The case of "Abba" (Depression, Schizophrenia)

Casebook of Biblical Psychiatry © Version 7

Based upon: Real Mental Illnesses Real Cases Real People Real Causes Real Solutions

Casebook of Biblical Psychiatry© brings the principles of Biblical Psychiatry to life based upon real-world cases and familiarizes Christians with different types of situations. This practical companion volume to Biblical Psychiatry© includes not only diagnosis, but also in-depth discussions by experienced Christians for Biblical approaches to treatment. This meticulously detailed volume of dynamic real-life case studies is simply a "must read" for all clinical Psychiatrists, mental health care professionals and Christians interested in expert opinion on today's treatment approaches. Psychiatric students, educators, and practitioners—as well as social workers, nurses, medical physicians, and interested laypersons—will find this unique volume of inestimable value in their day-to-day work.

The case of "Abba" (Depression, Schizophrenia)
	The case of "Abba"
	Biopsychiatric labels DSM-5	Depressive Borderline Schizophrenia
	Checklist Behaviours DSM-7	Hypocrisy, Fornication, laziness, sloth, dependency
	Insights MMPI-7
	Quick Pick EDS-7.1	Dependency, Disability welfare, Duty shirking, Insanity, cigarettes
	Self-disablement EDS-7.2	Employment: sporadic jobs while on psychiatric disability
	Chemical imbalance EDS-7.3	Yes, from long term use of psychiatrist prescribed drugs: Possible brain damage and Tardive Dyskinesia
	Benefits EDS-7.4	Escape duty or life situation: EDS-7.4.4 Alibi for impending failure as an adult or failure at school, work or home: EDS-7.4.7 Self-punishment for personal failures or to ease a guilty conscience: EDS-7.4.12
	Monetary EDS-7.5	Failed to make transition into adulthood and became dependent on state lifetime psychiatric welfare for life.
	Annoyance Scale EDS-7.6	High
	Diagnostic Laws EDS-7.7	Law of Narcissistic Behaviour Choice (NBC) EDS-7.7.1.NBC Law of Derivative Personal Benefit (DPB) EDS-7.7.2.DPB Law of Narcissistic Selective Dysfunction (NSD) EDS-7.7.3.NSD Law of Annoyance Toleration Threshold (ATT) EDS-7.7.5.ATT Law of Symbiotic Treasury Parasitosis (STP) EDS-7.7.6.STP Law of Diagnostic Anosognosia Relativism (DAR) EDS-7.7.7.DAR
	Determine the Problem	Chose to obey earthly father over heavenly Father, guilt, hurt, fear, serving two masters (fathers)
	Ask a Child	EDS-7.7.12.PMO
	5 years later EDS-7.7.LPT	-

The case of "Abba"

John was raised in the home of a full time minister for the United Church of Canada. The united church at one time was Canada's largest protestant denomination, but is slated for extinction in the year 2021. This dramatic fall from number 1 to non-existent is the result of two factors: The first is the great weekly church attendance drop off from 45% to 9% documented by Reginald Bibby between 1950 - 2009 AD that affected all churches caused by materialism and the weedy soil of the parable of the sower. The second is the well documented departure of the United church of Canada from New Testament Christianity into extreme theological liberalism. The United church currently rejects the Bible as the inspired word of God, most key doctrines in the Bible like: Heaven, Hell, Judgement, the need for personal salvation. They also began to ordain openly gay, sexually active deviant sex practitioners minister in many of their churches. They also pioneered the path for the Canadian constitution changing the definition of marriage to include gays, giving them equal protection alongside race, skin colour and sex. They were the darling of the "lame stream" media and deviant sex practitioner promotion groups because the United Church of Canada would contradict real Bible believing churches in the media who said that deviant sex practitioner sex was a sin like adultery, premarital sex and murder. The Anglican church of Canada joined with the views on ordination of Gays to ministry in about 2007. To say that the United church of Canada as a whole do not believe the Bible, is not an exaggeration.

John was raised in a loving stable home with his mother and father during all these theological upheavals. John was a good boy, respectful and obedient to his parents and a good student at school. When John was 18, he began studying the Bible on his own and became convinced that Jesus rose from the dead and that the message of the Bible was true. He also believed in the full inspiration of the Bible. He quit attending the United church where his father was a minister and joined a fundamentalist, Bible believing church. He came to realize that the church his father raised him in, was not Christian, but a false religion whose doctrines were based upon current social trends, rather than what the Bible says. This became a point of conflict between John and his loving dad.

A few months later, John took his father to a meeting with his new church and went forward at the "altar call". His father showed openly that he did not approve of this. John's father began to exert pressure on him to quit his new Bible believing church and come back to the United church of Canada. Out of love for his father and wanting to please him, John rejoined the United Church. John was torn by his allegiance to his heavenly "Abba Father" and his natural father. Which Abba would he obey? This tore him up inside day and night.

John was attempting to live for Christ in a perfect way. He even phoned up a police officer and told him he had lied about what he had told that officer about an accident he had been involved in, to make restitution for past sins. The officer just said, that was in the past and over. Just don't lie again.

From the very first moment that John started attending the United church of Canada again, he began to become fearful of his personal salvation. John recalls that he felt completely condemned by God for compromising what he really believed, just to make his earthly father happy. He felt like he had denied Christ.

John wanted above all to be led by the Holy Spirit. But he was exposed to a variety of opinions about how you are led by the Holy Spirit. He felt confused and exasperated and said to God: "Holy Spirit leave me!" He felt bad about this, but felt that since he was lost, that it was the best thing.

One evening, John was reading his grandmother's Bible at 1 Peter 2:4-8:

"And coming to Him as to a living stone which has been rejected by men, but is choice and precious in the sight of God, you also, as living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house for a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. For this is contained in Scripture: "Behold, I lay in Zion a choice stone, a precious corner stone, And he who believes in Him will not be disappointed." This precious value, then, is for you who believe; but for those who disbelieve, "The stone which the builders rejected, This became the very corner stone," and, "A stone of stumbling and a rock of offense"; for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed." 1 Peter 2:4-8

John felt like this Bible verse literally pierce his heart. Specifically, "for they stumble because they are disobedient to the word, and to this doom they were also appointed". He felt that since he was disobedient to the word of God, he applied this verse to himself and felt he was appointed to condemnation. John was torn between the doctrines of the devil (rejection of the Bible as God's word and Gay marriage) of the United church vs. what the Bible says. He always remembered that after attending the United church for 18 years, that he had never heard anyone tell him that he needed to be born again.

This great conflict in his heart bothered John down to his soul. He felt utterly condemned.

John told his father that he felt condemned without really telling him why. John's father quoted the Bible: "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness." 1 John 1:9 and said that the blood of Christ will forgive the sins of the entire world. He told John that any sin he had committed could be forgiven by the blood of Christ. Of course this was wise and good counsel. But the problem was that his father was a minister of a church that taught false doctrines. "Repent" meant going against his father's best wishes. Again John was torn between his "Abba Father" and his physical father's wishes. It causes him more stress.

John began to feel like he was unable to maintain control of his actions. He was personally worried that he might hurt his family or himself. He asked his parents to take him to the mental hospital. He was taken to a hospital and after examination the medical doctor said there was nothing physically wrong with him. However he spent the night and told the nurses he was "going to hell". The doctor decided to send John over to the Mental hospital for further observation. In the ambulance ride over to the mental hospital, John grabbed his hair and screamed, "I am going to hell". This scared the ambulance attendant. John quieted down and said, "Its ok, don't worry, I am not going to hurt you." John remembers that he was able to bring himself under complete control in order to not alarm the ambulance attendant.

John ended up being committed to a mental hospital where he was diagnosed with manic depressive borderline schizophrenia, told he had a chemical imbalance in his brain and would need to be on drugs for the rest of his life.

It was not until John was 20 that a Psychiatrist determined that religion was the problem and that he should just stop attending church altogether and start living his life without God. He was slapped with a court order to take anti-psychotics by force. If he did not take them, he would be locked up on the mental hospital.

He had become delusional, thinking he could help find a missing person that had been killed in an avalanche. He picked up

Of course, John was a true believer and simply could not take their advice.

When he got out of the mental ward, John went back to the Bible believing church and was able to recover for about 2 years. However John met a woman and committed fornication with her. After about 3 months, John was hospitalized a second time.

Over the next 25 years, John really never worked, was on public disability. He learned to be lazy and was unable to hold down a job for long.

To meet John, he was strong, healthy, intelligent, balanced and intuitive. In other words, there really were no outward signs of mental illness in any way.

During this time, John even became a lay assistant to a full time minister for a church and functioned normally for several years.

He became convinced that water baptism was essential to salvation being the gateway for remission of sins. He learned that the church he was working with took the view that you pray the sinners prayer and that this was not how the Bible taught people to be saved. He quit that church and became a member of this new church.

Over a period of 8 years, John would periodically attend for 6 months, then disappear for a year, then return for 9 months, then vanish.

Discussion:

At age 18, when his psychotic behaviours first appeared, John was at the time of transition between youth and adulthood. He was unwilling to take on the responsibilities and tasks of full time employment and move out of his father's house. Coupled with this, was the moral dilemma of divided loyalty between his earthly father and his Heavenly Father. The depression and psychotic behaviours were a smokescreen for escaping the need to transition into full independent adulthood. John had no chemical imbalance in his brain until he began taking the prescribed psychiatric drugs, first by the psychiatrist, then under court order. John likely has permanent brain damage and will likely develop Tardive Dyskinesia mid-life. Hypocritically, the psychiatrist could see "religion" was a root problem, but continued to allege John had a chemical imbalance in his brain and would need psychiatric drugs for life to rebalance his broken brain.

At one point, John became very anti-Bible and angry with God, but this hostility abated somewhat later. However, John never became active in a local church again, even though he is deeply haunted by the implications of not only his father's eternal destiny, but his own.  

Meanwhile, John is a junkie on mind altering "neuroleptic/psychoactive drugs". This is essentially identical to being drunk or stoned, except he has a prescription, even a court order to take the drugs. The sin of pharmakia is taking mood altering drugs when you don't need them. Historically, opium was the prescribed drug of choice for hundreds of years to "cure" insanity. Of course, these drugs all work the same. They dumb you down, make you indifferent, apathetic and actually make you unemployable. Most of all, they interfere with your enjoyment of everyday life and turn you into a mindless zombie. John, of course knows this first hand, and wants the benefits of cash for life, with full enjoyment. That is why he doesn’t like taking his meds. It is important for anyone on psychiatric drugs to do so under the supervision of a doctor as there are huge and dangerous withdrawal effects.

Benefits from behaviour: This illustrates the Law of Narcissistic Behaviour Choice (NBC) EDS-7.7.1.NBC

1. Escape duty or life situation: EDS-7.4.4. He used his depression, delusion and paranoia as a smokescreen to escape life duty of adult responsibility and ended up on the public psychiatric disability program known as, "Cash for Life". He is free to do what he wants, when he wants on a very comfortable income for life.
2. Alibi for impending failure as an adult or failure at school, work or home: EDS-7.4.7. John was not expected to be independent since he was viewed as sick.
3. Self-punishment for personal failures or to ease a guilty conscience: EDS-7.4.12. He knew that he was not making either of his "fathers" happy.

Diagnostic laws that are seen illustrated in the case of "Abba":

1. John calculated that the cost of being labeled schizophrenic was less than the benefits of being excused from pulling his own weight as a self-sufficient man. Law of Derivative Personal Benefit (DPB) EDS-7.7.2.DPB
2. John made himself difficult to employ and was on disability welfare, but was quite capable of volunteering successfully as an intern as a church minister for over two years, thus perfectly illustrating the Law of Narcissistic Selective Dysfunction (NSD) EDS-7.7.3.NSD
3. His parents allowed John to live at home, until they reached their "Annoyance Toleration Threshold" (ATT) EDS-7.7.5.ATT and got John on public assistance which relieved them of the trouble. In this way, psychiatric disability welfare was a monetary benefit, not only for John, who never had to work again, and his parents, who didn't need to support him anymore or put up with his annoying behaviours.
4. Without a diagnosis, even a court order he must take his "meds", he could not collect "cash for life". The psychiatrist on the other hand was more than pleased to enter him in to the "certified" club to keep his cash flow up. Law of Symbiotic Treasury Parasitosis (STP) EDS-7.7.6.STP
5. John knew he had no medical problem and rejected he had any chemical imbalance in his brain that caused his unhappiness and psychotic behaviour. Although ordered to take his psychiatric drugs by a Judge, he would not take them for up to 9 months at a time, until he needed to submit a blood test. He despised taking the drugs because of how they negatively affected him and rejected the diagnosis of the doctor thus illustrating the Law of Diagnostic Anosognosia Relativism (DAR) EDS-7.7.7.DAR

Note: Although these are based upon real case stories, the names and details have been changed to hide the identities of the people. This practice follows the standards of medical case history publication.

By Steve Rudd: Contact the author for comments, input or corrections.

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