Please share your negative church / Christian experiences

In an effort to convince my church of the TERRIBLE stigma we face as sufferers of mental illness, please share your stories of how you have been judged or looked down upon due to your mental illness. My goal is not to breed anger or hatred, but to bring awareness as to how bad the situation really is. If you have a story, please share!

My first husband was a pastors son you wanna talk about piece of ****!!!! This douchebag is currently fighting for my son to get out of shelter and move with him really REALLY where at your tent?!?! Speaking of felon boy... Who let's their woman call their child felon boy dude needs to put that dog on a damn leash!!!
Oops not what u meant huh?

I thought we were t supposed to talk religion.

Are you asking for stories about stigma we have experienced in general, or are you looking only for stigma issues we've encountered in religion/churches? I'm not quite sure which one you are looking for.

Personally, I've never had problems with stigma because of my mental illness in church. There happen to be 3 of us diagnosed bp in our choir alone so we are very open about it and have had no problems with being accepted, etc.

I have found much more of a problem in the general population with people who are just really ignorant of mental illness, have no idea really what the different mental illnesses are really about. Lots of misperceptions running rather rampant in the world in general. (My church friends are quite honestly much more well informed and accepting.)

When I was younger I had a lot of questions about Christianity, some questions I asked the pastor couldn't answer and in return called my parents and made me leave. I wasn't being a bad kid or anything I just needed answers. I haven't been to church since.

We do not allow in-depth discussion about religion here, so please keep this in mind. This thread can remain open, but talking about religion in a negative way is not supportive (against our Community Guidelines) and talking in-depth about religion is also not allowed as per our Community Guidelines.

Well Then I guess I wont talk about the church then those ****suckers lol Anyway Stigma in general lets see well my family is the worst with their always checking on me. Other than that most people are cool with it the ones who know anyway my friends all thought it was good that I got help and understood that nothing would really change.

RESPECTFUL religious& political discussion is allowed in Current events forum.I'm sure under the circumstances we may be allowed to assist the OP. RESPECTFULLY. Pls people, keep it clean.
in my experience, the church believes MI is a form of demonic possession, eg, depression is an unwanted spirit.I must have a very CONFUSED spirit attached to me.Church ppl dont like my realism, they name it cynism, & therefore my bp gets me labelled as negative. Church folk want to pray my bp away.ya, that never works

5 years ago, when my bipolar son was 12, his teacher, very Christian, told another family to keep their son away from mine because he had darkness in him.

that was not anything Jesus would do! Jesus would reach out and help the child and his family.

The only time I ever walked out of a service was when a visiting pastor decided to talk about the evils of psychiatry and that the sick should toss their meds and rely on faith. I couldn't take it. I did say somehting, too.

Like farmergirl, I've only had good experiences with churches being understanding and supportive.
But there are some wackos out there and I suggest you ignore them just as you should ignore non Christians who are not helpful or supportive of our diagnoses.

the only story i really have is about a christian who turned out to be a murderer.

not really for this thread

sorry

I share the same experiences as Farmergirl. I don't find judgement or ignorance among my friends at church, but I do feel a lot of prejudice and ignorance from the general population. I do not share my bp dx outside of my close social circle.

My intent is not to discuss religion at all, just to share experiences with stigma in a specific setting. It could very well be in a school setting or work setting, but since I spend so much time in this particular setting, I was looking to find people with similar shared experiences.