J
I have carried the diagnosis of Dissociative Identity Disorder (DID, formerly MPD-Multiple Personality Disorder) since 1996. Before that I was diagnosed with Schizophrenia, BiPolar Disorder, Borderline Personality Disorder and Major Depressive Disorder. To tell you the truth I fought all of the diagnoses except the BiPolar one because I knew a lot about mental health diagnoses as my father was a Psychiatrist from the time I was about 7 years old (before that he was a primary care doctor) and I worked for him from the time I was 12. I knew that a natural treatment for BiPolar Disorder existed and thought that it was very helpful and effective. Like most of us, I think, I thought that people with mental illness were somehow not as smart or smarter or rebellious or something than the rest of us. For some reason these crazy people won't take their medications. Well the truth of the matter is, STATISICS show that physiologically ill people are just as apt to forget to take their medications or refuse to take them or get confused about directions as are mentally ill people. We who have mental illness as a label get labeled then more by fear and anger and confusion of other people.
One of the biggest confusions comes from the Christian Community and perhaps from the Medical Community as well (I am still investigating this theory). Mental Illness is NOT synonymous with Demonic Possession! It is of course a result (like all death, disease and decay) a result of sin, our fallen sin nature.
I became a Christian when I was 16 years old. I had made 2 very serious suicide attempts prior to that. I made another just 2 weeks later. I did not for many years after that understand that grace is a GIFT from God that stays with us. I thought that because of my horrific sins that I yet committed, I had therefore lost my salvation. This was actually magnified in my mind after I had made a public profession and been baptized because I believed my sins could lead others to hell and were not a good witness and of course I should have changed after that!
My adult life has been a series of heartfelt reccomitments to Christ, struggling with a severe eating disorder and trying to get fixed from whatever I felt was broken in me. I married a man who became a minister. We both had inpatient treatment for our "food addiction" and took upon ourselves the responsibility for our disorders (read--more guilt). The treatment in those days was to use an "in your face" "tough love" which today is usually reserved for life long criminal male drug addicts! No one much today will tolerate that type of treatment. The saying in 12 step circles is that one becomes willing to go to ANY LENGTHS to get well. Over the years "any lengths" changes.
Along with mental illness has come phyisical illness too: Asthma, Morbid Obesity, Severe Osteoarthritis, Vertigo, Migraines, Cancer, Gynecological ailments of all sorts. We read a book by an MD who described modern medicine as a religion. the doctors are the high priests, medications are the sacraments and surgery is to be offered on the high altar. Well, then I am a great devotee as I take tons of medicines and have had 14 surgeries!
Now don't get me wrong, God did not get left out of my life because of this. No my faith has grown and my devotion to His word has grown and my fellowship w the saints has grown through all of this. I have of course prayed for healing. I had hands laid on me. Once a whole congregation (not mine) pledged to fast and pray for me for 2 weeks and then gather around me to "cast the demons out." I have been willing to "go to any lengths" to get well.
Now it occurs to me that maybe I was never broken or sick as I thought I was. My childhood included a great deal of sexual, other physical, mental, emotional and spiritual abuse. This is what splintered my personality into personalities. This may actually have been a great gift from God to protect me from the abuse.
Okay so why am I writing all of this? I have started therapy with a former Christian, Gnostic, Buddhist-leaning Therapist who specializes in DID. He is a gifted and renowned therapist with many successes. It costs me about $130/mo. to see him (he only charges me $30 a month for weekly sessions but I have to drive 1 and 1/2 hrs both ways to see him so it takes almost all of the day, gas and beverages to get me there and back.
I am afraid of the therapy (the therapist might confuse me, going to him might be disrespectful to Jesus, He might make me remember stuff that isn't true, I might make things up to fill in the blanks, this is all just a sinful ploy to get attention, this is not really trusting Jesus, I shouldn't quit my medications (part of the plan), I can't afford it, He wants me to take all sorts of supplements to counteract the damage to my body by the medications and change my eating dramatically. I am subsisting totally on food bank food so I eat a lot of starch and sweets and almost no fruits or vegetables and the fruits and vegetables that I do get are often rotten. How can I stay safe and follow the plan unless God provides? The therapist believes that mental illness is almost all caused by trauma and/or nutritional deficiencies. He is not unique in this but very different than the thinking I was raised with. So I am going through a paradigm shift and that may be more frightening to me inside than any of the rest of this.
All I want, please God, is to give God glory and serve Him and His children. All I want to do is love Him and others. I am a psychotherapist turned Christian peer counselor and am trying to work out of my church. I have been trying to sell Tupperware to raise funds to support the counseling ministry. I have worked very hard and so far had no profit. I am asking for clarity, direction, comfort, wisdom, finances, honesty and peace. I pray you will join in praying for and with me.
Now I have written all of this and I am afraid to post it. Please pray for me to have confidence in the grace of God and my family in Christ. PS...I am in close conferment with my pastor and my husband. Pray for all of them too. Thank you, Joy
One of the biggest confusions comes from the Christian Community and perhaps from the Medical Community as well (I am still investigating this theory). Mental Illness is NOT synonymous with Demonic Possession! It is of course a result (like all death, disease and decay) a result of sin, our fallen sin nature.
I became a Christian when I was 16 years old. I had made 2 very serious suicide attempts prior to that. I made another just 2 weeks later. I did not for many years after that understand that grace is a GIFT from God that stays with us. I thought that because of my horrific sins that I yet committed, I had therefore lost my salvation. This was actually magnified in my mind after I had made a public profession and been baptized because I believed my sins could lead others to hell and were not a good witness and of course I should have changed after that!
My adult life has been a series of heartfelt reccomitments to Christ, struggling with a severe eating disorder and trying to get fixed from whatever I felt was broken in me. I married a man who became a minister. We both had inpatient treatment for our "food addiction" and took upon ourselves the responsibility for our disorders (read--more guilt). The treatment in those days was to use an "in your face" "tough love" which today is usually reserved for life long criminal male drug addicts! No one much today will tolerate that type of treatment. The saying in 12 step circles is that one becomes willing to go to ANY LENGTHS to get well. Over the years "any lengths" changes.
Along with mental illness has come phyisical illness too: Asthma, Morbid Obesity, Severe Osteoarthritis, Vertigo, Migraines, Cancer, Gynecological ailments of all sorts. We read a book by an MD who described modern medicine as a religion. the doctors are the high priests, medications are the sacraments and surgery is to be offered on the high altar. Well, then I am a great devotee as I take tons of medicines and have had 14 surgeries!
Now don't get me wrong, God did not get left out of my life because of this. No my faith has grown and my devotion to His word has grown and my fellowship w the saints has grown through all of this. I have of course prayed for healing. I had hands laid on me. Once a whole congregation (not mine) pledged to fast and pray for me for 2 weeks and then gather around me to "cast the demons out." I have been willing to "go to any lengths" to get well.
Now it occurs to me that maybe I was never broken or sick as I thought I was. My childhood included a great deal of sexual, other physical, mental, emotional and spiritual abuse. This is what splintered my personality into personalities. This may actually have been a great gift from God to protect me from the abuse.
Okay so why am I writing all of this? I have started therapy with a former Christian, Gnostic, Buddhist-leaning Therapist who specializes in DID. He is a gifted and renowned therapist with many successes. It costs me about $130/mo. to see him (he only charges me $30 a month for weekly sessions but I have to drive 1 and 1/2 hrs both ways to see him so it takes almost all of the day, gas and beverages to get me there and back.
I am afraid of the therapy (the therapist might confuse me, going to him might be disrespectful to Jesus, He might make me remember stuff that isn't true, I might make things up to fill in the blanks, this is all just a sinful ploy to get attention, this is not really trusting Jesus, I shouldn't quit my medications (part of the plan), I can't afford it, He wants me to take all sorts of supplements to counteract the damage to my body by the medications and change my eating dramatically. I am subsisting totally on food bank food so I eat a lot of starch and sweets and almost no fruits or vegetables and the fruits and vegetables that I do get are often rotten. How can I stay safe and follow the plan unless God provides? The therapist believes that mental illness is almost all caused by trauma and/or nutritional deficiencies. He is not unique in this but very different than the thinking I was raised with. So I am going through a paradigm shift and that may be more frightening to me inside than any of the rest of this.
All I want, please God, is to give God glory and serve Him and His children. All I want to do is love Him and others. I am a psychotherapist turned Christian peer counselor and am trying to work out of my church. I have been trying to sell Tupperware to raise funds to support the counseling ministry. I have worked very hard and so far had no profit. I am asking for clarity, direction, comfort, wisdom, finances, honesty and peace. I pray you will join in praying for and with me.
Now I have written all of this and I am afraid to post it. Please pray for me to have confidence in the grace of God and my family in Christ. PS...I am in close conferment with my pastor and my husband. Pray for all of them too. Thank you, Joy
