Tag: mental illness

Four Truths from God

I want to share four truths that I heard in church last Sunday. They are four truths that our youth minister heard a Christian speaker share at a conference earlier last week. But these four truths weren’t new with that speaker either. Their source is God and they are told to us in His Word.

For broken believers — those struggling with mental illness or substance abuse — these truths can be particularly difficult to fully grasp and internalize. We hear them and obtain a head knowledge of them, but to truly understand these truths they must make their way to our hearts. My prayer is that you who read this will allow God to settle these truths not only in your mind but in your heart as well.

  1. You are loved.

    But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions. Ephesians 2:4-5a (NIV).

  2. You matter.

    “For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the LORD, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future.” Jeremiah 29:11 (NIV).

  3. You are chosen.

    But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 1 Peter 2:9 (NIV).

  4. You are not alone.

And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Counselor to be with you forever—the Spirit of truth. The world cannot accept him, because it neither sees him nor knows him. But you know him, for he lives with you and will be in you. I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. John 14:16-18 (NIV).

So the next time you think no one loves you because you haven’t done anything to earn the love of others, refute that lie with the truth that God loves you. The next time you think you are too insignificant to matter to anyone, refute that lie with the truth that God has a plan for your life that is perfectly suited to how He made you. The next time you are feeling lost and alone, remember that you have been chosen by God to belong to Him and that He has sent His Holy Spirit to dwell in you so that you will never be alone.

 

Bryan’s Note: Please dear one, check out Linda’s home site at http://lindakruschke.wordpress.com/

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The Hidden Life of Bulimia

Bulimia nervosa is characterized by recurrent and frequent episodes of eating unusually large amounts of food (e.g., binge-eating), and feeling a lack of control over the eating. This binge-eating is followed by a type of behavior that compensates for the binge, such as purging (e.g., vomiting, excessive use of laxatives or diuretics), fasting and/or excessive exercise.

Unlike anorexia, people with bulimia can fall within the normal range for their age and weight. But like people with anorexia, they often fear gaining weight, want desperately to lose weight, and are intensely unhappy with their body size and shape. Usually, bulimic behavior is done secretly, because it is often accompanied by feelings of disgust or shame. The binging and purging cycle usually repeats several times a week. Similar to anorexia, people with bulimia often have coexisting psychological illnesses, such as depression, anxiety and/or substance abuse problems. Many physical conditions result from the purging aspect of the illness, including electrolyte imbalances, gastrointestinal problems, and oral and tooth-related problems.

Other symptoms include:

  • chronically inflamed and sore throat
  • swollen glands in the neck and below the jaw
  • worn tooth enamel and increasingly sensitive and decaying teeth as a result of exposure to stomach acids
  • gastroesophageal reflux disorder
  • intestinal distress and irritation from laxative abuse
  • kidney problems from diuretic abuse
  • severe dehydration from purging of fluids

As with anorexia, TREATMENT FOR BULIMIA often involves a combination of options and depends on the needs of the individual.

To reduce or eliminate binge and purge behavior, a patient may undergo nutritional counseling and psychotherapy, especially cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT), or be prescribed medication.

Some antidepressants, such as fluoxetine (Prozac), which is the only medication approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration for treating bulimia, may help patients who also have depression and/or anxiety. It also appears to help reduce binge-eating and purging behavior, reduces the chance of relapse, and improves eating attitudes.

CBT [or, talk therapy] that has been tailored to treat bulimia also has shown to be effective in changing binging and purging behavior, and eating attitudes. Therapy may be individually oriented or group-based.

Source: http://www.nimh.nih.gov/health/

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Evil Gets a Makeover

by Catherine DeMonte LFMT

God delights in changing evil things into good. He has this crazy habit of taking dark things and making them new. Many of us have a checkered past, many hurtful and ugly things have been committed on us, as well as by us. We have been wounded, and we have hurt others.

There are some of us with a mental illness. And some with a chemical dependency. These have been a factor in our sin, but they are not excuses. The Book of Proverbs describes this “playing with fire.”

“Can a man carry fire next to his chest and his clothes not be burned?”

Proverbs 6:27, ESV

The first step we take is to “own up.” But alas, we have hid it for so long, denying and pretending that we have not been harmed, or have harmed others. We are masters of disguise, masquerading as whole people. When I was a boy, I often earned the task of cleaning the barn. You would scrape the manure into the gutter, and then dusted lime over anything left behind. But it was only cosmetic, it was simply covered up.

The deep promise of Jesus is not cosmetic. It is not superficial; it is not just “skin deep.” The profound actuality is that our transformation is inside out. It is a work that starts in our heart, and then works itself out where people can see. We have all tried to clean things up, but what we don’t need is more lime.

The love and forgiveness of our Lord is what we really must have. Our sins are making us very unpleasant people. As we get older we find that our evil has been compounded and extrapolated. The infection only spreads, and it gets worked throughout our lives and relationships. This is ruinous, and David understood.

“Then I confessed my sins to you
and didn’t hide my guilt.
I said, “I will confess my sins to the Lord,”
and you forgave my guilt. “

Psalm 32:5, NCV

We are sinners, and some of us are very talented at it. It is an art form to us. Our entire society, and every social aspect is sick with it. Jesus who knows us completely, and He loves us the most.

“In Christ we are set free by the blood of his death, and so we have forgiveness of sins. How rich is God’s grace,8 which he has given to us so fully and freely.”

Ephesians 1:7,8

“I sinned against the Lord,
so he was angry with me,
but he will defend my case in court.
He will bring about what is right for me.
Then he will bring me out into the light,
and I will see him set things right.”

Micah 7:9, NCV

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A Crash Course in Depersonalization

Depersonalization is like having amnesia.  You don’t know who you are, you’ve “lost” yourself– your identity or your personality.  You try to jump-start yourself.  You pray, make deals with God, but it doesn’t help.  You are stuck.

There is a pervading feeling, like doom.  It saturates your thinking, flavoring everything with a sense of finality.  It is as difficult as you can imagine, to lose yourself– to become unreal to yourself.

Depersonalization is a symptom of an anxiety disorder and not a stand alone condition. How do we know this? Because depersonalization cannot exist without anxiety BUT anxiety can exist without depersonalization.

Depersonalization is caused by a shift in the part of the brain that provides us with a ‘real’ awareness of our environment; this part of the brain is directly linked to the Amygdala, the organ in the brain responsible for anxiety.

Terms commonly used to describe the symptoms and sensations of Depersonalization:

  • unreal
  • disembodied
  • divorced from oneself
  • apart from everything
  • unattached
  • alone
  • strange
  • weird
  • foreign
  • unfamiliar
  • dead
  • puppet-like
  • robot-like
  • acting a part
  • like a lifeless person
  • two dimensional
  • ‘cardboard’ figure
  • made of cotton-wool
  • having mechanical actions
  • remote
  • automated, a robot
  • a spectator
  • witnessing ones own actions as if in a film or on a TV program
  • not doing one’s own thinking
  • observing the flow of ideas in the mind as independent.

Treatment is to deal with the anxiety, depersonalization, although disturbing in itself, is not harmful. [Although the experts have never had to go through it].

As a Christian believer I reach out for the presence of God in this mental state.  Even though it is hard, I reach out in faith on the basis of His word; He will never leave or forsake me, He has forgiven me and not abandoned me.  That He understands my thinking from afar off.  These truths all strengthen me.

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