Faith, Mental Health, & Medication: Sometimes Grace Comes In A Little White Pill

Photo by Rachel Claire

Recently, Tom Cruise’s 2005 ‘snub’ of Brooke Shields’ use of anti-depressants after the birth of her child has been back in the entertainment news. Revived due to Shields’ new autobiographical documentary, the story is the kind of perfect storm that the entertainment industry loves: two gorgeous famous people arguing over which of them knows best how to treat postpartum depression.

Unlike Cruise, not everyone who opposes the use of antidepressants or thinks them overused dismisses mental health disorders and their treatments out of hand. There are legitimate concerns at play about not really knowing quite how these medications affect the brain; about the potential for children being unnecessarily medicated; and in the case of postpartum mood disorders, about the medication passing through breastmilk into the infant.

In some circles, the voices who express these concerns can be quite loud and unopposed, although the opposite voices shout loudest in other contexts. We tend to speak on this matter primarily to those who agree with our perspective, and not to engage in real dialogue. 

Certainly Tom Cruise wasn’t interested in dialogue on the matter, even after Brooke Shields wrote a clear and intelligent op-ed about their conflict for the New York Times. 

Although I share some of the above concerns about psychiatric medicines, it seems obvious that there are many situations in which they are extremely helpful. Antidepressants are part of many women’s stories after childbirth, as well as at other stressful times, in particular, and can be instrumental in restoring balance to brain chemicals and emotional habits. I have witnessed them transform the lives of women and men who, through no fault of their own, had experienced trauma or medical imbalances that would otherwise not have been overcome. 

The idea that a person can heal from such a condition with sheer willpower is deeply harmful. The truth is that when you are in a depressive storm, you have only limited control over your ship. Antidepressants, in combination with therapy, can calm the waves just enough for you to be able to actually steer. 

The fact is that we often forget, in the midst of our conversations and even screeds about “just snapping out of it” and “putting your baby’s health first” and “praying it away” and “that child just needs more consistent discipline, not medication” that depressed people are in fact, well, depressed.

When you are in a state of clinical depression or anxiety, you are usually simply unable to make effective changes to treat your depression without the help of either counseling, medication, or both. And when you hear criticisms of mental healthcare from people you admire or trust, you are predisposed to internalize these criticisms. Once they are ingrained in you, as a depressed person you likely will not have the mental capacity to choose to seek help unassisted in spite of these concerns. 

Let me say it another way: the depressed person is often too depressed to seek help without significant and repeated encouragement. And even a hint of discouragement can derail the whole enterprise. I’ve seen it happen over and over again; and if you think about it, I am confident that you have probably seen it, too. 

When we focus our discussions on the overuse of medications, we fail to understand that these conversations are not happening just between mentally healthy people who can make informed choices. Instead, unless we are careful in our tone and argument, we may feed the monster who says to a depressed person, “You don’t need therapy. Your husband just needs to stop being such a jerk” or “You’re not a sissy. You can beat this with willpower alone!” or “You’re not important enough to merit using your family’s resources to get treatment. You don’t matter. Maybe they’d even be better off without you…” 

Those of us who have not experienced clinical depression, panic disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder, or post-traumatic stress disorder risk dismissing the tremendous suffering of others out of hand right when we ought to be helping them access support.

It’s rather like when you have a cold, you feel like the world is coming to an end, but when someone else has a cold while you are healthy, you tend to say, “Oh, I’m sorry, hope you feel better soon,” and not really register just how much they are suffering. And that they could use some homemade chicken soup from you. 

It is important that, as caring people, we acknowledge in our conversation and writing that some of those who experience mental health disorders can receive sufficient grace and healing through the support of friends and family alone and through basic attention to self-care; but also that others will need the counseling of a licensed therapist; and still others will need, in the words of a wise friend of mine, encouragement to receive “grace in a little white pill.”  

Surely God thus provides for all our needs. Let’s not turn away from any one of His solutions out of simple thoughtlessness, fear, or lack of imagination. And while we do need to continue having conversations about mental health and its treatment, let us be careful that we do so soberly and generously, avoiding sweeping statements and moral judgments of those who disagree with us. Let that be the grace we extend to those who are suffering.