Making a spiritual journey to mental health

October 10 is World Mental Health Day. Many of the churches around our Diocese will be marking the day at special services on the Sunday before, 9 October, and resources for churches to use are available online at www.mentality.org.uk.

The DOOR spoke to Hilary Caldicott, a Christian who has suffered with mental health problems for many years, about her experiences of the Church at this time.

‘Being a member of a church now is helping me stay well,’ says Hilary Caldicott. But this relationship of support and care from a church community hasn’t always been there. There were years when Hilary felt she couldn’t go near a church. And though she doesn’t blame the church for that, she admits many churches still have a long way to go in being supportive of people with mental health problems.

Hilary, now 51, was brought up in a non-conformist family and attended church regularly as a child and teenager. But it was around the age of 14 that her health problems started.

‘I was in and out of mental hospitals for years. Looking back, it was a desperate time really but I have now been away from hospital and hospital admissions for over 15 years.’

Despite her problems, she never lost her faith, though she kept away from church and spent years outside any church community.

‘In my despair, I couldn’t follow the right path, felt that I didn’t have anything to offer a church.

‘I don’t think I have ever lost my faith, though during the worst times I felt that God could not possibly be interested in me, that I couldn’t have a personal relationship with God, but I didn’t lose my faith.’

Sometimes, she would go along to churches and sit in the back to listen. But she felt excluded from being a member of the community.

‘I feel my mental health problems have been a spiritual journey, my faith and my problems were intimately connected for me.’

But it was a very long time before she felt she could go back to church.

‘It was only when I got better that I began exploring that side of myself more, that I felt able to go to a church and ask questions. I went back to church because of changes in my personal life, not the other way round.’

It was through other people in the mental health community that she started going to church, and she now worships at St Mary and St John in Cowley, though she lives near Witney.

The church has a significant presence of people with mental health problems, she says, and that is important for her.
She was confirmed there three years ago, at the Easter vigil service.

‘It had been a very long journey for me. I was 48 when I was confirmed.

‘It took me a couple of years to decide on confirmation but once I had decided I felt absolutely determined on it, there was no faltering at all.

‘I hadn’t thought about confirmation before – for many years I had thought I would never be able to join a church again, even. There are still lots of things I disagree with profoundly in the Anglican church, but I feel now I can cope with them from inside, rather than outside.’

All her adult working life has been spent in the care field.

She was formerly director of Oxfordshire MIND and now works for Advance Housing, in Witney, as programme manager for their shared housing scheme which helps people with mental health problems buy their own homes.

She is also committed to using her experiences to help the church become more open to supporting people with difficulties.

‘People in churches get a bit muddled about what their responses to people with mental health problems should be as Christians – but you don’t go to church to meet a professional psychiatrist, you go as a Christian to be part of a faith community. People want to be welcomed in as part of a community, not to be asked about their medication.
‘It is very individual, the way that people want to be welcomed or supported, and it changes from person to person. Some people need to do things at their own pace and other people may have a more outgoing approach. They just need to be treated as ordinary human beings.’

She is involved in piloting a resource pack for churches to help them in supporting people, and will also present a motion to diocesan synod in November, highlighting the need for the Christian community to engage positively  with the mental health needs of people within our communities. Supported by  the Board for Social Responsibility’s Health and Social Care Group, the motion  welcomes the new resource produced  for the Archbishops’ Council called Promoting Mental Health: A Training Resource for Spiritual and Pastoral Care. This is a web resource available on www.mentality.org.uk (click on  ‘publications) and includes worship material for churches to use to mark World Mental Health day.