It is in the successive stages of his experience, that the believer sees more distinctly, and adores more profoundly, and grasps more firmly—the finished righteousness of Christ. And what is the school in which he learns his nothingness, his poverty, his utter destitution? The school of deep and sanctified affliction. In no other school is it learned, and under no other teacher but God. Here his high thoughts are brought low, and the Lord alone is exalted.
- Octavius Winslow
Chapter Six: Full Remission Is an Ongoing Battle
At the original time of the writing of this chapter, it was June of 2023. It had at that time been 13 years since I was medically discharged from the Army. As of now, I still make it my practice not to be recognized when it makes sense, as if I did something other than earn a “participation ribbon” in Army training. I didn’t go much further past basic training at Fort Benning. And in light of this, there is a sense of gratitude I feel for being so blessed with the security I have of being a VA patient. It is simply a wonder to me that the person that I am is actually afforded such care. I actually owe more of a debt of gratitude to my country than my country owes me for anything.
It used to be that in America all you wanted was to have a roof over your head and to go to church on Sunday. Now, people suffer with some kind of insatiable drive for what they love to do or need to be successful at. I pray sincerely that God would purge me of that. It is still a struggle today! But spoken tongue in cheek, I am a millennial indeed in whom there is no guile, or perhaps there is too much guile!
Being in full remission with schizophrenia is not like being in full remission with cancer. With cancer, the tumors are eliminated. With regards to schizophrenia, you still take a pill or pills every night or get a shot every month. I will say that there are people in fact who recover from mental illness that we simply cannot explain. Such was the case, to whatever real extent, with John Nash. He was a famous mathematician who recovered late in life. Although he attributed it to “naturally changing hormones with age.” But you simply can never tell with this disease.
One of the things that has come up repeatedly in my research is the fact that schizophrenia can actually be triggered by environmental stressors. It doesn’t matter how you choose to respond to it. Some people get ulcers when they experience stress, some people get high blood pressure. Heart disease and diabetes can also be triggered by stress. And our culture has a lot of these going around!
But Sometimes, the death of a loved one can cause stress induced afflictions as well. It doesn’t mean that you are inherently sinning by being stressed. We shouldn’t rely on highly strict definitions of stress that emphasize too much personal power over sin. We simply are always in a state of sin. It can be a sense of legalism that causes certain of our advisors to suggest that if we just dealt biblically with our stress and got a good night’s rest that the psychotic tendencies would go away.
And yet we are encouraged to have the right heart attitude while experiencing stress, and that can deaden its impact. It is evident to me that stress triggered my genetic vulnerability for schizophrenia, as it did again recently. I am not intending to be strictly scientific with that comment. There are simply some people who physiologically react to stress in different ways. The next guy gets ulcers or heart problems, while I personally seem to mysteriously fall apart psychologically. No one for sure knows why some of us do that, but with the brain as complicated a mechanism as it is, literally proving that doesn’t concern me. But there is a reason that insomnia, stress, with more things than just psychosis come in packages.
I would rather deal with another malady, but this is the crook in my lot as God has chosen it. I suppose I am simply pragmatic about it. I know something is wrong, and I know that medication addresses it, so I take it. My experience with this disease is that I am highly responsive to Risperdal. It takes me to full remission, even quickly (as in about two or three months), as it did just recently, yet it took two years the first time. Some people experience a high degree of stress in puberty, and that could be why onset is particularly frequent at that time with all of the physiological changes.
A “Shaman” Told Me
I mean no offense to ancient shamans, but along just these lines, I have read from many people battling with mental illness online about their supposed philosophical depths of moral and mental acuity in which they were submerged while mining nuggets of wisdom for the rest of us! This is what a chemical imbalance does to a mind! If I could, I would help them to lift up their eyes and see other people. See themselves from other peoples’ vantage points!
Kerygma is a Greek word in the New Testament for “cry,” or “proclaim.” Paul Tillich designated two kerygmatic poles as eternal truth on the one hand and temporal situation on the other hand. It is almost as if you could type out a book appropriating this for yourself as you navigate those two poles in some sort of individual sense and apply it to everyone else as well. Unfortunately, this type of thinking really isn’t helpful to anyone. If you are just such a person, don’t share so-called depths of thought unless with a trusted friend. That isn’t really a special insight. Neither do I share this particular reflection on Tillich’s theology without it having been a personal problem for me during more recent times of relapse into my own so-called “depths.”
I have actually seen people online publish just such books about themselves. It is a common but also narcissistic draw for some schizophrenic men in particular and women to publish books about themselves. But the females who suffer with this illness, but are also narcissistic, tend to feel the unique illusion of idyllic love as central in their thoughts and desires as well. I too, as alluded to above, have felt a draw towards idolizing the perfect career, but as I say repeatedly, God has limited and defined my boundaries as well as many other parts of my life also, and contentment with His care and providence is crucial. The Lord is my shepherd.
The Bible doesn’t exalt these erratic thoughts and behaviors and make them something they are not. Dueteronomy, in its own context of history, refers to mental illness as a curse:
“Yahweh will strike you with madness and with blindness and with bewilderment of heart; and you will grope at noon, as the blind man gropes in darkness, and you will not succeed in your ways; but you shall only be oppressed and robbed all your days, with none to save you.”
— Deuteronomy 28:28-29
Mental illness is no easy thing to endure. It is disorienting and bewildering as this verse indicates. This verse also suggests that it has existed since the time of Moses because his audience knew exactly what he was talking about![1]
The Babbel about Babel
Speaking of difficulty, I have also observed the utter vanity and futility of thinking patterns in other persons like me who struggle with psychotic episodes. We envision personal grandiosity. They, not so much me, even talk about going down the rabbit hole or seeing visions and despotic nightmares. They may even struggle with memory loss and trying to solve mysteries that ironically revolve around them. They desire idyllic love, or they write books about it all, or they envision themselves as mad geniuses. I think it is ironic that the proclivity towards self-worship is nowhere more apparent than with those like them or I who are psychotic, but neither should others minimize their real suffering and pain.
I don’t know how to relate that there is, in the first place, nothing really special about us, and definitely not in the radical ways we envision. The very concept of a mad genius is impossible to a very real degree, at least insofar as we are disabled and incapable of positive contribution. If you really want to shoulder responsibility, then take your medication continually for the rest of your life! Do not stop. You may experience dry mouth or weight gain, as I have, as well as high cholesterol, but at least there are ways to treat those symptoms with exercise, eating habits, and chewing gum or mouth spray. But you cannot put a price tag on your own ability to be a natural and normal person, insofar as we can define “normal” for you or me. But medication can make you functional. It doesn’t matter if you’re overweight! Take care of your brain and worry about your weight gain later!
Opportunities for Deeper Self-Analysis
Having experienced unexpected onset of my illness twice, I can say that both times it began with social anxiety, then reading into verbal and nonverbal cues, and a dwelling on those supposed cues that led to stress and delusions that somehow my brain waves conflicted with other people’s brain waves in ways that subverted my own mental abilities to keep up in conversation and to succeed at work or in careers or relationships, and it can spiral into worse withdrawal and aloofness without actually soon starting, or lately increasing my medication.
Both times my delusions resurfaced in very similar ways. One of my primary delusions involved being tested by others almost deterministically due to other people’s brain waves bouncing off my stronger brain waves like proverbial transmission interferences (thinking more of loudness in audio transmission). My brain waves were supposedly so loud that I literally couldn’t socialize without being (in my mind) accommodated and eventually shut out or relegated to the corner, so to speak.
I imagined everyone was trying to help me be a part of the group, but that they couldn’t ultimately accommodate my brain’s loudness. This was simply biologically or chemically who I was. It was in my DNA. Without the medication intervention, I come to believe that I am telepathic and that I can hold conversations with people in my mind. But these things emphatically did not spiral down this far recently. But in the past, this got so frustrating, and it took so much emotional energy dealing with the feeling that people were speaking to me telepathically that I just tend to shrink back into isolation and away from any and all responsibilities because I am “being forced to do so.”
I know none of this makes sense. And one of the huge benefits of my recent relapse is that my need to permanently set aside my lifelong goal of trying to be a minister, or a counselor quite possibly as well, became fully apparent. In this book, I do not identify myself in any way as being in solidarity with biblical counselors like I did in my first book. Though I am technically pursuing ACBC training, I have given up on that as a practice. I am very reserved about whether I will ever do anything other than try to work on my own heart issues, which is difficult enough!
I really prefer not to publish this about myself, and honestly hardly anyone noticed that I had any real problems at the time, but I want to empathize with those who suffer as I do and always will. I do struggle still with feelings of uselessness and a lifetime of wasted opportunities career-wise, yet as I have said above, the idolization of my own resume was a spiritual issue that I needed to deal with as well, and the sense of relief I have experienced as those old idols of my heart just rolled off my shoulders has been immensely comforting at times.
But this whole convoluted mental mess is hard. I confess my spiritual and physical fallenness and futility apart from faith in Christ. He alone is the great physician. I also acknowledge that these things feel as though my thoughts in these times are hijacked. Thoughts scatter and circle back repeatedly in deepening delusions and it absolutely is only compensated for by the medication.
But the hardest personal correction I have wrestled with in all of life is my self-centeredness, as do we all. Marriage and the blessings of community are very helpful and humbling for us. Setting aside vocational ministry was a huge step forward for me. And ironically, that was the second hardest prayer I ever prayed. I did pray at times recently that I would set aside ministry if that was God’s will. And yet I felt and still do feel wasted and drained at times because of how hard it was to spiritually mature in such profoundly simple ways. But that is part of the process of God’s grace!
I am convinced as I grow slightly older that I am watching my kingdom tumble down like the old Caedman’s Call song. But through my increasing weakness, I am leaning gradually more on Him. So I pray more, and I reflect on His truth more and more. I see the transient nature of life, and I am not disparaged by it because I see the eternal God who is over all.
The Prognosis
But real paranoia and catatonia can be signs of a better long-term ability to live with this condition even though they seem really bad off at first. This was not the case with me. However, the affective flattening (facial expressions that are without emotion) and certain lack of motivation or interest in things that did interest the individual previously (also referred to as “negative symptoms”) can be signals of a poor long-term condition.
Another bad sign, without the potential red flags of a negative CT or MRI scan, might be slow onset of the illness (definitely me) as well as poor understanding of the individual’s own condition. But as well as I have done as a schizophrenic (and men do tend to be worse off than women overall), I had several of these poor signs of long-term prognosis. So don’t be discouraged if you or a loved one feel as though you are in a dark place.[2]
I do tend to do best overall when I have quiet time to reflect. It is also important for me not to be inundated with people and social activities generally, and part of the point of this book is that my mind has always dwelled on the Bible. That is the single most therapeutic thing I have done. My heart has always been passionate about scripture. And lately, I confess to seeing myself as certainly no better than the arrogant and selfish prophet Jonah, who didn’t really love others as he should have.
Actually, two of the books that have really been helpful in applying the Bible to my life in the midst of related issues, though of course not able to “cure” me, so to speak, are both on somewhat different but related topics. They are written by Ed Welch. They are “When People Are Big and God is Small,” and his follow-up book on fear called, “Running Scared.” I highly recommend them both!
Soul Care
Most relevant however, has been the small book, “Suspicion: How to Overcome ‘Paranoid’ Thinking,” by Lou Priolo, which was helpful to me before I had fully recovered recently. When I completed the workbook pages in the back, it helped me to see clearly that my more recent suspicion was in fact invalid and wrong. It was really a point of pride and false reasoning all rolled into one that I needed to learn to identify and to challenge. And yet I must acknowledge that all of this became more readily apparent to me after I increased my dosage. The medication is simply necessary, and I am more than willing now to set aside vocational ministry because that is in fact something that doesn’t glorify God, at least as it comes from me.
Actually, throughout Lou Priolo’s book, he discusses in succinct and helpful ways:
anxiety, distrusting God, judging, sinful fear, false accusation, rash judgment, pride, false reasoning, exaggeration of the threat of actual danger, evil suspicion, sinful jealousy, unrighteousness, not ‘believing the best,’ selfishness, and hopelessness.[3]
You can see a list of this in the workbook pages in the back of his book.[4] He very wisely bases all of these terms on their scriptural references and draws out their meaning from the Bible itself. Many of these issues I do address in this book, but Lou Priolo does such an amazing job of succinctly hitting each point with supporting scriptures, that I suggest that people who struggle with suspicious thoughts, or are mentally ill and struggle with related thoughts, go and read his treatment and fill out the workbook pages. Essentially, these are the symptoms that overlap in a number of severe mental illnesses that people suffer from. Make it a priority to both listen to your psychiatrist and to busy yourself working on how to overcome these issues from a biblical worldview.
The following two topics in my own soul care are exactly the two things that my counselors years ago wanted to address with me when I struggled, unbeknownst to them, with schizophrenia, as retold in my 2016 book. Pride and relationships were oftentimes my biggest concerns as pointed out by others. Actually, these are the two very things that my wife and others criticized me for during my recent relapse ironically. And yet, there was underlying guilt and fear that accompanied all this as well. I touch on all these categories in the following.
I felt, when in effect re-experiencing psychosis again, as though God had somehow mysteriously led me to the exact things that I had needed to learn according to my previous advisors in the past. In my delusional frame of mind, I saw myself coming around to the same extreme highs and lowly lows I gravitated towards when “under trial” years before, even now while pursuing vocational ministry yet again! It all seemed to fit and enlighten me somehow when under renewed extremes.
Yet just as there are many potential causes to this psychological “vertigo of spirit,” there are many things that concern each individual’s fight with pride in an otherwise healthy person as well. I was still a proud sinner and also delusional. It was God’s painful grace that I fell on in those moments. I prayed earnestly that God would take away my desire for ministry even, if that was His will. I also applied what follows to myself as harshly as I could manage in spite of that delusional frame of mind. I did see myself somewhat nobly pushing towards character as hard as I could, but it has always felt as though I’m very unsuccessful much of the time regardless, with or without psychotic tendencies. But God has dealt very patiently and kindly with me. I mean that in all sincerity.
- Biblical Humility and Pride
First in regards to pride, I am not only dependent on others, but we are all really dependent on the Lord. Humility enables His saints to receive this. And this can be a very real key in developing a person’s endurance in general but also one’s ability to accept less than his supposed due.
Humility isn’t just the absence of egotism. It also means knowing your limits and accepting less than you think appropriate. Humility means asking for help and being transparent about your struggles even when you don’t want to acknowledge your limitations. But as much as that can be the case, dealing justifiably with one’s goals and serving humbly is also a very positive trait for anyone. At the very least, making this sort of commitment is sensible for a ministry major. Paul says that Jesus emptied Himself and became a servant (Phil. 2).
Learning to work on being open to select people in the moment, and not just in retrospect, like I especially did in that first book was no easy thing. But it is simply foolish to work myself to the breaking point when I could have humbly accepted grace part way through! Would it have prevented my relapse? I do not believe so. But it is necessary, and receiving grace, as well as medication, comes with humility. And maybe I learned along the way that my plans aren’t possible. But God wins. We are blessed with His rod and staff. They are in fact a comfort! When my pride is subjected to the Spirit, then I find that I am enabled to live for Him even in simple but critical ways rather than in showy ways. I hope, if only, to somehow make the trek into old age a successful husband and father. And that in itself would be a small miracle!
I remember getting out of the Army and realizing after the drama of being in a psych ward and taking meds for a few months that “wow, so I wasn’t really hearing voices all along, and those delusions were just personal fictions!” I went in and out of deciding that I really could coast now without the meds because I had “learned my lesson.” The subsequent months I quit taking meds at different times, and I landed in a VA psych ward amid those efforts. I got fed up and prayed sincerely that God would enable me to take the meds regularly because I came in and out of being convinced at times that I was fine without them. I could be cured, and what a pastor I would be in some people’s minds with a lesson like that! I could even speak to this issue with some authority because I had what it took to be an overcomer! All of that has ebbed and flowed throughout my life, but I have been really humbled and enabled to take the meds. And I have still wished at different times that somehow I could be a pastor. But it has simply never been God’s will for me. And I stopped receiving affirmations from others in that regard long before I personally came to the conviction that this goal really needed to go out of my heart completely.
It has been a comfort and a reminder that we are placed by God in the best and most suitable circumstances for His glory and our good. Charles Spurgeon writes:
There are some flowers that must be grown in the shade. I believe God made and adapted them to flourish most in umbrageous spots. Some ferns never thrive so well as in some little corner of the brook where the damp continually washes them. Perhaps you are one of those flowers or ferns, planted in a soil that suits your growth. Well, if it be so, murmur not at your lot. The gloom that hovers over you may help the peace of your heart. I have known women, pure and pious, for whom the sunny scenes of life have had no charms; but their bright faces, their beaming eyes, and their benevolent hearts have shone with a beautiful brilliance as they have flitted about like angels in the chambers of the sick, the wards of the hospital, or among the couches of the wounded and the dying. Consider him who was the Man of sorrows, but whose spirit was not crushed. In the midst of dire distress, he said to his disciples, “Let not your heart be troubled, neither let it be afraid.” And, beloved, do not be unmindful of the comfort you may derive under any affliction, when you trace it to the will of God. If you suffer as an evil-doer, if it is your own fault, the scourge that chastens you will invite no pity, and the conscience that reproaches you will aggravate your pain. If, on the other hand, you can trace the hand of the Lord in a cross or a calamity, your course is clear directly. It would be folly to repine; your wisdom is to resign yourself entirely to his will. Bear it patiently, and God will reward you plenteously. Your prayer shall come up before him acceptably, and the answer shall come down speedily, when you would rather glorify the Lord than gratify yourself.[5]
I can cite this from Spurgeon with a great deal of consolation. I do not believe as far as I am capable of knowing that I have suffered for sin. This is simply the spiritual crook in my lot that God has ordained for reasons I am not privy to and I hope one day to be renewed by Him in glory through definitely no merit of my own.
- Biblical Love and Our Relationships
The spiritual need for reproof and correction is also very needed. 1 Corinthians 13 is known as the love chapter of the Bible. A very skilled pastor friend of our family pointed out the significance of this to me around the aforementioned recent but perhaps somewhat traumatic episode of my life. And this is real medicine for my tendency, due to illness, for suspicion and fear! Verses 4-7 read as follows:
“Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.”
This is quoted as a great aid in the surprisingly common error that many people have of reading into things whether dealing with anxiety or PTSD or any host of otherwise medical diagnoses. My friend was so helpful in pointing out this verse to me which is the Biblical antidote to just such errors. We really do need to bear down on this and reference scripture constantly. It is such a weapon against weakness!
Love always trusts, and love always hopes, and love always perseveres. If you are somewhere where you are tempted to “read into things” or to be afraid of other people because of what they seem to be suggesting, then consider that Biblical love always trusts. You simply do the best you can with whatever it is and stay faithful. You don’t need to worry about what other people are doing. Don’t be preoccupied with what quickly becomes nonsense. God will take care of you if you do your best and put in sincere effort. Don’t be afraid of people. God loves you, and you should love others because God has placed his children daily in the exact place He wants them to be. That includes you and I!
We also know that 1 John 4:18 says, “There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.” This is important to bear in mind as we struggle with modern day anxieties and stress. It says that if you love perfectly, it casts out fear. It also indicates that fear has to do with punishment.
If you are stuck in closet sins whether these involve theft, or lies, or sexual things, etc. you need to know that this affects not just your ability to love but it can affect your thinking patterns and yes, mental health. Not only are these things unloving in themselves, but you will be anxious about being found out! God is the judge. If you think you can enjoy the cover of darkness for a time, then you will be found out eventually. Your awareness of this too is never taken away.
3. Fear and Guilt
Speaking of fear, the question is always there in some minds, be they ever so few, whether the guilt of those who have schizophrenia is the sinful cause of psychotic symptoms rather than the result of it. I won’t comment on that because I addressed that in 2016, but I have learned at least in my own case that it seemed for me that the disease itself irresistibly draws me into attitudes of fear and distrust and the result of that was exaggerated feelings of guilt because I was so afraid, not that I would admit, of judgment somehow looming under every rock for every sin. There is this inescapable draw into fear, and that is commingled with guilt. I think that to some extent, psychotic fear causes greater guilt, even if there are a lot of things to feel guilty about regardless.
Proverbs 19:23 says, “The fear of the Lord leads to life; then one rests content, untouched by trouble.” It was very helpful for me to treat my general fears with the fear of the Lord as the greatest real fear, but in the same breath to acknowledge that He has promised eternal life to me by grace through faith as well as the fact that the grace of God can see me through any threats to that between now and then. He is faithful unilaterally though I am always insufficient and incapable. Every day proves how insufficient I am and how completely sufficient God is.
In fact, the most un-relatable thing to us and holy characteristic of Yahweh is that He makes unilateral covenants with incapable people who prove repeatedly in the Bible how incapable they are. He swore by Himself to Abraham as He passed by Himself through the pieces of sacrificed animals in Genesis 15. He Himself would fulfill His promises to Abraham, while Abraham was responsible for nothing. Abraham actually slept just as God alone passed through those pieces.
In the Ancient Near East, covenants were cut with both parties passing through the pieces of dead animals and susceptible to death if they didn’t keep their part, but God promised to Abraham that He alone was responsible for keeping the whole covenant. This is a completely foreign concept to us. As Ed Welch in his book, “Running Scared,” points out, we make promises when we are guilty of something most often, but God initiates covenants with guilty parties when they are incapable of anything and already guilty.[6]
If you fear God the most, and you should, this aspect of holiness should provide at once the most comfort imaginable, as it does for me. All too often, we think of the holiness of God as a threatening thing, but it is that and so much more. Because of His complete otherness, He is loving enough to save us regardless of the spiritual and daily perils we face in life. All the while, we cannot keep our side of the bargain, as it were. The caveat is that God enables us to rely on His Spirit to grow in our faithfulness, all the while never achieving perfection in this life. He alone is able.
[1] Ragy R. Girgis. On Satan, Demons, and Psychiatry: Exploring Mental Illness in the Bible. (Wipf and Stock Publishers: Eugene, OR) p. 22
[2] E. Fuller Torrey. Surviving Schizophrenia: A Family Manuel. Seventh Ed. (New York: Harper Perennial. 2019) p. 94
[3] Lou Priolo. Suspicion: How to Overcome “Paranoid” Thinking. (Kress Biblical Resources, The Woodlands, TX: 2018) p. 48
[4] Ibid.
[5] Charles Spurgeon. The Lame Sheep. https://www.spurgeon.org/resource-library/sermons/lame-sheep/#flipbook/ Accessed 22 April 2024
[6] Ed Welch. Running Scared. (New Growth Press: Greensboro, NC, 2007) P. 98
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