Being honest about the state of our mental health isn't always easy. We can feel the need to look and act a certain way in front of others, only to fall apart behind closed doors. That's what my experience was like. Pretending as though I was fine, except I was spiraling in private.

In 2018, I became the victim of medical malpractice.  I had a doctor treat me for drop foot after my cerebellar stroke. He injected seven syringes of cortisone steroids into the arches of my feet. He overdosed me, and while on my drive home from his office, I started thinking there were hidden messages in the music.

Within twenty-four hours, I didn't know my own name, and I thought I was thirty years into the future. I dealt with extreme anxiety, fear, paranoia, seizures, delusions, tactile hallucinations, visual hallucinations, a shattered reality, and to top it off — I felt thrown into the spiritual world.

I remember being told I may never recover from what happened to me. I feared I would end up in some facility for the rest of my life. Every day I feared I was never going to heal mentally; I felt too far gone. But that's when Jesus started showing up.

Jesus told me that God, His Father, designed the brain. He gave me a choice: continue living in darkness, where I would always battle my mental health, or walk with Him back into the light, where there is no mental illness. It was that decision that ultimately changed the entire trajectory of my life.

Please note there are a lot of misunderstandings regarding mental health and God. Some people think if you're on medication, you aren't right with God. That's a lie. It was God who told me to increase one of my medications, and because of that encounter, I started getting better. Once I got better, I was then able to focus on Jesus and what He was teaching me.

I also learned that it's impossible to implement Jesus' teachings if you're mentally unwell. So it's extremely important to have mental stability for many reasons, but when it comes to God and getting back into the light with Him, you really have to know what's going on so you can truly focus on Him and what He wants you to do, not only that, but to enjoy your spiritual journey home.

It was difficult to accept that mental health problems were the number one indicator of where I was living spiritually — in darkness or the light. It took me a long time to understand what that truly meant. My understanding is that we are all in darkness because of the Biblical event at the beginning of time: the story of Adam and Eve. That event plummeted all of humanity into darkness. Darkness is the breeding ground for all mental illness.

Ultimately, I knew I had to make a choice: it was my free will to decide whether to remain in darkness and continue suffering or to begin my journey home into the light with the Holy Spirit. I chose to walk with the Lord back into the light. And to my surprise, I found out that when we get back into the light, our brain completely renews itself. There is no mental illness in the light.

There is no end to darkness, and everyone resides at their own personal level. The only way to get back into the light with God is by following Jesus. He walks us home back into the light and out of darkness completely. That is why His Father sent Him to us — to show us the way home back into the light with God. Without Jesus, we wouldn't know the way home back into the light. It is His teachings that lead us out of darkness. Obedience was never about control; it was always about our safety. When we respect God and do things His way, we stay safely in His light. Choosing to do things our own way drops us down into darkness with the enemy. We are all being attacked by the forces in the spiritual world. Their goal is to make us sick by attacking our brain.

If you suffer from any form of mental illness, know that this isn't the end of your story. If you don't know where to start, but you know you want to find the light, book a free session with me, and I would be honored to help cultivate your walk with the Lord.