Living with mental illness is a soul crushing blow to a person's life. Only by the grace of God did I never try to take my life, unlike so many others who couldn't fight the good fight, but I still tried to destroy it. That I did not end up dead or murdered is truly miraculous. And while at times I wonder if there is permanent damage in my progress today as I still fumble along in my 40's, I like to think that God has set me aside to be of great service to Him. There is sacrifice in that service though, which is called humility, and that is never easy to understand, let alone practice.
But I must be humbled in order to openly discuss my challenges, whereas for decades I tried to hide it. Tried is the operative word. Those of us who are so deep in sin think that we are clever enough to conceal it, because he who introduced us to sin was clever and deceitful himself. But as a human, as a child of God, I am in a position to be what the Lord intends of me - to do great works. Up until my conviction in 2010 however, and still well into having become a baptized Christian, I tried to live in depravity and still worship God. I still tried to weasel my way around Jesus' teachings, by having two masters - myself, and God.
But this is where my mental illness was really at the root of all of my problems. I believe that I was born with a predisposition to be sick, and that my disease began to manifest around the age of seven or eight, starting with paranoia. I believed that people were trying to kill me. I took the licence plates of every white van I saw, because I thought I would be abducted into one, and wanted my family to be able to track me down. I moved the head of my bed away from my window at night because I thought someone might come through my window with a knife, and in the morning I would thrust open the shower curtain to make sure no one was in the bath tub. I was afraid of ambulances that they might be driving by as I were to fall off my bike, and pick me up and take me somewhere, I was afraid of motorcycles because I knew I wouldn't be able to lose them in the creek where my childhood home resided at. I was even afraid that Jesus would appear to me.
Those fears of being watched and abducted never really left, but they greatly subsided as I got older. But to replace those fears of being attacked came racing thoughts of sex. By the time I was twelve I became obsessed with sex, even though I didn't at all desire to have any sexual activity. I never wanted to kiss a boy, or even hold hands with one, but I had these intrusive thoughts. I don't remember the way they played out in my mind, I can't even fathom what the thoughts were now, since I was truly ignorant of that matter. I barely understood what a menstrual cycle was.
By the time I was seventeen I developed a problem with alcohol. I drank abnormally and I thought it was funny. Until I began smoking weed and then nothing was funny. Everything was alien and made me paranoid. Not the same type of paranoia of having my life threatened, more like becoming afraid of what my peers thought of me, to the point I would not want to go to parties. I only wanted to be around my immediate group of friends who I felt comfortable with. By the time I was eighteen I was having sex and going to clubs underaged. That was when my life of sin truly began.
I was promiscuous, I stole money from my mother, I stopped caring about my grandparents, I stayed up all night drinking and doing drugs, I skipped school habitually, I pierced my tongue which is one of my greatest regrets, because I had to be in speech class in grade three so I already struggled with using certain muscles, and my tongue never fully healed. Sometimes today I really have to work hard just to enunciate. I was by myself in the streets of Toronto, in the middle of the night; a cold, hard city with lots of gangs and poverty....But I wasn't raised to become this person. So how did I get so lost? I believe it was because of a generational curse which showed up in my family by way of mental illness, addiction, and Masonic allegiance.
In 2008 I suffered the blow of a full psychotic break that was precipitated by inadvertently raising my kundalini energy after a meditation in my yoga class (my first attempted method of rehabilitating my soul sickness). This psychic attack waged a violent war on me that I could not battle. I believed my own family was trying to kill me. This was my absolute bottom. I began to study Christianity, knowing innately that Jesus Christ would deliver me, but not knowing how to USE the tools. I misquoted the Bible compulsively and trespassed into a Masonic lodge, trying to "fight the system". I wrote letters to the Queen of England warning her of imminent assassination attempts: I was in full flight from reality. But again by the grace of God, I, by no power of my own, went to a doctor who prescribed me medication that almost immediately healed that psychosis.
But my deliverance would take more than modern medicine, and I believe today that the reason why I was afraid of Jesus as a child, is because I intuitively knew that He would appear to me in my darkest hour.
In 2011 I was lying down on my "friend's" couch as he was crashed out in the next room. I was drinking beer and smoking weed early in the morning, desperate to alleviate the come-down from cocaine, which I believe is one of the most evil drugs known to man. I knew irrefutably that I had a problem, and I had recently been fired from my dream job. I was in and out of an addiction program, during that particular stint attempting "harm reduction" which is perfect for addicts who are masters at manipulation. We got to set our own usage goals. Needless to say I never completed that program, and I was captive in this terrible circumstance with cocaine and unemployment, having to draw lines in the sand with this person in my life who is now dead from alcoholism.
I looked up, in physical and mental anguish, and there was Jesus outside the window in the tree (Yes I was high but this was real enough to me because what He said was rock-solid). I looked at Him and I said, "I'm sorry." He looked at me with eyes that did not show pity - He knew my pride would never be able to withstand that - but rather with understanding, and he said two words: "Follow me". And He was gone, and I knew I was ready to sort out my life and live by the Christian standards that I wanted to abide by.
Six months later I joined Alcoholics Anonymous. That summer when Jesus appeared to me, I had met a man at an after hours party who was in and out of the program, and I attempted to get to know him for a few months. He was very sick and so I had to cut ties, but in December 2011 he sent me an email on Christmas day, and he looked really well. He was sober and he wanted to meet with me, and I wanted to meet with him. Two days later he took me to my first open meeting, but I did not understand the program or the fellowship and I just wanted to treat the meeting like a date. But by the grace of God, on January 3, 2012, just seven days after that first meeting, I went to my first closed meeting by myself, with sincerity. When it came my turn to share, I introduced myself and said for the first time ever that I had a problem with alcohol. I have with great enjoyment and gratitude attended meetings regularly since then, with only two brief relapses. Today I have almost six years of consistent day-by-day sobriety.
Throughout all of my tragedies, the grace of God was present in them all. How I ended up in that closed meeting, I still have no idea. That young man who took me to my first meeting is now serving a life sentence for murder with no chance of parole for 22 years. I do not judge him. Mental illness, loneliness, and addiction make us do the most insane things.
Today I have a job where I am growing, and am making new friendships and connections. I at times have trouble accepting my mental illness and the reality that I will most likely always need to be on medication, but after ten days of once again thinking I am better off without it, and seeing the incredible challenges and work, in my relationships, and with my inherent black-and-white thinking that I must daily reprieve, I return to that treatment bestowed with a whole new level of understanding and conviction and acceptance, and I prepare for a new day to be the absolute best I can be in cooperation with God's will - a forgiven and redeemed daughter of God.
But I must be humbled in order to openly discuss my challenges, whereas for decades I tried to hide it. Tried is the operative word. Those of us who are so deep in sin think that we are clever enough to conceal it, because he who introduced us to sin was clever and deceitful himself. But as a human, as a child of God, I am in a position to be what the Lord intends of me - to do great works. Up until my conviction in 2010 however, and still well into having become a baptized Christian, I tried to live in depravity and still worship God. I still tried to weasel my way around Jesus' teachings, by having two masters - myself, and God.
But this is where my mental illness was really at the root of all of my problems. I believe that I was born with a predisposition to be sick, and that my disease began to manifest around the age of seven or eight, starting with paranoia. I believed that people were trying to kill me. I took the licence plates of every white van I saw, because I thought I would be abducted into one, and wanted my family to be able to track me down. I moved the head of my bed away from my window at night because I thought someone might come through my window with a knife, and in the morning I would thrust open the shower curtain to make sure no one was in the bath tub. I was afraid of ambulances that they might be driving by as I were to fall off my bike, and pick me up and take me somewhere, I was afraid of motorcycles because I knew I wouldn't be able to lose them in the creek where my childhood home resided at. I was even afraid that Jesus would appear to me.
Those fears of being watched and abducted never really left, but they greatly subsided as I got older. But to replace those fears of being attacked came racing thoughts of sex. By the time I was twelve I became obsessed with sex, even though I didn't at all desire to have any sexual activity. I never wanted to kiss a boy, or even hold hands with one, but I had these intrusive thoughts. I don't remember the way they played out in my mind, I can't even fathom what the thoughts were now, since I was truly ignorant of that matter. I barely understood what a menstrual cycle was.
By the time I was seventeen I developed a problem with alcohol. I drank abnormally and I thought it was funny. Until I began smoking weed and then nothing was funny. Everything was alien and made me paranoid. Not the same type of paranoia of having my life threatened, more like becoming afraid of what my peers thought of me, to the point I would not want to go to parties. I only wanted to be around my immediate group of friends who I felt comfortable with. By the time I was eighteen I was having sex and going to clubs underaged. That was when my life of sin truly began.
I was promiscuous, I stole money from my mother, I stopped caring about my grandparents, I stayed up all night drinking and doing drugs, I skipped school habitually, I pierced my tongue which is one of my greatest regrets, because I had to be in speech class in grade three so I already struggled with using certain muscles, and my tongue never fully healed. Sometimes today I really have to work hard just to enunciate. I was by myself in the streets of Toronto, in the middle of the night; a cold, hard city with lots of gangs and poverty....But I wasn't raised to become this person. So how did I get so lost? I believe it was because of a generational curse which showed up in my family by way of mental illness, addiction, and Masonic allegiance.
In 2008 I suffered the blow of a full psychotic break that was precipitated by inadvertently raising my kundalini energy after a meditation in my yoga class (my first attempted method of rehabilitating my soul sickness). This psychic attack waged a violent war on me that I could not battle. I believed my own family was trying to kill me. This was my absolute bottom. I began to study Christianity, knowing innately that Jesus Christ would deliver me, but not knowing how to USE the tools. I misquoted the Bible compulsively and trespassed into a Masonic lodge, trying to "fight the system". I wrote letters to the Queen of England warning her of imminent assassination attempts: I was in full flight from reality. But again by the grace of God, I, by no power of my own, went to a doctor who prescribed me medication that almost immediately healed that psychosis.
But my deliverance would take more than modern medicine, and I believe today that the reason why I was afraid of Jesus as a child, is because I intuitively knew that He would appear to me in my darkest hour.
In 2011 I was lying down on my "friend's" couch as he was crashed out in the next room. I was drinking beer and smoking weed early in the morning, desperate to alleviate the come-down from cocaine, which I believe is one of the most evil drugs known to man. I knew irrefutably that I had a problem, and I had recently been fired from my dream job. I was in and out of an addiction program, during that particular stint attempting "harm reduction" which is perfect for addicts who are masters at manipulation. We got to set our own usage goals. Needless to say I never completed that program, and I was captive in this terrible circumstance with cocaine and unemployment, having to draw lines in the sand with this person in my life who is now dead from alcoholism.
I looked up, in physical and mental anguish, and there was Jesus outside the window in the tree (Yes I was high but this was real enough to me because what He said was rock-solid). I looked at Him and I said, "I'm sorry." He looked at me with eyes that did not show pity - He knew my pride would never be able to withstand that - but rather with understanding, and he said two words: "Follow me". And He was gone, and I knew I was ready to sort out my life and live by the Christian standards that I wanted to abide by.
Six months later I joined Alcoholics Anonymous. That summer when Jesus appeared to me, I had met a man at an after hours party who was in and out of the program, and I attempted to get to know him for a few months. He was very sick and so I had to cut ties, but in December 2011 he sent me an email on Christmas day, and he looked really well. He was sober and he wanted to meet with me, and I wanted to meet with him. Two days later he took me to my first open meeting, but I did not understand the program or the fellowship and I just wanted to treat the meeting like a date. But by the grace of God, on January 3, 2012, just seven days after that first meeting, I went to my first closed meeting by myself, with sincerity. When it came my turn to share, I introduced myself and said for the first time ever that I had a problem with alcohol. I have with great enjoyment and gratitude attended meetings regularly since then, with only two brief relapses. Today I have almost six years of consistent day-by-day sobriety.
Throughout all of my tragedies, the grace of God was present in them all. How I ended up in that closed meeting, I still have no idea. That young man who took me to my first meeting is now serving a life sentence for murder with no chance of parole for 22 years. I do not judge him. Mental illness, loneliness, and addiction make us do the most insane things.
Today I have a job where I am growing, and am making new friendships and connections. I at times have trouble accepting my mental illness and the reality that I will most likely always need to be on medication, but after ten days of once again thinking I am better off without it, and seeing the incredible challenges and work, in my relationships, and with my inherent black-and-white thinking that I must daily reprieve, I return to that treatment bestowed with a whole new level of understanding and conviction and acceptance, and I prepare for a new day to be the absolute best I can be in cooperation with God's will - a forgiven and redeemed daughter of God.
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