Blurred vision and blurred thinking
In the next few articles, we will examine the physical causes of emotional illness. We will cover the basics of psychiatric diagnosis and treatment so that you will be able to tell who should see a doctor. I hope to remove all the mystery, misunderstanding, confusion and stigma attached to depression, manic depression, schizophrenia and attention deficit disorder.
Medical research in recent years has provided physicians with very effective tools to treat these common conditions. These treatments however, are not reaching the people who need them because of the lack of awareness and misunderstanding of the general public.
Emotionally Free
Have your own Christian guide to emotional health!
Have your own Christian guide to emotional health!
The current situation is similar to the era when eye glasses were first introduced. They were a very effective treatment for blurred vision but they were not well received by the public since people had no idea that they themselves had blurred vision and could be helped with glasses. Most had learned to live with their poor vision and ridiculed those who did wear glasses. I'm sure that there were those who said that "if God wanted me to see better he would have made me that way, there's no need to wear those ugly things on my face." In those days one could function quite well with poor vision since transportation was with horses and the animals always knew the way home even if the driver didn't.
In those days people thought they could function well with poor vision.
Those who tried the glasses couldn't believe the improvement and wished that they had started wearing them years before. Their vision became normal but they had to live with the stigma attached to wearing glasses. The people around them didn't realize how much better the person's vision had become since blurred vision was an invisible handicap. It was easy and popular to criticize the ugly glasses.
Now we are dealing with problems of "blurred" thinking, which are invisible to an observer. Even the sufferer doesn't know that he is not thinking as clearly as he should be. The victim is so accustomed to this disability that he doesn't know that he has a problem. He is then resistant to the suggestion that he could be helped and even ridicules those who do go for help. The church has been very guilty of criticizing and shaming those who go for psychiatric help since it has not understood the biological origin of "blurred thinking."
This article is excerpted from "Emotionally Free" by Dr. Grant Mullen
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