Christ_empowered
Member
7 years ago around this time--shortly after the New Year, 2008--I was given heavy, involuntary electroshock. I'd been psychotic during an ill-fated return to a state school, where I'd hoped to finish my degree. The day before the electroshock, I was bashed on the head with a pipe by some thugs while walking around a less-than-desirable part of a southern city. The docs didn't tell my parents that they'd electroshocked me back to the stone age--honestly, I didn't know until I heard people around town talking about it, because some people shared my info with people around town--but they did tell my parents that I'd "never be the same again."
So true. My psychotic break destroyed my personality. The electroshock annihilated my memories, my sense of self. And yet...
...2 years ago, I got saved. I cried, it was a beautiful experience. 2 years in...I'm going to college onlline and doing well. My parents don't have to pay for anything; I get Pell Grants and loans. I transferred in 60ish.70 credit hours out of the required 120, so it won't take too long for me to earn a degree.
I really am not the same. Its...strange, you know, looking back, 7 years later...I was just some former junky, skinny, money-wasting, effeminate loser, at least in the eyes of the world. "Hopelessly narcissistic," to quote one ex-shrink. I did so many pills in my late teens that I was expected to be dead by 23. Given that the breakdown and the electroshock utterly destroyed that guy, the person I used to be, I guess...well, in a very real sense, the "experts" were right, weren't they?
I'm now regarded as "mentally ill," but not terribly "disordered." I held onto bits and pieces of who I was, for some reason, until recently. I guess when you live and breathe as a certain person, with a certain personality, you're reluctant to say: I am not that person. I cannot be that person. They destroyed that person.
So, now I've been a Christian for 2 years. I'm just now at the point where I can say, with full confidence, feeling assured of this: Jesus lives inside my (inner-most) heart. The last time I prayed for Jesus to save me--and I've done it several times since I got saved 2 years ago, just to be sure, just to know...anyway, the last time I prayed, I prayed for "Jesus to come into my inner-most heart, and illuminate the darkness. Change me and save me."
The shrinks did destroy me, years ago. I limped on, somehow, for some reason. Now, 2 years into my walk with Christ, I am: physically healthy, bright eyed, surprisingly intelligent, socially skilled (I used to be quite socially inept), developing empathy and compassion, and...I'm growing up, at long last.
I don't know exactly why I'm posting about this, yet again, its just...I think I'm finally ready, able, and willing to put the old me to rest. I don't know where old personalities go, where memories go, when they're obliterated. I wrote a couple short stories recently, semi-autobiographical. Both of them ended in the death of the fictional (former) me. Writing is largely therapy for me. Actual therapy would be expensive...besides, most "mental health professionals" treat me with disdain. Always have. come to think of it...these days, I'm not even "on the same wave length" as most therapists. Oh well.
All I can think of, and this has come to my mind sometimes while praying, and I pray alot...I now choose life. I choose life over death, blessings over curses, at least much more than I did when I was the old me. I'm blessed, too. I can't go back to who I was, and now that a few, just enough, memories have been returned I realize...there really wasn't any hope for the old me, anyway. Too many pills, too much pride, scarred follicles, sickly, obviously brain damaged and impaired, and...
...yeah. Wow. Complete and total transformation, brought to me by Christ Jesus. I'm not a drinker or a ddrugs user, I apparently don't fit the criteria for "Narcissistic Personality Disorder," I'm physically healthy, and I'm surprisingly intelligent. As for my hair, I sort of regard it as something..I dunno, a symbol, a metaphor for Christ's work in my life...it grew back, thicker and much wavier than I remembered. Its also a different color.
So true. My psychotic break destroyed my personality. The electroshock annihilated my memories, my sense of self. And yet...
...2 years ago, I got saved. I cried, it was a beautiful experience. 2 years in...I'm going to college onlline and doing well. My parents don't have to pay for anything; I get Pell Grants and loans. I transferred in 60ish.70 credit hours out of the required 120, so it won't take too long for me to earn a degree.
I really am not the same. Its...strange, you know, looking back, 7 years later...I was just some former junky, skinny, money-wasting, effeminate loser, at least in the eyes of the world. "Hopelessly narcissistic," to quote one ex-shrink. I did so many pills in my late teens that I was expected to be dead by 23. Given that the breakdown and the electroshock utterly destroyed that guy, the person I used to be, I guess...well, in a very real sense, the "experts" were right, weren't they?
I'm now regarded as "mentally ill," but not terribly "disordered." I held onto bits and pieces of who I was, for some reason, until recently. I guess when you live and breathe as a certain person, with a certain personality, you're reluctant to say: I am not that person. I cannot be that person. They destroyed that person.
So, now I've been a Christian for 2 years. I'm just now at the point where I can say, with full confidence, feeling assured of this: Jesus lives inside my (inner-most) heart. The last time I prayed for Jesus to save me--and I've done it several times since I got saved 2 years ago, just to be sure, just to know...anyway, the last time I prayed, I prayed for "Jesus to come into my inner-most heart, and illuminate the darkness. Change me and save me."
The shrinks did destroy me, years ago. I limped on, somehow, for some reason. Now, 2 years into my walk with Christ, I am: physically healthy, bright eyed, surprisingly intelligent, socially skilled (I used to be quite socially inept), developing empathy and compassion, and...I'm growing up, at long last.
I don't know exactly why I'm posting about this, yet again, its just...I think I'm finally ready, able, and willing to put the old me to rest. I don't know where old personalities go, where memories go, when they're obliterated. I wrote a couple short stories recently, semi-autobiographical. Both of them ended in the death of the fictional (former) me. Writing is largely therapy for me. Actual therapy would be expensive...besides, most "mental health professionals" treat me with disdain. Always have. come to think of it...these days, I'm not even "on the same wave length" as most therapists. Oh well.
All I can think of, and this has come to my mind sometimes while praying, and I pray alot...I now choose life. I choose life over death, blessings over curses, at least much more than I did when I was the old me. I'm blessed, too. I can't go back to who I was, and now that a few, just enough, memories have been returned I realize...there really wasn't any hope for the old me, anyway. Too many pills, too much pride, scarred follicles, sickly, obviously brain damaged and impaired, and...
...yeah. Wow. Complete and total transformation, brought to me by Christ Jesus. I'm not a drinker or a ddrugs user, I apparently don't fit the criteria for "Narcissistic Personality Disorder," I'm physically healthy, and I'm surprisingly intelligent. As for my hair, I sort of regard it as something..I dunno, a symbol, a metaphor for Christ's work in my life...it grew back, thicker and much wavier than I remembered. Its also a different color.
