Living as someone with mental illness yet is high functioning, I can tell you it’s utterly exhausting. Doing things takes more energy than it would for someone without mental illness because I have to focus harder. I also do my best to put the problems in a box when necessary so they don’t affect other people. It takes energy to keep that box closed & on a shelf!! Add in having a brain injury & I spend a lot of time exhausted.
If you too are high functioning with mental illness, I’m sure you can relate to what I said, even if you don’t also have the brain injury. You truly are not alone! This post is to help you to understand that.
It feels like you’re being fake a lot of the time, doesn’t it? The truth is you aren’t being fake. You’re just hiding a part of yourself from others you don’t want to know about that part of you. There is nothing wrong with not being 1000% open with everyone. Sometimes it’s best to keep some information private from some people.
It also feels like people don’t believe you have any illness at all. People seem to think if you have mental illness, you need to be incoherent, hearing voices, attempting suicide, or even not taking care of your basic needs such as showering & changing clothes regularly. If you’re clean, your home is in order, you’re working & maintain relationships, many people don’t think you’re struggling with your mental health. They miss the small, subtle signs such as an increased or decreased appetite, sleeping more or less than usual, difficulty focusing, or feeling tired.
Your good & bad days look very similar to most people. They truly have no idea that on bad days, it took every ounce of willpower to pry yourself out of bed, to bathe, to do whatever you need to do on that day. Chances are, most wouldn’t believe you if you told them because they see no real differences between this bad day & your good days.
Sometimes people may say you’re gloomy or a “Debbie Downer” because sometimes your sadness or negative views show. They don’t realize that is depression talking. Or, maybe sometimes you jump at the slightest move from someone or sound & it irritates people. It happens because you have an anxiety disorder, PTSD or C-PTSD.
Although you may not look like it, you feel you are struggling so much. Mental illness consumes so much energy! Focusing on a simple conversation can take a lot out of you. People don’t often understand why you’re tired, but this is exactly why.
Do you recognize yourself in any of these situations? If so, I hope it comforts you some to know that you’re not alone. Many of us understand because we’re on the same boat.
And please remember, just because you can function & function well, don’t think that means you don’t have a real problem. I know, sometimes it’s easy to think this way when you have a few good days in a row. That being said though, mental illness is just as serious as physical illness & should be treated as such. Sometimes it can be more serious in the sense that some mental disorders can be life threatening by making a person suicidal. Don’t neglect to rest when you need to, take your medication as directed, talk to safe people & let them love & encourage you. There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking care of yourself or asking for help. If you broke your leg, you would do those things, wouldn’t you? Then why not do the same thing to take care of your mental health?
Cynthia Bailey-Rug, Christian Author 
This is a great post, Cynthia. I am working on a reply, which I hope to turn into a blog post, with a link to your post here. But I have a lot going on right now, so it may be a few hours or even tomorrow before I can finish writing it.
But I just had to tell you this now: judging by your writing skill and your amazing insights, you are very high functioning, indeed. ❤❤
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So well said, every word. Thank you!
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Thank you so much Linda ❤ I really think mine came from it being a survival skill. When I was maybe 8 or so, I (stupidly) told my father I wished I'd never been born. He ran to my mother to tell her. She screamed at me for being unappreciative & selfish & how dare I say such a thing. Several years later, my mother said she was tired of seeing me with such a long face. What could she do to make me smile again.
Those things taught me never to mention or show when I felt badly. The first incident made me feel such shame & fear, the second such guilt for upsetting her (after all, my parents' emotions were my responsibility). Both led to me being able to be very high functioning.
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Dear Cynthia,
This really is another great post for many reasons, mostly because what you share helps to relate to the early childhood experience of others. It helps to understand how we have lived and shaped our lives to the point of where we are now and the “survival skills” we’ve learned.
Cynthia: ” Doing things takes more energy than it would for someone without mental illness because I have to focus harder. ”
AA: Yes, thank you. Over the past few days I’ve been contemplating what you say here. Could it be that in addition to our trying harder to focus and prioritize, part of the exhaustion comes from trying to understand why this challenge feels so overwhelming?
Pondering these things in my heart, it seems there are two things that factor into the equation that are likely causes of our mental illness. One is heartbreak, the other is burn-out; both are chronic. At times I feel as though I’ve developed some sort of weird allergy to life, not being able to break through some invisible wall that keeps me confined to the hell inside my head. I think it’s called grief. I grieve the spiritual death of my narcissist father, my sister, and those even of our politicians and world leaders who spit in the face of God for worldly ambition without thought or consideration for the greater good of others.
Cynthia: “When I was maybe 8 or so, I (stupidly) told my father I wished I’d never been born. He ran to my mother to tell her. She screamed at me for being unappreciative & selfish & how dare I say such a thing. Several years later, my mother said she was tired of seeing me with such a long face. What could she do to make me smile again.”
AA: Interesting that you should zero in on important memories from when you were about 8 years old. This is an important age in our development so I often find myself revisiting that age.
At 8 years old (third grade) I began to acutely experience an intense obsession with death and dying which largely began after I attended the wake of my maternal great grandmother when I was 6 years old (first grade). I believe at that time I was still too little to fathom what I experienced, but over the next few years I began to try to process it all and it haunted me. There was no one who could explain death to me. Though I was born and raised Roman Catholic and even made my First Communion, my mother and father took very little if any interest at all in my religious education and spiritual development which is a horrible mistake for parents to make and another discussion altogether.
So at 8 years old, a saga began, where every night, I would literally cry myself to sleep.I would lie in bed for hours on end fathoming a dark, dense nothingness, unable to grasp the finality of death and how it could possibly be escaped. In spite of the abuses I was already experiencing by all of my family, mother, father, and older sister, I realize now how much I loved them unconditionally and back then, began to pray to God to please take me before any of them as I could not bear the pain if one of them should die.
One night, as I was crying myself to sleep, my mother came into the bedroom. Instead of trying to comfort me, or even to ask why I was crying, her exact words were, “You crazy son-of-a-b*tch. You’re keeping everybody in the house up.” So that was enough to make me stop crying. And that was when my battle with paralyzing depression began that I have struggled with ever since.
From the time I was about 8 years old, I realized I was a burden to my family, yet oddly, an accessory. My older sister was the golden child and I was the “mess maker,” not the artist or the creative one, but the mess maker.
Today, having been unemployed for the past few years, surrounded by many projects I could and should immerse myself in, I constantly war with the reasons why I dissociate from things and why it is so difficult for me to focus without feeling overwhelmed and/or completely defeated.
Fast forwarding, now 62 years old, though at times I can and do function well, every day of my life I grieve all that which I know I am capable of accomplishing yet seem oddly paralyzed to produce. I pray, and pray, and pray, and pray some more for God to answer basic, simple prayers for my needs to be met and to be freed from the oppression that is the result of the narcissists in my life. Yes, there are many wrong detours I have taken over the years, but each time I trace the roots of why I so badly screwed up, there is no question of how badly my narcissistic family damaged my soul and self esteem thus impairing my ability to live a happy and productive life. My writing, my artwork, my gardens, my creativity, all that is essential for me to flourish and glorify God in this world before I leave it…..it is as though I look at it all in a mirror.
I would have loved to have been a wife, a mother. An art teacher. As a little girl I remember wonderful, childlike fantasies of a having a beautiful white house with shutters, and seeing my satin slippers next to those of a loving and adoring husband. Never would I have imagined the heartbreak God had planned for my life, but now I realize that there is nothing He does without reason. I pray to our Blessed Mother Mary whose sorrows far surpass my shallow self-pity. My task now is to pray for a grateful heart and to appreciate all that I do have and for the grace of gratitude to heal the paralysis that keeps me bound to the dysfunction of my past.
Cynthia: “And please remember, just because you can function & function well, don’t think that means you don’t have a real problem. I know, sometimes it’s easy to think this way when you have a few good days in a row. That being said though, mental illness is just as serious as physical illness & should be treated as such. Sometimes it can be more serious in the sense that some mental disorders can be life threatening by making a person suicidal. Don’t neglect to rest when you need to, take your medication as directed, talk to safe people & let them love & encourage you. There is absolutely nothing wrong with taking care of yourself or asking for help.”
AA: Your words are truly comforting and liberating. It takes a great deal to give our self the permission sometimes to literally take care of our self because we were shamed when we even suggested that we had needs to be met by our caregivers. It can be very difficult to find people who are safe and trustworthy enough to ask for help.
Christ’s Passion is all about His willingness to suffer through the narcissistic abuses of the crowds, even when their wickedness and envy put Him to death, knowing that only through endurance would He rise to Eternal Life.
“Grant, we pray, O Lord,
that, as we pass from old t onew,
so, with former ways left behind,
we may be renewed in holiness of mind.
Through Christ our Lord.”
– Magnificat, March 2020, Vol. 21, No. 13
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Thank you so much, Anne! ❤
I really think it's important to understand those survival skills & things we've learned early in life. They help us to understand ourselves.
That is entirely possible of course! Exhaustion can come from trying to understand why things feel overwhelming. And that grief you discuss? That can be incredibly exhausting! Grief in any form is exhausting, really.
Interesting.. I didn't realize 8 was an important developmental age.
Now that you mentioned it, I too had a fascination with death around that age! Hadn't thought of it in years!
Losing your great grandmother so young had to be a terribly hard thing to process, especially with no one explaining death to you.
Such serious, grown up thoughts for a little girl to deal with! I am so sorry you went through all of that! And your mother's cruel comment had to make things even worse! No wonder you've struggled with depression since then!
I understand the difficulty focusing & defeated feeling. One thing I found helpful is to focus on one thing at a time. Ignore everything else & focus on just one thing. Once it's done you can move onto another then another. While some folks thrive on having multiple projects at work at all times, some of us need to have a smaller focus. It really can help! Since hubby & I are moving soon, I recently organized & cleaned out my crafting stuff. I thought I had about a thousand unfinished projects! Once I got into it, I found only a few! Not nearly so overwhelming & I know I can handle them in time by focusing on one at a time. Sometimes slowing down & looking at things can be helpful, too, because you see the big picture isn't so big. It also can help you to create a plan to get things done.
You're wise to realize that your narcissistic family is at the root of those problems! I kind of hate that in a sense because it sounds like passing the responsibility to someone else, but the truth is, our family of origin forms who we are. If we can recognize problems stem from things they did, it helps us realize they were the problem, not us, & what they said wasn't true, that alone is helpful in healing.
Please don't think of what you feel as self pity & that as a bad thing! The problem isn't feeling that at all, but if we wallow in it & don't try to heal. In fact, I think of it more as self compassion- feeling sad for the suffering inflicted by others. After all, if someone told you their story & it was like yours, wouldn't you feel badly that person suffered so? Then why not extend that same compassion to yourself?
I totally agree.. it IS hard to take care of ourselves & ask for help especially after being shamed for it by our parents. But it is possible! He helps us to do whatever we need to, & sometimes what we need is a little help!
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Cynthia, in one of your replies to a comment by the blogger annealcroft, on your previous post entitled ‘Ways To Cope With Triggers,’ you said: “. . . God didn’t design us to deal with such nonsense. He made us for healthy & loving relationships. We weren’t created to deal with things like abuse & death. That’s why they’re so incredibly hard to handle. Not sure if that’s correct or not, but it’s the only theory I have.”
I believe you are exactly correct. In fact, this is what I was told by Paul Meier, MD, a psychiatrist and the founder of a nationwide chain of mental health clinics, as well as the author or co-author of over 100 books.
In 2003, after a very painful mid-life divorce, I drove over 1,400 miles to Dr. Meier’s New Life Clinic in Richardson, Texas. I had read one of his books, which had given me hope that Dr. Meier might be able to help me with my severe depression and anxiety.
Dr. Meier ordered a full battery of physical and mental tests. After all the results were in, this is what he told me:
“You are NOT mentally ill. What you have is called Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. Although PTSD is classified as a mental illness for insurance purposes, the reality is that having PTSD after experiencing overwhelming trauma is perfectly normal — no less normal than it is to bleed, if somebody cuts you with a knife. You see, God did not create us for abuse. God is love, and He made us in His spiritual image, which means that we were created for kindness and love, not for abuse and hatred. God created us to love and be loved. But when we get hate instead of love, when we receive abuse instead of kindness, we are damaged by that. Being damaged by abuse does not mean that you are weak or crazy. The strongest, sanest person in the world will develop PTSD, if they go through enough trauma and abuse. Just as the strongest man in the world will bleed, if you take a knife and cut him. Human skin was not created to withstand the sharp blade of a knife. In the same way, the human soul was not created to be traumatized and abused.”
After 17 years, I cannot swear that what I have written here is exactly word for word what Dr. Meier told me in March 2003. But I have played and replayed his healing words in my mind many times over the years, so I feel confident that what I have written here is pretty close to his exact words.
Cynthia, just as Dr. Meier did not see me as mentally ill, I don’t see you as having a mental illness, either. I see you in the way that I now see myself, thanks to Dr. Paul Meier: as someone who has been mentally injured.
Dr. Meier also told me that day that, not only wasn’t I crazy, he saw me as being incredibly strong, because I was so high functioning, despite my extensive history of abuse and trauma.
And that is how I see you, Cynthia. ❤❤
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Thank you so much for sharing this, Linda! This really gives a new perspective on everything. It makes sense & is incredibly validating! Honestly I’ve gotten fed up with people who act like I’m weak or I didn’t really experience trauma, just “childhood hurts” as one of my aunts said. I’ve also heard how lucky I was not to have siblings since it would’ve been worse (while that is true, I know, the way it was said made me sound weak for having C-PTSD after such an “easy” childhood). I’ve beat myself up for being weak, because of all of this, even knowing better. So thank you so very much for what you shared.. it’s incredibly helpful to me & I truly appreciate it!!!
Would you mind if I shared what Dr. Meier told you in a blog post at some point?
By the way.. I remember seeing him on Joyce Meyer’s show many years ago & just loving him. He seemed so wise & kind.
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Oh yes, I will be thrilled for you to share this. What Dt. Meier told me that day, completely turned my life around. In giving him my life history, I had told him about being put in a state mental institution back in the 1960s, when I was fourteen years old. I told him that I had been incarcerated in that horrible place for almost two years, and that my diagnosis at the time was schizophrenia. He said that there was nothing schizophrenic about me, that he had given me the most accurate, in-depth psychological tests in existence, and that what I had was clearly Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
PTSD wasn’t even an official psychiatric diagnosis until 1980. And even then, for many years, PTSD was only considered to pertain to military war veterans. As if having total strangers trying to kill you in on a battlefield, is so much more traumatic than having your own parent murder your soul! My husband, who has PTSD from being a US Marine rifleman in two horrific tours of Vietnam, has told me that he does not believe he could have survived my life, because, he said, my traumatic childhood and early adulthood was worse than his horrific time in Vietnam!
When I was released from the mental institution at the age of sixteen, I had zero self esteem. Everyone in my family, along with almost everyone in the small Missouri town where we lived, shunned me because of where I had been. Society as a whole is very unkind to people they see as mentally ill — or psychologically injured, as Dr. Meier called it. Being treated like you are less worthy than a worm, is extremely psychologically injuring, all by itself!
Because I was pretty, men were attracted to me. But as soon as they learned about my “crazy” history , all the “normal” guys vanished. The same thing happened with female friends. Only the narcissistic users and abusers stuck around, because I was prime victim material: a pretty, love-starved woman with zero self esteem, willing to do almost anything just to be accepted.
In my history of abuse and trauma, the one thing that has hurt me the worst, by far, was hating myself. When I voluntarily checked myself in to Dr. Paul Meier’s clinic seventeen years ago, I had a horrible song that frequently played in my head: “I’m a loser baby, so why don’t you kill me.” I couldn’t stand myself. What do you do and where do you go, when the person you most want to get away from, is YOU?!
But the people on Dr. Meier’s staff treated me with such kindness and respect. Respect — from mental health professionals! Wow! I had never experienced that!! And when Dr. Meier told me so emphatically that I am not crazy, not schizophrenic, not bipolar, not personality disordered, but that I simply had a psychological injury that was Not My Fault, but the fault of the abusers — words can’t even express what I felt! Suddenly I did not have to hate myself anymore. Which meant that I didn’t have to put up with abuse anymore, either.
This is why I am writing a memoir, called Growing Up Crazy. I want everyone who has been psychologically wounded and made to believe that they are “less than” all the “normal” people, to know the truth.
So yes, feel free to share as much as you want. Of course, I know you will include my name and a link to my blog. Speaking of which, I am going to put all of this into a blog post, as soon as I can. Right now, I am in a critical part of my memoir work-in-progress, so it may be awhile before I can write the blog post. I know you understand!
((HUGS))
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Schizophrenia was the original diagnosis?! That is horrible! How utterly WRONG! Thank God Dr. Meier gave you the correct diagnosis!
If memory serves right, didn’t PTSD start out as Shell Shock in WW1 & that turned into Battle Fatigue? I thought i heard that somewhere. If so, it explains the assumption PTSD only happens to vets, wrong as it is.
Your husband sure put this in perspective, didn’t he?! After all of that & he didn’t think he could’ve survived your childhood. WOW!
As if the original trauma wasn’t enough, huh? It’s horrible how people treat those with any type of mental illness. Thank God you found Dr Meier & he was such a blessing to you! I’m sure your memoir is going to help plenty of people too. There are so many who need to hear stories like yours & learn they aren’t crazy for being affected by trauma.
I just created a draft post quoting what you said from him & adding in your name & blog link. Not sure when I’ll get around to publishing the post but it will happen. I have 6.5 months of posts scheduled at the moment, so I’m not in a huge rush at the moment to schedule more.
I truly understand! Wishing you the absolute best with your memoir! Those are NOT easy to write at all! ❤
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Just wanted to let you know.. I wrote the blog post on what Dr Meier told you.. it’ll publish on the 14th. Thanks again for letting me share it!
Also, I’ll make it into a YouTube at some point.. not sure when right now but I will!
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Awesome! I’m looking forward to reading it. I’m so into writing my memoir right now, I can’t seem to write much of anything else.
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Ugh, do I understand that! It’ll come back. Are you taking breaks from writing your memoir? If not, please do! For the sake of your mental health, those breaks are so important! ❤
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(This comment may break the record for long comments. Sorry!)
In the 1960s, more than a decade before PTSD became an official psychiatric diagnosis, the criteria for diagnosing schizophrenia was different than it is today. It was basically a catch-all diagnosis back then. Even so, it actually makes sense for someone with PTSD to be misdiagnosed with schizophrenia, when you consider that both visual and auditory hallucinations can be a feature of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, as often happens during trauma flashbacks, for example.
I have done a great deal of research over the years on the topic of schizophrenia, and I have learned that a significant number of psychiatrists and psychotherapists believe that schizophrenia is actually caused by multiple severe traumas happening very early in life. Also, the common belief that schizophrenia is caused by a genetic defect has largely been proven false.
When I had my so-called ‘nervous breakdown’ at the age of fourteen, right on the heels of having survived a series of severe traumas, the ONLY symptom I had of anything mentally wrong with me, was that I heard voices talking in my head. These auditory hallucinations lasted for approximately one year. The hallucinations stopped when I discovered, at the age of fifteen, that I could make them go away with self hypnosis!
During that dreadful year of hearing voices, I was told by several psychiatrists who examined me that I seemed perfectly normal in every way. The only thing that qualified me for a psychiatric diagnosis was the fact that I had told my mother, and then I told the doctor she sent me to, that after having a number of seances with a friend’s Ouija board, I heard voices talking in my head. These voices were getting on my nerves, and I wanted them to go away and leave me alone. I had told my mother and the doctor about the voices, because I hoped they could tell me how to make the voices stop. Adults, especially doctors, were supposed to know everything. At fourteen, I pretty much still believed that.
If I had just kept my mouth shut, no one would ever have known that I had any kind of ‘mental illness.’ I was making very good grades in school, and functioning just fine at home. Many people have told me that by all outward appearances, I was a perfectly normal young girl, and that if I hadn’t said anything about hearing voices, they would never have imagined that I had anything wrong with me.
Telling my mother was certainly no help. Her response was “You are crazy just like your father!” My dad’s reaction was “You are crazy like your mother!”
The psychiatrist they took me to, listened to my story, gave me a bunch of ink blots and personality tests, and then he told me “In every way, you seem like a perfectly normal young lady. I believe you must be making up this story about hearing voices, to get attention.” I hated to be thought of as a liar, so I assured him that I was not making it up. Finally he was convinced, and so he diagnosed me with schizophrenia and put me on a so-called ‘anti-psychotic’ drug, Thorazine. The drug did not lessen the voices one bit, but it sure did turn me into a zombie.
As soon as she learned that I had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, my mother insisted that I must be put into a mental institution immediately, because, although I had never acted out, never hurt anyone, and never threatened to hurt anyone, including myself, I “might become dangerous someday!”
The psychiatrist who had reluctantly diagnosed me with schizophrenia, begged my mother not to do it, and so did my stepfather. My stepdad came to me in tears, and told me that he had gone to see a lawyer to try to stop my mom from having me committed. But the lawyer had explained that, unfortunately, she had the legal right to do it, and he did not have any rights in the matter, because I wasn’t his daughter.
WHY did my mother lock me up, when my behavior was perfectly normal? At least one reason that I have figured out us because of her own jealousy! My mom had been telling me, ever since I turned twelve and my chest began to develop, that she could not wait until I was old enough to move out of the house because: “No house is big enough for two women!” I was still a child, but she was apparently jealous of my blossoming good looks. So, when a doctor diagnosed me with schizophrenia, a diagnostic label that strikes fear in the hearts of most people, thanks to how the mentally ill are portrayed in the media, my abusive, rejecting, malignant narcissistic mother jumped at the chance to get rid of me forever.
Being diagnosed with schizophrenia and committed to a horrible human warehouse filled with deeply disturbed people is its own trauma. I had every reason to believe that I would be there for the rest of my life, particularly as my mother had gleefully told me that schizophrenia is “incurable.” Until I finally found a way to get rid of the irritating voices with self hypnosis at the age of fifteen, I believed that my life was over before I was old enough to drive. But even after I made the voices stop, it was another year before I was finally released from the insane asylum.
So, what actually caused the voices that I heard when I was fourteen to fifteen years old? Did my as yet undiagnosed PTSD cause me to hear voices, or was I really schizophrenic for one year? Were the voices coming from the ghostly spirits of people who had died, as the voices themselves claimed to be, or were they actually evil demons from the pit of hell? Did my ignorant involvement with occultic seances cause these spirits to haunt me, or were the voices simply a figment of my imagination, caused by the self-hypnotic technique my friends and I employed in our seances?
By the way, I wasn’t the only kid in my group of friends to end up committed to a mental institution with a diagnosis of schizophrenia and hearing voices. The same thing happened to one of the boys who was also involved in the seances.
To this day, I really don’t know why I heard voices in my head for a year, after a particularly frightening seance. I don’t know if they were merely a product of my traumatized brain, as the renowned Dr. Paul Meier believed, or something else. At this point, only God knows the answer.
But my heart goes out to anyone who has ever been diagnosed, rightly or wrongly, with schizophrenia. Truly, the stigma of this diagnosis is even worse than the disorder, regardless of what causes it.
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Very interesting.. I never knew that about schizophrenia. I’ve never known anyone with the condition so I guess that’s why I never looked into it. I didn’t connect trauma with the disorder. Wow..
What a cruel thing for your parents to tell you when you told them about the voices! So not helpful! The psychiatrist too.. omgosh. Perfectly normal but making this up for attention. Well, if he truly thought that, what could make him think you were normal?! Normal people don’t make things up for attention! That alone doesn’t make any sense!
That was so good of your stepdad to try to prevent your mother from locking you up! If only he could’ve succeeded. What a horrific experience that time in the hospital sounds like!
I used to mess with Ouija boards myself & I can’t help wondering if you & your friend both were being messed with by demonic spirits. They spoke to me back then, only I didn’t realize at first that was who was speaking to me.
Truly.. it seems schizophrenia makes most people think a person is dangerous & crazy. It’s got to be terrible living with that diagnosis. As if depression, anxiety, PTSD/C-PTSD aren’t bad enough diagnoses, there is one even worse.
The more you tell me about your early life, the more I can’t believe how incredibly functional you are. You are one tough cookie! ❤
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Thank you. I am certain that the only reason I am alive, sane, and functioning today is because I decided years ago to believe in Jesus Christ as my Savior and Lord. In Him, I am a new creation, and He has given me the spirit of peace, and a sound mind. The praise belongs to Jesus alone!
Dr. Paul Meier is a Christian, and everyone who worked in His clinic when I was there was a professing Christian. Although I had given my heart to Christ as a little girl, after going through so much evil abuse, I had lost my faith. But while I was in Dr. Meier’s New Life Clinic, the true Christ-like love that emanated from the staff, persuaded me to give up my agnostic beliefs, and believe in Christ again. On March 11, 2003, while sitting in a therapist’s office at Dr. Meier’s clinic, I made the decision to believe in Jesus. And everything in my life began to change. Praise God!
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What a wonderful testimony!! I truly hope your writing continues to grow & reach & encourage more people!! ❤
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One more thing: in regards to the doctor who speculated that I might have been lying about the voices to get attention — he told me that because I was the oldest of five children by seven years, and therefore my mother was likely very dependent on me for help (true!), when my mother remarried just a few months before the voices began, I may have felt “displaced” in my mother’s affections by the new stepfather, and therefore I was looking for a way to get her attention back. It was a nice little psychoanalytic type theory, except for one thing: I had never really had my mother’s affections, so there was nothing to get back! On the contrary, having my kind and stable new stepfather living in the house, was very beneficial.
There’s more to the story about this particular psychiatrist, but I have gone on long enough here. It will be in my book. I really would have liked to have had that psychiatrist as my father or grandfather.
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His theory made sense other than you not having your mother’s affection. In a normal family, I can imagine that sort of thing happening.
It’s wonderful you had such a man as your stepfather! He sounds lovely.
Wow.. that’s a great way to feel about a psychiatrist. So many in the mental health field have more issues than their patients. But, the good ones seem to be over the top good & he sounds like one of them
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Hi Lady Quixote,
I to began hearing voices 5 years ago after I had been doing “channeling / spirit communication”, only I was using a voice recorder instead of a Ouija Board, but since it all began for me, I’ve met others who started hearing voices after using a Ouija Board, Automatic Writing, Spirit Boxes, Voice Recorders/EVP”. etc… I just met another person a month ago, a woman who was using a Ouija Board and then started hearing them. I myself am amazed at how common this is. I’m glad that you were able to overcome them and stop hearing them. I’m still working on it…but am making progress.
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I’m so sorry you’re going through this. ((HUGS))
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Thankyou! You inspired me today.
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And thank you for making my day! ❤
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I relate to this post so much. I honestly thought my mental illness was less of a deal because I am “high-functioning”, because no one knows I’m struggling unless I tell them. Thank you for this post. I write about mental illness on my blog too, if anyone wants to check that out.
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I totally understand that.. I’ve thought the same thing!
You’re welcome!
I hope my followers check out your blog! ❤
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Well said. Thanks for sharing.
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Thank you very much!
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