Talk Stigma

Hi. Hello everyone. My name is Pastor Seth Perry and I'm a pastor. I live well with bipolar disorder and I'm a recovering addict. I'm here in my office. Today after worship, I did a pastoral visit and I want to talk about anxiety. Today I spoke with a friend in recovery and I shared about my anxiety. So my question to you and hello, Speak Wonder. Welcome to the live stream. Hello, Luke and Jules. So my question is why in faith communities are leaders of faith communities so pastors, imams, rabbis, why is it so hard to accept that leaders of faith communities struggle with anxiety?

So why is it difficult to think that what, what's the stigma of a faith leader? You know, I've, I've always had a tough time sharing about, about that openly. I want to be able to do that. But, and, and Luke down in Rochester. Hello, my friend. So why, why is it in a faith community that a leader of a faith community faces a struggle like I do, where I say, hey, I have anxiety and I'll tell you why. So here's what goes on in my head. I wouldn't want to tell anyone on my church council or in my church that I've had a week where I've had a lot of anxiety because I would think that they would question my abilities, question if I'm doing a good job as a pastor or maybe question if I'm the right leader for the congregation so that they would question everything that I'm already qualified for.

And so I'll get to some of your comments in a bit. They're looking good. They're looking good. I like that. So I'm looking up here on the wall right up here. You know, I have my master's degree and I have my certification of ordination. I've also done a full unit of clinical pastoral education in a hospital. I had to get my master's degree, I had to get a bachelor's degree. But I still feel like self disclosure to my congregation when I'm feeling anxiety is going to cause a lot of gossip and it's going to cause a lot of doubt about is this guy the right guy.

Now a lot of it's my own issue. It could be my own problem really. But self disclosure is difficult. It definitely is. So speak Wonder says faith based people are still made of clay. We get anxiety. Absolutely. Yeah. And everyone knows I have bipolar disorder. It's just that. And I love that comment too. That's, it's a great comment. Everyone knows I have bipolar disorder. That pastors me. I just feel that If I were to say, you know, this week has been a tough week in terms of my anxiety, that people might say, oh, Seth, oh, man, thank you.

I think things are unraveling for you. That's all happening up here, too. You are always in a position of helping and listening. Yeah. Those are beautiful words, Jules. Thank you so much. Absolutely. So then why do I have anxiety? Well, first of all, I have a mental health condition that, you know, causes anxiety, and I work with a psychiatric nurse practitioner to treat that. And then there's also things that happen that are. That are just environmental conditions in my life that cause anxiety.

So to close this stream out, here's some comments I want to hear. What are some of the things in your life that can make anxiety cause crop up? So what are some things in your life that cause anxiety? So things that are outside of your control? And I'll speak a little bit about what, what I struggle with and, and, and what are some things that cause. Cause anxiety? Okay, so projects that have deadlines. Right. So this week I had anxiety because I had a presentation to do on Saturday, so that happened.

And, and then in my profession, anxiety happens when a lot of people are at end of life. And I'm realizing that maybe I'm going to have to take a group of people through the grieving process. Just had a bunch of funerals at the beginning of February, and wouldn't you know it, two more people are at end of life right now. And so that got lodged in the back of my head and caused some anxiety for me as well. Time of year, time of year for me. As a pastor, we celebrate Lent, and Lent means a very busy time of year.

And so Lent is coming up on March 5th. So I'm not in the past, I'm not in. I'm not in the present. I'm thinking about the past, and I'm thinking about the future. And my today is certainly affected because. Because I'm thinking about what's coming on March 5th. March 5th is still quite a few days away. We're looking at maybe being two weeks out. And so I got caught up thinking about that. So how did I unravel all this? Like I said before, I spoke to someone, the healing for me started this week when I sent out some text messages.

I said to my sponsor, and I said to another friend in the program, my anxiety is through the roof and I need to talk to someone about it. And then we got talking, and I feel better and I'm grateful. I have a supportive wife and I'm grateful that I have a bunch of people that understand it. And coming on here is also just a place like, gosh, aren't we lucky to have the Cadre spear? You know, and to know that I can come here and just say, this is exactly what's going on. Because I think that me being transparent like this is something that I rarely do get to do.

Right? I'm very transparent with my wife. I try to be transparent with my support network and I really just give it my all to just say, look, Cadre, this is, this. I, I think it has to do with the way that other people treat this, this space and this time on the Cadre sphere and their live streams as well, where I can just say, I'm a pastor, I have anxiety. It hasn't been a good week. I have no idea how my sermon got written and people were saying, wow, that's a great sermon. You know, I wrote it through a really anxious time, but heck, it worked out, I guess.

So Speak. Wonder says end of life. Yes. I'm at the nursing home to see my mom and she's struggling. Causes anxiety for me, of course. You know, something that was really healing for me today is that I visited someone who's at end of life and they were someone who was non verbal their whole life and someone that is, is ill right now and is unable to speak. So I, I had that visit and I'd never met them before. It was a request out of the blue, will you come and pray? And, and I had a moment with them at, at bedside.

I spoke to them and it was, it was something where I was like, yes, all right, you're back at it. Your work matters. You're able to do something that's, that's meaningful. And even though this person has never spoken their life, this person is not conscious right now. The person was responding to my words, could hear me, you know, and it was just something where none of their family was there. And I was requested to come and be with someone in the final weeks of their life. And we have to cherish these, these, these moments too.

Little moments that happen in the middle of an anxious week where I say, I still make a difference, I still have great purpose. And I hope that you know that too. No matter what you're going through, no matter what stage of life you're in, you have great purpose and you have something to contribute. Right? No matter how anxious things are. And I'll leave you with that. And I'm so grateful I had this time. I feel a lot better.