Having said that… it has been my experience that every form of illness, mental or otherwise is caused directly by infernal influence, inhabitation, or whatever term you want to use for malevolence that is squatting in a house that doesn’t belong to it. I have seen fake “exorcism”, fake “healing” demonstrations of all kinds of hysterical, magical thinking nonsense, but just because most of it it fake doesn’t mean that the True doesn’t exist.

Sounds radical I know, and for years my experience seemed so unique that I was sometimes tempted to doubt what I saw with my own eyes. I was grateful often to have run across a book that made reference to a historical figure who apparently had my exact experience, a mystic, healer and teacher. Christians memorize this book, quote it chapter and verse, and carry it around like a totem but I have found it to be most useful as a reference, guide and a sanity check: it relates events that happened to other people, although long ago, that have been also happening to me. Nothing like the confirmation of someone else’s similar experience.

Now, I am not likely to spit in the dirt and rub it in your eye but if you have a difficulty that nothing else has been able to address, whether stuttering or life threatening disease, are tired of treating the symptoms and would like to look at the root cause of things then I’m willing to share what I know.

ctpalmer@msn.com

The reason I ask is that we can beat ourselves up thinking that we should be able to overcome things if we have deep faith or others can tell us that we should be able to just choose to get over something in our lives and begin living rightly. What has been your experience with this? Are there times when we need someone to help us heal even if our faith is deep?

Me.. “wait, Do Nazarenes do Exorcisms?” (We’re Nazarene by the way, lol)
Fiance…”No hun, we’re Protestants, we medicate our demons.”

Which is true for the most part. My early Christian walk took place in very charismatic circles since I’ve grown to know better and see much of the theology taught to me as wrong. Now I’m not bashing Charismatics in general, but certain strains of beliefs and practices are not Biblical as you can also finds in the many other Christian denominations.

As a border-line bipolar, I often thought a.) I was demon possessed b.) Out of God’s favor or C.) not faithful enough to receive a healing. I went years un-medicated being tormented by these three conclusions I drew out. And plus, I felt I couldn’t open up, it was a hush hush, don’t share type deal. Once I became medicated and by this time went through counseling at my university, grown more in faith, I understood that it didn’t have much to do at all with God’s favor, faith , etc. I believe the Church doesn’t know to appropriately view mental illness, but happy to say, taking a step toward understanding and altering their perspective. I see this with church hiring professional counselors, workshops, group meetings, and helpful literature. Praise God for the Spirit that opens the eyes of the blind and brings His Church close to the perfect body intended to be.

Thank you for being so open! Blessings to you Bro.

~Sandy

You bring up a good point – because we have two different causes of schizophrenia represented here. Michael is speaking of a genetics-specific causal scizophrenia, while Alice in Wonderland is speaking of “high expressed emotion” causal schizophrania. The difference is dramatic – the first is chemical and neuological in its origins and treatment options; the second is based in developmental and emotional domains and requires a broader and more diverse treatment regimen.

Scizophrenia is at the extreme end of a category of disorders called “dissociation”. Another variant at that end of the spectrum is what used to be known as multiple personality disorder.

We all experience mild dissociation from time to time – like when you drive to work and find that, upon your arrival at your destination, you have no recall of the driving experience.T his is a normal function of the mind. In cases where children have experiemced grave emotional trauma or severe developmental issues, this mental function switches on as a defensive mechanism to protect the child through the trauma and after.

One of the most common examples of this that I have seen in my counseling ministry is with adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse. When they were very young childrn, their minds created a fantasy world where the child could mentally escape to so that only their body was “experiencing” the abuse. They would dissociate whenever the abuse began. For some of them, this developed into a coping mechanism whenever there was a great deal of emotional stress in their life for other causes.

These children, as they grow into teen and adult years, can manage and maintain the related behaviors to a great extent – except when they experience those “high expressed emotions”, most commonly from a family member. And, as Lauretta so insightfully asked, this can lay dormant until the person finds himself or herself stepping into the role of either their offender or their non-defender (the person they trurned to for help but who failed to rescue them).

The treatment regimen for someone with these levels of dissociatve disorder comes very close to that of treating non-genetic schizophrenia. There is a spiritual component to this because there was a spiritual component involved at the outset.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0ISW/is_255/ai_n6211936/

It is humbling to realize we are animals after all. If even our thoughts can be affected by physical means then we really aren’t in control.

I apply the scripture about the sins of the fathers being passed to the sons to this situation. The unloving things we do to our children are often, unfortunately, then passed on to our grandchildren keeping the sins transmitting from one generation to the next.

I agree with some of the other comments on here that if the cause was solely spiritual in nature, then medications would not help the problem. The same would be true if depression (or whatever mental illness) was caused by unconfessed sin– no psych med can remove the conviction of the Holy Spirit or the supposed torment of satan. If meds help someone feel better, and in my experience, if the meds actually allow someone to feel well enough to seek God, then by all means, take them!

This subject is close to my heart because mental illness runs in my family as well as my husband’s, and last month my husband was admitted to a psychiatric hospital for 6 days for suicidal ideation. He had bought a shotgun, but praise God, he ended up driving to the psych hospital and got help. They changed his medication, and he is markedly better now. Of course, sin is all wrapped up in mental illness, because his mental illness made him more prone to certain types of sin, and I often sinned in reaction to his illness (and as our counselor always says, that doesn’t excuse the problem, just explains it). Mental illness or not, we are all still accountable for our actions; in which case, one would be wise to seek all the help they can get to make living with their mental illness more manageable.