Posted by Shame, stigma, and misconceptions surround the topic of mental illness, even in some church circles. For instance, there are some Christians who believe that mental illness can be healed or avoided solely by improving your spiritual life. But that is simply not the case. Mental illness and suicide can happen in “good Catholic families,” just as they do in less religious homes. That doesn’t mean religious faith has no role to play in navigating these situations. In fact, the opposite is true. In conjunction with professional counseling and sometimes medication, the light of Christ can serve as a guide and a strength to both patients and their families in the journey through mental illness.
Following the suicide of his 29-year-old daughter Katie, who had bipolar disorder, Deacon Ed Shoener has made it his mission to reduce the stigma and misconceptions around mental illness in church circles, to encourage compassion for those dealing with mental illness, and to guide parishes in creating their own mental health ministries. Deacon Ed joined me recently on “Christopher Closeup” (podcast below) to share his story and the mission of the group he co-founded, the Association of Catholic Mental Health Ministers.
Katie’s bipolar first manifested itself when she was in high school, though she hid it well from her parents. Their introduction to the problem occurred after she tried to commit suicide. It was extra shocking because, outwardly, Katie appeared to be thriving. She was popular in school, intelligent, gregarious, and well-loved.
“As parents, we had no idea what was going on,” recalled Deacon Ed. “We knew very little about mental illness. Me, in particular, I attributed it to other things. I thought, ‘Well, you’re being a drama queen. You’re drinking,’ that sort of thing. [I] got off on the wrong foot with this, but eventually came to learn what mental illness is, and that she was living with bipolar disorder…My heart goes out to so many people I’ve ministered to since that, whose child actually died in their first suicide attempt in their late teens. It just comes right out of the blue, and [the parents] are so wracked with guilt that they didn’t see it coming…Fortunately for us, Katie survived that first suicide attempt, and eventually got into mental health care and treatment.”
Bipolar manifests itself differently in different people. Initially, Katie began cutting herself to release the tension she was feeling. She hid the cut marks on her wrists with bracelets. Her primary problems, though, were depression and mania. Counseling and medication stabilized Katie most of the time, but every once in a while she would fall prey to a bipolar episode.
Deacon Ed observed, “I’d literally be talking to her, and a half hour later she couldn’t even read a sentence on a piece of paper. She’d be almost catatonic. She’d be so depressed. The same with her mania. She didn’t go manic as much, but occasionally…she’d think she’d have these special powers, that she can control all the computers in lower Manhattan, for example….But most of the time, she was good, and she took it very seriously. She took all the meds. She saw a therapist and psychiatrist, and she understood it was an illness and tried to manage it as best she could as an illness. But mental health care is still not where it needs to be. It’s not like you can take a blood sample and say, ‘Okay, well, such and such levels are off. We need to act quickly,’ like you can with diabetes or other illnesses…It’s more trying to understand your feelings and symptoms. So, it’s a more difficult illness to manage at this stage.”
Katie managed her bipolar for more than a decade and was building a life for herself. Deacon Ed believes that her suicide was likely an impulsive choice made in the midst of a major depressive episode.
In the immediate aftermath of Katie’s death, Deacon Ed wrote an obituary about her and what happened so that there wouldn’t be any “gossip or speculating” in their parish or small town of Scranton, Pennsylvania. That obituary went viral, shocking Deacon Ed, but also teaching him a vital lesson.
He said, “Apparently, it spoke to what so many people with mental illnesses live with. The stigma, the discrimination, being defined by their illness…I was open that [Katie] had this illness, but she wasn’t defined by this illness, and she’s a beautiful child of God, loved by Jesus Christ. And this clearly resonated with people…This viral response, for me, was almost a mystical experience, of so many people around the world saying that the Church needs to step up and do more with mental illness…to start ministering to people that live with these illnesses and their families and their caregivers, because I’m absolutely convinced that Christ wants to be in the middle of all of this. As chaotic and disorienting and tough as it can be to deal with these issues, Christ wants to be there, and He sends His Church to do that, and to do a better job of ministering to people with these illnesses.”
This is especially important in light of the beliefs of some that mental illness can be prayed away with a stronger spiritual life. Deacon Ed noted, “This outdated notion that they have a mental illness because they don’t pray enough, that’s harmful. That is a harmful approach because people, often, with depression and anxiety, already the illness is telling them they’re not good enough. The illness tells them that they’re not worth living, that they’re a terrible mistake. So, to have someone heap on top of that by saying, ‘Well, you’re thinking that way because you don’t pray enough,’ that just makes things worse. So, I hope people stop thinking that way.”
“Mental illness is an illness, like every other illness, and we have to understand it and treat it that way,” Deacon Ed continued. “But I’d quickly add that people living with mental illnesses have very deep spiritual lives. All too often, we’ve kind of ignored the spiritual life of people that live with these illnesses…We need to evolve in our understanding of mental illnesses, that we can pray with people with these illnesses, that we can support them, and that they are us, too…I live with depression. Twenty percent of people in this country live with some sort of diagnosable mental illness at the moment…A lot of us don’t even want to acknowledge ourselves that we have some level of mental illness or some sort of mental health condition. So, we’re all in this together.”
To that end, Deacon Ed helped launch the Association of Catholic Mental Health Ministers in 2018, along with Bishop John Dolan from the Diocese of Phoenix, Arizona, who lost three siblings and a brother-in-law to suicide. They offer resources to parishes on ways to begin their own mental health ministries, as well as resources to individuals and families looking for prayers, community, books, liturgy, films, and more.
“When Katie first experienced bipolar disorder,” recalled Deacon Ed, “we had no one to talk to. And to be honest with you, the last place I thought to go was the Church to talk about mental illness and what happened. Now we encourage parishes to have support groups for the parents and caregivers, where they can come in and talk about this. So often, people are isolated. They think they’re bad parents, [that] they did something wrong [because] their child had a mental illness…So we offer this online training program, our mental health ministry learning center. It’s free. You can go to our website. We offer a couple of courses. A basic one is how to start a Catholic mental health ministry. We offer some other things on grief support after a suicide…We make it abundantly clear we’re not counselors or therapists, but we’re here – to use one of Pope Francis’s favorite words – to ‘accompany’ people who live with these mental health conditions…So, I would encourage people, go to our website, take the training courses, and it’ll give you the confidence that you need to start this type of ministry in your parish.”
Though Katie is no longer physically present in Deacon Ed’s life, his faith affirms his belief that she is still with him in some way. He said, “The communion with the saints is not just the saints who are painted on a wall…We all hope to be a saint one day, to live eternally with God. So our loved ones, we’re still in communion with them. And yes, absolutely, I pray to Katie. I pray for Katie all the time, as I do other saints too, and other loved ones…Also, if anyone asks me if they can do anything for me, I always say, “Have a Mass said for Katie.’…I wasn’t brought up Catholic. I was raised Protestant, and have come to the faith later in my life…But I think this idea of purgatory is a beautiful teaching of the Church, this idea of purification. And that’s what we do when we pray for someone or have a Mass said for someone. We help them during their period of purification.”
“The other thing I want to just quickly add on death and judgment, particularly for suicide,” Deacon Ed added, “is that there’s still people out there that think the Church teaches that someone who died by suicide goes to Hell…That’s not what the Church teaches. The Church teaches that our loved ones who died by suicide have the opportunity for what the catechism calls salutary repentance, and that we pray for the souls of our loved ones who have died by suicide. So that old teaching was a misunderstanding of the psychology of suicide. And the Church has a much better informed understanding of what brings people to the point of suicide now than it did 50 years ago.”
The death of a child is the darkest experience any parent can go through. Having survived the most intense pain and grief he’s ever experienced, Deacon Ed is now focused on the light. He concluded, “I’ve always thought that this ministry is bringing the light of Christ into very dark places…So my assurance is that I’m carrying the light of Christ. It’s not me. It’s not Ed Shoener. It’s not anybody else that’s in ministry that’s doing this. It’s Christ that’s bringing His light into these lives. That’s the solace I take. I know Christ is with me in this ministry. Admittedly, it can be a difficult ministry at times. I have someone I have to call this afternoon whose best friend died by suicide yesterday. It’s a tough ministry at times, but it’s joyful in the sense that you know you’re doing the will of God, that God wants to be there and wants to send His ministers into these dark places. So, that’s where I find joy.”
(To listen to my full interview with Deacon Ed Shoener, click the podcast link):
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