How a Traumatic Episode Led to a Schizoaffective Diagnosis

I have heard that mental illness usually develops as a young adult. That was true for me. As a child, I experienced unusual anxiety and fear whenever I felt helpless. This carried over into my teens and twenties and up. Panic and nervousness were my companions. I converted to Christianity around age 21. Then came spiritual anxiety that continued to escalate. I never felt secure in my salvation, and worried frequently that I was not really saved. I continued to fear death and felt desperate for God’s true forgiveness.

One day, a year after my conversion, depression descended on me, and I felt like giving up inside. I was very discouraged about how my faith was going, and everything felt bleak and hopeless. I was disappointed in God, so I just gave up on my faith and decided to let go and return to my secular life. Instantly, I experienced the Spirit of God wailing like a baby, and I felt the presence of God pull out of me. Then came a darkness over my mind that seemed to stretch for eternity, and God seemed unreachable.

     I was suddenly aware of how stupid I had been to forsake God. I cried out to Him, begging Him for forgiveness and to return to me. All night long, I cried and pleaded with Him.  My mind shattered into fragments and broke down completely. I lost all sanity and became catatonic, listening to and conversing with voices that I thought were angels. Mental illness took over. I had no coherent ability to eat or drink or take care of myself.

Alone and Lost in My Own World

Job 10:15 If I be wicked, woe unto me; and if I be righteous, yet will I not lift up my head. I am full of confusion; therefore see thou mine affliction;

I remained lost in my own mind and unresponsive to anyone for at least two weeks. Then, on the night of my birthday in early September, I heeded the voices who told me to go to the woods and wait there for the “hell vehicle” to pick me up. After entering the swamp, I slept there that night while interacting with several more voices. Some of the voices I believed were aliens on spaceships. Others were gods. Then there was a third set of human-like voices who made me think delusionally that I had killed my mother.  

The next morning, two EMTs dragged me up the side of the swamp to a waiting ambulance. I was rushed to the emergency room, where they discovered I was starving to death. I was too catatonic to sign any forms, so they handcuffed and foot-cuffed me and brought me in a police car to the state mental hospital.

Psalm 44:15 My confusion is continually before me, and the shame of my face hath covered me

Once there, they interrogated me to see the level of insanity I had, which convinced them pretty quickly to take me in. I was put on Haldol at first, but my eyes blurred, and I kept drooling. Then they tried two other medications before finally settling on Zyprexa. After observing me for a week, I was diagnosed as schizoaffective of the depressed type. A traumatic episode had triggered my mental illness onset.

I remained at the psychiatric hospital for about a month. The long stay was for determining my correct dose level of medication. The state wanted to commit me to a long-term ward, but when the hearing was held, no witnesses showed up, so they dismissed the case and discharged me.

Coming Out of the Mental Hospital, I Faced the Unknown

That was twenty-eight years ago. My diagnosis since then has changed to schizoaffective of the bi-polar type. I switched medications after eleven years to Invega. And since the first hospitalization, I have had eleven more nervous breakdowns. Mental illness has become a way of life for me.

I know what it’s like to suddenly lose your mind when you least expect it, and to end up in a psychiatric hospital again and again. It has been a long, hard fight to learn to cope with the terrifying fears, unending anxiety, and excessive paranoia of mental illness, and to try to function like a normal adult.

Psalm 71:1 In thee, O Lord, do I put my trust: let me never be put to confusion.

Through it all, God has been there for me. He has sent healers and therapists to minister to my traumas. It is His grace that keeps me fighting day after day to stay stable and to make progress in my life amidst those who do not understand and who can be cruel. One way God works with me is to encourage me to take steps of faith and boldness in areas that make me afraid. He works to deliver me from the fight, flight, or freeze syndrome that my nervous system continuously experiences.

The Lord Never Fails to Sustain Me

1 Corinthians 14:33 For God is not the author of confusion, but of peace, as in all churches of the saints.

The Lord fights my battles for me daily. Every time I am discouraged, He sends a message of encouragement that keeps me holding on to hope. When confusion and chaos overwhelm my mind, I cast it all on Him and He sustains me. Soon enough, my thoughts return to soundness. When the beginnings of a breakdown starts to form, He sends prayer warriors to intercede, helping to keep me from succumbing to insanity. Even in my weakest moments, when my mind does break down under extreme stress and anxiety, He carries me through it and helps me to recognize that those thoughts are irrational. He never judges me for my delusional states of mind, even when I become suspicious and accusatory and think He has a conspiracy against me.

Psalm 23:1-3 The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.

God’s patience with my mentally deteriorated states has enabled me to feel secure enough to trust His unconditional love for me. His love speaks louder than deafening thunder, and His blanket of security and acceptance surrounds my life. Every need is met; every desire has a promise from Him guaranteeing fulfillment. When I cry out to him in prayer, He often sends an answer quickly, even the next day, or within a short time. He ministers to my greatest weaknesses, including a lack of faith, because He is the All-Sufficient One. Our Lord sends deliverance, healing, and help when the enemy comes in like a flood. He satisfies my constant thirst for spiritual revelation and interaction.

The Lord Restores the Broken

Psalm 147:3 He healeth the broken in heart, and bindeth up their wounds.

There is nothing too hard for Him, even complete healing of schizoaffective disorder or any mental illness. His desire is to restore, redeem, renew, and make whole. In order to bring our lives to wholeness, we have to give Him all the pieces of our brokenness, all the shattered fragments, every hurt, every ounce of confusion, all the twisted anguish in our thoughts, and every bit of chaotic mess that our lives have become. Then, let Him work.

Trust the process; trust that, in his time, He can make something beautiful out of mental chaos. He may begin to make suggestions that, when followed, improve our outlook, thinking, and circumstances. Doors may suddenly open, and we may be led down new paths. He will bring us new connections that open the way to greater healing and restoration. I am confident He will pour out His blessings to combat all the despair and manifest His everlasting glory. He will touch and heal the bitter waters in our lives and hearts and replace them with fountains of living waters.

Jeremiah 32:17 Ah Lord God! behold, thou hast made the heaven and the earth by thy great power and stretched out arm, and there is nothing too hard for thee:

This process is slow, taking many years, and sometimes painful, for it forces us to honestly face the trauma and process the pain, until we can overcome our mental illness. The Lord walks with us every step of the way, guiding and ministering. When we become lost in an ocean of negative thinking, the Lord points the way back to the positive shore. As we reach out to Him, He reaches out to us and doesn’t stop. He speaks faith to every fear and silences all our self-doubts. He ordains us for assignments in his kingdom and fortifies us when we feel inadequate.

God Has Taken Me Much Closer to Victory

2 Chronicles 34:10 And they put it in the hand of the workmen that had the oversight of the house of the Lord, and they gave it to the workmen that wrought in the house of the Lord, to repair and amend the house:

In my own life, I have days where my mind feels sound, coherent, and competent to face the struggles and problems in my life due to mental illness. I can find solutions to overcome them. When anxiety feels like it is suffocating me, I take a deep breath, then write out some steps to take that will help to alleviate the anxiety. This gets me out of fight, flight, or freeze syndrome. Instead of fear, I feel hopeful and optimistic that I can work out the dilemma I’m worried about.  A state of livid fear makes you feel helpless, until you realize you aren’t really helpless. We can pray and ask for help, or ask a prayer counselor to pray when our faith is too weak.

We are never alone in our battle for a sound mind; He does not abandon us when we need Him. He carries us through each mentally unsound episode. His light shines on the darkness over our minds, until the damaged consciousness can find the light. The Lord knows that the wounds in our soul are deep. He tenderly holds us in His care and embrace until we heal and our thoughts clear up. He is our safe place, our refuge, our fixed constant in the midst of our chaos. His goal is to ultimately lead us home to victory.

2 Chronicles 24:13 So the workmen wrought, and the work was perfected by them, and they set the house of God in his state, and strengthened it.