Some businesses now must, or do, for some new workplace rules or to appear inclusive, hire people with disabilities. This is not without its problems. An aquaintance of mine recently told me that the customers at the McDonald’s where she works, complained to management, that she talks to herself on the job. I suspect they had a word with her. I suggested to her that many people appear to be talking to themselves when they are actually talking to someone on the phone, with hidden microphones and earphones. To me at least, they seem quite ritarded, proudly walking down the street or sitting on the bus, mouthing off to the air.

While it doesn’t apply to everyone, it’s very true that people see suffering as a sign divine of punishment – or something. I can’t stand how some religious folks are so elitist. Once, walking through a mall in Singapore, I was told by an Evangelist I was going to hell because I was Catholic. I can’t imagine what they would have said to someone from a religion not cut from the same fabric.

It’s disgusting. Really.

Sad thing is, I don’t know if there’s a solution. We learn by the trials we go through. Acceptance comes from experience, but I dare not wish depression on the world.

Jeremy
Outcome3 Vancouver Internet Marketing

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It takes a pretty gifted person to deal with someone who is suffering in this way. People generally don’t have the patience. The point is that some people in mental difficulty can be set off more easily, can react more quickly. At first others may not know that problems may arise from their engaging in normal everyday verbal abuse. And soon after it may be too late.

It seems to be difficult for almost anyone to be completely impartial and fair to persons with a psychiatric problem. We cannot expect this from everyone. We have to try to understand the insanity of normal. By grasping how important it is for some to be considered normal and to do all this requires may help us forgive the mean-in-the-moment person. One reason to present as normal is to have a job. If you veer off a bit, you may not have that job for long. We have to be thankful that quite a large number of people are at least trying to understand, and succeeding in doing so.

I lost my job, my friends (Christian and otherwise in fairness) and almost all hope, as it slowly dawned on me, that some of my former fellowship brethren, having taken holy orders, were quite prepared to spurn me and still consider themselves sanctified of Christ for so doing.

Let me give y0u some further evidence of the church mentality in this difficult area of medical science. I’ve suffered with simple depression (as an acomplice to the more recent diagnosis ) for 28 years and during 1995/96, I allowed a group of Chrismatic christians to convince me that I was being oppressed by an entire hierarchy of evil spirits, from which they proceeded to conduct a series of fully-fledged Exorcisms. I have never felt so frightened in my life and once I’d left that region, I asumed I’d put it all behind me, but I was wrong. The moment you mention mental troubles to the evangelical/charismatic christian spectrum they tend (not in every case) to talk of scripture in a pronouncedly denouncing manner. There are several reasons for this

1) They’re comfortable with their critical views and change means humility and hard work

2) They think that they can heal ANY illness by imnmediate prayer (and if the person concerned isn’t immediately healed, they become very worried that their prayers have failed, thus passing same on/back to sufferer, with the inevitable ‘your faith wasn’t strong enough’ or ‘you weren’t co-operating with prayer’ – anything to avoid facing the terrible and ashen fact that God , for whatever reason, has said NO to them, which he’s entitled to do after all).

3) They can’t bear to think of themselves (or their children) suffering such intractability and so they respond with judgemental attitudes driven by fear and apparent need to placate the Almighty

It’s important to state that this isn’t every christian you encounter on this subject, but it’s a worrying percentage of the avant-garde Pentecostal faith. The Catholics (God bless them), seem much more tolerant, as do the Anglicans and even the Methodists.

I became a Christian in Mrch of 1994 at a provincial Baptist church in Britain but was ultimately forced to flee worshipped profession of my faith, in favour of a quiet and personally experienced work with the Lord (for which some in the church accuse me of heresy), but I remind them of Jesus and the thief on the Cross , as it’s a salutory story that silences them completely

Another thing that irritates them greatly is the fact that they profess great comprehension of the Bible (and in many cases that’s true) but I went and obtained a post graduate degree in a theological discipline, thus inviting the question in their minds, how can an alleged madman have sufficient gravitas to gain a recognised qualification? (which makes them feel shallow)

The trick ( if indeed there is one) is to rebut ignorance with dignity and knowledge and when you’re given judgemental opinions on your illness, to request the personally graduated medical school it came from. That eliminates 99% of them immediately. And when they bang on about knowing ‘the best doctor of all in heaven’, then ask them why you saw them in the drug store last week, with a script from their family physician

Yours in Christ

Barry