Life, Mental Health, Spirituality, Humor … setting bats free, one at a time!

8/22/2025:

When it’s dark inside a belfry …

One of my favorite songs of all time is “The Sound of Silence”, originally written and sung in 1965, by Paul Simon and Art Garfunkel.  (You may have more recently become acquainted with a newer and very dramatic version of this song, performed by “Disturbed”.) My favorite line in the song is the very first one: “Hello, darkness, my old friend, I’ve come to talk with you again.”  I often waken in the middle of the night, between midnight and 2 or 3 a.m., and just lie there for a while, thinking and musing, and commonly praying, until I eventually drift back into sleepdom.  We’ll talk more about darkness and how that relates to belfries in a bit.

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It’s been over a year now since I last posted a blog, and 13 years since I first started writing this blog as “Shrink in the Belfry.” 

So, please allow me to re-introduce myself: I’m just a guy, living somewhere in middle America, a semi-retired psychiatrist. I spent my medical career primarily working in state prisons, but spent a couple of years in private practice, a few years consulting in long-term care facilities (aka, nursing homes), some state hospital work, and several years in what is known as “community mental health”.  I am a follower of Y’Shua (Jesus) the Christ.  I am a husband, father, and grandfather.  I am a son, too, though both of my parents have passed on. 

Nowadays, in addition to writing, and thinking in the dark while staring at the ceiling over our bed, I do some volunteer work, I occasionally get called to fill in at a local prison, and I do some work around our house.  I’ve recently been replacing carpeting in a three of our bedrooms, nailing down hardwood flooring. If I may speak freely, I think I’ve done a pretty good job at it, too, for an amateur! I just finished putting down new oak flooring in my study, and so hopefully I won’t be needing my pneumatic cleat nailer anymore! Last fall, we finished our walk-up attic as a farm-themed playroom for our grandchildren (with a playhouse, a barn, and a “mercantile store”). We’re hoping to put together a large table up there for a HO scale train set, but we’ll see if that ever happens!

Still mow the yard, help my wonderful wife with cleaning, drink coffee when I can, and put things together, such as newly acquired toys, cars, etc., for our grandchildren, which is always challenging fun! I also love smoking seafood and other meats … my specialty is smoking wet-brined salmon … it’s very, very good, actually (in my opinion, as well as that of others!)

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I originally started this blog based on the old saying “that guy (or lady) has bats in his/her belfry!” The meaning, as you may know, is that the person being referred to is either thinking, talking, or acting, or all three, in a “crazy” manner. How we define “crazy” can rarely be agreed upon, though, and I happen to have some perspectives and ideas about true mental health that often vary GREATLY from those of many of the “mental health professionals” whom I have known, observed, or whose writings I have read.

A belfry, as you also may know, is a “bell tower”.  If you look back at my previous posts, you will see that no two belfries are exactly alike, and not all of them are inhabited by bats, or a “shrink”, for that matter!  My hope has always been that these writings will be about, as the subtitle above suggests, “life, mental health, spirituality”, and hopefully contain a sprinkling of humor!  The phrase, “Setting bats free, one at a time”, was meant to infer that I believe shedding light and truth on what folks believe about their own mental health, their own value as a human, and our views of the world (that is, people) around us, can be helpful in lasting ways. Plus, I have learned quite a few really cool new things, myself! (Never said I wasn’t a bit selfish, did I?)

I will freely state that I am not very happy with my own profession, psychiatry, and how it has changed over the past 20 years. I have seen living evidence of how our profession has harmed, rather than helped, many, many people. We have taught people very wrong ideas about mental health and its “fixes”, or at the least caused much confusion and questioning, for a lot of folks.  This is very “not good”, and we’ll talk about such things.

I am not very happy with our culture, either.  Speaking at this moment just to persons living in the U.S., do you realize that the last time we were really united as a people and as a nation was the day after 9/11/2001? Nearly 24 years ago. Since then, we have gradually devolved into a few general groups who (seemingly) hate the people, or at least their views, of the other groups. You can define these “groups” however you wish, but this is not about “those who like mashed potatoes” vs. “those who don’t like mashed potatoes”! I don’t really know if anyone will read what I’m going to be writing, and much of what I will be setting down here will be repeats of what I have written a number of years ago.  I hope it won’t be boring, and I might never really know if anyone was helped, but I do know a few things that have been helpful to me and a few other people whom I have known personally. Will do my best to pass those things along.

So, let’s go!!

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The above, as you can see, is a bell tower … a belfry!  It’s nighttime, perhaps a bit “spooky”-looking from the outside.  But, do you see what’s “on” inside?  A light, or maybe more than one light.  This is interesting to me.  Do you see any bats flying around, inside or out?  I don’t, either. 

Below is another belfry at night, somewhat less “spooky”, I guess … very attractive architecture, in my opinion.  But, there’s also a light on in this tower, and again, I see no bats flying around!

The above is also a belfry at night, and the photographer happened to catch the photo just as a lightning bolt was unleashed … pretty incredible! (Also, look at the cloud formation just at the bottom of the lightning.  Looks like an upturned face, if I ever saw one!! But what’s different here? Right, no lights on upstairs where the bells are hanging.  And again, I see no bats around.

So, let’s shift gears and go back to the old “bats in the belfry” phrase. First, let’s talk once again about bats, both the animals, and the metaphor of supposed “signs” of mental illness. And, how darkness may affect both.

Before we fixed up our attic, we had to deal with bats.  I had the “pleasure” of cleaning out a huge amount of bat guano from above one of the dormers. Not all that much fun, have to say.  We then consulted a pest control company, and learned a few tricks about “encouraging” the bats to move on to some other dwelling … perhaps the bell tower over at the college in our town, hopefully!! Anyway, they seem to have left us. But, in many ways, bats are good. They consume incredible amounts of flying insects that, were it not for the bats, could and would do a lot of damage to our communities. Secondly, they were the chosen mascot of my favorite superhero, Batman! Thirdly … well, right at the moment I can’t think of a good third reason, but maybe one will come to me.

Bats are nocturnal mammals that can fly. Thus, it may be no real surprise that we see no bats around in the pics above.  They may be out catching mosquitoes or moths, etc. The real downside to bats, other than guano, and through no real fault of their own, is that they can carry serious viruses such as rabies and other nasty stuff. And they do bite if/when threatened by humans, which is how such diseases can be transmitted. And, they look a lot like, well, bats!  Which are not all that pretty, in my opinion.  But, we need them around, so, keep on flying, furry friends!

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Let’s move on to the “mental health” form of bats. I want to make it clear that I am not fond of the phrase, “bats in his/her belfry”.  Fortunately, we don’t hear this being said much anymore, though I recall from my younger days having heard quite a few adults say this about other adults whom they knew, or lived with!  The phrase comes from the misguided idea that bats were very scary and unpredictable animals who could come flying at you out of any high place, squeaking at you and circling around your head, scaring the bejeebers out of you! Hidden in there is also the fear that the person who supposedly has bats “upstairs” could somehow infect others with some kind of “craziness”.  All of this is just so much hogwash, or “batwash”, to stick to the current animal type under consideration!  (By the way, anyone know what “hogwash” actually is?  I do not, though I guess I could “google” it.  Isn’t it interesting how a company name has now become a very commonly-used verb!!)

There are, of course, people who have very serious forms of mental illness. Most of the time, they are aware of such illness, in other cases, sadly, they are not aware, which then means they will be very unlikely to seek good help.

These illnesses include schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, bipolar disorder,

*** (that is, the REAL bipolar disorder, NOT the label that is often handed out to teenagers and young adults, many times, shamefully, by psychiatrists, just because that young person tends to stay up late at night, and to get very angry at their parents, siblings, and perhaps even their friends, very quickly and easily.  In case you can’t tell, that is NOT bipolar disorder, but the label often becomes the interpersonal “calling card” for that young person for years to come! The label is also given out frequently in adolescent psychiatric units in hospitals, to “medicalize” their issues, just so the insurance company will pay the bills.  Again, it is not good for a “professional” to lie, just to gain monetary reimbursement!)***

and severe major depression.

There are also slightly less severe forms of mental illness, such as obsessive-compulsive disorder, serious anxiety disorders such as panic disorder, and, of course, serious and relationship-crippling personality disorders. Although, for the person who has to struggle with such afflictions, these problems will often seem highly severe!

I hope to go through each of these different types of “bats”/illnesses, in the coming weeks.

However, several years ago a phrase came to me, again, while awake in the middle of the night, that having a form of mental illness does NOT mean that this person cannot have good mental health! Another way of saying this is that having good mental health does not equal the absence of mental illness.  They are not opposites, and can coexist. Mental health is much more about living in the present moment, living according to your true value, which for all of us is priceless, seeking to have light and truth guide your choices, and being able to accept grace and forgiveness for all of our past self-centered attitudes and choices. I believe there is a Source for such truth, light, and grace, and I am going to talk about solidly good mental health first.  We can get to the “bats” (okay, forms of mental illness, and how to “set them free”) later on.  We’ll think of those posts as “turning on the light”, at night, inside our personal belfry!

I hope you’ll stay with me.

Craig Meek, M.D., retired.