DEPRESSION IN PRISON LIFE
Janelle was at the prison hospital for terminal lung cancer. Although she was not actively in the process of dying, her case was much more of a typically depressed and despondent person exposed to the routine life of incarceration. One look at her and you could very easily sense the despondency and feeling of abandonment by someone not only incarcerated but also facing the almost sure probability of dying of cancer. Janelle was in prison as a habitual criminal who was accused of shop lifting and also she was a drug abuser.
Here is her story. “I would like my husband to visit me. He does not know I am now in the prison hospital because my lung cancer has progressed more rapidly. Also, I would like my three children to visit me here.” Family members usually are notified by the Corrections Department when their love ones become seriously ill. But it is not uncommon to observe how readily family members abandon their loved ones when suddenly they are incarcerated.
“I keep hearing these voices in my mind telling me I have lost my relationship, especially with my mother and sisters because of my guilt. These voices tell me I deserve to be in jail, sick with lung cancer, and abandoned by my close relatives.” Months ago, the hospital had sent a psychiatrist to examine her for her mental depression and for possible schizophrenia.
Not being a psychiatrist the best advice I could offer was to pray that those voices would fade away. “Tell those voices you, with the help of Jesus Christ, are still in charge of yourself and to shut up!”
The following week I asked Janelle,”Did your mother finally come to see you?” “Yes she came. I felt very glad to see her. And those voices, they don’t come as often as before. But I still hear those voices.” Her mental illness seemed to lessen after she had experienced some love and affection.
Janelle was a very religious person. The first item she asked for when I initially visited her was to have a copy of the Bible in her room. She frequently reeled off passages from the Bible. And so in one of my visits I started reading my printed sheet of Psalm 21, “The Lord is my Shepard”. And to my surprise she continued reciting Psalm 21 word for word by memory.
This is my opinion: religion, the Bible, and mechanical recitation of prayers are not enough to rid oneself of anxiety and depression. “Abandon the search for God and similar things of that kind. Instead, take yourself as the starting place. Ask who it is within you who makes everything his own, saying, “my mind”, “my heart”, “my God”. Learn the sources of love, joy, hate, and desire ….If you carefully examine all these things, you will find God in yourself.”
Reference: "The Origin of Satan" by Elaine Pagels , Vintage 1996
Janelle was at the prison hospital for terminal lung cancer. Although she was not actively in the process of dying, her case was much more of a typically depressed and despondent person exposed to the routine life of incarceration. One look at her and you could very easily sense the despondency and feeling of abandonment by someone not only incarcerated but also facing the almost sure probability of dying of cancer. Janelle was in prison as a habitual criminal who was accused of shop lifting and also she was a drug abuser.
Here is her story. “I would like my husband to visit me. He does not know I am now in the prison hospital because my lung cancer has progressed more rapidly. Also, I would like my three children to visit me here.” Family members usually are notified by the Corrections Department when their love ones become seriously ill. But it is not uncommon to observe how readily family members abandon their loved ones when suddenly they are incarcerated.
“I keep hearing these voices in my mind telling me I have lost my relationship, especially with my mother and sisters because of my guilt. These voices tell me I deserve to be in jail, sick with lung cancer, and abandoned by my close relatives.” Months ago, the hospital had sent a psychiatrist to examine her for her mental depression and for possible schizophrenia.
Not being a psychiatrist the best advice I could offer was to pray that those voices would fade away. “Tell those voices you, with the help of Jesus Christ, are still in charge of yourself and to shut up!”
The following week I asked Janelle,”Did your mother finally come to see you?” “Yes she came. I felt very glad to see her. And those voices, they don’t come as often as before. But I still hear those voices.” Her mental illness seemed to lessen after she had experienced some love and affection.
Janelle was a very religious person. The first item she asked for when I initially visited her was to have a copy of the Bible in her room. She frequently reeled off passages from the Bible. And so in one of my visits I started reading my printed sheet of Psalm 21, “The Lord is my Shepard”. And to my surprise she continued reciting Psalm 21 word for word by memory.
This is my opinion: religion, the Bible, and mechanical recitation of prayers are not enough to rid oneself of anxiety and depression. “Abandon the search for God and similar things of that kind. Instead, take yourself as the starting place. Ask who it is within you who makes everything his own, saying, “my mind”, “my heart”, “my God”. Learn the sources of love, joy, hate, and desire ….If you carefully examine all these things, you will find God in yourself.”
Reference: "The Origin of Satan" by Elaine Pagels , Vintage 1996
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