I was looking out my window this morning and noticed the brilliant blue sky and sunshine and I became illogically, undeniably happy. Euphoric even.

In the midst of this I began to think about what a fickle thing our brains can be that the mere increase of sunshine can drive one to a place of pleasure while the reverse holds true as well.

The mind is an interior and hidden place. No amount of scientific or psychological inquiry will ever unlock its mysteries and this is both satisfying and frightening at the same time. Satisfying because we all need one place to feel secure in; frightening because for those dealing with mental illness we will never really understand what it is like.

I believe we all have varying degrees of mental illness from the equivalent of the common cold to the interior version of lethal cancer. I feel fairly well-balanced most of the time but the degree to which unknown and external factors impact my state of mind has me in prayer for those who struggle with deeper pains than mine.

To not be in control of one’s own self; one’s deepest interior safe place…it must be a terrible thing. Not only that but to be made in most instances to feel as though a mental illness is somehow less than a physical one must be incredibly frustrating. A cut we can see. We can stitch it up, cover it in a band-aid, prescribe anti-biotics and move on comfortable in the near certainty that healing will come.

Mental illness on the other hand is still often seen as “only in your head” which of course, ironically, it is but what people mean when they say or feel that is “stop being dramatic and simply think right”.

This kind of unsympathetic response is often no different than telling an amputee to “stop stumbling along on crutches and have the moral fortitude to grow a new leg for heaven’s sake”. When we tell a person struggling with anything from depression to schizophrenia to simply get over it we are, in fact, telling them to “simply change your brain chemistry and everything will be fine sheesh”.

The problem of the unsympathetic response lies firmly in the fact that we humans do not trust one-another and we do not trust what we cannot see. We approach each other with suspicion and imagine ulterior motives. The ridiculous adage of “you have to earn trust” has done a great deal of harm here for it is a defensive posture that assumes the worst in people until they prove you wrong.

Perhaps if we were to simply trust people first; believe them when they say they cannot overcome a depression or the like…maybe that is the first step toward helping. Sure we will be burned from time to time but that is what happens when one lives sacrificially for and in the community. Hopefully in those instances others, who we have trusted, will come alongside us and lift us up again.