Looking Beyond Mental Illness and Opening Your Eyes to it

I am among the wave of people who are becoming aware of mental illness. I am grateful that awareness of mental illness is increasing because it makes me more compassionate towards others and more conscientious of my own mental health.

Most of my experience with mental illness relates to anxiety and depression.

Sometimes I just need to be forgiving and non-judgmental so that a person's mental illness doesn't prevent me from enjoying their overall person. A roommate who is often in his room  doesn't dislike me, and probably appreciates invitations being re-extended at better times. Thus, on occasion it is best to just look past a person’s mental health challenges.

At other times we may be able to directly help a person with their mental health. When we get the chance to help somebody deal with their mental health challenges, listening with love is important. My church's website, lds.org, suggests that when appropriate you could express that you are happy to listen when your friend wants to talk and that a counselor may be helpful too. That way your friend knows you are happy to help personally, and that you know you aren't a professional.

My own mental health has been blessed by talking with my wife, regularly communicating with God, going to the temple, and heading to bed when it’s late and I feel grouchy (instead of trying to solve all my problems while exhausted).

I think I have been blessed with good mental health, but like anybody I experience anxiety and depression in certain situations. I appreciate that my wife and others let me talk through what is making me sad or stressed, and that they love all the rough edges of my well-rounded struggles : )

by TL Bruce

As with all opportunities to serve, I don’t think we should expect the government to solve problems related to mental illness. Our judicial system strives to be objective, and additionally it is hard for courts to determine a person’s mental health. So it may be understandable that sometimes the law won't take into account a person's mental health struggles. Doing so could lead to people making excuses for violating contracts or hurting people's property, behavior that society has a strong incentive to discourage. But as friends and family members, we can always look at a person’s unique circumstances and see how we could help.

Whether you agree with those legal ideas or not, I think you'll agree that it is well worth your personal efforts to understand and be sensitive to the mental health of yourself and those around you. For more inspiration regarding mental health, see Jeffrey R. Holland's talk, Like a Broken Vessel and lds.org/mentalhealth.

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Good Principles -> Poor Outcomes

I'm reading The Intelligent Investor by Benjamin Graham and really liked when he compared investment to playing bridge, even though I know almost nothing about bridge. He said, "When an individual case is to be judged, it is not the result of the play but its conformity with sound principles that marks the competent player. The results do count, of course, both in bridge and in investment--but they must be measured in the aggregate and over the years." The point he is making is that if you follow good principles like buying stocks at low prices and diversifying, then even with randomness in the market, your long-term results will be good.

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Similar to how there is randomness in the market, there is randomness in the spheres of law and spirituality.

Law
Occasionally, the sound principle of enforcing laws may lead to an unjust result. For example, there are heavy penalties for making terrorist threats. This makes sense because even when the threat is fake, a lot of resources are put into ensuring that there really is not anything bad that will happen. The federal government may do its reasonable best to inform people that terrorist threats lead to heavy penalties, yet some unfortunate 18-year-old doesn't get it and does a prank call with a terrorist threat. That subsequently leads to thousands of dollars of police labor being wasted in an effort to make sure there isn't a bomb. If that person is not held accountable, then it may be difficult to prevent other teenagers from doing similar pranks which are very costly, and it may inhibit the police's ability to prevent actual terrorism.

Another example is from a real court case, Halbman v. Lemke. In this case a minor signs a contract for a car, beats the car up, returns the car to the seller and demands his money be returned. In this case the court rules that the seller has to give the money back, because minors cannot contract. As unfair as this seems to that seller, it is an effort to uphold the principle that adults should not be allowed to contract with minors because minors are likely to be taken advantage of or make bad choices.

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Though there are occasional cases that seem unfortunate, by sticking to sound principles of law most people can predict the legal consequences of their actions.

Spirituality
I serve others because of a spiritual commitment that I have with God to do so. Sometimes I don't feel like serving, even after starting. And yet, when I look back at service experiences, like serving a mission in Guatemala, fulfilling church assignments, and participating in service organizations, I can see that "in the aggregate and over the years" service has been one of the most valuable activities I have done. Breathing has also been valuable over the years, but that is much less interesting because I rarely feel opposed to breathing.

Long-lasting friendships is one blessing that I have observed from long-term efforts to serve.

A similar principle applies to all spiritual endeavors, such as studying the scriptures, praying, paying tithing, going to church, and more generally, being faithful and repenting. Sometimes we don't get the exact result we want. There are a lot of factors to any activity that could make the experience not so great, but in the aggregate I think we will see we are blessed as we follow sound spiritual principles.