There are Sundays when church feels like home. Then there are Sundays when getting through the door feels like a spiritual version of Total Wipeout. The foyer is loud, an enthusiastic welcomer is approaching with both arms open, and somebody on stage says the 6 most terrifying words in modern Christianity: “Turn to the person beside you.”

When your mind is already fighting you, church can feel like one more place where you are failing. I have lived through depression and panic attacks. I know it is possible to love Jesus, believe deeply in the church and still find your mind refusing to cooperate. Sometimes belief is not the thing you have lost. You have lost the capacity to participate in all the ways church normally expects.

So what do we do when mental illness and church stop feeling compatible?

Exhaustion is a surprisingly convincing liar.

It doesn’t simply make us tired. It distorts how we see ourselves, other people and God. Temporary feelings begin to sound like permanent facts. Minor problems become catastrophes. By 10:30 p.m. we’re considering quitting our job, leaving the church and moving to a cottage in Scotland where nobody can ask us to organise anything ever again.

When we’re rested, we can recognise that our thoughts may be slightly dramatic. When we’re exhausted, every thought arrives wearing an expensive suit and carrying a clipboard, with all the confidence of Harvey Specter from Suits.

“You’re a fool if you cant see this is true,” it says. But quite often it’s persuasion far from true.

There is a famous moment in The Apprentice when Lord Sugar leans forward, points across the boardroom, and says, “You’re fired.”

In that world, being fired means you’re out. Opportunity gone. Dream over. Time for the awkward taxi ride home while pretending this was all part of your “personal growth journey.”

But Acts 2 gives us a very different kind of fired…

A few years ago, my wife Laura suggested I should go and see my GP.

I remember feeling genuinely confused.

Why would she think that?

As far as I was concerned, I was fine. Well, maybe not fine. I was tired, stressed, busy, adjusting to life as a new dad, and dealing with a lot at work. But that’s life, isn’t it? Everyone gets tired. Everyone gets stressed. Everyone has seasons where they’re carrying more than they’d like.

At least, that’s how I saw it.

What I’m about to say, I say as a church leader, but also as someone who doesn’t come to this subject from a distance.

My own particular flavour of neuro-spicy is something of an ADHD/ASD cocktail — served without a little umbrella — which means my brain can sometimes feel like it has seventeen tabs open, three of them playing music, one frozen, and none labelled. I’m also the father of an autistic teenager, so this isn’t theological theory for me. It’s personal. It’s pastoral. It lives in my home and my ministry.