Tag: mental health

The God-Players, [Death Wish]

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The Problem Is Myself,

  by Earl Jabay

 

About twenty-five years ago, in a small Midwestern city, a group of young boys were playing baseball. It was a team tryout. Every boy was doing his best to impress the coach. Robbie was a catcher. Younger than the two other boys who were trying out for that position, he was, however, a real beaver. Nothing was more important to him than getting on the team. There was no question about his talent. He was good. Any spectator could see that he was better than the other two catchers.

Late in the afternoon, the coach called Robbie over to him. Robbie studied the coach’s eyes for some hint of acceptance. It was not there, but then, maybe the coach was hiding his feelings. The coach began talking about how much ability Robbie had and that he really gave a lot to the game. And then it came. “Robbie, I hate to have to tell you this, but I can’t use you.” It was like being hit on the head with a baseball bat. “But . . . why?” Robbie fought to hold back his tears.

“Robbie—two things. You’re not a team member. You never joined us. You play your game when you are out there. You are a good catcher—but a loner as a team member. “The second thing is that you have a problem with me. You play my part, coaching the players and taking over. We can’t have a ball club on that basis.” “But Coach!—I was only trying my best!” Coach reflected. “There’s more to it than that, Robbie.” You were a good ballplayer, but your enlarged ego moved you right out of the ball club. “Forget it!” cried Robbie, as he stormed off the ball field. “I wouldn’t be caught dead on your crummy team!” Even as you stormed off the field, you felt like a king. You told them you were too good for them.

When I met Robbie, he was a man in his late thirties who had recently been admitted to a mental hospital. Rob was severely suicidal. “I’ve been struggling against taking my life ever since I was a young boy. Death has somehow always had a fascination for me.” He was seated comfortably in my study, and I just let him talk. “I remember that old Ford I had just before I graduated from high school. One night I took it out to the edge of town and ran a piece of tubing from the exhaust, through the window, and into the car. Then I started up the engine. Somehow, it gave me wild excitement to see how close I could come to taking my life. I chickened out, as you can see.” He laughed hollowly. “Another time, I tried to see how close I could come to the concrete abutment of an overpass. The car was doing about fifty-five when I hit it. Two days later, I woke up in a hospital with a broken back which still gives me trouble.” I thought of all the highway deaths and wondered how many of them were, in reality, suicides. “This thing with death really frightens me.” He paused and shook his head. “Well, it does and it doesn’t. Right now, I really don’t want to kill myself. But when I get excited or things go wrong, the first thing I do is think about some weird plan to kill myself. I have literally hundreds of ways all worked out in my mind. The idea has a hold on me.

Many times, it’s almost as if a dark, brooding presence comes over me and I have no power over it. I don’t believe in the devil, but it’s like an evil power—I find myself absolutely powerless to resist it. That’s what brought me here. This time, I slashed my wrists. One part of me tells me I wanted to do it—another says I didn’t.” Rob went on to tell me what he had tried to do about his problem. “I spent years trying to figure out what kind of a nut I was to have these weird ideas. I became such a nervous wreck that I went to a psychiatrist for some tranquilizers. Thought maybe that would help.” He sighed and leaned back in his chair. “The doctor gave me some pills and suggested psychotherapy. I had already read a lot about it, so I began treatment. At the time, I claimed that it was doing a lot of good and that I was finally getting some answers. I think I had to say that to justify paying him all that money! After two years, I ran out of money—and patience. I came to know a lot about my past, but that old problem of suicide was more of a threat than ever.

“Next thing I did was go to a minister. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not religious, but I heard that this minister was a counselor, so I went to him. True, he didn’t say much about God, but he sure had a lot to say about his church. His congregation was very busy and active with all kinds of study groups and community-action programs, all of which I was invited to join. When I finally got to tell him about my problems, all I recall him saying was that I should make a decision not to kill myself, and that I should use more willpower. Oh yes, he said I should also pray. I was hoping he would pray with me, because I felt I really needed prayer, but he never suggested it. I quit going to see him.”

I looked at Rob’s face. Fatigue was written all over it. And despair. I felt pity for this man who had tried so hard to figure out why he was losing his battle against death. I sensed that Rob had a little more to say. “The only conclusion I can come to is that my biggest problem is myself. I am my own worst enemy!—always have been. I’m a double person—maybe I’m schizoid, I don’t know. I do and then I don’t want to kill myself. I don’t understand myself. I don’t even like myself. Worst of all, I can’t even control myself! For God’s sake, Chaplain, tell me what’s wrong with me!” he cried, putting his face in his hands. “Does any of this make any sense at all?”

I knew it was time to level with Rob. “Okay,” I said, keeping my voice low, “I’ll give it to you straight: you are absolutely right when you say that you are your biggest problem. And the problem with you, Rob, is that you are a god-player. What I mean is this: you have tried to create your own little world with yourself placed squarely in the center of it. God has no place in your world because you have taken His place. Your whole life is a story of how you tried to set things up according to your will and plans. You wanted to be a king and build yourself a kingdom. The truth is that you are not a god, not even a king—you are a plain, ordinary human being who has never joined the human race.” Rob was listening now, not moving a muscle. I went on. “That early episode on the ball field, in a sense, tells it all. Even then you tried to take over. You tried to take that ball club—coach and all—and make them serve you in the Kingdom of Robbie. I paused, catching my breath, but Rob remained speechless.

“Now, about this problem of suicide,” I continued. “Suicide is the ultimate act of god-playing—even though you never consciously intended it to be that. Look, when anyone attempts suicide, what does he do? He insists of having the world his way, and if he cannot have it his way, he will kill himself. The king in us would rather die than accept the world as it is. He has such a deep love for his kingship and such a strong faith in himself to bring it about, that any failure or weakness in himself must be punished with death.” Rob nodded. He didn’t like what he was hearing, but he seemed to see it was the truth, and he wanted to hear more. “The Kingdom of Self, understand, is in our heads. We spend years building this fantasy kingdom unto our own glory. The king’s thinking becomes grandiose and his feelings ultimate. He believes all things can and must be done according to his will. And another thing; the king is never wrong. He is always right. Just ask him. He’ll tell you. So when the castle really starts to fall down around his ears and the king has lost all control of the world in his mind, he will fly out of control unto his own destruction. Then the forces of self-hate and self-pity move in and become so strong that the king is powerless to withstand them. He does, therefore, what he does not want to do—he attempts to kill himself because he can’t stand himself, defeated phony king that he is. It’s not that he particularly wants to die; it’s just that there doesn’t seem to be any alternative with his kingdom in such terrible shape.” I glanced at my watch and realized I had only a few minutes before my next appointment. “One more thing before you go: you are a god-playing king. So am I. Everyone is. You failed as a king. I, too. We are both failures—in fact, we even failed to fail successfully. But we are still alive, thank God, and there is much hope for both of us. If you want to, come back this afternoon, and we’ll talk some more.”

 

Earl Jabay was a Christian therapist in 1950’s.  He wrote a number of books, including “The Kingdom of Self” and “The God-Players.”

 

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Limits of Mental Illness

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Mental illness is so limited,

It cannot cripple love, 

It cannot shatter hope.

It cannot corrode our faith.

It will never destroy peace.

It cannot.

It will never kill friendship, 

It cannot suppress memories. 

It cannot invade the soul.

It cannot steal eternal life.

It cannot conquer eternal life.

It cannot conquer your spirit.

Amen.

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 P.S. I have received some criticism over the contents of this post. The argument is that mental illness is very destructive, and that I’m misleading others by suggesting it isn’t. The thinking is that we dwell on the past and how it effects the present moment. I believe we have a mental illness. But I also believe more strongly so that Christ redeems us completely. “Because he lives,” goes the old hymn, “I can face tomorrow.”

In the “heat of the moment” the situation can seem overwhelming. Our illness can be completely devastating. However the Holy Spirit is yet to fully redeem us, yet we still must view this coming event as something triumphant and total. This life is not the end. What a relief to shed this mortal darkness!

“Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God. 4 He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away.”

Revelation 21:3-4

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The Frustration of Autism

What are Autism Spectrum Disorders?

Autism Spectrum Disorders (ASD), also known as Pervasive Developmental Disorders (PDDs), cause severe and pervasive impairment in thinking, feeling, language, and the ability to relate to others. These disorders are usually first diagnosed in early childhood and range from a severe form, called autistic disorder, through pervasive development disorder not otherwise specified, to a much milder form, Asperger syndrome. They also include two rare disorders, Rett syndrome and childhood disintegrative disorder.

Signs & Symptoms

Parents are usually the first to notice unusual behaviors in their child. In some cases, the baby seemed “different” from birth, unresponsive to people or focusing intently on one item for long periods of time. The first signs of an autism spectrum disorder can also appear in children who had been developing normally. When an affectionate, babbling toddler suddenly becomes silent, withdrawn, self-abusive, or indifferent to social overtures, something is wrong.

Possible Indicators of Autism Spectrum Disorders

  • Does not babble, point, or make meaningful gestures by 1 year of age
  • Does not speak one word by 16 months
  • Does not combine two words by 2 years
  • Does not respond to name
  • Loses language or social skills

Some Other Indicators

  • Poor eye contact
  • Doesn’t seem to know how to play with toys
  • Excessively lines up toys or other objects
  • Is attached to one particular toy or object
  • Doesn’t smile
  • At times seems to be hearing impaired

Social Symptoms

From the start, typically developing infants are social beings. Early in life, they gaze at people, turn toward voices, grasp a finger, and even smile.

In contrast, most children with ASD seem to have tremendous difficulty learning to engage in the give-and-take of everyday human interaction. Even in the first few months of life, many do not interact and they avoid eye contact. They seem indifferent to other people, and often seem to prefer being alone. They may resist attention or passively accept hugs and cuddling. Later, they seldom seek comfort or respond to parents’ displays of anger or affection in a typical way. Research has suggested that although children with ASD are attached to their parents, their expression of this attachment is unusual and difficult to “read.” To parents, it may seem as if their child is not attached at all. Parents who looked forward to the joys of cuddling, teaching, and playing with their child may feel crushed by this lack of the expected and typical attachment behavior.

Children with ASD also are slower in learning to interpret what others are thinking and feeling. Subtle social cues—whether a smile, a wink, or a grimace—may have little meaning. To a child who misses these cues, “Come here” always means the same thing, whether the speaker is smiling and extending her arms for a hug or frowning and planting her fists on her hips. Without the ability to interpret gestures and facial expressions, the social world may seem bewildering. To compound the problem, people with ASD have difficulty seeing things from another person’s perspective. Most 5-year-olds understand that other people have different information, feelings, and goals than they have. A person with ASD may lack such understanding. This inability leaves them unable to predict or understand other people’s actions.

Although not universal, it is common for people with ASD also to have difficulty regulating their emotions. This can take the form of “immature” behavior such as crying in class or verbal outbursts that seem inappropriate to those around them. The individual with ASD might also be disruptive and physically aggressive at times, making social relationships still more difficult. They have a tendency to “lose control,” particularly when they’re in a strange or overwhelming environment, or when angry and frustrated. They may at times break things, attack others, or hurt themselves. In their frustration, some bang their heads, pull their hair, or bite their arms.

Treatment

There is no single best treatment package for all children with ASD. Decisions about the best treatment, or combination of treatments, should be made by the parents with the assistance of a trusted expert diagnostic team.

Transcript of and interview with Dr. Bearman on Autism

Dr. Peter Bearman is the professor of Sociology at the College of Arts and Sciences at Columbia University. He also serves as co- director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health and Society Scholars program at Columbia. Recently, Dr. Bearman came to the National Institute of Mental Health to talk about the focus of his work, autism prevalence. NIMH’s Director, Dr. Thomas Insel, sat down with Dr. Bearman to discuss autism research and began by referencing recent studies that indicate an increase in autism prevalence.

Dr. Insel:  So, as you look at this that question that everyone is asking is when they see the numbers now from the CDC where it’s gone from 1 in 1500 to 1 in 150 and apparently here in the fall of 2009 the figure that’s emerging is closer to 1 in 100. Meaning, that even since 2002 there has been a very profound increase in the number of children being diagnosed with autism.

Dr. Bearman: And Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Dr. Insel:  Autism Spectrum Disorders?

Dr. Bearman: Well that’s, an important distinction. I mean obviously there’s a profound increase in Autism and Autism Spectrum Disorders.

Dr. Insel: Is there an increase in the number of children with the disorder or with the Autism Spectrum Disorder or does this largely reflect the change in the way the diagnosis is used or some sort of increase in ascertainment?

Dr. Bearman: Well, I think that’s the big million dollar question. Our work which arises from California can, show that changes in diagnostic processing and diagnostic criteria I would say the period from 1992 to 2005 the changes in diagnostic criteria over that period that operate on the border between autism and mental retardation can be associated with about a quarter of the increase prevalence. Over that same period there has been a really fundamental change in the ascertainment, you can see that in lots of ways, but the most obvious way to see the changes in ascertainment, is to see that the social economic status gradient that used to be present for autism, the fact that children living and residing in wealthy communities are more likely to get a diagnosis, and that gradient largely disappears.

Dr. Insel: What seems important Peter in the way you’ve done this rather than you answering the question to say it’s increase, not increased your answering the question by what proportion of increase can be explained by separate factors because everybody’s pointing to changes in diagnosis, changes in ascertainment the way in which services may affect the use of the diagnosis. So what everybody really wants to know at the end of all this, is that actually are more children affected with the disorder or will 100 percent of this increase in prevalence be explained by these other factors?

Dr. Bearman: Our strategy is to try to decompose this increase into its constituent elements. Some component of that is increased ascertainment, some component of that is diagnostic change in diagnostic criteria, some component of that arises from already known risk factors, such as increases in parental age are associated with greater probability of genome mutations that could lead to copy errors that are associated with neurodevelopmental disorders. So social demographic changes that are affecting all western countries, the United States, and also California, can express themselves in increased incidence of autism on top of diagnostic ascertainment dynamics. I think the trick to figuring out how to decompose this increase into its constituent elements is to pay attention to the two dimensions that are important. The first dimension is temporal just the fact of temporal change, we are in the period of increased prevalence and if we’re in a period of increased prevalence and at the same time for example there’s also an increase in older parents. The risk associated with older parents will naturally appear to be greater now than it was a decade ago. So paying attention to temporal heterogenic is important. The other part of our work I think that’s  the most exciting is to pay attention to the spacial heterogenic and the fact that we can observe very strong,  very distinct, very stable clusters of increased risks for autism at very fine spacial resolution. For example, in California, there’s a very clear cluster in about 20 kilometers by 50 kilometers in which the relative risk for autism not, Autism Spectrum Disorders but autism itself is significantly higher over every year of observation that we make than any other place in California. That invites a couple of considerations, first, it invites the recognition that if you observe local spacial clustering whatever causes some components of the increased prevalence in autism it is not a global treatment. Secondly, it invites us to ask, well is there something in that local area that is driving an increased prevalence that could be a shared toxicological environment, it could be a virus that moves through and spreads from person to person and affects children in utero. Or it could be a piece of an ascertainment process which would be the diffusion of information from parent to parent as they learn how to recognize some symptoms for autism which have no biological markers.

Dr. Insel: From what you know now when you add all of those together how much of the increase can you explain?

Dr. Bearman: Well that’s a complicated question, but I think we can pretty uniquely associate about a quarter of the increase from the birth cohorts from 1992 to 2001 which is a lot, to diagnostic change on the border between diagnosis and mental retardation in autism. I think we can associate about 16 percent of the increase on the other border between autism and other neurodevelopmental disorders on the spectrum: Asperger’s, PPDNOS etc. And those are largely non over-lapping components of increase, so that’s about 40 percent. I think the spacial clustering itself adds another few percent. I would say I am confident that 40 percent of the increase I think I know what caused that. That leaves a lot of increase left, 50 percent is a lot to look for still.

Dr. Insel: Any ideas about what’s driving that other 50 percent?

Dr. Bearman: Well, some is genetic. I think that the increased parental age accounts were 11 percent of the increase over this period and that’s a lot and the mechanism by which increased parental ages expressing itself I think likely largely genetic. I think the tricky part is going to recognize that it would be harder now to find that 50 percent. It would look like it should be some toxicological environment that’s shared because of the spacial clustering. Because there’s a very strong process of amplification of the understanding of autism that leads to increased diagnosis as parents learn how to recognize symptoms a very, very, small event that would transform the environment five years ago, ten years ago, even you could imagine, 40 years or 50 years ago, when the moms of children with autism now were in utero as eggs- a very small event could cascade into a larger epidemic now.

Dr. Insel: So what do you tell parents who ask about this if you have friends who have autistic children and they say “What’s going on here? Why this epidemic?” What do you say in response?

Dr. Bearman: Well, I think parents are struggling to just enormously difficult to have a child with autism. It makes it very hard. I think parents are naturally searching for explanations, and I think that the message now is the search for a quick and dirty explanation might not be advancing science.

Dr. Insel: Thank you very much.  Good discussion.

Links on Autism

http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/publications/autism/index.shtml

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Hearing Voices

 

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I guess I’m in a wandering/wondering frame of mind.  I’ve been hearing voices off and on.  They are clear, distinct and I suppose  rather commanding.  Previously I’ve dealt with ‘tinnitus’, but this is definitely different.  The voices are not incredibly sophisticated–its usually just one or two words.  Quite simple actually.

Perhaps the full reason of why this is a problem,  because I wonder about some sort of ‘mental degradation’.

  • Am I getting worse?
  • Are the ‘voices’ the sign of the end for me?
  • Will they take over?
  • Will I turn into a blathering idiot?
  • Could they be ‘demonic’ or worse?

I have this image of a stark raving crazy guy, hung up on religion and ‘right-wing extremism’, foaming at the mouth and ‘heading for a bunker up in the mountains.’  But I am none of these things.  Maybe that’s why it scares me so.  I cannot relate to any of this, and I don’t want to.  I am not that person. This is not me.

The voices by themselves, not extrapolating their content, are disruptive enough.  They don’t have to be specific, all they have to be is loud and insistent.  It really doesn’t matter if I obey them.  They disrupt me just by speaking. (I hope they never decide to expand their vocabulary!)

I have a new insight to my brothers and sisters who struggle with schizophrenia/bipolar.  Many are on the streets, and they are desperately homeless.   On almost a ‘medieval’ level they battle with dragons.  Sometimes they push back the beastie, and then sometimes they themselves are slammed back.  But no matter what will happen that day, God’s love meets the warrior, and He lifts them up.

Voices.  These are not dredged up, or manipulated.  I definitely do not ‘manufacture’ them.  I certainly not doing this for attention.  But when they do press me (with an order or command) I do know that it is an alien voice, coming from outside of me.   I know the presence of Jesus pushes them away. I call on His name and they flee.

I have to believe, that God is holding on to me with both hands. 

He will not let me slide into the night, alone.  He has determined that darkness will never claim me.  I turn as I can, to look at Him, face-to-face by faith.  “He has come to heal the broken-hearted.  A bruised reed,  He will not break.  A smoking wick, He will not quench” (Isa. 43:3). What an awesome promise! We serve a gentle and protective God.

There may (or may not) be spiritual warfare issues. I believe that there is a magnificent power in the name of Jesus. The blood and the cross are for my protection. I shelter in all He is and all He has done, If anything, they push me toward the Lord Jesus and He protects me.

 

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