Voices gone (continued)

While working at my proper and positive focus for my eyes as explained last post, I learned that God doesn't speak in our minds. He talks to us in our spirit, which is near our heart - in gentle, quiet thoughts that don't frighten, confuse or take control. We then can process what we hear there in our minds and decide whether or not to receive them or reject them. Since the Holy Spirit of God is how we receive them first, and God is love, we have no trouble accepting His positive, loving and wise thoughts.

The fearful, threatening,loud and nattering voices on the other hand are heard in our heads and are definitely not from God or anything good. I knew that I had to reject these totally in order to be rid of them. I realized that they had been remaining because I thought I might miss something God wanted to say to me and I would be telling Him to go. Once I got definite about wanting them to leave me they did. They would only return for a little if my mind was torn again through some serious confusion. As I learned to trust God to give me the guidance I needed in my confusion, or to accept that I didn't need an answer now, I'd find peace again. The voices would then leave again. For around 13 years I haven't heard these voices, because God helps me to overcome fear and confusions by His grace and truth. Impatience and disobedience to His will are still areas I have to work at.

Next time I'll share more about why long-term and excessive fear of failure to succeed, confusion of direction or truth, and impatience lead us to our psychoses. I'll also give some powerful scriptures to counteract those triggers for fear. (I should explain here that the 3 triggers I mention for psychoses here are those I've found in sufferers of schizophrenia that I have encouraged.. I believe that different triggers like long-term and excessive anger or unforgiveness are involved in those with other disorders).

As with all my posts, these comments are from my own experience with my illness and are shared in the hope that what worked for me will help others.

Blessings,

Annie

Voices no more

One of the most difficult problems to deal with in mental illness is hearing voices. I had two different types that troubled me - the first were loud and threatening or in some way very negative, and the second were just bothersome, nattering on and on about nonsense. I personally believe these were different kinds of spirits, but if you choose to accept they are some kind of hallucination that's OK.

The first kind came first and were a result of my extreme fear. The fear I had was from a threat of failure to succeed at an important life goal. This, combined with confusion over which of two directions I was to take and impatience to get the right answer provided the long-term and intense stress that I believe led to my chemical brain changes and psychoses.

The second kind, I discovered, were the result of the passive mind that came from my mind being torn in two over confusion of direction. Those with a schizophrenic personality apparently have a hard time making difficult decisions. The mind doesn't do well when it is goal-less or not strongly focussed positively. Thus, when I also had to deal with shame from letting God down (a personal failure) and from upsetting my family, who were devastated over my illness, I left my normally positive uplifting of my eyes and focus, and instead lowered my eyes to a negative focus.

There is more I could say about how this all leads to the voices, but for now I want to share about how to get back a positive and safe focus in order to make these disappear or at least get so quiet that they are almost indiscernable. For those who are Christian, the Bible tells us to lift our eyes up to the mountain (of the Lord) - a place of refuge for the mind. Another place tells us to look straight ahead, not to the left or the right. The voices I heard were from the right, left or down by my chin. I began to train my eyes to focus on the bridge of my nose (not higher) and to think positive and loving thoughts. The best is to praise and love Jesus. Gradually as I did this more and more, the voices quietened and left. For those who aren't Christian, just thinking loving and kind thoughts works too. There is a Budhist meditation called "Loving kindness" that has worked for some.  

This also worked to get rid of some types of visions. For others I needed to profess my belief that I had a sound mind given by God. The Bible tells us that believers are given the mind of Christ. So speaking my belief in this as truth for me and keeping a strong positive focus made them finally disappear.

I'll share more later.
Blessings for now.
Annie

Encouragement and hope talk

Sorry I've not been posting lately. I was preparing to give a talk for a group of mostly women who have an interest in mental illness. Some of those who attended were sufferers (you know I refuse to call patients "consumers"). By the way, where I live there's a new desire to come up with a nicer name for mental patients, perhaps because I brought the subject up at one of our MHAC (Mental Health Advisory Council)meetings. If any of you can suggest a good word that isn't so generic and cold, but would still not scream mentally ill to those who don't need to know, please share it with me.

My talk went well, according to my husband, who was there mainly to drive me the long distance and to sell my book to those interested.
I also got to speak personally and pray for some of those who were ill, after the talk, so I believe it was a successful evening all round.

Hope you're all doing well. I should be able to get down to some serious posting now.

Blessings,

Annie

The pain of rejection

Today I'm suffering from the pain of having my help rejected. I've experienced it many times before, of course, like when a Christian bookstore refused to take my book on consignment. The reason given being that my "type" of Christianity wasn't what they wanted to promote in their store. I 'm changing this post from here on, because when I originally wrote it I was a bit wounded. I've since realized that I could have sounded judgmental towards a fellow blogger that I was following. I apologize to the person who may have read it then - what I said wasn't very loving.

Although my posts have been mostly about my spirituality to this point, since I thought it necessary to be honest in letting people know where I'm coming from, I'm now going to go more into other areas as well, such as probable theories for causes of schizophrenia and what helps overcome. Sharing all I can to help bring healing and recovery is a joyful privilege for me.

Blessings,
Annie 

My Spirituality

You should know a bit about my spirituality. This is because faith was involved in both the cause of and cure for my illness. It's good to know where a person is coming from and some of what they believe before accepting what they say. The Bible calls this "testing the spirits". I didn't know anything about a writer I trusted - the result was serious confusion, which led to great fear and eventual mental problems. I'm now very cautious about what I read and who I listen to. I wish no less for my reader friends.

As a child I learned a lot about our loving God, prayed every night and did my best to be good. I'd describe my family and I as "nominal Christians"; we didn't speak about our faith or pray together. I read my Bible then, only to answer the questions in my Sunday lessons. Therefore, I never learned about the 600+ promises God makes for those of us who love and trust Him, so I became a worrier. When I wanted to marry a Christian from a different "denomination", I received family concerns about my decision. This was my first experience of bias between Christians. Because my husband and I suffered this intolerance, we made a decision not to make differences in other believers a serious problem for us.

In my 30's I got involved in the occult/new age spirituality. I had no idea that much of this opened me to the dark spiritual kingdom. When I sought a deeper Christian faith, I learned that fortune telling was warned against in the Bible, and that reincarnation negated my salvation in Christ. I also learned that the Holy Spirit of God was the only safe spirit to seek for guidance and wisdom, so I rejected other teaching.

I'm not as concerned with denominations or non-denominations, as where a Christian is with God (Father, Son and Holy Spirit). I welcome and appreciate those from other faiths who love God and their fellow man. Please feel free to share your comments. I could only be a Christian myself, because I believe that Jesus was and is God, who came as man to show us what God was really like. I believe in the Trinity, the Bible and Holy Spirit as truth, simply because I've found them to be so over many years. My illness actually helped my faith to grow. Like Job, before my troubles I heard a lot about God, but now I "see" Him (know and understand Him) so much better. As a result, I'm a stronger and better person than I used to be.

Is your faith helping you to recover? Let me know how.

Blessings and love,
Annie  

CHRISTIANITY and MENTAL ILLNESS - bondage or blessing?

Christianity is such a blessing to me most of the time, but seems like a bondage at others. Why is this? When I was first ill, no-one gave me satisfying answers to a myriad of spiritual questions. Our professionals won't deal with faith issues and even my church pastor, who had no experience with mental illness, left me to the psychiatrist when his prayers didn't help me for long. Throughout my illness, Eastern meditations were often recommended (and I know still are) to help reduce stress, but anything Christian was and is a "no-no".

Christians with mental illness can feel alone in the world today. Our beliefs are not as freely accepted as they once were and we can even feel a form of persecution from people who see things differently. Because of our numerous church denominations and non-denominations, with various ideas and ways to worship, it is easy to become confused. And with so much negativity and rejection of our paricular views. it isn't surprising that Christians with mental illness tend to be quiet about it. In this way I see that, in some ways our wonderful faith has become a type of bondage.

I believe that those of us who have come to know God through Jesus, could never find fulfilment anywhere else than in Him.  He who binds us to Himself in love, has the truth that frees us from all other bondages. Though at times we may be confused and lack understanding of what we're suffering and why, the certainty that God will eventually and faithfully give us the blessing of peace we seek, keeps us from despair. It was God's many encouragements to trust Him to save and deliver me from all my troubles, that kept me persevering in difficult times.

I hope you, my blogging friends, will feel free to share your spiritual and faith concerns with me and others. Also that you'll write of how you're recovering from your particular disorder. I'm sure blogging is so popular with those who live with, or who have lived with a mental illness. for we can encourage one another without stigma or judgment. I still find it hard to find those wiith schizophrenia, though, - people with mood disorders seem to be more into blogging. I wonder why this is? I really want to hear from those with schizophrenia, so I can continue to test my theory of the triggers that began my own illness and those of others I've encouraged.

I will continue to post about what led to my own suffering, some of what that looked like, and how God gradually and faithfully set me free from every fear and confusion - which led to freedom from psychosis. I can't give Him enough thanks and praise. Keep on believing!

Blessings,
Annie

Possible recovery from Schizophrenia

There is much confusion in the mental health field today. Some of it revolves around what recovery is. One idea is that recovery involves having a partial healing, with the ability to live a meaningful life on medications. The other, means total recovery, with no need of medications.

There are many blogs and websites available for those who accept the first description of recovery. My blog is to reach those who still have a glimmer of hope for an eventual total healing. My own experience with overcoming schizophrenia will be the subject of most of my posts. There seems to be a lack of others sharing their stories, which is a shame because I know many sufferers do finally and totally recover. It may be of interest that, although those who remain ill complain of the stigma towards them, we who find freedom also experience negative stigma (of a different kind). This can make us uncomfortable about speaking out.

If we try to help others overcome, we are told we are giving false hope. I've even had a health professional tell me that I either didn't have scizophrenia or wasn't healed. This attitude goes against a statement in a Schizophrenia Society booklet that says that the brain can recover even into the second or third decade of illness.

Although medications help alleviate our troubles, they don't heal - they are a bandaid only. Our psychiatrists hope that the medications given will give us the chance to work towards our own healing in time.

I hope you will continue to visit my blog, as I do my best to share with you all that I learned and put into practice to find my own healing.

Blessings,
Annie