I Think I'm Going Crazy....

(Note: Hi-lited passages provide links to the Scripture or sites referenced)

If you have been in a relationship with an addict or an abusive person and think that you are "going crazy" or "losing your mind" then please know that you are NOT alone!! I cannot count how many other women going through horrible divorces have confided to me "I really think I'm going crazy..." And when this happens, I know exactly what they mean. When we say this, we don't just mean it in a flip "Well, I lost my car keys; I must be losing my mind-haha!" sort of way. No, we really, really mean that we think we are going crazy. In Codependent No More, Beattie addresses this:"As codependents, many of us don't trust our minds. we truly understand the horror of indecision. The smallest choices...paralyze us. The larger significant decisions we face...can overwhelm us. Many of us simply give up and refuse to think about these things. Some of us allow other people or circumstances to make these choices for us...For a variety of reasons, we may have lost faith in our ability to think and reason things out."
In When Your Lover Is A Liar, Forward explains why so many people who have been entangled in destructive relationships with liars/abusers/manipulators feel this way:
"The lies leave us paralyzed. We find ourselves unable to make even the simplest decisions...because trust has disappeared, and we don't know [what is true any more; what is fact versus fiction]. We don't know what is real anymore, and we suffer terribly. A relationship with a liar can destroy our self-respect and our ability to trust our own perceptions and judgments...You have been living in parallel realities. There is the known world of the man [you trusted and thought you knew] and there's the world you've only glimpsed of a man who is working to keep his real life and intentions hidden [This is the "Jekyll and Hyde" parallel realities that so many of us have experienced]...We feel stupid, used, tricked, ashamed."

Both of these books go on to explain, in detail, why those of us who have been in these relationships tend to feel "crazy". If you are experiencing this, then I recommend you read one or both of these books. Also, of course, you MUST quit listening to those people who have manipulated you into feeling this way and instead look ONLY to what Your Father says about you and your mind. He is the One who created you - NO ONE knows your mind like He does!!

So here's the good news - If you feel like you are going crazy, you're not alone! Why is that good news? Because you need to know that you are NOT going crazy and neither are all the other women in your shoes who feel the same way- The truth of the matter is that you have been living in an unreal environment, a world created by the addict/abuser in your life which he created to keep you entangled in his web of control and deception. It's like stepping out of a drug-induced state and shaking off the bad side-effects. You are still shaking your head back and forth, trying to "wake up" after what you've been through. The other good news is that the more you distance yourself from this person and their lies and false, parallel reality, and the more you immerse yourself back into healthy relationships and into your relationship with God, you will begin to think clearly again and trust your own mind again.

2 Timothy 1:7 (amplified) says, "For God did not give us a spirit of timidity (of cowardice, of craven and cringing and fawning fear), but [He has given us a spirit] of power and of love and of calm and well-balanced mind and discipline and self-control."

Phil 4:8-9 says: "...Whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things...And the God of peace will be with you."

These are both excellent verses to speak over your own mind, over yourself, when you feel the fear, anxiety, the "craziness" overcoming you - You have the Spirit of a "well-balanced mind", you have access to God's peace through meditating on what is "true, noble and right..." and, above all, your thoughts are NOT to be controlled by darkness for "we have the mind of Christ" (1 Cor 2:16). We also have been "raised with Christ to a new life" where we can "set our minds and keep them set on what is above (the higher things), not on the things that are on the earth" (Coloss 3:1-2).

Lord, I thank you that I no longer have to feel like I am "going crazy" but that you have delivered me out of that environment of darkness and into a new, better environment where I can begin to heal and be restored by you. Thank you Lord that the lies and manipulation and abuse are no longer a part of my home but now I live in a home of peace and light and love where I choose what is allowed to come in my front door and what is not allowed. Lord, I do not, I will not allow the accusations, the lies, the darkness in my home any more in Jesus' name! I take captive every thought that is not of you and I cast it down and make it obedient to Truth in Jesus' name (2 Cor 10:5). I have NOT been given a fearful, anxious mind from you Lord, but I have a sound, balanced mind in Christ Jesus. I choose this day to "take off the old self and [my former] practices" and to put on my "new self, which is being renewed [daily] in knowledge in the image of its Creator" (Coloss 3:9-10). I choose this day to take off the fear and anxiety and to instead come to you in prayer and with thanksgiving so that Your peace that passes all understanding will guard my heart and my mind in Christ Jesus (Phil 4:6-7). Amen!