January 23rd, 2008 was to be just like any other day, or so I thought. I went to bed the night before little knowing how much pain I would wake up in the next morning. I awoke after having slept on my stomach, which I never did, in pain. I had an excruciating pain in my right shoulder that 800 mg of Ibuprofen didn’t even touch. I had absolutely no idea what caused it to hurt so much right then, but I did know that it would take a miracle for me to find a chiropractor that day that would see me for the little money I had since I had been out of work.
I knew I had a family history of back problems, plus untreated injuries from car accidents years before. That would mean any chiropractor in their right mind would want to take X-rays. I preferred almost to just deal with the pain and not go, but I prayed that the Lord would lead me to the right chiropractor that day. I thought one adjustment would help alleviate the pain, but little did I know that that day, God was about to do the miracle I had asked Him to do for the last 18 years.
First, I dialed every chiropractor in the phone book and found there was only one that could see me that day at the time that worked for me. Little did I know just how much of a miracle God was performing in my life. The chiropractor I went to that day was a Wellness Practitioner who had gone to school beyond his chiropractic training in order to help people overcome other health issues through nutrition and lifestyle changes. I had been praying for 5 years to be healed from a mood disorder and had prayed for 18 years to be healed from traumatic flashbacks and nightmares I had from having been sexually abused as a child. I had tried psychiatric medications and only got worse. I was on a total of 6 medications for those mental health issues plus two for allergies. I had to swallow a total of 17 pills every night (and quite a few in the morning as well), and things were not getting better. Even when I was a young kid, my parents noticed I was a little different than other kids, but they never knew what to make of it.
The chiropractor asked me what medications I was on and why. I gave him the list of medications and said, “They’re psychiatric medicines. What does that have to do with chiropractic?” He then explained to me that the spinal cord is the brain’s way of communicating with itself and the rest of the body. He also said that there are more than 10,000 neurons in the spinal cord (cells of the nervous system that receive and transmit electrochemical signals – the brain’s messengers), and if there are problems in a person’s spine, that directly affects brain function because the neurons can’t send or receive messages correctly. He also explained other things that were wrong with my back, but more than anything, God used him to give me hope that day that I could get off of medications. He told me about a better way.
Yes, I did get adjusted and get out of pain that day, but he also sat me down and explained how the combination of chiropractic care, daily exercise, fish oil supplements, raw food grade vitamins, and eating a Paleolithic diet would benefit my mental health, which was all news to me because I drank 4 diet sodas a day and ate a bunch of junk food. The Paleolithic diet he mentioned is an organic diet that includes an abundance of grass fed meat and poultry, fish, fresh fruit, fresh vegetables, grass fed eggs, organic raw dairy, nuts, and no processed food – skip the grains, processed dairy, sweets and other junk we weren’t created for. In other words, if I stopped treating my body like a toxic waste dump, it would function mostly as it was created to function, and I would also shed the many extra pounds I needed to lose and lower my high blood sugar that was about to cause me to be put on yet another medication. I sat there debating for about 5 minutes and almost didn’t do it, because even though he had offered me a deal that was difficult to refuse (including adjustments, X-rays, exams, and a gym membership for one set low rate), I couldn’t even pay my own rent at that time. You see, due in part to mental health issues, I had never been able to find and maintain a job that paid enough to cover basic necessities like food, shelter, car expenses, and everything else without my parents’ help. Yet nothing I had done for mental health treatment had worked (except counseling), so I decided I had nothing to lose (except 100 lbs. and 8 medications). So, I went for it, not knowing to what extent my chiropractor was right, that is, if I did what he told me, it would affect all areas of my life.
I kept going to the chiropractor several times a week for a year (and I still go twice a month and do everything I was told), and during that time I tried to get the psychiatrist to supervise me going off my medications — it is dangerous to go off medications without supervision by a doctor. I could not convince her or my primary care doctor. Since I had been taught how to safely titrate off medications, I took over 3 months to very slowly go off of medications. By May 17th, 2008, I had effectively gotten off of medications with no noticeable side effects, and my chiropractor said that, if I ever stopped doing what he said, he’d call the psychiatrist. Thankfully, he never had to do that.
If getting off of medications with no noticeable side effects was all that happened to me, that would have been enough. God had so much more in store for me than anything my chiropractor or I expected. I was in a church service in March of 2008, and there was an altar call given for healing. I told God, “I’m not going up because I am tired of praying for healing for this and it did not happen.” Even though I hadn’t had any symptoms for two months, I still wasn’t completely convinced my mental health issues were gone for good. God spoke to my spirit and said, “You don’t have to because I’m already doing it. I’m just doing it through someone else’s hand so you can know that touch is a good thing.” God didn’t just want to heal me from Type 2 Bipolar; He had more in mind. God knew that the abuse I had been through happened when the person who did it sneaked up behind me and grabbed me, and He knew that the chiropractor adjusting me while I was laying face down would mean that my body and spirit would get the point. In that way, He completely healed me of post-traumatic stress through chiropractic adjustments, because my brain got the message then that touch can be a good thing, not an abusive thing. I had struggled with the after-effects of trauma (flashbacks, nightmares) for over 20 years. I hated being touched because of what had happened to me, but after a couple of adjustments, all that changed and God did a deeper work in me. Now I’m a hugger!
As if that wasn’t enough, a few months later I recognized some thing else when I crossed somebody’s boundaries. I had destroyed quite a few friendships by not recognizing when I offended someone. Most recently, my friend Kevin, in 2007, had to ask me not to contact him. He was someone who had helped me a lot in my recovery from mental health issues and had told me I could call him any time. I took advantage of that way too much and didn’t react well to his request to stop contacting him. I decided I would not try to make friends anymore until I could recognize boundaries before destroying friendships. I will never in this lifetime forget the day I recognized when I crossed a boundary of someone who has affected my life just as much as my friend Kevin did. I recognized what I did a few seconds after I did it, and I apologized and never did it again. My chiropractor said it was my brain making connections and creating pathways it didn’t have before. My brain didn’t make connections that well before, and this happened because of God’s healing me in the way He thought best. I’ve never forgotten that. What was my greatest weakness — boundaries — has now become one of my greatest strengths because God has done a miracle and healed me far beyond my wildest dreams.
As if that wasn’t enough progress in life, my chiropractor was right when he told me that doing what he said would impact all areas of my life. People noticed a huge difference in me. I got my joyful, outgoing personality back, which hadn’t been there in years. I gained a level of confidence and determination to succeed in life like never before. I had been working with kids in group homes for the last few years but was still largely dependent on my parents financially, even though I lived on my own. According to a lot of people’s predictions, I was never supposed to become independent. I was different and not supposed to achieve what other people could. Well, God proved that all wrong. When I realized my mental health issues had been completely healed and that my brain worked just fine now, I became more determined than ever before to gain complete independence and to step out in the call God has on my life. I had gone from job to job for years because, instead of solving problems, I ran from them.
I knew God had called me to minister to needy kids, so I took a huge leap of faith in 2010 and looked online for jobs that I would do well at with kids anywhere in the country. Years earlier, I had been involved in Youth With A Mission (YWAM) and was certain God had called me to be a missionary to kids. I had tried several doors I thought were open to do that and nothing ever came of it, so I laid it down at Jesus’ feet and let Him do it in His time. I have now served as a houseparent missionary in Christian children’s homes for almost 3 years. Life threw me a curve ball in September 2012, one which would have put many people with my history in the hospital, but it didn’t have any negative effects on my mental health because I take care of the body God gave me and because Phil. 4:13 says, “I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me.” I had been serving in a children’s home for over 2 years, loved what I did and loved the kids like they were mine, and I had just started back to school as a crisis counseling major at Liberty University Online when then the unthinkable happened. I found myself in a situation where, through absolutely no fault of my own, I had no choice but to give notice and move on from the children’s home I was serving at (and where I had planned to remain for many years to come). I left there not knowing where I was going for sure or if I would ever see “my kids” again, yet still knowing I would see them all in heaven because God had used me to reach all of them for Christ. I grieved for 2 months as if a close family member had died (while at the same time sending resumes all over the country to find where God would have me serve next). These were children whom I loved like they were mine, but they were only mine for a season, and the season was over. That was the hardest thing I have ever been through in life, but I felt the presence and peace of God like never before. Psychiatrists would have expected a relapse during that experience, but I never relapsed at all. I just grieved and moved on.
It only made me more determined to succeed in fulfilling God’s call in my life. I moved to another children’s home where I continue to serve as God has called me to. God allowed my testimony and my independence to be tested, and He showed Himself faithful in that everything that He has done in my life is real and lasting.
There is hope for those who struggle with mental health issues, and that hope is first and foremost found in a relationship with Christ. Second, it is found in living a healthy lifestyle that takes care of the body God gave us through exercise, chiropractic work, and nutrition. I didn’t just happen to wake up in pain that day, and I didn’t just happen to end up at the only chiropractor in that part of California who specializes in just what I needed. My chiropractor has said several times that, to get off that many medications as quickly and effectively as I did, even having done all the stuff the chiropractor told me about how to take care of the body God gave me, “Somebody else had His hand in it.” There’s a reason why God didn’t choose to heal me instantly the first time I asked Him to. I had to believe for it for many years because God knew how that would strengthen my faith and because God knew how many others would be given hope through the testimony that He has now given me.
I have had more opportunity to witness about the life changing power of our Father God than I ever imagined. Only the Lord would have ever known the specifics of what happened to me and exactly what it would take to heal not only my body but my heart as well. Our heavenly Daddy is like that. He knows the intimate details of our life and knows exactly what to do about it and when and why. When it comes to living a healthy lifestyle, He knows just where to send us to learn how to do that! The doctors told me I would never get off medication and that “Your brain doesn’t work right anymore.” The psychiatrist told me I would relapse in 5 years if I went off medications and that I would have a worse case of type 2 Bipolar than I did before. I believed a different report — God’s report — and I didn’t stop believing until it happened. God doesn’t just do 30 second miracles, but sometimes he does it through “somebody else’s hands” for reasons that only He knows.
