Why Use Medical Interventions and Not Just Right Thinking?

Free of Psychosis for 8 Years
I slipped back into psychosis briefly after eight years of being free of it, it hit me really hard how it's not possible to think your way out of psychosis.

I had forgotten what psychosis was like in some ways, the enormity of being trapped in a perception where only illogical thoughts are possible to access, and you are shut out from and lose access to logical ones.

When our brain malfunctions, we really are subject to its limitations. It's like trying to work within a faulty instrument panel, where certain commands are missing altogether and others are mixed up with each other so that pressing stop makes you turn right and pressing go makes you back up.

Though I had a good grasp of logic at this point as I've done logic exercises for the past eight years, I couldn't think my way out of my recent slip into psychosis. And though I knew the Bible well after many years of studying, I found myself unable to understand Bible truth and form a correct picture of God while in psychosis.

What did I do? I stopped trying to think, and I got back on medication. Within a week of higher dose meds, I was back in my right mind again.

Why Couldn't I Think My Way Out of Psychosis?
So let me ask you a question...why couldn't I think my way out of psychosis, despite knowing Bible truth and practicing logic for all those years?

There's actually a really simple answer: My problem was a mechanical problem at that point.

It is definitely true that some problems can be solved from what I like to call a "software" angle; the software being the thoughts under your conscious control, which you can direct to think logically and accurately.

And it's even true that a person cannot be healthy if they allow themselves to think inaccurate, illogical, selfish, or distrusting thoughts. To be healthy we must practice right-thinking. Our thoughts influence our body towards health or away from it. Jealousy and unjust anger stir up inflammation in the body. Doubt and distrust stir up adrenaline and can bring on conditions of anxiety. These wrong attitudes can weaken the immune system and bring on ill states of general health, not just mental suffering.

These are all cases of the "software" affecting the hardware of the body. Just as an overloaded computer system can tax the internal system of the computer with heat, until you may blow out your hard drive, so software problems in the brain -- choosing to harbor immoral attitudes and wrong thoughts -- can bring on actual physical illness to the "hardware" of the body.

And thinking right thoughts brings on states of health and can be very healing to the body.

The extent to which the thoughts have this power though, is limited. If you are exposed to poisonous gas, your body is going to break down and enter a crisis state much faster and more pronounced than if you simply think wrong thoughts.

And thinking right thoughts if you're exposed to poisonous gas is not going to push your body in the direction of health fast enough and strongly enough to recover your health from the exposure.

At the end of the day, purely physical things that affect the hardware directly have a bigger impact on the body than thoughts do. But this doesn't mean thoughts aren't important.

Also, once someone enters psychosis they lose access to sane thoughts, and thus they can no longer choose right thinking so the process actually becomes impossible.

Sane Thoughts Not Accessible
I didn't have access to sane thoughts. In psychosis the frontal lobe dials down and isn't getting enough blood flow, neural signaling, or electrical activity. Thinking exercises only increase nerve signaling and electrical activity a small amount. Which is a good thing in a healthy brain. You don't want your thoughts to have the power to zap your brain with electrical currents so strong they tear down your brain over time. You want gentle, invigorating stimulation from your thoughts, and this is what creates a healthy state of activity in the brain.

But when the brain's normal electrical and neural circuits are under-activated due to allergens over time hy-jacking the normal processes, and the person slips into psychosis, your thoughts don't provide enough stimulus to get the frontal lobe activated again. You need something stronger.

This is why supplements and medication work when trying to think your way out of psychosis doesn't work. The supplements and meds change the chemistry of the brain, which brings back cell signaling and blood flow to the frontal lobe. The brain is a chemical factory, it is not purely electrical; alter the chemicals and the electrical signals change too.

Why the Choice of Medication, and Not Just Supplements?
I chose medication in this instance because I was having a rapid decline into psychosis and medication works much faster than supplements do and it's stronger when it comes to psychosis.

I only use medication when I absolutely have to, and I'd been med-free for years, addressing less severe problems like derealization or cognitive distortions by using supplements like ginkgo biloba, calcium, and others. For the feeling of doom and dread I used vitamin D.

Why Not Just Allow the Person to Be Psychotic -- Is it the Worst Thing in the World?

Some may wonder "If supplements do not bring a person out of psychosis, why not just allow them to remain psychotic rather than resort to medication? Isn't it worse to be on drugs than to be psychotic?"

If you're choosing psychosis as the lesser of the two evils, with drugs being seen as the worse evil, you're not understanding what psychosis is. And you're also not understanding the Bible's hierarchy of values. You have a worldly hierarchy of what is most important.

The Bible says our ability to reason is our most important ability. It's the one that above all others glorifies God. It's the one that above all others gives us our humanity. In other words, it really is the worst thing in the world to lose our reason, except for losing our eternal life. So it's the number two worst thing.

In the eyes of the Bible, even high-level chronic pain conditions are not as significant as being in a chronic state of psychosis. Pain hurts, yes, but it doesn't take away our ability to understand right from wrong and to glorify God. Thus a high-level pain condition is seen as the lesser of the two evils when compared with psychosis.

When your loved one slips into psychosis, they are in a state like your golden retriever is in. They've lost a human brain. They have only what might be called an "animal brain", meaning the primitive parts of the brain are working, and the reasoning powers are inactivated.

To put it perhaps in even stronger terms: Your loved one cannot love when in this state. They can only understand concepts like comfort, companionship, hurt, stress, anxiety, but they can't understand the principles involved in choosing to love God and their fellow man.

If your loved one was an unbeliever when slipping into psychosis, they cannot now choose to believe in God. They can't understand sin and their need for a Savior.

This is series; it is no joke. And the choice we make for our loved ones in this situation can even have eternal implications.

Just as you would not leave your loved one in a coma if medication could bring them out of a coma, you would not want to leave your loved one in a state of psychosis if medication could potentially bring them out of the psychotic state and back to being a reasoning human being.