Is There a Barrier Stopping You From Getting the Help You Need?

2020-05-12

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There are many barriers to getting the help we need for our Mental Health, but the barriers can be taken down, and new hope can be found. Today as you read this blogpost, approximately ten visits will be made to read the blog post ‘I’ve Had Enough, Take my Life God, I Want to die.’ Since writing it in January 2018, it has been read 9000 times. The page comes up as the second offering on google for the search terms ‘take my life God I want to die’. People all over the world, in the privacy of their pain, are coming to Turning the Page for help.

There are many barriers to getting the help we need for our Mental Health, but the barriers can be taken down, and new hope can be found.

Today as you read this blogpost, approximately ten visits will be made to read the blog post ‘I’ve Had Enough, Take my Life God, I Want to die.’

Since writing it in January 2018, it has been read 9000 times. The page comes up as the second offering on google for the search terms ‘take my life God I want to die’.

People all over the world, in the privacy of their pain, are coming to Turning the Page for help.

That scares me. Not that I don’t think I have something to offer them, but that they are expressing their pain to a machine and not a person.

Ok, maybe those that type ‘God I want to die’ into google have reached out to another human soul for help. I hope so, but even in reaching out, there will be other barriers to push through.

There is a barrier. Something is stopping the movement to honesty.

The barrier of …

I’m struggling to find the perfect word to describe this barrier. Could it be the word ‘pride’?

Pride is one of those words that gets a bad rap because it takes our mind to the term arrogance, an over-inflated sense of the self. But pride is more devious than that.

Pride says in confident tones.

‘You’re not like everyone else. You’re different, and you’re ok. You don’t need help to walk this path. You can solve this problem. There is nothing in you that needs help.’

Coming at night

There is an interesting little story in the Bible about a senior Jewish leader and his communications with Jesus. His name was Nicodemus.

Now there was a Pharisee, a man named Nicodemus who was a member of the Jewish ruling council. He came to Jesus at night John 3:1,2

There was a desired hiddenness to the movements of Nicodemus. He didn’t want to be seen by others in his approach to Jesus. In today’s world, he may well have kept his anonymity, and his soul questions private by searching on Google.

We come at night because we are uncertain about the reception of our honesty.

Alcoholics Anonymous and all the other similar recovery type groups begin with a ruthlessly honest assessment of pride.

‘We admitted we were powerless over alcohol – that our lives had become unmanageable.’

We type into Google

What do you privately type into Google? What, in the secrecy of coming to Jesus at night, would you ask?

I have a short survey form that occasionally people leave their ‘at night’ private comments and questions.

They don’t have to leave their name or any contact details, but it is helpful if they do because often I have some gently curious questions I would like to ask.

I think if you look at the life of Jesus, he asked a lot of gentle and curious questions, especially to those who came by night. I want to be like that.

So here is my ‘and he came by night’ super confidential survey.

Is money a barrier?

Another common barrier that stops people from getting the help they need is money. They don’t have the money to be able to afford counseling or therapy. Books and courses cost too much.

That is why Turning the Page is funded on a ‘Pay What You Want‘ basis. I don’t want finance to be a barrier to people getting help.

Mental health is ... understanding the barriers we face and seeking a path through themCLICK TO TWEET

Quotes to consider

One of the greatest barriers in seeking help is the stigma that comes with needing it. Courtney Subramanian
When man comes into the presence of God he will find, whether he wishes it or not, that all those things which seemed to make him so different from the men of other times, or even from his earlier self, have fallen off. He is back where he always was, where every man always is. C.S. Lewis
The proud person always wants to do the right thing, the great thing. But because he wants to do it in his own strength, he is fighting not with man, but with God. Soren Kierkegaard

Questions to answer