Christ for Women's Mental Health
Through my years as a social worker, I have worked in various roles geared toward providing for the needs of children and adolescents. Early on in these roles, I had the idea that my work would primarily involve providing services to my identified clients: children and teens. However, as I gained more experience, I realized that in many instances my clients were not just the children who had come to my office for help, but also the parents who came with them, most often mothers. Mothers who were exhausted, anxious, depressed, lost, and breaking under pressure―struggling to know how to help themselves and their children. After becoming a mental health therapist and starting to work with adults, I found that these issues were not just unique to mothers, but also common among women of all ages and walks of life. It became apparent to me that I was seeing a mental health crisis among women in real time, through the eyes of each woman who came into my office.
Current research supports what I had been observing. Approximately 1 in 5 women in the U.S. experience mental health challenges. The rates of reported mental health challenges are often higher in women than among men (sometimes almost double in rate) for diagnoses such as anxiety disorders, Major Depression, PTSD, Panic Disorder, eating disorders, etc. 1
We don’t necessarily need research statistics or a look inside a therapy office to see how prevalent mental health issues have become among women. It doesn’t take much to find a social media post of a tired mother sharing about her woes or a young woman looking for others who relate to her anxieties. Many of us have friends, mothers, and sisters, who we see struggling. Many of us are struggling ourselves. A look around our cultural climate can make obvious the psychological pressures and often paradoxical messages women face everyday. Pressure to be a self-sacrificing, ever-present, wholesome homemaker while also an independent, always-achieving powerhouse of a provider. Pressure to be fit, trim, and trendy, while also practicing good body image, self-love, and self-acceptance. Pressure to be an always supportive and serving friend, while also keeping up with individual growth goals and self-care practices. Pressure put on by online trending aesthetics from “tradwives” to “boss babes.”
Women’s mental health increasingly deteriorates as the modern woman finds herself crushed under these ever mounting, impossible pressures and expectations. But we have One who has come to crush the head of the deceiver who looks to deteriorate us. We have One who was crushed for us, that our body and mind may be recreated in perfect wholeness. We have a God who knows our struggles, who has lived our struggles, and who wants us to bring our struggles to him.
Psalm 34:17-18 tells us, “The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them… the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Christ understands our mental struggle because he experienced it himself, saying to his disciples, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (Matt. 26:38). Christ took on the weight of all pressures and fulfilled the depth of all expectations for you, for me, for all of the women struggling today. In return, Christ gives his peace, his righteousness, his perfect track record. Matthew 11:28-30 says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Our current look at women’s mental health is bleak and may feel hopeless. But women have a greater hope than their own ability to crawl out of their struggle, to figure it all out, and be all of those things. They have Christ for them. A hope that will never fail.
Gianna Reese, MSW, is a licensed clinical social worker. Gianna, her husband Eric, and her daughter Emma, live in East Hartland, CT, where Eric is the Preaching & Teaching Pastor at Bethany Lutheran Brethren Church.
1 Richards, M., & Sayres Van Niel, M. “Mental health disparities: Women’s mental health.” (2017) https://www.psychiatry.org/Psychiatrists/Practice/Professional-Interests/Women-s-Mental-Health
Current research supports what I had been observing. Approximately 1 in 5 women in the U.S. experience mental health challenges. The rates of reported mental health challenges are often higher in women than among men (sometimes almost double in rate) for diagnoses such as anxiety disorders, Major Depression, PTSD, Panic Disorder, eating disorders, etc. 1
We don’t necessarily need research statistics or a look inside a therapy office to see how prevalent mental health issues have become among women. It doesn’t take much to find a social media post of a tired mother sharing about her woes or a young woman looking for others who relate to her anxieties. Many of us have friends, mothers, and sisters, who we see struggling. Many of us are struggling ourselves. A look around our cultural climate can make obvious the psychological pressures and often paradoxical messages women face everyday. Pressure to be a self-sacrificing, ever-present, wholesome homemaker while also an independent, always-achieving powerhouse of a provider. Pressure to be fit, trim, and trendy, while also practicing good body image, self-love, and self-acceptance. Pressure to be an always supportive and serving friend, while also keeping up with individual growth goals and self-care practices. Pressure put on by online trending aesthetics from “tradwives” to “boss babes.”
Women’s mental health increasingly deteriorates as the modern woman finds herself crushed under these ever mounting, impossible pressures and expectations. But we have One who has come to crush the head of the deceiver who looks to deteriorate us. We have One who was crushed for us, that our body and mind may be recreated in perfect wholeness. We have a God who knows our struggles, who has lived our struggles, and who wants us to bring our struggles to him.
Psalm 34:17-18 tells us, “The righteous cry out, and the LORD hears them… the Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit.” Christ understands our mental struggle because he experienced it himself, saying to his disciples, “My soul is overwhelmed with sorrow to the point of death” (Matt. 26:38). Christ took on the weight of all pressures and fulfilled the depth of all expectations for you, for me, for all of the women struggling today. In return, Christ gives his peace, his righteousness, his perfect track record. Matthew 11:28-30 says, “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
Our current look at women’s mental health is bleak and may feel hopeless. But women have a greater hope than their own ability to crawl out of their struggle, to figure it all out, and be all of those things. They have Christ for them. A hope that will never fail.
Gianna Reese, MSW, is a licensed clinical social worker. Gianna, her husband Eric, and her daughter Emma, live in East Hartland, CT, where Eric is the Preaching & Teaching Pastor at Bethany Lutheran Brethren Church.
1 Richards, M., & Sayres Van Niel, M. “Mental health disparities: Women’s mental health.” (2017) https://www.psychiatry.org/Psychiatrists/Practice/Professional-Interests/Women-s-Mental-Health
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