The pain of mental illness and the grace of Catholic faith

[rug]

Hannah Wingett | May. 16, 2017

My brain is on fire. When tolerable, the fire is centralized in the front half of my skull, above and sometimes behind my eyes. When intolerable, the fire spreads, settling in a cloud from ear to ear above my spinal cord. The natural response is to cry, but crying somehow makes the pain even worse.

In January 2014, I spoke to a friend who had recently pursued psychiatric treatment. I had experienced intense stress, sadness and worry for at least five years, but I didn’t know that was abnormal. In this conversation, I expressed sympathy for my friend’s struggles; she looked at me, shocked, and responded, “Hannah, I knew you had a problem with anxiety before I knew I had a problem with anxiety.”

After agonizing over this conversation for a few weeks, I began pursuing treatment, but as long as I framed the issue as emotions and stress and anxiety, I could not find help. People told me that I just needed to manage my time better, I just needed to sleep more — I just needed to do more, to be more, they thought. My experience was completely ignored; my parents and my doctors saw my symptoms and assigned their interpretations.

In May 2014, I cried 20 of the 31 days in the month. I felt constantly nauseous and began to believe the burning sensation in my brain would never stop. After I’d had this fire in my head for over two weeks, I tried again to get help. I went again to a doctor, who listened patiently. Then she calmly asked to examine my eyes, later explaining she was looking for signs of brain swelling. She scheduled an appointment for me with a neurologist the following morning.

https://www.ncronline.org/blogs/soul-seeing/pain-mental-illness-and-grace-catholic-faith