When the brain is sick, it needs help
One in four women and one in six men are diagnosed with clinical depression, says counsellor Andrea Groenwald. And one in three people deal with anxiety.
That's why it's important for people to move away from the mentality that they can solve their mental health problems on their own, she says.
"It's okay to seek help," says Groenwald who has been a professional counsellor for more than a decade and currently works with both Journey Counselling Services and Five Star Relationships.
Groenwald says people used to think they needed to "have a really big problem" to start counselling. But between increasing everyday stressors around family, career or life change and increasing information about mental health, more people have begun to look for help. She also notes that some of the traditional support systems, like nearby extended family or co-workers, are disappearing.
"The more our North American society becomes individualistic, the more the connections aren't there," she says.
Singer, songwriter, musician, comedian and speaker Wendy Farha, who also has a ministry to de-stigmatize mental illness, spent years in depression before getting the help she needed.
"Over the years I had a friend who was a counsellor who mentioned two or three times, 'I think medication could help you.' I disregarded it," says Farha. It was only a call to the "100 Huntley Street" prayer line that moved her to action.
"I started talking to a woman, and I'm sure she wasn't allowed to do this, who said 'my dear, I think you need medication.'
"Until the last few years I felt medication was something only really weird people did. I knew people who were schizophrenic and bi-polar who were on medication," recalls Farha. "I wasn't in their category at all. The idea to take medication for something other than the flu was foreign to me."
But a quote from Focus on the Family founder and psychologist James Dobson helped break down the barrier for Farha.
"He said the brain is an organ and like any other organ it could get sick."
A bought of depression in 2000—and a meltdown which included suicidal thoughts—led to a trip to the emergency ward, where Farha was finally given medication. The psychiatrist told her that within three weeks she'd feel different.
"Three weeks later, to the day, I woke up and it was as if a light switch had been flicked. The medication brought me up to a level where I could deal with things. The problems were still there but the medication helped me to cope and think more clearly," says Farha.
The stigma of using medication, especially among Christians, is decreasing says Groenwald. She notes that even as recent as the 1980s people with depression were thought to have sin in their lives.
"Some issues are spiritual, some are physiological and some are from the way we think or do things," says Groenwald, adding that proper treatment, such as medication or talk therapy, needs to be used. Counselling, she says, can help people develop new coping strategies to deal with their stressors.
"And let them know what they're going through is normal."
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