I've wanted to write about paranoia and it's manifestations/effects on my mind throughout recovery process for a couple weeks. ¡Vamanos, entonces! (Let's go then!)

When I was going to NDSU, I had a really cool female professor whose area of expertise was eating disorders. I took Abnormal Psychology one semester, and she taught one day on something that shifted a paradigm in me. I think the topic that week was Borderline Personality Disorder (at any rate, it was completely separate-at least in the world of modern psychology- from eating disorders.) She was telling a story about one of her former patients, and what happened during one of their sessions. She and her patient were walking through the campus (of a separate university) together, and they passed by someone. The young woman immediately thought that the person hated her. My professor asked her why she came to that conclusion, and she said she heard it in her head. Then my professor told her that she didn't have to listen to those thoughts. She didn't have to listen.

What a concept- she didn't have to listen to every thought that came into her head.

There I was, sitting in the auditorium, realizing I didn't have to listen to the thoughts in my head either. It was the first time I remember hearing anyone explain that "my" thoughts don't have to control me. That had most likely been explained to me before, but I didn't hear it or remember it.  This concept has since been explained to me multiple times, and I have consumed it, digested it, and absorbed it.  And it's been turned into muscle; it's made me strong.

I don't know if my professor knows the Lord or not, but she was teaching a hugely important Biblical truth. "We use our powerful God-tools for smashing warped philosophies, tearing down barriers, erected against the truth of God, fitting every loose thought and emotion and impulse into the structure of life shaped by Christ." 2 Corinthians 10:5.
I am to take every thought captive, and submit it to Christ.

What does all this have to do with eating disorders? The voice/voices that consumed my thought life had convinced me that others thought I was fat, ugly, that other people knew that I had to go to a shrink, so they knew I wasn't right in the head. They convinced me other people randomly knew how much I weighed, and then I was even more ashamed of my size.

The reality is that those thoughts were all paranoid lies, and I shouldn't have been listening to them. The reality is that I did listen to them for about 10 years, and I let them control me. The reality is that I don't listen to them anymore, and they have been cast away from me.

I would say prayer and a supportive prayer covering from friends and family is a huge key in being able to go from mentally-ill thought patterns to healthy, Christ-centered thought patterns. There is a huge difference between wanting to have a clear mind, and actually having one. The Lord is all-powerful, so He can overcome anything, but it has been my experience that He intervenes and allows His word to come through people, through circumstances, through years and years of life, rather than one moment of thundering power and deliverance. That's just my experince, though, so I'm not making a doctrine of it or anything :).

The bottom line is, thoughts need to be captured, checked, examined, and either cast away, or allowed to remain. I didn't come to class that day thinking that the Holy Spirit would plant something new in me, but He did. I didn't expect to remember a short story from that class 8 years later, but I did. The seed that was planted has been watered- it grew and grew, and I'm trusting the Father's steady hand to continue the pruning process.