April 16, 2025 • 63 mins
According to psychiatrist Paul Meier, Bipolar 1 can cause a loss of control in the areas of sex, spending, and spirituality. On page 131 of the DSM-5, it states "the lifetime risk of suicide in individuals with Bipolar Disorder is estimated to be at least fifteen times that of the general population. In fact, Bipolar Disorder may account for one quarter of all completed suicides." What that means is that good, solid mental health treatment could cut the suicide rate by a quarter even when considering only Bipolar. Today we interviewed a woman named Jessie from our church. Jessie battles Bipolar 1, and has historically struggled with spiritual problems as well. Here's her story.
This is the Deliverance Dialogues.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
I received a call from my pastorasking me to join him at the
church. When I arrived there were
several people gathered trying to help a a family that was
really going through a hard time.
As I walked in and my pastor anda couple other people that were
involved brought me up to speed on what was happening.
We began together to do some assessment trying to figure out
(00:21):
what was going on. Well, among the many other
things that were mentioned, something that really stood out
to me is that the individual that we were about to pray with
had become really obsessed with the occult in recent months, had
been practicing with tarot cards, and had especially become
(00:41):
intrigued by a primordial demon that she had begun attempting to
communicate. I thought to myself after
hearing everything, Well, clearly we have a classic case
of demonic possession. I mean, after all, someone is
involved in the occult. If they're focusing on demons,
if they're practicing things that Scripture clearly forbids,
(01:05):
and then they're having a subsequent psychiatric
breakdown, that's possession. Or is it?
I'm Doctor Robbie Willis. Welcome to the Deliverance
Dialogues. One of the things that I've
(01:25):
noticed in our culture is there's this real tendency to
just throw around psychological terms.
It's one of my pet peeves. And yet I, I have no doubt that
I have been the guilty party as well.
Sometimes you look at somebody that's acting a little bit down
and then kind of energetic and you're going, wow, they're
really bipolar, aren't they? Or people who like to have
(01:50):
everything organized commonly say, well, my OCD is kicking in,
my obsessive compulsive disorderis kicking in, my anxiety just
won't let me do that. Which sometimes means that
you're struggling with anxiety disorder, and sometimes it means
that you just don't want to and your heart races a little bit
when you think about it. Or there's your personal
(02:12):
favorite, right? Hey, you're gaslighting me.
Oh, gaslighting. Gaslighting that was nominated
as the word of the year for the most overused word for the 2023
or 2024? I would know, but I'm probably
being gaslighted right now so all of my kids know that I hate
(02:33):
the word gaslighting. Not because it doesn't exist,
but because this is a word that basically means someone else is
trying to make you question yourown reality.
Point being, there's this tendency to really overuse
psychological or psychiatric terms that often we don't have
any idea what they actually mean.
(02:54):
But these terms truly represent very serious conditions or
experiences that people we work alongside, people we worship
alongside, or maybe people that we set alongside of the dinner
table are experiencing. And on the one hand, we want to
make sure that we're not minimizing their experience by
(03:16):
applying these terms in the wrong ways.
On the other, precision in our understanding is important
because people are truly suffering, do need help and help
is available. So Timothy, you're a fourth year
psychology student and you and Ihave had a good number of
conversations about things of this sort.
(03:36):
And we've discussed on this podcast before the DSM 5, which
is the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Health Disorders.
So I wonder if you would just walk us through specifically
talking about bipolar. What is bipolar?
What are its features? How do we recognize it?
(03:57):
How is it treated? Any of these things you'd like
to speak to? Yeah.
So when you you read the the DSM5, which is kind of the
prevailing authority on mental health disorders currently, it
draws a really strong distinction between bipolar 1
and 2. And so really commonly you, you
(04:17):
kind of get those two lumped together in kind of pop culture
when people talk about bipolar disorder or I've heard, I've
heard it sometimes referred to as bipolar depression, those two
kind of get lumped together. But but the DSM 5 makes a really
strong distinction between them.Bipolar 2 is, from my
understanding, a little more common and also less severe.
(04:40):
Quite a bit less severe. It's characterized by two
distinct kind of episodes. You have major depressive
episodes, which according to theDSM 5 they last about two weeks
or more, are characterized by 5 or more of a long list of
symptoms, but that includes insomnia, rapid weight gain or
(05:04):
rapid weight loss, complete lackof desire to do basic tasks, and
a complete like loss of motivation.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, in by people with
bipolar 2, you have hypomanic episodes, which are essentially
periods of extremely elevated energy where often times people
(05:26):
will have these bouts of creative energy.
It's mentioned in a book that you referenced in your
dissertation that people with bipolar 2 will have so much
energy all at once that they'll suddenly write an entire book in
just a couple of days, right? Yeah, I mean, what people that
are functioning in a healthy manner with some of these
conditions are sometimes the most brilliant and creative
people among us? Yeah.
(05:47):
The the key is when they're functioning in a in a healthy
manner. Sure, and I mean, these episodes
also include feeling like you don't need to sleep.
People with bipolar 2 when they're experiencing A hypomanic
episode will often feel fully rested from just an hour or two
of sleep, and they'll also oftenhave very positive feelings
about themselves. Whereas depression is associated
(06:08):
with depressive episodes are associated with really low
feelings about yourself, hypomanic episodes are really
positive feelings about yourself.
So what's the difference betweenbipolar 1 and bipolar 2?
Well, you also have a third variable in bipolar 1, and
that's called manic episodes. The main difference between a
(06:30):
hypomanic episode and a manic episode is the severity and the
presence of psychosis, so and the the length.
So a manic episode is very similar to a hypomanic episode
in that the individual will experience lots of creativity
and lots of energy, but they'll also experience a massive loss
of control in one of three areas, which is remind me.
(06:56):
Bipolar one can cause a loss of control, according to
psychiatrist Paul Meyer, in the areas of sex, spending or
spirituality. Right.
And so these manic episodes willusually last about a week, which
is longer than a hypomanic episode, and will sometimes
result in symptoms of psychosis as well as sometimes a hospital
(07:19):
stay, right? Sometimes it's so severe that it
results in somebody engaging in dangerous behaviors and ending
up in the hospital. So we're not just talking about
somebody being irritatingly happy for a few hours, right?
No, no, no. What you're talking about is
somebody is so recklessly empowered by this manic episode
(07:41):
that they feel like they're on top of the world and they may go
take some illicit substances andgo do something really, really
dangerous. And this can result in a loss of
control in spending where you suddenly take all your life
savings, you go to the casino and you gamble it all the way in
one night. I So no, we're not talking about
(08:04):
just like, Oh no, I wrote a book.
This is terrible. Now I made money.
No, we're talking about you. Something usually really
distressing. Now, you might say, this doesn't
sound so serious, right? But let me read you an excerpt
from the DSM 5 about bipolar. On page 131 says the lifetime
(08:25):
risk of suicide in individuals with bipolar disorder is
estimated to be at least 15 times that of the general
population. In fact, bipolar disorder may
account for up to 1/4 of all completed suicides.
That is a staggering statistic. It's tragic.
It's deeply tragic. And let's think about it
(08:46):
inversely for just a second. What that means is that good,
solid mental health treatment, especially if it's underpinned
by addressing any other medical and spiritual things that are
going on, could literally cut the suicide rate by 1/4.
(09:07):
Yes. And that's just talking about
bipolar. Just just you're not even
considering any other mental disorders.
Wow, that's, that's amazing. So what kind of numbers are we
talking about as far as as far as people that are suffering
with this? Doctor Paul Meyer estimates that
300 million people worldwide live with some form of bipolar
(09:32):
disorder. And in the United States alone,
there's close to 15,000,000. So this is a, this is a very
prevalent condition. I also read a statistic just the
other day that's deeply alarmingthat from the onset of mental
health symptoms, the average amount of time before someone
(09:56):
reaches out for help is 11 years.
Now, when you think about that and you lay that alongside
everything else we're saying, that shows that really
demonstrates the importance of believers born again Christians
being willing to identify when people are struggling and step
in and offer help. One of the one of the other
(10:18):
studies that I read indicates that even in our modern culture,
when people do decide to reach out for help, they're still more
likely to reach out to a member of the clergy than they are to
reach out to a mental health professional.
So one things that means, and part of my one of my passions is
(10:40):
helping equip pastors to recognize these things and to
really learn how to offer help without causing harm.
It's really important, I think, to have pastors that have
connections with those mental health professionals.
Yes, absolutely. You know, how many people do we
refer from Link Church to go gethelp from a professional?
(11:02):
All the time. All the time.
No, it's, it's very, it's very true.
And, and I think one of the paths forward, and so this
podcast is the deliverance dialogues and, and, and part of
the reason we named it as I wantto have some of these
conversations about how to help people find freedom and, and,
and deliverance. That may not be what we're
always talking about. One of my passions is to, to
(11:24):
form some therapeutic alliances where mental health
professionals and, and medical doctors and pastors start to
realize that we're not, we're not each other's enemies.
We're all ultimately reaching for the same things in at least
some arenas, right? That we all desire to lead
people toward greater health andgreater function within society.
(11:47):
Now, not all depression is bipolar depression, of course.
One of the things that Doctor Meyer points out is that
unresolved anger can actually result in serotonin depletion in
the brain that can lead to depression.
So this is an example of a biochemical problem that's
actually triggered by an emotional, emotional problem
(12:10):
that may have originally been brought on by a spiritual
problem. So why do we need to think
holistically? Because spiritual struggles can
impact the emotions and emotion.Emotional struggles can actually
impact the chemistry of the brain.
So healing has to address, in many cases, all of these
(12:30):
factors, not just some. While genetic factors have been
estimated to account for about 50% of depression, the
combination of environmental factors and life choices have
also been estimated to account for another 50%.
And so so together those three factors, genetics, environment,
and life choices play a very substantial role in our
(12:55):
psychological well-being. That's vital for us to
understand. At the same time, it's also
important to understand that just because someone has a
mental health condition doesn't mean that they're not being
spiritually oppressed. Just because somebody has a
medical condition doesn't mean that they don't need to see a
(13:17):
therapist. And to turn this the other way,
just because someone undergoes deliverance in which demons
clearly leave. Them.
That doesn't mean that it's timeto have a parade and say they're
totally healed. They may still need to talk to
someone and they may still need medication to manage some other
(13:39):
conditions that they're battlingwith.
These things are just, they're so much more interconnected than
we want to say that they are. It would be easier if there was
a classic case of demon possession or if there was a
classic case of bipolar depression.
But there's not, right? And so we have to be aware and
we have to be alert and be on watch for all of these different
(14:04):
things. Right.
And so how, why is it important to understand all these
intricate matters? Well, for one thing, bipolar
depression, when someone's in the depressive phase, especially
someone with bipolar one, often do experience these.
These individuals often experience some type of auditory
hallucinations that are telling them really toxic things about
(14:28):
themselves and that can be a natural result of this
condition. At the same time, demons, pretty
much always, when they're talking to people, are ripping
them down and telling them dangerous, horrific things about
(14:52):
themselves. So we've got to navigate all
sides of this, and we've got to be willing to expand our
thinking and expand our perspective so that we can lead
people to the greatest help thatthey can possibly receive when
someone is demonized. And I suspect that the root of
their demonization is a cult involvement.
(15:15):
One of the steps I always take at some point is to walk them
through repentance and a series of renunciations of their occult
involvement. In this case, she had been very
enamored by the demon Lilith, sowe specifically walked her
(15:38):
through renouncing Lilith by name.
Not only that, but we walk through specific renunciations
for each area of occult activity.
And I had every reason to expect, as I discussed with my
pastor just before we we took this step, had every reason to
(16:01):
expect that if this was truly demonic in nature, that in that
moment we would see a clear and definitive response from those
spirits. Because when demons start to
clues the grounds they've been claiming in people's lives, they
get really, really angry about that.
(16:22):
However, in this case, there wasabsolutely nothing.
We were simply left with the same individual that was lacking
honestly, and a lot of emotion overall was very compliant in
that moment. But there were none of the signs
(16:43):
we would typically see associated with renouncing
demonic powers with someone who is demonized.
So in that moment we knew, hey, I'm not saying the enemy's not
actively trying to destroy her, but we need to look in a
different direction. It's in that moment we begin to
(17:06):
realize that while I'm not a mental health professional and
our pastor is not a mental health professional, we really
did need to make sure that she got with someone that
understands the intricacies and the nuances of mental illness
that could help her. And then we would also continue
(17:28):
to walk along alongside her and offer support.
But in that moment, I realized the first professional that she
needs to be working with is going to be somebody that
specializes in what she's going through psychologically.
I'm Jesse. I'm a member of Lee Church.
(17:51):
I'm a wife and a mom of five kids.
I mean, I'm as someone who has not only experienced mental
health issues, but demonic influence as well.
I have, I have bipolar one, which is the severe bipolar.
And I also, you know, I experienced demonic influence
very heavily. Like my life almost completely
(18:14):
fell apart, but from that I havelearned so much.
And if I can just help someone else that's going through that
so that they're not going through that alone, that way
they can realize that just because you're experiencing that
doesn't mean that no one else has experienced that.
If I can help someone else out of everything that I went
(18:34):
through, then it's worth it. As Robbie knows to me, I'm not
even sure if you know this. My dad is not my real dad.
My dad adopted me whenever I wasabout 1 1/2 years old, before I
was ever even 2. My real dad completely signed
his rights away to me growing upand stuff.
That's not something that you know, you think of how it
(18:55):
affects you because you've had adad and you've had a dad your
whole life. But once you start getting older
towards like your teenage years,it's, it's really hard because
first of all, there's the teenage rebellion and then it's
something that starts in your mind is if, well, if my own
father didn't want me, why wouldanyone else want me?
(19:17):
And that trauma that comes from that, it will feed and it will
grow and it will grow and it will turn you, it will turn you
into someone else. So I experienced that a lot
whenever I was a teenager, I washaving severe issues with
depression. And well, that was the first
thing that I was diagnosed with was depression.
(19:39):
And I started taking medicine for that.
Also, as your dad knows, I grew up in a very small town.
There wasn't a lot to do. You hang out, hang out at the
field with your friends or at the Creek.
And you know, your teenage kids in a small town, what else is
there to do? Will you end up drinking?
(20:00):
And you know, part of that I'm not going to say wasn't just
being a stupid teenager. But when you're experiencing all
that trauma and stuff too and you feel like there's, you can't
really talk about it to other people, you try to find ways to
self medicate. And that was something that I
did. I drank a lot, a lot more than
(20:23):
anyone should at my age. And no, it wasn't an all week
thing or anything like that. I was a good student.
I still went to church. I did all these things.
But once the weekend hit, I had to have a drink.
So that progressed on throughout, even into college.
When I got into college, it got a lot worse.
(20:43):
And I mean it was very bad because I was like 85 lbs.
I would get off work on Friday and be done with school and by
the time Sunday afternoon hit, before I had to start getting
ready to go back to school on Monday, I had probably drank
about 1/2 a gallon of whiskey between that time.
So that, you know, all of those experiences and carrying those
things with you, that's what's really going to lead up to my
(21:07):
breaking point. So it was about, well, almost
three years ago now. Would you say, Robbie?
About 3 years ago, I was workingin a nursing home.
I was the HR director there. I was putting everything I had
into my job. We had gone through COVID and so
(21:28):
many other policy changes, and it was pulling a lot more of me
than I had to give during this time.
I was also unmedicated. Like I told you, I have bipolar
one. And one of the things with
bipolar is when you're taking your medicine and you feel good,
you think you don't need the medicine anymore.
And as much as I hate to say it,that's a regular thing amongst
(21:52):
people with bipolar. So, you know, I kept convincing
myself that I was fine, that I didn't need any of my medicines
and I wasn't on my medicines andI was being pulled in all these
different directions and I was giving more of myself than I had
to give in every aspect of my life.
Some other things happened in mylife that that took me down a,
(22:14):
you know, kind of a dark bath, too.
And then I remember one day everything just snapped.
I just didn't care anymore. It got to where I wasn't feeling
things again. I cared about my children and
(22:36):
that was about it. And during that time, I made a
lot of very bad decisions. I did things that hurt not only
myself but other people. And, you know, those are things
that I still have to make up fornow because even though I was
under the influence of all theseother things, ultimately I'm
still responsible for those actions.
(22:57):
So traumatic experiences, occultinvolvement and compulsive sin
are really common here, Causes of spiritual and psychological
distress. Did any of this play a role in
your story? Absolutely.
So as I, you know, I told you guys about the trauma with my
real father, I do have other childhood traumas that I best, I
(23:17):
think those are best left for other places.
But so when I started feeling this way, I was very addicted to
my phone during that time, during that numbness.
And I was just scrolling and scrolling and I would scroll on
TikTok. And one of the things that would
often come up is, you know, the whole the witch talk thing.
(23:39):
Will you come across those videos and you come across them
for so long? And when your mind's already in
that mindset, eventually something will grasp out and
it's like, hey, that kind of makes some sense.
So then you start looking into it things and you, one of the
things that happened is I was watching videos and they talked
(24:00):
about a demon and one of the demons, it talked about Lilith.
And the whole story behind her is that she protects women.
She's there for them. And she, you know, she brings
this influence and she's there for women.
She's there to protect them. She's there to help them
emotionally. So that was that was very
(24:21):
interesting to me and I became very interested in it.
And I did not realize by just how that subtle interest at
first who had blossomed into something that was having a
very, very big and impressive presence in my life.
So, Jesse, you said something that I'm going to need you to
unpack for me for a second, because you said it as though
(24:43):
everyone listening to you just knows what you're talking about.
Now, first of all, I will confess that I have watched a
relative few number of TikTok videos Even so when you threw
out the word witch talk, I kind of cringed a little bit inside
and some of our listeners maybe like me, they may not know.
(25:04):
Now we're certainly not encouraging anybody to go and
look this up and go back down the the same type of path.
But are are you telling me firstof all that there is that that
there is a TikTok page or something like that that is
devoted to ancient witchcraft? Absolutely.
(25:27):
So one of the things that you see more and more of on TikTok,
you know, it's like you and David have said before, people
are searching for religious experiences and spiritual
experiences, and they may not necessarily be searching in the
same place. So there's a lot of people, you
know, their pages or their channels they share like their
(25:52):
paganism, their demon worshipping, you know, their,
you know, these other ancient religions and how they practice
it. You know what the deities that
they worship, what they mean, what they come for, you know,
and all the foundations behind it.
(26:13):
And if you're in a bad place, you know, physically,
spiritually, you come across things like that.
It's something. And it's like, hey, you know, I
feel that way. Hey, I, I want that in my life.
And it will, it will just kind of grab hold.
So yeah, you know, where there is freedom of speech and there's
(26:37):
a platform to put it on, you're going to come across about
anything you want. So, well, you've educated me a
little bit. And by the way, my, my position
is not that such things should not be legal to be out there.
I, I am a believer in free speech.
With that said, I don't necessarily think that
everything that's free needs to be consumed by all of us, but I,
(27:01):
I appreciate your willingness tospeak to that because I suspect
that there's other people that are really flirting with a lot
of these same type of things andhaving questions.
Something that I, I want to divea little bit deeper in your
story on Jesse is, according to psychiatrist Paul Meyer, who
(27:22):
wrote a book called Blue Jeans, and he also has given some
lectures for the American Association of Christian
Counselors. He says that people with bipolar
one, when they're in the the themanic phase, tend to experience
a loss of control in one of three areas, spending sex or
spirituality. So as you're telling your story
(27:43):
and you're talking about how you've grown up in church, but
you're experiencing this really deep break and you're at a very
low place, and now you're drawn to this, this demon, Lilith.
I think that's consistent with aloss of control in the area of
spirituality, something that youmight not have sought out
(28:04):
otherwise. But in that moment you did.
However, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, it
sounds like even though that mayhave been a response to mental
health issues to unmedicated bipolar, you still suffered some
consequences from that decision.That that is when you started
looking into this demon. In a sense you might say she
(28:27):
showed up. Would would that be a fairway to
say that? Absolutely.
I don't think there's any other way to say that.
Yeah, it it wasn't hard. You know, pretty much you speak
it. And once there, that foothold
just got in there with just thatsmall crack in the door, they're
(28:49):
gonna take it, you know, And youknow, like you were talking
about, you know, the major breakdown in one of the three
areas. In my experience, when you have
a major breakdown in one of those areas, especially if it
was the spirituality, you start having breakdowns in all the
(29:10):
other areas. It's, it's not just confined to
one thing. So, you know, there will be 1
starting point where everything starts to completely crumble.
And but once that starts happening and all of that starts
going, the other areas start going too.
It's, you know, it's, it's not just the one thing.
That makes a lot of sense and I appreciate you saying that
(29:31):
because it is that healthy spirituality integrates us as
individuals. It it helps us become more
healthy and it helps us make better decisions.
Unhealthy spirituality is very disintegrating.
That is, it drives us to make toxic, harmful decisions and
(29:51):
especially if the intrigue with demons and such things gives way
to a a real oppression from those entities.
They've been destroying humanityfor a good long time now.
So one thing that that I think is important to know is
(30:13):
regardless of how somebody ends up going down that path, part of
healing is, is going to need to include repenting to God for our
involvement in that. And you said it earlier that
even if you weren't fully in control of yourself, you may
still have some responsibility for the decisions made in those
(30:34):
things in the sense that they still affect us.
So we own what is ours. And then anybody that has
engaged in demon worship in in any sense, I believe needs to
renounce whatever spirit they were talking to by the same name
they were calling it before justdeclaring I'm going to have
(30:54):
nothing to do with this any anymore and make sure we kick
those things out. There's a there's a revival in
our world of these ancient, not just in our world in Johnson
County, Arkansas, where we're sitting at right now.
There's a revival of devotion tothese spirits like this also to
the Norse gods and, and things of those sorts that the Bible
identifies as, as demons or lesser entities that Jesus
(31:19):
Christ triumphed over. So what's your thoughts as
somebody that that went down that road and you experienced
that? Do you think maybe we're
sometimes people think Christians are just kind of fear
mongering, We're panicking a little bit too much.
Is this stuff really a big deal or is it not?
(31:43):
It is a big deal. I mean, it's a very big deal.
And you know, like, like you say, a lot of people, you know,
they'll blow it off as, as fear mongering or they say, oh, they,
they don't want you to think about this or they don't want
you to talk about this or they don't want you to, to worship
like this or have anything to dowith it.
Just because it doesn't fall in line with, you know, with what
(32:06):
they believe. Well, it's true.
It doesn't fall in love with what with what we believe, but
it's a very dangerous path, you know, 'cause the things that you
were influenced by when you're under that, they're not healthy
things. You know, just like God's never
(32:30):
going to tell you to go hurt yourself or hurt someone else,
the devil's never going to tell you to help yourself or help
someone else. That's good and and those are
good ways that sometimes we needto step back and objectively
judge some things. What is this actually producing
in my life? We need to ask those questions.
(32:52):
What is actually happening in meas I'm going down this road?
Right. And it, it may feel good in the
moment, you know, those things that you're experiencing, you
know, there might be like a slight freedom or something like
that in the moment, a slight euphoria, you know, but in the
end you have to look, is this, is this actually helping me?
(33:14):
Because if it's not actually helping you, then it's not of
God. Right.
Thank you. So have you ever?
Experienced auditory or visual hallucinations?
I know those are sometimes thosecome along with bipolar.
Yeah, actually that is somethingI have actually dealt with both
(33:34):
of those, mostly in my most severe breakdown and my complete
total loss was whenever I did experience some of the visual
hallucinations. But the thing that I have
suffered with most is auditory hallucinations.
A lot of people, you know, they also, they'll brush that off.
(33:57):
As you know, that's just your mental health.
But even though it can be a big part of your mental health, it's
also a big part of your spiritual health.
It's not a one or the other thing.
You know, if you if you are spiritually sound and you
experience those things, then absolutely it can just be your
mental health. But when you're into that place
(34:18):
where every part of your life isshaken, you can't just write it
off as one or the other. Yeah.
So when did those when did thosehallucinations start?
The auditory hallucinations actually started a very long
time ago. I was a teenager when they first
started. I would say I was probably about
13 or 14 years old whenever I first started experiencing any
(34:38):
of them. Was there any kind of common
theme to these hallucinations? And so a lot of it is a lot, you
know, where people talk about, you know, they have this voice
that's very hard on themselves and it's putting themselves down
and things like that. And I understand, you know,
(35:00):
people think that sometimes, butit's very different Whenever you
can audibly hear that in your head, that's something, and it
can be berating you or it's something that is convincing you
like, hey, this isn't that bad. This makes you feel better.
It's OK to do it, you know, And a lot of people, you know, they
will have these thoughts. But whenever you actually
(35:24):
audibly hear it, it's a very, very different experience.
It's not the same. It's just when you have a
thought in your head and a lot of people don't understand that
there is a very big difference in that.
Yeah. So I mean, obviously, we know
now that you've found some significant healing and
deliverance from this. How did that happen?
(35:46):
Like walk us through the process, Any key events feel
free to discuss. Medicine, counseling, prayer,
deliverance. Yeah, so I was in the very
deepest point. Everything my whole life was
busting at the seems. Everything was about to fall
apart and if it hadn't been for my best friend Christina, which
(36:10):
by the way, if you don't have anavishai or a shield bearer, you
need one because that is absolutely what Christina has
been for me throughout our wholeentire friendship.
We met at the church with several other people.
Robbie was one of them that was there and we talked about all
(36:31):
the things that were going on and all the different aspects of
it. And one of the things that I
probably said to me, you know, he was like, you need to see a
psychiatrist within the next 7 days.
He's like, I feel like that's very important.
So I did and I began seeing the psychiatrist that I see now.
We had to go through several different medications and
(36:52):
different medication changes andthat helped a lot.
But that psychiatrist visit thatdidn't heal everything because
not all of my issues were mentalissues.
I was experiencing demonic oppression.
I also feel like I had, you know, some there was a demonic
(37:12):
spirit of fear that was so deep rooted inside of me that had
been there for so long that it took some time to come out.
Because I met with Robbie and David.
We met a couple times for counseling sessions.
I ended up also seeing a counsellor.
I have a counsellor that I see on my own now, along along with
a psychiatrist. We probably prayed for
(37:33):
deliverance what, 3-4 times? And it was probably the fourth
time. Finally, we were at the altar at
church and we were praying for it and my stomach was burning,
my throat was burning, and I could just remember I was
coughing uncontrollably. And Robbie is still praying for
(37:54):
me but I'm coughing and I just remember I'm coughing
uncontrollably and I can't stop coughing and the next thing I
know I'm coughing and it feels like razor blades are just
coming out of my throat. After that, I just remember I'm
sitting there and for the first time that I can remember, and I
don't even know how many years, the only voice in my head is my
(38:19):
own. I don't have an unrational fear
that something's going to happen.
And I just remember I'm just sitting there like everything is
new and I'm just really shocked.And Robbie asked me.
He said he's like, how do you feel?
And I was like, I don't know. I don't know what to tell you
because I've never felt this before.
(38:40):
One thing that we really want tostress is really important to
our listeners is that even when you have that moment of
deliverance and like you, you have that moment of like, bam,
you're set free. Sometimes people still like
everything doesn't just go away,right?
Like all the issues don't just go away.
No, no, not at all. I mean, because like I said it
(39:02):
ultimately you're still responsible for your actions.
You may not have been totally incontrol.
And if you're experienced both of those things, I can promise
you, you have very little control of the situation.
Like you have very little control of things that are
happening, but ultimately you still end up being responsible
for those things. It's not a magic fix.
(39:23):
Everything's not going to be better all at once time.
And it's like, it's like anything with addiction, you
have to take the 12 steps. One of those things is apologize
is acknowledging that you have aproblem.
And then you know, you have to acknowledge you had a problem.
You have to acknowledge you've hurt people.
(39:44):
You have to acknowledge all these things that you've done,
and you have to apologize for these things.
Not everyone is going to be as receptive to that.
You've also got to show forgiveness to the things that
happened to you that led you to that point.
Which that is a very hard thing.Very, very hard thing.
Because even though it's not something you asked for, it's
(40:06):
not something you warranted. It's just something that
happened to you. Some people may not have even
known the role that they played in that.
And you have to get that forgiveness, not only for them,
but mostly for yourself, becauseyou can't be forgiven until
you're ready to forgive people. And so you have to do that.
(40:27):
You have to accept those things.And sometimes, you know, you're
going to apologize to people forthe things that happened in
those moments, and they're not going to be able to forgive you
at that moment. They may not ever be able to
forgive you. And that's hard.
That's a hard thing to live with.
But eventually you have to realize, you know, I've done
what I can do. I've done the things that I can
(40:47):
do. Everything else, it has to be
laid over to God. And either that will be mended
or it won't. I have to be OK with the outcome
of that action. Yeah.
Some of our listeners may be suffering with similar
situations that you've been through.
Do you have anything you'd like others to know who might be
going through something similar to what you've gone through?
(41:11):
It's rough. I know it's rough.
It's very hard and sometimes youfeel very alone, like you, and
you don't know who to talk to. You don't know who's going to
understand. There's this big misconception
about mental health still, like even in this day and age.
So you tell someone you have bipolar and they think that it's
(41:31):
just you just act crazy. You have these irrational mood
swings, things like this. They don't realize that that the
stereotype of that is just, it'sa minute part of it, you know,
that it's totally not the whole case there.
And then you throw that in and on top of that, you know, the
(41:56):
demonic possession or oppressionand you yourself, you know, you
feel like, man, I really am crazy.
That's not what's going on. I can't talk to anybody about
that. They'll lock me up somewhere.
But that's not true. That's not the case.
Another part of bipolar that does experience that is
(42:16):
paranoia. A lot of people don't know that
as well. So you have that irrational
fear, like I can't go to anyone with this.
I can't talk to anyone about this.
No one's going to understand. No one's going to care.
It's not going to be something that anyone's going to be able
to help me with, which isn't true.
If you belong to a loving church, you know, and you have
(42:37):
someone at that loving church, go to it.
Go to those people. There are people, the people
that want to help and they're willing to help.
Talk to them because they're notgoing to offer that help if they
don't really mean it. And there are resources out
there. You do have to be careful
because some, some resources that have they have great
(42:58):
intentions and they really do think that they're helping, but
it's also can be some very harmful ideology.
And I say that because, you know, I've seen some of them
myself and it's just some of thethings that they talk about or
they preach. They don't really line up with
biblical theology, even though that's what they proclaim.
(43:20):
And I'm, I'm not by any way putting anything or anyone down.
And like I said, I do believe some of those things are made
with the best of intentions. But if there's not a a
completely firm standing knowledge on it, you can
accidentally say something that is going to be harmful to other
people. So you have to be wary of things
like that too. The last question I have is if
(43:43):
you're willing to share, tell usthe like your salvation
experience about your. So actually, well, I mean, you
know, the three of us belong to this very this club that none of
us chose to be in the PK club. But for me, that was a a later
(44:05):
experience in life. But I did grow up in church,
even when my parents weren't actively in church.
I went to church. My home church is in a work.
I started out as a kid. Brother George Farquhar was my
pastor. We started out from the tiny
church in Catalpa. We moved to the small Baptist
(44:25):
Church that's right there. And I work and and he was my
pastor all through growing up. I also went to sayless several
times as a child as well. So I mean, even though you know,
it was later on till my parents found deliverance, I, I had
always grown up in church and I did step away.
I had did have some backsliding and stepped away for a while and
(44:48):
then I came back and then this, you know, that experience that I
went through a couple years ago,that was something that I did
call for. I had to make a new commandment
to God because, you know, I stepped away.
I had that Judas moment where, you know, I traded my salvation
(45:08):
for things in this world. But unlike Judas, I decided to
come back. I had to make that conscious
choice to come back. When I did that and I
rededicated my life to God, I got re baptized because I needed
to renew my commitment. So Jesse, you, as you were
(45:30):
talking, I, I couldn't help but just be, be really struck by the
part of your story where where you're sharing about that, that
sense of abandonment that you, you dealt with from your birth
father. And when I heard you say that, I
thought there's been so many people that I've walked with
(45:51):
through a process of deliveranceand emotional healing that a
root of rejection is what I callit.
What was, was really just a strong, it's like a meta
narrative in in their life that oftentimes a lot of these
struggles that get a lot of attention, battles with
addiction, battles with mental illness, battles with demonic
(46:11):
powers, Those seem to take center stage.
But it's the these underlying issues of rejection and trauma
that are often such vital keys to healing for people to realize
that, you know what, that that that rejection, that
abandonment, it altered my perception of myself, right?
(46:36):
It it altered my own sense of identity.
Do do you see that when you think back about your story, do
you feel like that was a like that was that was an issue in a
variety of the struggles that you face?
Like is there are there some areas that you think that
affected you more so than others?
Or is it more of a side issue for you?
(46:57):
No, that that's a major issue. So you have this thing like
that, I don't know how else I'llsay it, but so you have this
thing like that that happens to you.
And like I was telling to me, you deal with it your whole life
and you don't even realize how it affects you until you get
older. And for me, I was much older
(47:21):
before I realized how it was affecting me.
And the way you seek love is different than it is for people
that haven't ever had that experience.
The way you respond in certain situations, you know, you get
the idea that someone in your life is going to leave you and
you're just like, well, it's notgoing to happen again.
(47:42):
I'll leave them before they leave me.
You know, whether that be a relationship, a family member, a
friend, anything like that. You don't realize how much that
affects you to the point to where you never want to
experience it again. Even if you're so long that you
young that you can't remember it, it has shaped your life in
such a way and it's something you never want to deal with
(48:04):
again. So it it, it changes so much
about you and you don't even know how much it's changed about
you. That makes a lot of sense.
And here's an aspect that I feellike is a blind spot for a lot
of deliverance ministers. Let me say it another way.
It was a blind spot for me 20 years ago.
I've been casting out demons andtrying to help people for well
(48:29):
over 25 years now. But early on through my 20s in
ministry, I really believe that if somebody was being oppressed
or if they were demonized in anycapacity, if we could just
effectively cast that out, then everything would be great.
What I didn't realize is, yes, that's one piece of the puzzle.
But in reality, demons are not necessarily creating these
(48:54):
perceptions in our mind. They're making use of what's
already there. So in order for someone to be
free, there's got to come a place where we let the healing
power of Jesus restore our senseof identity.
And you said it really well thatthese these these false ideas
(49:15):
form that we start to say with everybody's going to leave me
anyway. Maybe I should just leave them
and I'll protect myself from getting hurt.
And then those self protective tendencies drive us deeper into
despair because it's very isolating.
Right. OK, so the best way I know how
to explain it is like a wound. If you superficially heal the
(49:37):
wound from the outside, it's it's still not heals on the
inside. You know, it's it's still going
to fester. They're still going to be that
bacteria there. It's not going to heal all the
way, but you have to heal it from the inside out.
It's hard and it takes some timeto do, but if you don't do it
(49:57):
that way, it's never really healed.
That is so true. You know, a lot of people hold
this idea that's really that's really false.
And we think, well, if bad things happen in the past but
you have good relationships now,that should just take care of
all that. It's just not how it works
sometimes. No, absolutely not.
(50:19):
And it's funny you say that because I've had people, you
know, say something like that tome.
They're like, oh, yeah. But you have such a great dad
now. I do.
I have a great dad. I have someone that chose to be
my dad when someone else had just walked away.
And I'm thankful for my dad. My dad is my dad.
And I are probably, honestly closer than me and my mom are.
(50:40):
Don't tell my mom that. But, and it's it's true.
And people do have that big misconception of that, but that
hurts. Still there, Yeah.
Because in the end, you're stillleft even though someone else
stepped up still happened to you.
Right. So I think you know something in
(51:03):
light of all that, somebody justI want to, I want to let our
listeners just ponder on is the reality that it's OK to give
yourself the space that you needto heal and to acknowledge that
even if you do have some positive relationships in your
life, your your adoptive dad is good, good to you have a good
relationship with him. That doesn't mean that you may
(51:24):
not need to find a a safe place in time to talk about the other
things because that process of healing is likely part of your
total, your total healing story.So Jesse, when you're when
you're talking, you're reflecting on that moment when
we first all met there at the church, yourself and your
(51:45):
husband and Pastor David and myself and several some women in
the church. I remember that experience is
pretty vividly burned in my mind.
Actually, some elements of and, and one of those is this is I
remember Pastor David and I talking and saying, OK, since
since there has been some obsession with Lilith, I think
(52:09):
it's important that we walk her through renouncing that and we
just see what happens. And, and I said to him in
private, we may see big manifestations from this, We may
see nothing, but it's going to be very telling, I think.
So I remember we, we sat down and, and we did walk through
(52:30):
renouncing those, those devotions and that thing.
And honestly, from my perspective, there's nothing
that happened in that moment. No, it in that exact moment, I
don't feel like nothing happened.
It was like a, it was just like she just was sitting back like
this doesn't really matter, you know?
(52:50):
And that was that's where she was at the moment in my life.
And I remember I, I was very afraid because I didn't, I
didn't want that. Like that was not something that
I wanted to be there. But at the moment nothing
happened at that moment. Right, so here, here's an aspect
(53:11):
of deliverance that I think somepeople may struggle with, but I
really do believe it. And that is that it's
multifaceted. So after we prayed and, and
nothing really profound seemed to happen, we agreed that the
first step for you was, as you mentioned, we need to get, we
need to get you to the psychiatrist, we need to get
back on medication, get leveled out, and you need to get some
(53:32):
counseling. I don't think if you had not
taken those two steps, if you had not sought good psychiatric
care, got leveled out of medication and pursued some
counseling, I'm not sure we'd have gotten the opportunity to
see the spiritual deliverance because it's so hard in that
moment to really sort through what's being caused by what.
(53:53):
There's a combination of some very real physiological issues.
There, there, there is. There is this mental illness
that for people with bipolar oneversus a miracle, they really do
need medication to function well.
And a lot of people struggle to understand that, but it's very
much true. After we talked, I don't
(54:14):
remember much of what you said, but I remember this.
I looked and said, OK, Jesse, sohere's our game plan.
Is there anything that that you want to say?
And you said one sentence to me that I thought of a lot.
You said thank you for believingme.
You know what another big thing out of sight of not feeling like
you have anyone to turn to or anyone to talk to.
(54:36):
It's well, if I do, are they even going to believe me?
You know, that's that's a that'sa very that's one of the hardest
things to when you come to singing help because it, you
know, you do come to have someone and you're seeking help
and you tell them things that they're going on with you and
they just look at you like you're crazy and like that.
(54:59):
That's not true. I don't believe that.
You know, I can honestly say that if it hadn't been for you
actually listening to me and actually believing me, and you
and David both being so, it's soobedient to God because, you
know, if you weren't obedient toGod, God wouldn't have been able
(55:21):
to show you, hey, this is what'sreally happening.
You know, and I feel like that'sa big thing with people.
Like people don't want to share their story because they're
afraid nobody's going to believethem.
I think you're very, you're veryright in that.
And one word that I often like to share with people who our,
(55:41):
our, our practicing deliverance,but maybe they're kind of new to
it is don't just start out screaming at demons.
People need a right to tell their story.
Part of healing comes in being able to speak because demons
love to steal our voice, to silence us and to make us think
that our trauma is all that we are.
And so being able to give voice to our own experiences such a
(56:02):
vital part of healing, I think. That's very true.
And one of the things when we first started talking with, when
we first started counseling, a lot of people when they have a
mental condition or that they have an oppression, they will
say that I am bipolar, I am possessed, I am oppressed.
(56:24):
It's not I have, right? So whenever you say I am, you're
accepting that as your personality, as who you are
instead of something you have. It's controlling your life.
And that was something that I myself had to work on.
This is not who I am. This is what I have.
That's powerful. That's powerful.
(56:45):
OK, so let's let's take just a moment and revisit that moment
of deliverance in the altar. So I remember that pretty
vividly. So we're it's one of our fire
weekends and a lot of people arereceiving prayer and you're over
there on the side close to the piano.
(57:05):
I'm standing there. Honestly, I walked over to pray,
not really not really anticipating anything big to
happen. And in that moment, it was just
very evident that Jesus was setting you free from some of
that stuff. Right.
I remember being over there and I was standing there, I was
praying. Of course, Christina was with
me. And then I just couldn't stand
(57:28):
up anymore. So I, I'm getting there and I'm
sitting on my knees and we're down there and we're praying.
And I remember that you're praying for me, and I'm asking
God for deliverance from these things and for healing and my
mind and other things. And we're there and we're
praying and you're laying hands on me and we're praying and I
start coughing. I can't stop.
(57:49):
It's just like uncontrollable. I don't really know what's going
on. And we're praying and everything
around me is getting louder. I just start coughing and it's
like my insides are on fire and it's like razor blades are
coming out of my throat. And then when I stop, I'm just
sitting there because I I don't know what to do because I don't
know what I'm experiencing because for the first time and I
(58:12):
can't even remember how long, mymind is quiet.
Praise God. So when you say my mind is
quiet, I don't want to miss the power of that moment.
Because from what you've shared,it's not just that you were
experiencing auditory hallucinations, which do
(58:34):
sometimes come with bipolar one.One of the voices that you were
hearing was malicious, continually tearing you down,
continually telling you how worthless you you were.
And here is, well, the inner where the interplay between
mental illness and demonic harassment, the lines get really
blurred sometimes because on theone hand, there's a danger in
(58:58):
saying, well, anybody that's hearing voices, that's a demon.
And that's just not true. The fact is, is that a lot of
mental health conditions cause some type of, of, of, of
auditory hallucinations or something like that.
At the same time, there's another danger.
There's a danger that somebody has a diagnosed condition.
(59:22):
We may just say, well, those voices they're hearing, that's
just normal for you. How did you know the difference?
I mean, I remember when that left and I said, how do you
feel? Your response was literally, I
don't know. I'm not sure.
I don't ever remember my mind being quiet before.
(59:42):
Exactly. So, you know, I told you I have
experienced auditory hallucinations and you know,
whenever that happened, that's not gone.
Like that's not completely gone like every now and then I will,
you know, but it's different. It's a completely different from
the demonic aspect of it. It was a constant berating, very
(01:00:05):
malicious, very violent. And it wasn't even necessarily
always towards me. It would just be.
Complete violent. I would get agitated so easily,
I get mad so easily. And then I just have all these
violent influences. Just it's like berating you and
it's constant. It's non-stop.
(01:00:27):
And it was just always there like always at the back of my
mind. Like I can't, like I said, I
can't remember it just not beingthere in some form or the other.
And it's different, you know, it's not, it's not just a
thought. Like you can audibly hear this
happening and it's just intense and it just keeps coming.
And like you said, it's malicious and it's violent.
(01:00:49):
It's very self degrading. It's very hard, very hard.
It's even very hard to put into words.
And that, that that is not part of mental health.
God has so much more force than that.
I do want to be clear also that while this is the deliverance
(01:01:11):
dialogues and we talk a lot about spiritual deliverance,
Jesus Christ is also the healer of our mind and our body.
There's nothing that's beyond his reach, nothing can't help us
with. So I believe that it is
potential. It is within the realm of
reality for us by faith to believe for total healing, but I
(01:01:33):
don't want anybody to just settle and say, well, I'm just
going to have to be harassed forthe rest of my life with
thoughts that are telling me terrible things about myself.
God is so much bigger than that.And so it just a word of
encouragement I would want to give to our listeners is don't
rule anything out. Be willing to let healing come
through medicine. Be willing to let healing come
(01:01:55):
through counseling, Be willing to let healing come through
prayer and through spiritual deliverance.
Because these are ultimately allgifts that God has given us.
And we want to move toward health and away from
disintegration because it's all for the glory of of God.
You're a mom, you're an employee, your wife, you're a
(01:02:18):
church member. You've got way too much life to
live to be beat down by a jerk devil that tells you that you're
not worth anything. Absolutely, Anna.
You know, you were talking aboutthe healing part of it.
Everyone expects when their healing comes or their miracle
come that it's going to be like this big flashy, right in your
(01:02:41):
face type of thing. But sometimes we have to realize
that that healing and that miracle, sometimes it's going to
come in prescription bottle. There's nothing wrong with that.
That doesn't affect who you are as a person.
That doesn't affect your walk with God.
That doesn't mean that your walkis any less than anyone else's.
It just means that your miracle is different, because not all of
(01:03:01):
our miracles are going to be thesame.
Amen. Amen.
Thank you.
I received a call from my pastorasking me to join him at the
church. When I arrived there were
several people gathered trying to help a a family that was
really going through a hard time.
As I walked in and my pastor anda couple other people that were
involved brought me up to speed on what was happening.
We began together to do some assessment trying to figure out
(00:21):
what was going on. Well, among the many other
things that were mentioned, something that really stood out
to me is that the individual that we were about to pray with
had become really obsessed with the occult in recent months, had
been practicing with tarot cards, and had especially become
(00:41):
intrigued by a primordial demon that she had begun attempting to
communicate. I thought to myself after
hearing everything, Well, clearly we have a classic case
of demonic possession. I mean, after all, someone is
involved in the occult. If they're focusing on demons,
if they're practicing things that Scripture clearly forbids,
(01:05):
and then they're having a subsequent psychiatric
breakdown, that's possession. Or is it?
I'm Doctor Robbie Willis. Welcome to the Deliverance
Dialogues. One of the things that I've
(01:25):
noticed in our culture is there's this real tendency to
just throw around psychological terms.
It's one of my pet peeves. And yet I, I have no doubt that
I have been the guilty party as well.
Sometimes you look at somebody that's acting a little bit down
and then kind of energetic and you're going, wow, they're
really bipolar, aren't they? Or people who like to have
(01:50):
everything organized commonly say, well, my OCD is kicking in,
my obsessive compulsive disorderis kicking in, my anxiety just
won't let me do that. Which sometimes means that
you're struggling with anxiety disorder, and sometimes it means
that you just don't want to and your heart races a little bit
when you think about it. Or there's your personal
(02:12):
favorite, right? Hey, you're gaslighting me.
Oh, gaslighting. Gaslighting that was nominated
as the word of the year for the most overused word for the 2023
or 2024? I would know, but I'm probably
being gaslighted right now so all of my kids know that I hate
(02:33):
the word gaslighting. Not because it doesn't exist,
but because this is a word that basically means someone else is
trying to make you question yourown reality.
Point being, there's this tendency to really overuse
psychological or psychiatric terms that often we don't have
any idea what they actually mean.
(02:54):
But these terms truly represent very serious conditions or
experiences that people we work alongside, people we worship
alongside, or maybe people that we set alongside of the dinner
table are experiencing. And on the one hand, we want to
make sure that we're not minimizing their experience by
(03:16):
applying these terms in the wrong ways.
On the other, precision in our understanding is important
because people are truly suffering, do need help and help
is available. So Timothy, you're a fourth year
psychology student and you and Ihave had a good number of
conversations about things of this sort.
(03:36):
And we've discussed on this podcast before the DSM 5, which
is the 5th edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical
Manual of Mental Health Disorders.
So I wonder if you would just walk us through specifically
talking about bipolar. What is bipolar?
What are its features? How do we recognize it?
(03:57):
How is it treated? Any of these things you'd like
to speak to? Yeah.
So when you you read the the DSM5, which is kind of the
prevailing authority on mental health disorders currently, it
draws a really strong distinction between bipolar 1
and 2. And so really commonly you, you
(04:17):
kind of get those two lumped together in kind of pop culture
when people talk about bipolar disorder or I've heard, I've
heard it sometimes referred to as bipolar depression, those two
kind of get lumped together. But but the DSM 5 makes a really
strong distinction between them.Bipolar 2 is, from my
understanding, a little more common and also less severe.
(04:40):
Quite a bit less severe. It's characterized by two
distinct kind of episodes. You have major depressive
episodes, which according to theDSM 5 they last about two weeks
or more, are characterized by 5 or more of a long list of
symptoms, but that includes insomnia, rapid weight gain or
(05:04):
rapid weight loss, complete lackof desire to do basic tasks, and
a complete like loss of motivation.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, in by people with
bipolar 2, you have hypomanic episodes, which are essentially
periods of extremely elevated energy where often times people
(05:26):
will have these bouts of creative energy.
It's mentioned in a book that you referenced in your
dissertation that people with bipolar 2 will have so much
energy all at once that they'll suddenly write an entire book in
just a couple of days, right? Yeah, I mean, what people that
are functioning in a healthy manner with some of these
conditions are sometimes the most brilliant and creative
people among us? Yeah.
(05:47):
The the key is when they're functioning in a in a healthy
manner. Sure, and I mean, these episodes
also include feeling like you don't need to sleep.
People with bipolar 2 when they're experiencing A hypomanic
episode will often feel fully rested from just an hour or two
of sleep, and they'll also oftenhave very positive feelings
about themselves. Whereas depression is associated
(06:08):
with depressive episodes are associated with really low
feelings about yourself, hypomanic episodes are really
positive feelings about yourself.
So what's the difference betweenbipolar 1 and bipolar 2?
Well, you also have a third variable in bipolar 1, and
that's called manic episodes. The main difference between a
(06:30):
hypomanic episode and a manic episode is the severity and the
presence of psychosis, so and the the length.
So a manic episode is very similar to a hypomanic episode
in that the individual will experience lots of creativity
and lots of energy, but they'll also experience a massive loss
of control in one of three areas, which is remind me.
(06:56):
Bipolar one can cause a loss of control, according to
psychiatrist Paul Meyer, in the areas of sex, spending or
spirituality. Right.
And so these manic episodes willusually last about a week, which
is longer than a hypomanic episode, and will sometimes
result in symptoms of psychosis as well as sometimes a hospital
(07:19):
stay, right? Sometimes it's so severe that it
results in somebody engaging in dangerous behaviors and ending
up in the hospital. So we're not just talking about
somebody being irritatingly happy for a few hours, right?
No, no, no. What you're talking about is
somebody is so recklessly empowered by this manic episode
(07:41):
that they feel like they're on top of the world and they may go
take some illicit substances andgo do something really, really
dangerous. And this can result in a loss of
control in spending where you suddenly take all your life
savings, you go to the casino and you gamble it all the way in
one night. I So no, we're not talking about
(08:04):
just like, Oh no, I wrote a book.
This is terrible. Now I made money.
No, we're talking about you. Something usually really
distressing. Now, you might say, this doesn't
sound so serious, right? But let me read you an excerpt
from the DSM 5 about bipolar. On page 131 says the lifetime
(08:25):
risk of suicide in individuals with bipolar disorder is
estimated to be at least 15 times that of the general
population. In fact, bipolar disorder may
account for up to 1/4 of all completed suicides.
That is a staggering statistic. It's tragic.
It's deeply tragic. And let's think about it
(08:46):
inversely for just a second. What that means is that good,
solid mental health treatment, especially if it's underpinned
by addressing any other medical and spiritual things that are
going on, could literally cut the suicide rate by 1/4.
(09:07):
Yes. And that's just talking about
bipolar. Just just you're not even
considering any other mental disorders.
Wow, that's, that's amazing. So what kind of numbers are we
talking about as far as as far as people that are suffering
with this? Doctor Paul Meyer estimates that
300 million people worldwide live with some form of bipolar
(09:32):
disorder. And in the United States alone,
there's close to 15,000,000. So this is a, this is a very
prevalent condition. I also read a statistic just the
other day that's deeply alarmingthat from the onset of mental
health symptoms, the average amount of time before someone
(09:56):
reaches out for help is 11 years.
Now, when you think about that and you lay that alongside
everything else we're saying, that shows that really
demonstrates the importance of believers born again Christians
being willing to identify when people are struggling and step
in and offer help. One of the one of the other
(10:18):
studies that I read indicates that even in our modern culture,
when people do decide to reach out for help, they're still more
likely to reach out to a member of the clergy than they are to
reach out to a mental health professional.
So one things that means, and part of my one of my passions is
(10:40):
helping equip pastors to recognize these things and to
really learn how to offer help without causing harm.
It's really important, I think, to have pastors that have
connections with those mental health professionals.
Yes, absolutely. You know, how many people do we
refer from Link Church to go gethelp from a professional?
(11:02):
All the time. All the time.
No, it's, it's very, it's very true.
And, and I think one of the paths forward, and so this
podcast is the deliverance dialogues and, and, and part of
the reason we named it as I wantto have some of these
conversations about how to help people find freedom and, and,
and deliverance. That may not be what we're
always talking about. One of my passions is to, to
(11:24):
form some therapeutic alliances where mental health
professionals and, and medical doctors and pastors start to
realize that we're not, we're not each other's enemies.
We're all ultimately reaching for the same things in at least
some arenas, right? That we all desire to lead
people toward greater health andgreater function within society.
(11:47):
Now, not all depression is bipolar depression, of course.
One of the things that Doctor Meyer points out is that
unresolved anger can actually result in serotonin depletion in
the brain that can lead to depression.
So this is an example of a biochemical problem that's
actually triggered by an emotional, emotional problem
(12:10):
that may have originally been brought on by a spiritual
problem. So why do we need to think
holistically? Because spiritual struggles can
impact the emotions and emotion.Emotional struggles can actually
impact the chemistry of the brain.
So healing has to address, in many cases, all of these
(12:30):
factors, not just some. While genetic factors have been
estimated to account for about 50% of depression, the
combination of environmental factors and life choices have
also been estimated to account for another 50%.
And so so together those three factors, genetics, environment,
and life choices play a very substantial role in our
(12:55):
psychological well-being. That's vital for us to
understand. At the same time, it's also
important to understand that just because someone has a
mental health condition doesn't mean that they're not being
spiritually oppressed. Just because somebody has a
medical condition doesn't mean that they don't need to see a
(13:17):
therapist. And to turn this the other way,
just because someone undergoes deliverance in which demons
clearly leave. Them.
That doesn't mean that it's timeto have a parade and say they're
totally healed. They may still need to talk to
someone and they may still need medication to manage some other
(13:39):
conditions that they're battlingwith.
These things are just, they're so much more interconnected than
we want to say that they are. It would be easier if there was
a classic case of demon possession or if there was a
classic case of bipolar depression.
But there's not, right? And so we have to be aware and
we have to be alert and be on watch for all of these different
(14:04):
things. Right.
And so how, why is it important to understand all these
intricate matters? Well, for one thing, bipolar
depression, when someone's in the depressive phase, especially
someone with bipolar one, often do experience these.
These individuals often experience some type of auditory
hallucinations that are telling them really toxic things about
(14:28):
themselves and that can be a natural result of this
condition. At the same time, demons, pretty
much always, when they're talking to people, are ripping
them down and telling them dangerous, horrific things about
(14:52):
themselves. So we've got to navigate all
sides of this, and we've got to be willing to expand our
thinking and expand our perspective so that we can lead
people to the greatest help thatthey can possibly receive when
someone is demonized. And I suspect that the root of
their demonization is a cult involvement.
(15:15):
One of the steps I always take at some point is to walk them
through repentance and a series of renunciations of their occult
involvement. In this case, she had been very
enamored by the demon Lilith, sowe specifically walked her
(15:38):
through renouncing Lilith by name.
Not only that, but we walk through specific renunciations
for each area of occult activity.
And I had every reason to expect, as I discussed with my
pastor just before we we took this step, had every reason to
(16:01):
expect that if this was truly demonic in nature, that in that
moment we would see a clear and definitive response from those
spirits. Because when demons start to
clues the grounds they've been claiming in people's lives, they
get really, really angry about that.
(16:22):
However, in this case, there wasabsolutely nothing.
We were simply left with the same individual that was lacking
honestly, and a lot of emotion overall was very compliant in
that moment. But there were none of the signs
(16:43):
we would typically see associated with renouncing
demonic powers with someone who is demonized.
So in that moment we knew, hey, I'm not saying the enemy's not
actively trying to destroy her, but we need to look in a
different direction. It's in that moment we begin to
(17:06):
realize that while I'm not a mental health professional and
our pastor is not a mental health professional, we really
did need to make sure that she got with someone that
understands the intricacies and the nuances of mental illness
that could help her. And then we would also continue
(17:28):
to walk along alongside her and offer support.
But in that moment, I realized the first professional that she
needs to be working with is going to be somebody that
specializes in what she's going through psychologically.
I'm Jesse. I'm a member of Lee Church.
(17:51):
I'm a wife and a mom of five kids.
I mean, I'm as someone who has not only experienced mental
health issues, but demonic influence as well.
I have, I have bipolar one, which is the severe bipolar.
And I also, you know, I experienced demonic influence
very heavily. Like my life almost completely
(18:14):
fell apart, but from that I havelearned so much.
And if I can just help someone else that's going through that
so that they're not going through that alone, that way
they can realize that just because you're experiencing that
doesn't mean that no one else has experienced that.
If I can help someone else out of everything that I went
(18:34):
through, then it's worth it. As Robbie knows to me, I'm not
even sure if you know this. My dad is not my real dad.
My dad adopted me whenever I wasabout 1 1/2 years old, before I
was ever even 2. My real dad completely signed
his rights away to me growing upand stuff.
That's not something that you know, you think of how it
(18:55):
affects you because you've had adad and you've had a dad your
whole life. But once you start getting older
towards like your teenage years,it's, it's really hard because
first of all, there's the teenage rebellion and then it's
something that starts in your mind is if, well, if my own
father didn't want me, why wouldanyone else want me?
(19:17):
And that trauma that comes from that, it will feed and it will
grow and it will grow and it will turn you, it will turn you
into someone else. So I experienced that a lot
whenever I was a teenager, I washaving severe issues with
depression. And well, that was the first
thing that I was diagnosed with was depression.
(19:39):
And I started taking medicine for that.
Also, as your dad knows, I grew up in a very small town.
There wasn't a lot to do. You hang out, hang out at the
field with your friends or at the Creek.
And you know, your teenage kids in a small town, what else is
there to do? Will you end up drinking?
(20:00):
And you know, part of that I'm not going to say wasn't just
being a stupid teenager. But when you're experiencing all
that trauma and stuff too and you feel like there's, you can't
really talk about it to other people, you try to find ways to
self medicate. And that was something that I
did. I drank a lot, a lot more than
(20:23):
anyone should at my age. And no, it wasn't an all week
thing or anything like that. I was a good student.
I still went to church. I did all these things.
But once the weekend hit, I had to have a drink.
So that progressed on throughout, even into college.
When I got into college, it got a lot worse.
(20:43):
And I mean it was very bad because I was like 85 lbs.
I would get off work on Friday and be done with school and by
the time Sunday afternoon hit, before I had to start getting
ready to go back to school on Monday, I had probably drank
about 1/2 a gallon of whiskey between that time.
So that, you know, all of those experiences and carrying those
things with you, that's what's really going to lead up to my
(21:07):
breaking point. So it was about, well, almost
three years ago now. Would you say, Robbie?
About 3 years ago, I was workingin a nursing home.
I was the HR director there. I was putting everything I had
into my job. We had gone through COVID and so
(21:28):
many other policy changes, and it was pulling a lot more of me
than I had to give during this time.
I was also unmedicated. Like I told you, I have bipolar
one. And one of the things with
bipolar is when you're taking your medicine and you feel good,
you think you don't need the medicine anymore.
And as much as I hate to say it,that's a regular thing amongst
(21:52):
people with bipolar. So, you know, I kept convincing
myself that I was fine, that I didn't need any of my medicines
and I wasn't on my medicines andI was being pulled in all these
different directions and I was giving more of myself than I had
to give in every aspect of my life.
Some other things happened in mylife that that took me down a,
(22:14):
you know, kind of a dark bath, too.
And then I remember one day everything just snapped.
I just didn't care anymore. It got to where I wasn't feeling
things again. I cared about my children and
(22:36):
that was about it. And during that time, I made a
lot of very bad decisions. I did things that hurt not only
myself but other people. And, you know, those are things
that I still have to make up fornow because even though I was
under the influence of all theseother things, ultimately I'm
still responsible for those actions.
(22:57):
So traumatic experiences, occultinvolvement and compulsive sin
are really common here, Causes of spiritual and psychological
distress. Did any of this play a role in
your story? Absolutely.
So as I, you know, I told you guys about the trauma with my
real father, I do have other childhood traumas that I best, I
(23:17):
think those are best left for other places.
But so when I started feeling this way, I was very addicted to
my phone during that time, during that numbness.
And I was just scrolling and scrolling and I would scroll on
TikTok. And one of the things that would
often come up is, you know, the whole the witch talk thing.
(23:39):
Will you come across those videos and you come across them
for so long? And when your mind's already in
that mindset, eventually something will grasp out and
it's like, hey, that kind of makes some sense.
So then you start looking into it things and you, one of the
things that happened is I was watching videos and they talked
(24:00):
about a demon and one of the demons, it talked about Lilith.
And the whole story behind her is that she protects women.
She's there for them. And she, you know, she brings
this influence and she's there for women.
She's there to protect them. She's there to help them
emotionally. So that was that was very
(24:21):
interesting to me and I became very interested in it.
And I did not realize by just how that subtle interest at
first who had blossomed into something that was having a
very, very big and impressive presence in my life.
So, Jesse, you said something that I'm going to need you to
unpack for me for a second, because you said it as though
(24:43):
everyone listening to you just knows what you're talking about.
Now, first of all, I will confess that I have watched a
relative few number of TikTok videos Even so when you threw
out the word witch talk, I kind of cringed a little bit inside
and some of our listeners maybe like me, they may not know.
(25:04):
Now we're certainly not encouraging anybody to go and
look this up and go back down the the same type of path.
But are are you telling me firstof all that there is that that
there is a TikTok page or something like that that is
devoted to ancient witchcraft? Absolutely.
(25:27):
So one of the things that you see more and more of on TikTok,
you know, it's like you and David have said before, people
are searching for religious experiences and spiritual
experiences, and they may not necessarily be searching in the
same place. So there's a lot of people, you
know, their pages or their channels they share like their
(25:52):
paganism, their demon worshipping, you know, their,
you know, these other ancient religions and how they practice
it. You know what the deities that
they worship, what they mean, what they come for, you know,
and all the foundations behind it.
(26:13):
And if you're in a bad place, you know, physically,
spiritually, you come across things like that.
It's something. And it's like, hey, you know, I
feel that way. Hey, I, I want that in my life.
And it will, it will just kind of grab hold.
So yeah, you know, where there is freedom of speech and there's
(26:37):
a platform to put it on, you're going to come across about
anything you want. So, well, you've educated me a
little bit. And by the way, my, my position
is not that such things should not be legal to be out there.
I, I am a believer in free speech.
With that said, I don't necessarily think that
everything that's free needs to be consumed by all of us, but I,
(27:01):
I appreciate your willingness tospeak to that because I suspect
that there's other people that are really flirting with a lot
of these same type of things andhaving questions.
Something that I, I want to divea little bit deeper in your
story on Jesse is, according to psychiatrist Paul Meyer, who
(27:22):
wrote a book called Blue Jeans, and he also has given some
lectures for the American Association of Christian
Counselors. He says that people with bipolar
one, when they're in the the themanic phase, tend to experience
a loss of control in one of three areas, spending sex or
spirituality. So as you're telling your story
(27:43):
and you're talking about how you've grown up in church, but
you're experiencing this really deep break and you're at a very
low place, and now you're drawn to this, this demon, Lilith.
I think that's consistent with aloss of control in the area of
spirituality, something that youmight not have sought out
(28:04):
otherwise. But in that moment you did.
However, and feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, it
sounds like even though that mayhave been a response to mental
health issues to unmedicated bipolar, you still suffered some
consequences from that decision.That that is when you started
looking into this demon. In a sense you might say she
(28:27):
showed up. Would would that be a fairway to
say that? Absolutely.
I don't think there's any other way to say that.
Yeah, it it wasn't hard. You know, pretty much you speak
it. And once there, that foothold
just got in there with just thatsmall crack in the door, they're
(28:49):
gonna take it, you know, And youknow, like you were talking
about, you know, the major breakdown in one of the three
areas. In my experience, when you have
a major breakdown in one of those areas, especially if it
was the spirituality, you start having breakdowns in all the
(29:10):
other areas. It's, it's not just confined to
one thing. So, you know, there will be 1
starting point where everything starts to completely crumble.
And but once that starts happening and all of that starts
going, the other areas start going too.
It's, you know, it's, it's not just the one thing.
That makes a lot of sense and I appreciate you saying that
(29:31):
because it is that healthy spirituality integrates us as
individuals. It it helps us become more
healthy and it helps us make better decisions.
Unhealthy spirituality is very disintegrating.
That is, it drives us to make toxic, harmful decisions and
(29:51):
especially if the intrigue with demons and such things gives way
to a a real oppression from those entities.
They've been destroying humanityfor a good long time now.
So one thing that that I think is important to know is
(30:13):
regardless of how somebody ends up going down that path, part of
healing is, is going to need to include repenting to God for our
involvement in that. And you said it earlier that
even if you weren't fully in control of yourself, you may
still have some responsibility for the decisions made in those
(30:34):
things in the sense that they still affect us.
So we own what is ours. And then anybody that has
engaged in demon worship in in any sense, I believe needs to
renounce whatever spirit they were talking to by the same name
they were calling it before justdeclaring I'm going to have
(30:54):
nothing to do with this any anymore and make sure we kick
those things out. There's a there's a revival in
our world of these ancient, not just in our world in Johnson
County, Arkansas, where we're sitting at right now.
There's a revival of devotion tothese spirits like this also to
the Norse gods and, and things of those sorts that the Bible
identifies as, as demons or lesser entities that Jesus
(31:19):
Christ triumphed over. So what's your thoughts as
somebody that that went down that road and you experienced
that? Do you think maybe we're
sometimes people think Christians are just kind of fear
mongering, We're panicking a little bit too much.
Is this stuff really a big deal or is it not?
(31:43):
It is a big deal. I mean, it's a very big deal.
And you know, like, like you say, a lot of people, you know,
they'll blow it off as, as fear mongering or they say, oh, they,
they don't want you to think about this or they don't want
you to talk about this or they don't want you to, to worship
like this or have anything to dowith it.
Just because it doesn't fall in line with, you know, with what
(32:06):
they believe. Well, it's true.
It doesn't fall in love with what with what we believe, but
it's a very dangerous path, you know, 'cause the things that you
were influenced by when you're under that, they're not healthy
things. You know, just like God's never
(32:30):
going to tell you to go hurt yourself or hurt someone else,
the devil's never going to tell you to help yourself or help
someone else. That's good and and those are
good ways that sometimes we needto step back and objectively
judge some things. What is this actually producing
in my life? We need to ask those questions.
(32:52):
What is actually happening in meas I'm going down this road?
Right. And it, it may feel good in the
moment, you know, those things that you're experiencing, you
know, there might be like a slight freedom or something like
that in the moment, a slight euphoria, you know, but in the
end you have to look, is this, is this actually helping me?
(33:14):
Because if it's not actually helping you, then it's not of
God. Right.
Thank you. So have you ever?
Experienced auditory or visual hallucinations?
I know those are sometimes thosecome along with bipolar.
Yeah, actually that is somethingI have actually dealt with both
(33:34):
of those, mostly in my most severe breakdown and my complete
total loss was whenever I did experience some of the visual
hallucinations. But the thing that I have
suffered with most is auditory hallucinations.
A lot of people, you know, they also, they'll brush that off.
(33:57):
As you know, that's just your mental health.
But even though it can be a big part of your mental health, it's
also a big part of your spiritual health.
It's not a one or the other thing.
You know, if you if you are spiritually sound and you
experience those things, then absolutely it can just be your
mental health. But when you're into that place
(34:18):
where every part of your life isshaken, you can't just write it
off as one or the other. Yeah.
So when did those when did thosehallucinations start?
The auditory hallucinations actually started a very long
time ago. I was a teenager when they first
started. I would say I was probably about
13 or 14 years old whenever I first started experiencing any
(34:38):
of them. Was there any kind of common
theme to these hallucinations? And so a lot of it is a lot, you
know, where people talk about, you know, they have this voice
that's very hard on themselves and it's putting themselves down
and things like that. And I understand, you know,
(35:00):
people think that sometimes, butit's very different Whenever you
can audibly hear that in your head, that's something, and it
can be berating you or it's something that is convincing you
like, hey, this isn't that bad. This makes you feel better.
It's OK to do it, you know, And a lot of people, you know, they
will have these thoughts. But whenever you actually
(35:24):
audibly hear it, it's a very, very different experience.
It's not the same. It's just when you have a
thought in your head and a lot of people don't understand that
there is a very big difference in that.
Yeah. So I mean, obviously, we know
now that you've found some significant healing and
deliverance from this. How did that happen?
(35:46):
Like walk us through the process, Any key events feel
free to discuss. Medicine, counseling, prayer,
deliverance. Yeah, so I was in the very
deepest point. Everything my whole life was
busting at the seems. Everything was about to fall
apart and if it hadn't been for my best friend Christina, which
(36:10):
by the way, if you don't have anavishai or a shield bearer, you
need one because that is absolutely what Christina has
been for me throughout our wholeentire friendship.
We met at the church with several other people.
Robbie was one of them that was there and we talked about all
(36:31):
the things that were going on and all the different aspects of
it. And one of the things that I
probably said to me, you know, he was like, you need to see a
psychiatrist within the next 7 days.
He's like, I feel like that's very important.
So I did and I began seeing the psychiatrist that I see now.
We had to go through several different medications and
(36:52):
different medication changes andthat helped a lot.
But that psychiatrist visit thatdidn't heal everything because
not all of my issues were mentalissues.
I was experiencing demonic oppression.
I also feel like I had, you know, some there was a demonic
(37:12):
spirit of fear that was so deep rooted inside of me that had
been there for so long that it took some time to come out.
Because I met with Robbie and David.
We met a couple times for counseling sessions.
I ended up also seeing a counsellor.
I have a counsellor that I see on my own now, along along with
a psychiatrist. We probably prayed for
(37:33):
deliverance what, 3-4 times? And it was probably the fourth
time. Finally, we were at the altar at
church and we were praying for it and my stomach was burning,
my throat was burning, and I could just remember I was
coughing uncontrollably. And Robbie is still praying for
(37:54):
me but I'm coughing and I just remember I'm coughing
uncontrollably and I can't stop coughing and the next thing I
know I'm coughing and it feels like razor blades are just
coming out of my throat. After that, I just remember I'm
sitting there and for the first time that I can remember, and I
don't even know how many years, the only voice in my head is my
(38:19):
own. I don't have an unrational fear
that something's going to happen.
And I just remember I'm just sitting there like everything is
new and I'm just really shocked.And Robbie asked me.
He said he's like, how do you feel?
And I was like, I don't know. I don't know what to tell you
because I've never felt this before.
(38:40):
One thing that we really want tostress is really important to
our listeners is that even when you have that moment of
deliverance and like you, you have that moment of like, bam,
you're set free. Sometimes people still like
everything doesn't just go away,right?
Like all the issues don't just go away.
No, no, not at all. I mean, because like I said it
(39:02):
ultimately you're still responsible for your actions.
You may not have been totally incontrol.
And if you're experienced both of those things, I can promise
you, you have very little control of the situation.
Like you have very little control of things that are
happening, but ultimately you still end up being responsible
for those things. It's not a magic fix.
(39:23):
Everything's not going to be better all at once time.
And it's like, it's like anything with addiction, you
have to take the 12 steps. One of those things is apologize
is acknowledging that you have aproblem.
And then you know, you have to acknowledge you had a problem.
You have to acknowledge you've hurt people.
(39:44):
You have to acknowledge all these things that you've done,
and you have to apologize for these things.
Not everyone is going to be as receptive to that.
You've also got to show forgiveness to the things that
happened to you that led you to that point.
Which that is a very hard thing.Very, very hard thing.
Because even though it's not something you asked for, it's
(40:06):
not something you warranted. It's just something that
happened to you. Some people may not have even
known the role that they played in that.
And you have to get that forgiveness, not only for them,
but mostly for yourself, becauseyou can't be forgiven until
you're ready to forgive people. And so you have to do that.
(40:27):
You have to accept those things.And sometimes, you know, you're
going to apologize to people forthe things that happened in
those moments, and they're not going to be able to forgive you
at that moment. They may not ever be able to
forgive you. And that's hard.
That's a hard thing to live with.
But eventually you have to realize, you know, I've done
what I can do. I've done the things that I can
(40:47):
do. Everything else, it has to be
laid over to God. And either that will be mended
or it won't. I have to be OK with the outcome
of that action. Yeah.
Some of our listeners may be suffering with similar
situations that you've been through.
Do you have anything you'd like others to know who might be
going through something similar to what you've gone through?
(41:11):
It's rough. I know it's rough.
It's very hard and sometimes youfeel very alone, like you, and
you don't know who to talk to. You don't know who's going to
understand. There's this big misconception
about mental health still, like even in this day and age.
So you tell someone you have bipolar and they think that it's
(41:31):
just you just act crazy. You have these irrational mood
swings, things like this. They don't realize that that the
stereotype of that is just, it'sa minute part of it, you know,
that it's totally not the whole case there.
And then you throw that in and on top of that, you know, the
(41:56):
demonic possession or oppressionand you yourself, you know, you
feel like, man, I really am crazy.
That's not what's going on. I can't talk to anybody about
that. They'll lock me up somewhere.
But that's not true. That's not the case.
Another part of bipolar that does experience that is
(42:16):
paranoia. A lot of people don't know that
as well. So you have that irrational
fear, like I can't go to anyone with this.
I can't talk to anyone about this.
No one's going to understand. No one's going to care.
It's not going to be something that anyone's going to be able
to help me with, which isn't true.
If you belong to a loving church, you know, and you have
(42:37):
someone at that loving church, go to it.
Go to those people. There are people, the people
that want to help and they're willing to help.
Talk to them because they're notgoing to offer that help if they
don't really mean it. And there are resources out
there. You do have to be careful
because some, some resources that have they have great
(42:58):
intentions and they really do think that they're helping, but
it's also can be some very harmful ideology.
And I say that because, you know, I've seen some of them
myself and it's just some of thethings that they talk about or
they preach. They don't really line up with
biblical theology, even though that's what they proclaim.
(43:20):
And I'm, I'm not by any way putting anything or anyone down.
And like I said, I do believe some of those things are made
with the best of intentions. But if there's not a a
completely firm standing knowledge on it, you can
accidentally say something that is going to be harmful to other
people. So you have to be wary of things
like that too. The last question I have is if
(43:43):
you're willing to share, tell usthe like your salvation
experience about your. So actually, well, I mean, you
know, the three of us belong to this very this club that none of
us chose to be in the PK club. But for me, that was a a later
(44:05):
experience in life. But I did grow up in church,
even when my parents weren't actively in church.
I went to church. My home church is in a work.
I started out as a kid. Brother George Farquhar was my
pastor. We started out from the tiny
church in Catalpa. We moved to the small Baptist
(44:25):
Church that's right there. And I work and and he was my
pastor all through growing up. I also went to sayless several
times as a child as well. So I mean, even though you know,
it was later on till my parents found deliverance, I, I had
always grown up in church and I did step away.
I had did have some backsliding and stepped away for a while and
(44:48):
then I came back and then this, you know, that experience that I
went through a couple years ago,that was something that I did
call for. I had to make a new commandment
to God because, you know, I stepped away.
I had that Judas moment where, you know, I traded my salvation
(45:08):
for things in this world. But unlike Judas, I decided to
come back. I had to make that conscious
choice to come back. When I did that and I
rededicated my life to God, I got re baptized because I needed
to renew my commitment. So Jesse, you, as you were
(45:30):
talking, I, I couldn't help but just be, be really struck by the
part of your story where where you're sharing about that, that
sense of abandonment that you, you dealt with from your birth
father. And when I heard you say that, I
thought there's been so many people that I've walked with
(45:51):
through a process of deliveranceand emotional healing that a
root of rejection is what I callit.
What was, was really just a strong, it's like a meta
narrative in in their life that oftentimes a lot of these
struggles that get a lot of attention, battles with
addiction, battles with mental illness, battles with demonic
(46:11):
powers, Those seem to take center stage.
But it's the these underlying issues of rejection and trauma
that are often such vital keys to healing for people to realize
that, you know what, that that that rejection, that
abandonment, it altered my perception of myself, right?
(46:36):
It it altered my own sense of identity.
Do do you see that when you think back about your story, do
you feel like that was a like that was that was an issue in a
variety of the struggles that you face?
Like is there are there some areas that you think that
affected you more so than others?
Or is it more of a side issue for you?
(46:57):
No, that that's a major issue. So you have this thing like
that, I don't know how else I'llsay it, but so you have this
thing like that that happens to you.
And like I was telling to me, you deal with it your whole life
and you don't even realize how it affects you until you get
older. And for me, I was much older
(47:21):
before I realized how it was affecting me.
And the way you seek love is different than it is for people
that haven't ever had that experience.
The way you respond in certain situations, you know, you get
the idea that someone in your life is going to leave you and
you're just like, well, it's notgoing to happen again.
(47:42):
I'll leave them before they leave me.
You know, whether that be a relationship, a family member, a
friend, anything like that. You don't realize how much that
affects you to the point to where you never want to
experience it again. Even if you're so long that you
young that you can't remember it, it has shaped your life in
such a way and it's something you never want to deal with
(48:04):
again. So it it, it changes so much
about you and you don't even know how much it's changed about
you. That makes a lot of sense.
And here's an aspect that I feellike is a blind spot for a lot
of deliverance ministers. Let me say it another way.
It was a blind spot for me 20 years ago.
I've been casting out demons andtrying to help people for well
(48:29):
over 25 years now. But early on through my 20s in
ministry, I really believe that if somebody was being oppressed
or if they were demonized in anycapacity, if we could just
effectively cast that out, then everything would be great.
What I didn't realize is, yes, that's one piece of the puzzle.
But in reality, demons are not necessarily creating these
(48:54):
perceptions in our mind. They're making use of what's
already there. So in order for someone to be
free, there's got to come a place where we let the healing
power of Jesus restore our senseof identity.
And you said it really well thatthese these these false ideas
(49:15):
form that we start to say with everybody's going to leave me
anyway. Maybe I should just leave them
and I'll protect myself from getting hurt.
And then those self protective tendencies drive us deeper into
despair because it's very isolating.
Right. OK, so the best way I know how
to explain it is like a wound. If you superficially heal the
(49:37):
wound from the outside, it's it's still not heals on the
inside. You know, it's it's still going
to fester. They're still going to be that
bacteria there. It's not going to heal all the
way, but you have to heal it from the inside out.
It's hard and it takes some timeto do, but if you don't do it
(49:57):
that way, it's never really healed.
That is so true. You know, a lot of people hold
this idea that's really that's really false.
And we think, well, if bad things happen in the past but
you have good relationships now,that should just take care of
all that. It's just not how it works
sometimes. No, absolutely not.
(50:19):
And it's funny you say that because I've had people, you
know, say something like that tome.
They're like, oh, yeah. But you have such a great dad
now. I do.
I have a great dad. I have someone that chose to be
my dad when someone else had just walked away.
And I'm thankful for my dad. My dad is my dad.
And I are probably, honestly closer than me and my mom are.
(50:40):
Don't tell my mom that. But, and it's it's true.
And people do have that big misconception of that, but that
hurts. Still there, Yeah.
Because in the end, you're stillleft even though someone else
stepped up still happened to you.
Right. So I think you know something in
(51:03):
light of all that, somebody justI want to, I want to let our
listeners just ponder on is the reality that it's OK to give
yourself the space that you needto heal and to acknowledge that
even if you do have some positive relationships in your
life, your your adoptive dad is good, good to you have a good
relationship with him. That doesn't mean that you may
(51:24):
not need to find a a safe place in time to talk about the other
things because that process of healing is likely part of your
total, your total healing story.So Jesse, when you're when
you're talking, you're reflecting on that moment when
we first all met there at the church, yourself and your
(51:45):
husband and Pastor David and myself and several some women in
the church. I remember that experience is
pretty vividly burned in my mind.
Actually, some elements of and, and one of those is this is I
remember Pastor David and I talking and saying, OK, since
since there has been some obsession with Lilith, I think
(52:09):
it's important that we walk her through renouncing that and we
just see what happens. And, and I said to him in
private, we may see big manifestations from this, We may
see nothing, but it's going to be very telling, I think.
So I remember we, we sat down and, and we did walk through
(52:30):
renouncing those, those devotions and that thing.
And honestly, from my perspective, there's nothing
that happened in that moment. No, it in that exact moment, I
don't feel like nothing happened.
It was like a, it was just like she just was sitting back like
this doesn't really matter, you know?
(52:50):
And that was that's where she was at the moment in my life.
And I remember I, I was very afraid because I didn't, I
didn't want that. Like that was not something that
I wanted to be there. But at the moment nothing
happened at that moment. Right, so here, here's an aspect
(53:11):
of deliverance that I think somepeople may struggle with, but I
really do believe it. And that is that it's
multifaceted. So after we prayed and, and
nothing really profound seemed to happen, we agreed that the
first step for you was, as you mentioned, we need to get, we
need to get you to the psychiatrist, we need to get
back on medication, get leveled out, and you need to get some
(53:32):
counseling. I don't think if you had not
taken those two steps, if you had not sought good psychiatric
care, got leveled out of medication and pursued some
counseling, I'm not sure we'd have gotten the opportunity to
see the spiritual deliverance because it's so hard in that
moment to really sort through what's being caused by what.
(53:53):
There's a combination of some very real physiological issues.
There, there, there is. There is this mental illness
that for people with bipolar oneversus a miracle, they really do
need medication to function well.
And a lot of people struggle to understand that, but it's very
much true. After we talked, I don't
(54:14):
remember much of what you said, but I remember this.
I looked and said, OK, Jesse, sohere's our game plan.
Is there anything that that you want to say?
And you said one sentence to me that I thought of a lot.
You said thank you for believingme.
You know what another big thing out of sight of not feeling like
you have anyone to turn to or anyone to talk to.
(54:36):
It's well, if I do, are they even going to believe me?
You know, that's that's a that'sa very that's one of the hardest
things to when you come to singing help because it, you
know, you do come to have someone and you're seeking help
and you tell them things that they're going on with you and
they just look at you like you're crazy and like that.
(54:59):
That's not true. I don't believe that.
You know, I can honestly say that if it hadn't been for you
actually listening to me and actually believing me, and you
and David both being so, it's soobedient to God because, you
know, if you weren't obedient toGod, God wouldn't have been able
(55:21):
to show you, hey, this is what'sreally happening.
You know, and I feel like that'sa big thing with people.
Like people don't want to share their story because they're
afraid nobody's going to believethem.
I think you're very, you're veryright in that.
And one word that I often like to share with people who our,
(55:41):
our, our practicing deliverance,but maybe they're kind of new to
it is don't just start out screaming at demons.
People need a right to tell their story.
Part of healing comes in being able to speak because demons
love to steal our voice, to silence us and to make us think
that our trauma is all that we are.
And so being able to give voice to our own experiences such a
(56:02):
vital part of healing, I think. That's very true.
And one of the things when we first started talking with, when
we first started counseling, a lot of people when they have a
mental condition or that they have an oppression, they will
say that I am bipolar, I am possessed, I am oppressed.
(56:24):
It's not I have, right? So whenever you say I am, you're
accepting that as your personality, as who you are
instead of something you have. It's controlling your life.
And that was something that I myself had to work on.
This is not who I am. This is what I have.
That's powerful. That's powerful.
(56:45):
OK, so let's let's take just a moment and revisit that moment
of deliverance in the altar. So I remember that pretty
vividly. So we're it's one of our fire
weekends and a lot of people arereceiving prayer and you're over
there on the side close to the piano.
(57:05):
I'm standing there. Honestly, I walked over to pray,
not really not really anticipating anything big to
happen. And in that moment, it was just
very evident that Jesus was setting you free from some of
that stuff. Right.
I remember being over there and I was standing there, I was
praying. Of course, Christina was with
me. And then I just couldn't stand
(57:28):
up anymore. So I, I'm getting there and I'm
sitting on my knees and we're down there and we're praying.
And I remember that you're praying for me, and I'm asking
God for deliverance from these things and for healing and my
mind and other things. And we're there and we're
praying and you're laying hands on me and we're praying and I
start coughing. I can't stop.
(57:49):
It's just like uncontrollable. I don't really know what's going
on. And we're praying and everything
around me is getting louder. I just start coughing and it's
like my insides are on fire and it's like razor blades are
coming out of my throat. And then when I stop, I'm just
sitting there because I I don't know what to do because I don't
know what I'm experiencing because for the first time and I
(58:12):
can't even remember how long, mymind is quiet.
Praise God. So when you say my mind is
quiet, I don't want to miss the power of that moment.
Because from what you've shared,it's not just that you were
experiencing auditory hallucinations, which do
(58:34):
sometimes come with bipolar one.One of the voices that you were
hearing was malicious, continually tearing you down,
continually telling you how worthless you you were.
And here is, well, the inner where the interplay between
mental illness and demonic harassment, the lines get really
blurred sometimes because on theone hand, there's a danger in
(58:58):
saying, well, anybody that's hearing voices, that's a demon.
And that's just not true. The fact is, is that a lot of
mental health conditions cause some type of, of, of, of
auditory hallucinations or something like that.
At the same time, there's another danger.
There's a danger that somebody has a diagnosed condition.
(59:22):
We may just say, well, those voices they're hearing, that's
just normal for you. How did you know the difference?
I mean, I remember when that left and I said, how do you
feel? Your response was literally, I
don't know. I'm not sure.
I don't ever remember my mind being quiet before.
(59:42):
Exactly. So, you know, I told you I have
experienced auditory hallucinations and you know,
whenever that happened, that's not gone.
Like that's not completely gone like every now and then I will,
you know, but it's different. It's a completely different from
the demonic aspect of it. It was a constant berating, very
(01:00:05):
malicious, very violent. And it wasn't even necessarily
always towards me. It would just be.
Complete violent. I would get agitated so easily,
I get mad so easily. And then I just have all these
violent influences. Just it's like berating you and
it's constant. It's non-stop.
(01:00:27):
And it was just always there like always at the back of my
mind. Like I can't, like I said, I
can't remember it just not beingthere in some form or the other.
And it's different, you know, it's not, it's not just a
thought. Like you can audibly hear this
happening and it's just intense and it just keeps coming.
And like you said, it's malicious and it's violent.
(01:00:49):
It's very self degrading. It's very hard, very hard.
It's even very hard to put into words.
And that, that that is not part of mental health.
God has so much more force than that.
I do want to be clear also that while this is the deliverance
(01:01:11):
dialogues and we talk a lot about spiritual deliverance,
Jesus Christ is also the healer of our mind and our body.
There's nothing that's beyond his reach, nothing can't help us
with. So I believe that it is
potential. It is within the realm of
reality for us by faith to believe for total healing, but I
(01:01:33):
don't want anybody to just settle and say, well, I'm just
going to have to be harassed forthe rest of my life with
thoughts that are telling me terrible things about myself.
God is so much bigger than that.And so it just a word of
encouragement I would want to give to our listeners is don't
rule anything out. Be willing to let healing come
through medicine. Be willing to let healing come
(01:01:55):
through counseling, Be willing to let healing come through
prayer and through spiritual deliverance.
Because these are ultimately allgifts that God has given us.
And we want to move toward health and away from
disintegration because it's all for the glory of of God.
You're a mom, you're an employee, your wife, you're a
(01:02:18):
church member. You've got way too much life to
live to be beat down by a jerk devil that tells you that you're
not worth anything. Absolutely, Anna.
You know, you were talking aboutthe healing part of it.
Everyone expects when their healing comes or their miracle
come that it's going to be like this big flashy, right in your
(01:02:41):
face type of thing. But sometimes we have to realize
that that healing and that miracle, sometimes it's going to
come in prescription bottle. There's nothing wrong with that.
That doesn't affect who you are as a person.
That doesn't affect your walk with God.
That doesn't mean that your walkis any less than anyone else's.
It just means that your miracle is different, because not all of
(01:03:01):
our miracles are going to be thesame.
Amen. Amen.
Thank you.
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