A Beautiful Mind
Delivered from Schizophrenia God's Way
For this issue, I wanted to focus on mental health for our Health Hits section. I know that May is Mental Health Awareness Month, and this article may have been more befitting for that issue, but mental illness is wreaking havoc on our generation and the Bible says that we overcome by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of our testimony. Someone can read this in March and be set free by May. I believe in sharing personal testimonies that can help someone else get set free, similar to what I did in the holiday issue when I shared the story about my weight loss. One common thread I’m noticing is that God has me focused on sharing stories that will penetrate your mind and spirit.
God cares about the whole person, not just the spiritual. I’m taking an excerpt from my upcoming memoir where I share my past journey with schizophrenia and how God delivered me supernaturally. I want to be clear: I never received a medical diagnosis, however, God used three different women over two years to bring awareness to me, along with sending me my own confirmations that this is what I was dealing with. I’m always upfront about this because I never want to give the idea that everyone’s journey will be like mine. God didn’t send me down the path of medication, though that’s what I wanted, and He chose to have me walk out my deliverance over thirteen years. I pray that the story blesses you and that you receive a breakthrough in your mental health regardless of what your diagnosis or battle may be.
Mental Illness & Nervous Breakdowns
My first nervous breakdown, that I can recall, was when I was in college. Many of them took place during these years. I’m talking about where I was so fragile that I couldn’t eat for months, I had to sleep with my mom and I would rush through the day, just to wake up frazzled and depressed all over again. A nervous breakdown may show up in different ways in different people, but for the most part, it’s harsh on all of us when it hits. I remember being on the campus of Temple University and rushing from one class to the next, just to try to stop the voices that were telling me to jump off of one of the buildings.
I would hide in the bathroom in between classes just to catch my breath. I would stare at the computer or the same spot on the wall in my classes just to avoid eye contact with people. God forbid the professor call on me. I would continue to experience at least one nervous breakdown a year until I was about twenty-seven when I first moved to Atlanta. These were the worst years of my life. Sometimes, I would walk down the street with sunglasses on when we lived in Germantown, which was from middle school through college, because I thought someone was after me. I was paranoid and I honestly felt like I was losing my mind.
I remember telling someone at my church back home in Philly about it when I was nineteen and she told me to watch A Beautiful Mind featuring Russell Crowe. The movie gave me context and a place to start to go and talk to someone. We had a board-certified psychiatrist at the church who helped me through that season. She helped me to understand how the enemy perverts the gifts of God to manipulate people into being used for the kingdom of darkness, but it didn’t magically go away. It wasn’t until I spoke to the deliverance pastor at my church, and she gave me the book Pigs in a Parlor and told me to read the chapter on “schizophrenia” that I realized I couldn’t run from it, I had to fight it – demon by demon. While she wasn’t medically trained to diagnose me, I know the Holy Spirit revealed to her what God wanted me to know at the time.
If I’m honest, I believe that was the enemy’s plan for my life but when I tell you God came and grabbed me from the miry clay, as David put it, He did. I could’ve been on medication, out of my mind, and in a mental institution by now, but God. This is why I don’t entertain atheists or other faiths because only Christ could save someone from destruction like this without medication. And let me emphasize, without. Once I moved to South Korea at twenty-eight, to teach for a year, I fully realized what the enemy was trying to do through my bloodline. Mental illness and depression had been running rampant for generations.
So, when depression crept up on me during my final months in South Korea, I knew that the enemy wanted me to have a nervous breakdown in another country, where I was away from my family, especially my mom. She was the one who always prayed me through and helped me stay sane, although she had to threaten to commit me twice. I had a strategy this time. The entire time I was in Korea, God had been downloading certain scriptures and prayers to overcome depression. So, when fear came over me and tried to convince me that I couldn’t go back home because I didn’t have a job lined up and I didn’t know what I was going home to, I implemented the strategy He’d given me.
This time, I won. For the first time in ten years, I didn’t reach the full point of having a nervous breakdown. I was able to overcome by God’s grace and by warring for what was rightfully mine. My mind. Lastly, there’s one other thing I want to discuss before we get to the practical part. There’s something called maladaptive daydreaming. I didn’t have a term for it until about eight years ago. It’s where you daydream excessively, and it can lead you to talk to yourself for long periods and lose track of time. It’s not that you hear other voices and it’s not that you think you’re talking to someone else—no. The reason they don’t associate it with actual psychosis is that those who struggle with this issue know the difference between reality and fantasy.
Today, I’m able to manage it by allowing God to show me how to use it through my creativity, through my prophetic anointing, and to speak life into people, even when they aren’t around me, which was always His plan. Once I learned that many writers talk to themselves and we certainly can be super creative when we’re doing it, I started to place that energy into using those times it happened to speak my next book out loud, prophesy over myself during wilderness seasons, or to practice the life I always wanted to have (in a Godly way). What the enemy meant for bad, God turned it all around for my good. Let me show you how.
God’s Strategy, My Obedience
It’s going to take a lot for you to do things God’s way when it comes to healing. It will require a level of obedience that you may never have had to tap into before. Why? Because God’s ways are unorthodox. Jesus told a blind man to rub clay on his eyes after he spit in His hand (John 9). He didn’t tell him to go to a doctor. When God heals your soul, you have to let Him do it the way He wants because His way is permanent. With that, please note: Not everyone will overcome mental illness through a supernatural breakthrough. In most cases, depending on the severity, you may need medication. I believe God allowed my story to be unique because there are always a few miracles in every health journey that God uses to bring Him glory. He knew He could trust me to shout His name if I was ever asked, “How did you overcome mental illness?”. No matter what, you must understand that God has a unique strategy for your situation, and He will bring you through to the other side.
Overcoming Depression & Mental Instability
1) Therapy would be first here, but in this case, you may be referred to a psychiatrist depending on how severe it is. Don’t feel bad or think you’re crazy. You’re only crazy if you don’t get help. If you’re prescribed medication, I recommend praying over the pill(s) every time you have to take them and speak that it will only do what it was created to do, pray that you won’t become dependent on it, or addicted to it, and pray that you will not experience any side effects.
2) Find a support group so that you can see you’re not alone. It’s okay to discuss it with your parents and loved ones, but sometimes, love and support only takes you so far. You need people with similar experiences, so you won’t feel alone on the island.
3) Don’t speak what you fear. If you fear being committed or having to take medication, don’t speak it. Speak healing instead.
4) Journal your breakthroughs. So often, because mental anguish is so tiring, we can’t always see the breakthroughs we’ve received. Sometimes, the process to healing is long and we overlook those small victories, which in this area, no victory should be considered small. Keep a track record of God’s faithfulness because it will be important to revert back to on the dark days.
5) Lastly, know thyself. Depression is can be brought on by triggers. Once we come through on the other side, it’s important to keep any doors closed that contributed to the depression. This doesn’t mean it was your fault, however, the healing and maintaining it is your responsibility.
Mental Health Testimony & Wisdom
I’m not sure why God allowed my mental health journey to play out in a way where He only wanted His healing and supernatural power to touch my life. However, I do believe it’s important to provide clarity. While there were times that I did play on having a mental illness, I also realized that God wasn’t asking me to claim schizophrenia or anything else. What He was doing was revealing how the enemy tried to pervert my spiritual gifts and my gift of creativity to use it for the kingdom of darkness. I am in no way, shape, or form saying I’m an expert on the topic nor am I trying to diagnose anyone. Please note, I am not a doctor and these tips provided are only meant to assist you with the spiritual part of healing when it comes to mental illness.
One thing I will add is this: Be careful viewing healing as a one-dimensional objective for God to bring you to wholeness. If you only look at one way something can be done, God won’t be able to heal you the way He wants. Your healing is tied to someone else’s deliverance, so the steps He gives you may look different. For me, from 2012 until 2020, God moved me ten times. For a good bit of that time, I lived with different people, sometimes even living in another state and of course, I lived in South Korea for a year. What I didn’t realize until about 2018, was that each person I lived with helped me step into a greater version of who I was called to be.
How? We all have different personalities. Some of us wrestle and feel like we have multiple personalities because we’re battling unknown spirits that are weighing us down. Each season, wherever God led me, I went. I was very uncomfortable because I was living with different people and I wanted to be on my own. I wanted to know why God wouldn’t open a door for me to secure a job that would allow me to obtain an income to do what I needed. I wasn’t trying to live a lavish lifestyle I was just trying to live. Living with others meant I would always be at their mercy. I despise none of those times because not only did God help me reach a new level of deliverance with each living experience, but He also helped me grow into my calling.
As I walked with each person, He delivered me from anything in me that didn’t belong. So, whenever I felt irritated by something they were doing, I came to the reality that He was using them as a mirror to deliver me from that same thing. We’re all imperfect, flawed individuals. I had to humble myself and before correcting them or wanting to throw a stone, I had to take the speck out of my eye. I was walking out supernatural deliverance without even realizing it. All I knew, was that the Holy Spirit was moving and I was following. My flesh screamed the whole way, which is how I knew I needed it.
I shared this last tip because I believe we all need a healthy expectation of what deliverance looks like. You’ll look at someone else’s story and think it should go that way, or if you’re on medication, you’ll stop taking it when someone else shares that they only needed it for three months. When someone tells their story, it’s meant to provide the language you need for yours. Sometimes, we don’t have language because nobody talked about it when we were growing up or we didn’t hear the discussions we’re hearing now on mental health. We also tell our stories to encourage those assigned to us because we know if just one person grasps what they need, a whole nation can be delivered.
With that, I wanted to provide tips that God gave me for anyone who struggles with bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or any mental illness that has bombarded their lives. You can also use these tips to pray for anyone you know who is struggling with mental illness on any level. Wisdom comes from above and God will give you what you need when you need it. This is a starting place and remember, if you’re on medication, stay with it until God and your doctor say otherwise.
1) Meditate on verses that focus on the mind (you can start with the scriptures below). Ask God what spirits the individual is dealing with so you can begin to call them out, one by one.
2) Tear down your bias. These mental health issues don’t show up the way many may think (i.e. someone walking down the street talking to themselves, someone being suicidal, etc.), aren’t the only signs of someone dealing with mental health issues. Write out a prayer and ask God to help you remove the stereotype and bias from your mind concerning mental illness.
3) Get an understanding of the clinical side so that you can navigate your relationship or friendship with integrity. Just because the spiritual deliverance comes, doesn’t mean the physical deliverance will come at the same time. Someone dealing with schizophrenia or bipolar disorder may need time to process the new beautiful creation that they are. They may be tempted to go back into that dark space because it provided more comfort to them than the real world. Be patient and keep praying.
4) Be in tune with the Holy Spirit as you move throughout the day. You never know when God will have you pray for someone you don’t know, but it could be the seed that brings them into deliverance.
5) Do not negate medication if that’s the path God has you on (or the person). I may sound redundant, but the way my life is set up, I ain’t got time for somebody to try and say I told them to stop taking their meds. God is a God of order, so if that’s the order for you, that’s it. As the body of Christ, we can’t be so spiritual that we don’t listen to the practical. What you can do is pray over the medication before taking it, as I previously stated. Speak that it will only do what God wants it to do and nothing more or less. Come into agreement with God’s strategy for your healing and walk it out completely.
Some Verses on the Mind
Romans 7:25
2 Corinthians 10:4-5
Philippians 2:5
1 Corinthians 2:16
Romans 12:1-2
Hebrews 8:10
1 Peter 1:13
Colossians 3:2
Isaiah 26:3
Philippians 4:8
Colossians 3:10
I pray that my personal testimony filled with God’s love, deliverance and truth will help you stand for your deliverance in your mind, or to intercede on someone else’s behalf.