg last week, and […]

7 Ways Faith Communities Can Respond to Mental Illness

This is in response to Adrian Warnock’s conversation on mental illness (see here and here on my blog) and is specifically in response to this question from him: How do you think that faith communities and society as a whole can better respond to mental illness? Mental illness is a serious problem affecting millions worldwide. 1 […]

Is Self Injury a Sin?

I have self harmed, on and off, since I was fourteen. I have self harmed both before and after coming to faith, and I still struggle with, and often fail to resist, the urge to do it when I am depressed. As you may know, I have written my Guide to Self Injury, covering everything […]