The Cure for an Oppressive Mental Illness

If I could rid the world of a single issue, it would be the broad scope of mental illness. The American Psychiatric Association (APA) says that one in five adults has a diagnosable mental disorder. They define mental illness as,

“Mental illnesses are health conditions involving changes in emotion, thinking or behavior (or a combination of these). Mental illnesses can be associated with distress and/or problems functioning in social, work, or family activities.”

The APA also states that anxiety disorders are the most common mental health diagnosis impacting over 40 million American adults on any given day. Though, as great as that number is, I wonder if the terms “diagnosis” and “diagnosable” have caused the APA to grossly underestimate the number of people walking around with mental illnesses based on their own definition.

Our healthcare system uses the terms “diagnosis” and “diagnosable” to identify distinctive characteristics (symptoms), establish treatment regiments, and create compensation models. This writing is not intended to challenge that system.

However, I think one could use the APA’s own definition of mental illness to suggest that perhaps one of the most pervasive mental illnesses has no diagnostic code. Serving hurting people for over three decades, I have observed that one of the most common health conditions involving changes in emotion, thinking, and/or behavior, as well as distress and/or problems functioning in social, work, or family activities is the harboring of unforgiveness.

Yes, I agree that one might argue that harboring unforgiveness is not a health condition. Though, I would push back on such a statement in two ways:

• First, you don’t have to look far to find evidence that harboring unforgiveness often creates numerous changes in hormonal levels, heart rate, blood pressure, and immune response. Those changes, then, increase the risk of depression, anxiety, heart disease, and diabetes, among other conditions. Forgiveness, however, calms stress levels, leading to improved health.

• Second, I’m not sure how one would justify existing diagnosis for gambling, sex, and substance addictions, if we dismiss harboring unforgiveness because it’s not a “health condition”.

As far as my suggestion that harboring unforgiveness is one of the most pervasive mental illnesses, who among us has not harbored unforgiveness at some point?

Have you not experienced changes in your emotion, thinking, and/or behavior due to your own unwillingness to forgive someone?

Have you not encountered distress and/or problems functioning in social, work, or family activities because of holding a grudge?

Perhaps, it’s best that we don’t diagnose harboring unforgiveness since everyone would likely have a mental illness diagnosis in their medical history. Harboring unforgiveness has affected every American, indeed every human, living beyond infancy.

Why?

Forgiveness can be hard. To acknowledge that we or our loved ones have been harmed by another and to then choose to let go of our resentment or wishes for retribution requires an intentional exercise of cognitive, emotional, relational, and spiritual alignment that most people find quite unnatural. In other words, forgiveness can be difficult, if not seemingly impossible.

Forgiveness may be unexpected or even unpopular. We live in an ego-centric culture where people are quick to be offended and feel palpable pressure, even if self-inflicted, to avenge our grievances (or at least stew over them while looking for opportunities).

Like Lamech in Genesis 4 who bragged “If Cain’s revenge is sevenfold, then Lamech’s is seventy-sevenfold,” revenge has become a badge of honor. We may fear that forgiveness will be deemed socially unacceptable or even weak by friends, family, or co-workers.

Forgiveness is often misunderstood, being widely confused with forgetting or reconciliation. Though it is distinct from each. Few efforts prove more futile than actively attempting to forget something significant; and reconciliation is not always a safe or plausible option.

Yet…

Harboring unforgiveness is to choose to give our past and those who have hurt us control over both our present and our future by allowing them to define our current emotions, thoughts, and even behaviors. Since time is our most valuable asset, every moment spent harboring unforgiveness is the equivalent of giving the keys of our most valued asset to the people who have hurt us most. When we refuse to forgive, we give control to the people whom we least want to have it.

Forgiveness is an intentional choice, that, while formidable, is safer, simpler, and provides more healing than most of us want to believe.

Forgiveness is an act of hope. It’s a proclamation of a future unbound by the past. It’s a statement of liberation from the oppression of loss, pain, or helplessness. Even while enduring the consequences of someone else’s actions, it’s the hope that the pain itself will not tether us to its source.

Forgiveness is an act of courage. It takes courage to relinquish the security of having someone else to blame and to embrace the responsibility of one’s own future apart from what others may have done to us.

Forgiveness is an act of self-care. Harboring unforgiveness is the equivalent of spiritual, emotional, and relational cancer. We often carry it around long before the damage is evident while it continuously eats us from the inside out. Like cancer, we could simply medicate the symptoms, but it continues to damage the host until it is directly addressed.

So how does one forgive?

1.        You start the same way you start any other bold enduring action – You decide you will do so. You drive a stake in the ground. You don’t leave it to someone else to initiate. You determine to be responsible for forgiving whoever you need to forgive regardless of their actions.

2.        Ask God to empower you to forgive. God does not ask us to do anything without giving us the capacity to do it. His Word clearly calls us to forgive. He will not dismiss your efforts to obey. God loves you. Each time you ask God for something, He gives you one of two responses - He either gives you what you requested or He gives you what you would have requested had you known what He knows. Since He calls us to continuously forgive others, you can be confident that He’ll give you the capacity to forgive if you genuinely ask for it.

3.        Ask a trusted friend to support and encourage your efforts to forgive. Don’t isolate yourself when you most need help. Ask for help. Consider someone who has the gifts of empathy and humor. Remember, you’re not recruiting an ally who will pour gas on the fire. You want someone who will throw water on your fire and talk you off the ledge by helping you focus when you’re hurting.

You may find that forgiving the person you least want to forgive provides improved mental, emotional, relational, and physical health.

Some Scriptures on Forgiveness

Ephesians 4:32

Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, as God in Christ forgave you.

Mark 11:25

And whenever you stand praying, forgive, if you have anything against anyone, so that your Father also who is in heaven may forgive you your trespasses.”

1 John 1:9

If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

Matthew 6:15

But if you do not forgive others their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.

Matthew 18:21-22 

Then Peter came up and said to him, “Lord, how often will my brother sin against me, and I forgive him? As many as seven times?” Jesus said to him, “I do not say to you seven times, but seventy-seven times.

Luke 6:37

“Judge not, and you will not be judged; condemn not, and you will not be condemned; forgive, and you will be forgiven;

Colossians 3:13

Bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive.