102 AKA the In-Christ Inheritance and Adoption

A reminder from last week's 101 entry that these mock interviews are conducted without external assistance and the simulation of the interviewer should not be interpreted as being conducted, assigned or supervised directly by Dr. Mutter or any other professional as they are simply meant to serve as exploratory and analytical interviews on myself IF I were an interviewer that could read my interviewees mind and knew exactly what questions I ought to ask myself. The format is mainly meant to increase clarify to the viewers using skills I picked up so far in my current educational lifestyle.

 

M: Just like the above picture you showed me of one of the publicly distributed devotional genre materials, I would like you to expand more on your identity in Christ you mentioned in the last session where your relationship with God at times often has brought your psychriatric health into question, I believe it is important for us to clarify and distinguish from this context as a foundation for everything that can follow as you continue to seek after following Christ's will. As outlined in 1 Thessalonians 5:16–22. So let's begin working with that perspective, can you agree? Also please give a brief elaboration as to why you think it may or may not be useful to continue with this focus today. 

K: I think it definitely can be a good starting point to pick up where the conversation left off. I recall during one of my earlier courses in Systematic theology I posed the question I had been asked in the past that directly addresses this subject. That is, how does one know whether we are listening to God's voice, the devil's voice or just our own voice? Since most people ascribed our instructor or professor as being very wise and experienced, I was hoping for a very definitive and analyzed response to as you put it, a very "foundational" subject to address for the Christian walk and faith.

M: Indeed, so do you recall your instructor's response? 

K: Yes, I was actually caught off guard momentarily on how unsystematic the answer seemed to be and perhaps that is what makes the answer so memorable to myself and the rest of the class as well as how upset he seemed on why I would be posing the question in the first place even though I had presented the context as it was coming from fellow congregants and not necessarily directly from myself as the primary source. The answer was: "That's NOT EVEN A QUESTION! You either know or you don't!!!"

M: Well, that certainly seems like your educational dollars didn't go to work at all in that scenario, was there any follow up or commentary? If not from the professor, please comment on how you, yourself proceeded after hearing such an answer.

K: Well actually there was a bit of follow up though I think that initial compound statement is in fact the only "definitive" that is true to the gospel's message. Throughout the gospel's message, up until Jesus volunteered to what appeared to a suicidal course of action for what appeared to be church against state to his crucifixion, even Jesus himself faced questions on whether everything he did was in alignment with God's planning or "voice". So now that I'm presenting that unspoken context I believe my professor was coming from, I think it brings extra clarity to his follow up statements like "for all a person knows you can just be a schizophrenic and the voice of God doesn't really exist."

M: I think schizophrenia in itself is it's own unique context. However it is something you had mentioned was presented to access your own situation in the past. Could you comment on how you personally am able to discern for yourself how much truth there is in the way you yourself follow God's voice versus the possibility that you may experience schizophrenia or have similar symptoms?

K: I think a lot of it has to do with the context I find myself in every time I am under suspicion that my mental state has more to do with clinical illnesses versus my inaptitude that I could be suffering genuinely for my lack of ability to downright listen and follow God's leading. As an example, when we look at the biblical account of Job, many times he cried out to God and lived in denial that God was giving him an answer. Job's personal assessment of the situation was that if God is loving, he shouldn't be experiencing as many trials as he did and thus when we follow through on his logic, the conclusion must be that God is silent in Job's eyes and ignoring him. At least one thing that Job hold's onto is that God is still in existence and he still holds fast to his belief and ignores the earlier suggestion from his wife to "curse God and die" as a possible evasion of his difficult situation. I think everyone faces tough scenarios at times. I personally don't clinically diagnose myself as not listening to God during my times of extreme difficulties and that this "voice" I hear answering is a result of some mental illness.

M: Why is that? To contextualize the scenario back to the opposite possibility as obviously some mental health professionals have deemed you as having mental illness outside of "merely listening to God's voice", what if we were to apply your prof's definitive context to that scenario and someone else has said something along the lines of "Kevin is following the voice of his mental illness and I just don't have a scientific or concrete medical evidence to prove it in the same way you can prove that a person is following the voice of God", how do you respond to such a possible assessment of the situation?

K: Good question and approach. I think one thing most biblical students can agree to is that "the voice of God" doesn't normally contradict the nature of God. To use another biblical example, when Peter himself protests a very distinctive voice from Jesus in person in terms of Christ's prediction that Peter will disown him in Mark 14 the fact that this is a prophetic word from Jesus is undeniable. However, I don't think Peter is necessarily "psychotic" in the way he doubts Jesus is pronouncing truth over him. Peter doesn't see his fervor for following Jesus being swayed so easy and furthermore for Jesus to tell Peter that he will disown Jesus three times seems very "uncharacteristic" in terms of Jesus' previous calling and belief in Peter as a disciple up until that point so I would say most Christians do not approach the question as to whether God is being followed completely without any foundation. 

M: Ok, that is a good theological standpoint and analysis. It does even offer more depth to the answer your prof provided in that systematic theology class. But how does it relate to your own dilemma with mental health personally? Can you give examples as to how this theology in Peter's denial of Jesus relates back to the fact that you believe you are genuinely listening to God's voice as opposed to the voice generated as a result of mental illness(es)? 

K: Well some of the key foundational questions that I often am asked as a hospital inpatient or even as an outpatient with a psychiatrist often don't align with the context in which I am listening to God's voice. Therefore I don't believe my hearing of God's voice would necessarily be concretely evidencing this is a side effect or symptom of my mental illness(es).

M: Again, can you give more specific examples for someone such as myself who hasn't lived a day in your context or even spent an hour with you previously in companionship with you during these times?

K: Well for one, as mentioned in the previous session, perhaps the only assessed primary delusion is that I believed the world was coming to an end and obviously in the weeks or months that follow the world is still around so it was clearly potentially all in my head that I ought to have any genuine anxiety over the possibility of termination of all live here on earth. Though COVID has been it's own unique context and also world changing, reality is I think that main "delusion" is what lends ears to professionals thinking it is a result of psychosis rather than perhaps genuine biblical theology and if framed properly, there ought to be a sense of our time on earth is indeed limited, Armageddon or otherwise. Other than that, I don't qualify under other conditions that normally confine a person to more intensive psychiatric evaluation such as a desire for self harm or harming others explicitly and directly. I would never act out physically in terms of harming others or myself. Though I have yet to be placed in a scenario where physical force may be the only alternative to prevent harm to others, hypothetically at this point I am not sure I even have a mental drive to be non-pacifistic in that scenario either.

M: I see, I see, very interesting. We may not have time to talk more about how you see your true family is sourced in Christ today, so as for the picture you have below... 

... I would say we don't have time to do the subject justice today. I will acknowledge and save the discussion as to how emotionally and spiritually your family has been far from being the best example of nurture for a future session [well in reality, a post], but I think you should elaborate a little more on "harm to others", just like with your previous post when you mentioned the narratives with other girls in the past. Do you think the subject of "harassment" may have to do with why people think your state of mental health could lend way to "harm of others"? And yes, I think it would be fair for you to integrate how a lack of boundaries you mentioned you had discussed with other counsellors in your own home can contribute to very poor "scaffolding" as you learned in Harris' course that can make you much more susceptible as well as ignorant to the proper definition and practices around prevention and avoidance of the possibility of harassment. This likely ties into a lot more to the questioning of your mental state and health a lot more than you realize and is worth visiting in some detail before we proceed. In interest of privacy and confidentiality, I will ask you not mention any strong evidence you have either for or against whether you have been harassing as this is not a court of law nor would I say your self testimony here ought to be used as legitimate evidence in that context, but seeing your last hospitalization got tied into a context of trespassing when you were catching your breath in someone's garage that he had left unlocked, it is worth considering how certain legal standards could mesh with your mental health being called into question because it seems as though you don't know how to behalf as a regular citizen in a law abiding fashion if you were instead given a completely mental illness free diagnoses.

K: OK, that sounds like a fair subject to address. I do also appreciate your sensitivity to allowing me to express how my nuturing and lack of any sort of regular boundaries at home even if "between family members" can lend to unhealthy human development in terms of not knowing how to properly express more adult situations that can potentially end up giving off the appearance of harassment rather than simply persistence and consistency. I think it all begins with the views I have about marriage that originated from my own family context. I would say growing up, I only hear one side of the narrative that my dad had given up on his family and his marriage "too easily" from mom. Now that I am older, I realize there is also an element that mom is under some deranged and undeveloped notions of what constitutes and falls into her definition of "love" at play. Even in the relationship with myself and my other siblings, I get a sense that mom holds onto what I learned in the past regarding "most adolescent (or highschool) relationships are about control". This may express itself in many forms. Some people feel they have a better sense or "control" over their lives when in a relationship as a teen versus not, i.e. they are able to find a channel or context for their sexual desires. I think with my own mother still living with a false sense that she needs control or be able to control her "kids" even though we are all very advanced biologically as adults now is both unhealthy as well as one of the main contributors to why people have perceived me as being disrespectful of their personal boundaries and "harassing" in the past. Mom doesn't offer anything in terms of what normally would be considered personal boundaries for one's children as they get older. She still holds to the notion that "my dwelling, my rule (yes singular)" so I can see how this often used to translate to that fact that since everyone else around me is God's children [John 3] that I didn't grew up learning how to respect boundaries from my parents. The only thing I did learn is maybe the reason why my father could not stay living with my mom is because he felt overburdened by both my mom's control-freakiness and her lack of grace in terms of how she would be a grudge bearing type personality as well....

M: Interesting, it seems we return back to what you had mentioned in your first session about how your own life context shapes your relationship with God. Which we often talk about as being foundational to your relations with others. We are almost out of time we're able to allocate to this today. Any closing remarks? Hopefully next time we can talk more about your views on "family, Christ and why you feel God has yet to bless you from becoming the head of a household..."

K: Indeed, stewardship is another concept I struggled with and I think there happens to be an interesting coinciding of events of when I was too preoccupied with school to do as frequent cleaning of my own personal bathroom as often that Covid progressively got worse and worse. Obviously there are other factors, but even when I was last hospitalized my mom invaded my room again and rearranged many of the items it has lost all previous locations of needed and out of sight items I wrote in a spreadsheet following in the example of my days at Home Depot. As a result recently I've also fallen behind at school having to start this process once again from scratch. But to quickly close off the previous topic with a weak sense of boundaries putting me at the brink of potential harassing scenarios at times, I believe I learned a sense of stewardship over those scenarios as well. In the same way my mother is under the illusion that she can control over what happens in the lives of others, I will expand on this in the next post of this nature on how in reality I believe even God doesn't have complete control of what happens in our lives. Yes, I may once again relate it back to Covid as I don't know for certain that Covid is FROM or OF God even if God can USE it for God's own good in various ways as that's part of God's nature but the whole point is I've learned to achieve a better sense of peace over situations that end with a lack of communication between parties, after all, even in all the various contexts that God speaks and whether a person is even under scrutiny of "it's mental illness not God" as I have experienced, the choice of whether or not to listen is still ultimately placed by God to the individual as is scripture itself, God now seems to apply a less direct, in your face and "hey, I'm here, whatcha going do" approach now in delivering his own messages. It may be just my opinion, but that's what I currently see... 

M: Makes sense, until next time [you post] we have a conversation of this nature then...