(April 12, 2013) Mega-church pastor Rick Warren’s loss of his 27-year-old son Matthew to suicide is reported to be troubling some people of who can’t square the image of one of America’s a prominent religious leader losing a loved one to mental illness.
Their confusion won’t extend to people of faith or anyone else who has struggled to help a loved one in the grip of profound psychiatric disease. We know only too well that severe mental illness is an equal-opportunity disease. Intelligence, honors, intelligence, beauty, riches, religious conviction – none provide immunity.
I remember when my brilliant, high-achieving, beautiful daughter was first diagnosed with bipolar disorder. People I knew actually said to me, “But I thought only poor, uneducated people got that!”
No, everyone gets these illnesses, and even the beloved children of celebrity ministers and their families suffer and die from them.
Warren and his wife Kay are openly acknowledging the role of the illness. Like so many of us, they are trying to turn their grief into help for others: They have established a fund in Matthew’s memory to raise money to “help others impacted by mental illness” (“Rick Warren sets up mental illness fund after son’s suicide as the best selling author bemoans ‘haters celebrating his pain,’” Daily Mail, April 9).
Many diseases have stopped being unmentionable when well-known people have experienced them and talked about it. First lady Betty Ford and breast cancer. Magic Johnson or Rock Hudson and HIV. Patty Duke, Patrick Kennedy, Carrie Fisher and bipolar disorder.
Nothing the Warrens do will ever fill the void left by their son’s death. But by being frank about its cause, they may continue nudging the most severe mental illnesses out of the shadows for the benefit of countless others who dwell there.
We applaud them and wish them both solace and success.
DORIS A. FULLER
Executive director
To comment, visit our Facebook page.
Visit our blog archive to read all our recent posts.