[__ Prayer __] I outgrew schizophrenia!

[Christ_empowered]

I have mental health issues. My diagnosis is Bipolar I. I used to be Schizophrenic. Schizophrenia, for me, was a reaction to impossible circumstances. I don't mean to whine and play the victim, but seriously: I had nowhere to go but inward. It started at adolescence and reached its peak at 23 when I had a psychosomatic regression. A psychosomatic regression is rare. It means that the patient both looks and acts younger than their actual age. My personality disintegrated and I looked like a 14-17 year old.

After the regression, I couldn't go inward as much anymore, as much as I wanted to. I ended up in jail and then in Christian Rehab for 1 year, then in a small apartment in a small southern town for 1 year. I did therapy with a Calvinist minister. I had an intense episode of psychotic depression as my mental energies started pushing outwards, towards the real world and towards God. I posted on here a lot while that was ongoing.

I moved back home about 7 months ago. I live in a small apartment my parents bought. They also bought a small house. The rent they get from the tenant in the house largely covers the mortgage for both properties.

I'm not perfect, but I am finally a man. Not a macho man, not a man's man, but a man who is trying to lead a quiet life guided by Christian morality. The schizophrenic reaction that consumed a good 14 years of my life is officially over. My energies are now directed outwards. I clean up after myself, I pray a lot, I post here a good bit, I talk to people, I...function, basically. The most schizophrenic man child the world has ever seen was turned into a man who has a growing faith in the God who saved him. I have a conscience, a moral compass. I have genuine thoughts and emotions. Its pretty incredible.

I was thinking about it today, and its hard to believe that its over. The schizo-retreat has ended. After wasted resources, wasted youth, wrecked health, a few run-ins with the law, hospitalizations--its over. I may always have these awful depressions to contend with, and I can't go off my Abilify for fear of having a manic episode (I HATE mental hospitals, so I'll do what I can to stay out of them), but its all over, really. My health and mind have been restored, my family loves me again, people in my community leave me alone. Most importantly, I got here because of God, and I am starting to love and appreciate Him and the people He puts in my life more.

So, this is my praise report: God transformed a hopeless case of idle, immature, narcissistic schizophrenia into a Christian man who suffers, just like everyone suffers, just maybe in a different manner. I started out as a self-loving, schizo-manchild, and I ended up a full-fledged human being.

 

[lmw]

Congrats and to God be the glory. I'm no stranger to mental illness, my husband was bipolar and my ex boyfriend from years ago was schizophrenic. Sadly they both are no longer on this earth.

I too have been healed, my illness was epilepsy. I suffered seizures for about 12 years and when the medications stopped working, I prayed for healing and by God my prayers were answered. I've been medication and seizure free for about 5 years now.

 

[Christ_empowered]

That's exciting! Did you have a gradual reduction in seizures, or was it a rather sudden end to the epilepsy?

 

[lmw]

I think for the most part it was gradual... because I think it took me awhile to believe I COULD be healed. It took awhile after my last seizure to stop taking my medication so I went for some time being seizure free before I realized I was healed.

May 2004 was when I took my very last pill. I was crossing over the St. Croix River on the Minnesota/Wisconsin border, significant to me so I remember exactly where I was. The grand mal seizures were so bad. I'd have them in the middle of the night and often I'd wake up in the morning on the floor with everything knocked off my nightstand, and with blood all over me because I bit my tongue so bad during the seizure. I mostly had the partial seizures, where for a short amount of time I'd just be gone, they'd last from a few seconds to a couple of minutes but I was having up to 70 every day. I couldn't hold a job, couldn't drive, epilepsy pretty much controlled my life. At first it took a couple years to be diagnosed; after maybe the 3rd doctor telling me I was either mentally ill or I had severe depression, and one of those doctors accusing me of being addicted to Xanax (which wasn't at all true), I found a great doctor who witnessed one of my episodes and finally I had an answer and a diagnosis. She's still my doctor today, 13 years later.