Author Archives: Ketsia Nfumu

Life is forever

When someone struggles with mental illness, they are often referred to as having rest when one decides to take their own life. This is a misconception because life does not end when one leaves this earth.

Then they will go away to eternal punishment, but the righteous to eternal life. – Matthew 25:46

You cannot end your life because life is forever. Death is only a transition to an afterlife, which is either heaven or hell. To ensure you get into heaven, you must believe in Jesus’ death and resurrection and turn away from your sins. (John 11:25)

More than that, God did everything He could to save us from hell by descending in flesh (Jesus) to this earth and dying for our sins. The only thing He asks of us is to believe. God made you out of love, and He wants you to come back to Him. He made you for a reason, and even during mental suffering, there is a purpose for your life.

If your heart is broken, you’ll find God right there; if you’re kicked in the gut, He’ll help you catch your breath. – Psalm 34:18

I am sorry if you’ve been given a wrong image of God, heaven, and hell. I feel obligated to tell you the truth because it is the truth that will set you free. (John 8:32)

God sees you and catches every tear you cry.

“You keep track of all my sorrows. You have collected all my tears in your bottle. You have recorded each one in your book.” – Psalm 56:8

He does not want you to go to hell, but you will if you don’t believe in what He has done for you, which will result in everlasting suffering.

However, there is an end to all suffering, which is in heaven with God, your maker. And because of His sacrifice, we can call heaven our home. There is a promise of heaven after this life on earth, but it’s in His timing, not ours.

“I have swept away your sins like a cloud. I have scattered your offenses like the morning mist. Oh, return to me, for I have paid the price to set you free.” – Isaiah 44:22

Christ, the rebuilder

I feel called to emphasize characteristics of Jesus that are not enough talked about in our culture. The sole reason I do this is because I experienced Jesus in this way, and I want to share this experience with others. 

In this post, I want to introduce Him as a rebuilder. 

Someone who builds something again after damage or deconstruction. 

I want to focus on a biblical figure known as the woman with the issue of blood (Mark 5: 25-34). This woman was bleeding for twelve years straight. She visited multiple doctors, but none of them were able to heal her. The bible even mentioned that throughout the years her condition only got worse. On a certain day, Jesus happened to be nearby, and she already heard of him. Or how I would like to call it: She had a revelation of who He was. 

She went through the crowds and touched His robe. She had enough faith to know that if she could only touch his robe, she would be healed. In fact, she did get healed. Jesus felt that healing had gone out of him, noticed the woman, and told her: 

Daughter, your faith has made you well. Go in peace. Your suffering is over – Mark 5:34 

Imagine the life of this woman. How damaged and broken areas of her life have been, because of her condition. 

Can you resonate with this woman? Maybe you have been suffering mentally for years and already tried everything. And are other areas of your life affected, because of your mental suffering? 

I want to encourage you by looking at the response of the woman with the issue of blood. She touched his robe, which is a form of intimacy. 

Her life was rebuilt through intimacy with Jesus. So, even when your life seems damaged beyond repair, Jesus has the ability to rebuild your life.  

Because of Jesus, the suffering of this woman was only temporary. And if you surrender your life to Him, this will apply to you as well. Whether he heals you on this side of eternity or whether it’ll be the moment you transition to heaven, your mental suffering is only temporary. 

I will rebuild you my virgin Israel and you will again be happy and dance merrily with your tambourines. – Jeremiah 31:4 

Surviving suffering (part 2)

He never said, “understand me”. He said, “trust me. Just trust me” – Dr. Charles Stanley, (The courage to keep going.)

When going through mental suffering, feelings of unfairness can arise. Some people have the privilege of never having to face these mental battles. However, I want to emphasise that although not everyone might experience mental suffering, everyone does experience suffering. 

I am not here to lie to you, I don’t always know why suffering takes place. Personally I experienced Jesus in a tangible way while going through these seasons of suffering. That’s why I feel called to encourage you in your suffering so that you don’t give up on life or on Him. 

Remain in Him, even when you don’t understand. 

I already emphasised the importance of spending time in the presence of God. In this post, I want to encourage you to fix your focus on Him wherever you are. For me, this looked like meditating on one scripture a day. Every moment throughout the day when my mind was wandering off, I would meditate on scripture. I would talk to Him every free moment I had, and if that was not possible I would write small notes on my phone. 

In this way, you are shifting your mind towards eternal matters. 

So we fix our eyes not on what is seen, but on what is unseen, since what is seen is temporary, but what is unseen is eternal – 2 Corinthians 4:18 

Your suffering is only temporary. 

We can trust the God we serve. As humans, we tend to forget how big the God is that we serve. I am here to remind you that you are, even in your seasons of suffering,  safe in his hands. 

God is an entity that was there before you were. He created humankind out of his love and when we fell into sin.  He could have left us in our sin and let us die. But instead, he paid the price for our sin, by coming in human form to the earth and dying on the cross. 

And if you were the only human in the world, He would do it again. 

Remain in Him, because you are safe with Him. 

Overcoming stigma

Due to the stigma around mental health, it can be challenging for people suffering from mental health problems to find their place in society. Society has its ways of negatively labeling mentally unwell people. This contributes to the feeling of secrecy when one is struggling with their mental health. This, in itself, contributes to a mindset in which people think that they are alone in their struggles because no one talks about it. And this again leads to a strengthening of stigma. 

Professionals often asked me how I managed to shake off the stigma around mental health and how I found the ability to pick up my everyday life again, as an active participant in society. 

This is because I embraced a significant truth:

 I am not the mental illness I was suffering from, I found my identity somewhere else.  

But now thus says the Lord, he who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you, O Israel: “Fear not, for I have redeemed you; I have called you by name, you are mine.” – Isaiah 43:1

When you let the stigma around mental illness influence you, it is an identity issue. Because you are not your mental complaints, and certainly not the opinion people have of these complaints. 

You are set apart by Christ, the one who formed you and calls you ‘His’.

Throughout my journey, Jesus emphasized the importance of meditating on Bible verses about my identity in Him. I think that whatever you focus on, expands. So if you are focusing on the stigma around mental health, this will become your reality. However, if you focus on the way Jesus sees you. 

Jesus, his truth, becomes your reality. 

The Bible is full of verses that explain how Jesus sees us when we give our lives to Him. He sees you as precious and honored (Isaiah 43:4). He describes you as his treasure and His private garden (Songs of Songs 4:12).  

If the stigma around mental health is something that holds you back from participating in society. I encourage you to focus on who you are in Christ. Let this become the foundation upon which you build your life. I pray you’ll be so rooted in His truth for your life that opinions based on stigma will not stir up any negative emotions. Because remember, 

If our God is for us, who can be against us? (Romans 8:31)

Christ, the surgeon

My heart needs a surgeon, my soul needs a friend – Run to the father 

During my life, I’ve come across lots of people that have an opinion about Jesus or claim to know Him. The ideas I refer to are mostly negative and not even close to the truth. If you are one of those people that think to know Jesus and if this opinion carries a negative connotation, let me reintroduce Him to you: 

As a surgeon. 

Someone that operates on people to heal wounds. 

Psychological treatment is very helpful and necessary, but unable to truly heal emotional wounds. I learned a lot of tools to deal with emotions, thought patterns, and toxic behaviours. But none of these treatments were able to heal the trauma that was underneath. 

However, Jesus is able, because the one who made your heart is the only one that has the ability to heal your heart. 

He heals the brokenhearted and bandages their wounds. – Psalm 147:3

In practice, this healing is achieved by letting Him in. Let Him reintroduce Himself as a healer and learn to express your pain to Him. He will lead you toward your healing through His word (the bible) and His presence. 

I know a lot of people that walk through life with deep emotional pain and shrug it away as ‘ this is life’. Pain is certainly a part of life here on earth, however, your life does not have to be marked or defined by pain. 

Jesus sees your hurt and cares about you. 

He will heal you or He will give you the strength to endure the emotional pain you are experiencing. 

He gives strength to the weary and increases the power of the weak – Isaiah 40:29 

I want to apologize to you if the world gave you a wrong perception of who Jesus is.  

We refer to the gospel as good news. This is because Jesus is the good news. Yes, He died on the cross for our sins so we can be made right with God. 

But, He also experienced enough pain while being here on earth to understand you. 

We serve a God that felt emotional pain (Matthew 26:38), cares for our emotional pain, and has the ability to heal our emotional pain. 

Your life does not have to be marked or defined by pain.

Your redeemer is alive.

Surviving suffering

‘Suffering is a subject that is not covered enough in churches’.

This is a saying I’ve heard often during my healing process. When one goes through a season of suffering, it often goes together with questions. These are often centred around the unfairness of the trials in comparison with the good deeds of a person. Suffering is a part of life, and I want to help you to get through seasons of suffering. 

The story of Paul in prison is an inspiring story. Paul was a man in the bible and known for preaching the gospel in every circumstance. His motivation was that he wanted to give himself fully to the purposes of Christ. He describes his life as follows: 

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. – Galatians 2:20

During his life, he was imprisoned and beaten multiple times. Although, he never did an act that actually deserved imprisonment. He even ended up in prison once  because of a lie that was told (Acts 21:28). He certainly did everything right, because he devoted his entire life to Christ. However, he endured immense suffering. 

Paul kept his focus on spreading the beautiful message of Jesus. During one of his imprisonments, in 66 B.C. , he wrote letters (2 Timothy 2:8–9). In an age where there was no such thing as a pen or pencil, one would not know where he found an object to write. However, he was determined to spread the message of Christ. 

Paul is an inspiration when we go through seasons of suffering. In the way in which he kept His eyes on Christ, our true price, during his multiple hardships. His love for God and His truth outweigh the suffering he had to endure. 

I want to invite you to seek intimacy with Jesus in your season of suffering. Where you will truly experience the beauty of an intimate relationship with Christ, that will help you to see your suffering in perspective. If you survive your suffering, then Christ will get the glory and if the suffering is so bad that your body decides to give up, you’ll be with Christ. 

But Paul said it better:  I eagerly expect and hope that I will in no way be ashamed, but will have sufficient courage so that now as always Christ will be exalted in my body, whether by life or by death. For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain. – Philippians 1: 20-21 

It is not over

‘… many suicides happen impulsively in moments of crisis with a breakdown in the ability to deal with life stresses, … ’. – World health organization (https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/suicide) 

Suicide is often a side effect of severe depression. The black and white thinking that often comes along with a depressive episode tricks your brain into thinking that there is no way out. 

I am here to encourage you that whatever your situation is, and how impossible it may seem, it is not over. At moments when life sweeps you over, and you feel too weak to carry on, Jesus wants to show his strength and make up for your weakness. At moments when the mountain in front of you is that big, that it makes you question whether to stay alive. Know that there is no mountain that Jesus is not able to move. 

But he said to me, “My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.”Therefore, I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me. – 2 corinthians 12:9 

I often found myself stuck in black and white thinking. I always had thought patterns along the lines of: ‘ I would never recover from my mental illnesses’ or ‘I would never get over certain traumas’. Because of the severity of the diagnoses I had at the time, medically speaking, there was indeed a small chance I would be able to function healthily. 

Yet, I also believed that Jesus loved me. Therefore, He would never allow me to be in a situation which I would not be able to handle with Him. 

And I was right. 

During my recovery process, I became more sensitive to His voice and he showed me exactly which way to go, one step at a time. 

At moments when the mountain in front of you is that big, it makes you question whether to stay alive. Know that Jesus wants to show you what to do in your situation. At times He will show you the way to go and at other times He will encourage you to stay still and trust in Him. 

Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.” – Isaiah 30:21 

Professional treatment is key

I am a firm believer in the importance of seeking professional help when suffering with mental illness. Through professional treatment, I learned to observe and handle my thoughts. Thereby, I learned to put my thinking process into words. With that I learned healthy coping mechanisms. And even suffered from less trauma complaints. 

Because of the methods I learned in therapy, I was better able to express my mental issues in my relationship with Jesus, and this in itself brought me a lot of healing. 

Below I want to discuss a few of my favorite treatments and in which way I actually learned from them. 

EMDR– stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing,  and is a well-known treatment that helps one to cope with traumatic complaints. Because of EMDR, some of my traumatic experiences lost their emotional weight, which made them more bearable. Thereby, did I suffer from less traumatic complaints after finalizing this treatment. 

CBT– stands for cognitive behavioral therapy. This treatment taught me to be aware of thought processes that are going on in my mind. I learned how they were developed and also became aware of the toxicity of them. Besides, did I learn exercises which helped me to have more control over my thought life.

ERT– stands for emotion regulation therapy. This treatment helped me to become aware of my emotions. I learned a lot about what exactly happens in my mind when I feel certain emotions. Thereby did I learn healthy coping mechanism so that I know what to do whenever I feel that my emotions are taking over. 

These treatments will take some time  depending on the severity of your illness. The more severe your mental illness is, the longer these treatments will take. 

However, I can assure you that it is all worth it. 

I must give notice to the fact that professional treatment can be very painful at first. I’ve often seen that when people start with professional treatment it is so hard to be confronted with their emotional baggage that they quit with their treatment. I can testify that enduring this initiation period and finishing your treatment is rewarding.

This can be compared with cleansing a physical wound. First you will have to disinfect the wound which is very painful. However this is necessary to make sure that the wound heals. The same goes for an emotional wound. 

The first steps of healing are always the hardest, but it gets better. 

So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up – Galatians 6:9 

Know the one you cry out to

A lot of my blog posts are about the importance of crying out to God, or Jesus (God the son), when you find yourself in mental distress. However in my daily Christian walk I come across a lot of  people that do not know the character of Jesus Christ. I personally experienced the healing that can occur during an intimate relationship with Jesus.

This is the sole reason I encourage one. During my recovery, there has not been a place where I felt more safe and understood, than in the presence of Jesus. 

The most common description of Jesus in the bible is Him being your saviour. He was your saviour on the cross when He died for your sins. However,  He can also be your saviour in your everyday life.

For the Son of Man came to seek and save those who are lost. – Luke 19:10. 

The character of Jesus is to purposefully look for the lost, and when found, to save them. Feeling lost during mental battles can be frightening. However, know that in those moments Jesus is not scared by the way you feel. 

Jesus also wants to be your shield. He wants to protect you. When suffering from mental illness, He wants to help you to get through your hardest days. 

The LORD is my protector; he is my strong fortress. My God is my protection, and with him I am safe. He protects me like a shield; he defends me and keeps me safe. – Psalms 18:2. 

Furthermore, Jesus is your refuge. Not only keeping you safe by shielding you from danger, but also keeping you safe by being the one where safety is found. 

As a shelter where He relativizes for you, 

as a place where you can cry out about  your distress, 

As a place where you can literally move your focus to the one that overcame it all,

And as a place where you can find peace. 

His presence is your refuge. 

Moreover, Jesus is your friend. 

 I no longer call you slaves, because a master doesn’t confide in his slaves. Now you are my friends, since I have told you everything the Father told me. – John 15:15

Jesus is with you in your highs and lows. There is no piece of your heart that needs to be kept hidden from Him. 

He is for you. To celebrate when celebration is needed and to mourn alongside you in seasons of despair. 

Know the one you cry out to.

To medicate or not to medicate

I want to start this post with the statement that I’m not a licensed psychiatrist and that you should always put their advice above any other. 

However, I have been on high doses of medication for mental illness for 3,5 years and I have also successfully quit that medication. Starting and quitting mental health medication is an entire journey in itself and, with this motivation I would like to advise you. 

It was explained to me as if you could see your mental illness as a broken leg and medication as crutches. It is an amazing tool that’ll help you move forward, but you will still have to deal with your broken leg. For the reason that you cannot walk on crutches for the rest of your life. The goal is for your leg to be healed in such a way that you do not need any crutches anymore. The same goes for your mental condition. 

This process can take years and please take your time. 

However, I do think being dependent on these medications for many decades should not be the intention. There are always cases where someone will have to be in a wheelchair for the rest of their lives, and the same goes for medication that helps you cope with mental illness.

On the other hand, if you do not belong in this category, I am speaking to you. 

A reason why a lot of people keep lingering on their medication is because it is really hard to quit if you’ve taken it for a long time. Personally, I suffered from a lot of withdrawal symptoms and because of this I would advise you to take as little of a dose as possible. Take whatever  you need to be able to function. The same advice goes for whether to start using medication. If you are able to go on with your daily activities, I would advise to not begin with medication. 

Therefore, combine your use of medication with constant physiological treatment. In this way, you will practically learn how to handle your symptoms. 

My last piece of advice is, if you want to quit with your medication, that you are stronger than you think. And It gets worse, before it gets better. 

Depending on the duration of your medication use, there will be a withdrawal period at first. This is the hardest part. However, if you find a way to get through that, the feeling of being in touch with your emotions and the clarity will be worth it. 

My biggest motivation for enduring my severe withdrawal symptoms was you. I wanted to show people that there is life after severe mental illness, and that it is not a world you have to stay stuck in. 

Quitting my cocktail of medication was terrifying and at times I thought I was not able to keep going, but with good guidance from professionals I (with the grace of God) made it happen. 

The use of medication is not a world where you have to stay stuck in. 

I will be your God throughout your lifetime until your hair is white with age. I made you, and I will care for you. I will carry you along and save you.- Isaiah 46:4