Surely I Can't Be the Only One When Mental Illness Becomes More Than a Family Can Carry There is something I have been carrying around in my mind for a long time. And lately, I keep coming back to the same question: Surely I can't be the only one. Surely my family isn't the only family that has reached that terrifying place where you love someone deeply, would do almost anything for them, and yet finally have to admit: We cannot provide the level of care this person needs. That sentence is incredibly difficult to say. Because it can sound like giving up. It can sound like abandonment. It can sound like saying, “You're too much for us.” But that isn't what we're saying. What we're really saying is: “We love you. That's why we're asking for help.” I'm Not Writing This From the Outside Looking In I'm not writing this as someone looking at mental illness from the outside. I know what it is like when your own mind doesn't alwa...
The War Beneath the Grave: When Grief Becomes a Battlefield of the Mind “The LORD is nigh unto them that are of a broken heart; and saveth such as be of a contrite spirit.” — Psalm 34:18 There are battles that nobody sees. No blood on the floor. No soldiers marching through the streets. No sound of guns. Just a mind sitting quietly in the dark, fighting itself. Grief can become that kind of war. When someone we love dies, the world tells us that we must eventually move on . But what does that mean when the person is still alive inside your memories? How do you leave someone behind when your mind keeps bringing them back? The grave says they are gone. Memory says they are still here. And somewhere between those two realities, the mind begins to fracture under the weight of what the heart cannot reconcile. I loved them—so I don't want to let go. I lost them—so I cannot hold on. And sometimes I wonder which hurts more. When the Mind Becomes the Battlefield There are moments when my o...