Trauma Warps The Brain
If you have been reading this blog for a while or have listened to me on a podcast or Facebook Live, then you know that I am a HUGE advocate for therapy. Although there is an increasing positive belief in therapy, there are still some misconceptions. I have heard things like: “Therapy is common sense” or “If God can do anything and heal anything, why do you still need therapy?”
I will tell you why. Think of an outrageous action movie. The main character is thrown through glass, falls from a 15-story building, is shot 5 times, stabbed and sliced multiple times, pushed down 100 steps, and is still somehow running around. If the character isn’t limping, showcasing that he or she is in pain, or bleeding, your reaction is: “this isn’t real.” Honestly, we probably think that the character should be dead at that point. What if I told you, the character that is going through all these obstacles and is still going – limping – but still going is your brain?
Death of friends and family members, family issues, drama at work, drama with friends, being bullied, sexually assaulted, heartbroken, dealing with economic changes – all of these things and more are traumatic, and we have each experienced one, if not multiple, forms of trauma in our lives.
If we can’t believe a fictious character can withstand being hurt in multiple different ways, why do we feel that our brain can?
Now, I want you to think about a movie or television show you have watched that is focused around war or a battle of some kind. In those particular types of media, the war or battle is won when either a palace is infiltrated, the control room is seized or a person of interest is seized.
In this battle with the enemy, your mind is what he is after because if he can capture your mind everything else will follow. 1 Peter 5:8-9 (NIV) says: “Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him, standing firm in the faith, because you know that the family of believers throughout the world is undergoing the same kind of sufferings.” Additionally, John 10:10 says: “The thief comes only to steal and kill and destroy.”
When I was in college, I did idiotic and sometimes dangerous things like walk around my neighborhood at midnight, allow guys I had just met to come over my house when I was alone and talk to guys I knew I shouldn’t have. Did I know it was wrong? Yes, I did, but there was something inside of me that just couldn’t help it. I knew better, but I couldn’t do better. The spirit of heartbreak, isolation, abandonment and a slew of others had strong-armed my heart and infiltrated my soul, which is comprised of the mind, will, emotions, affections and imagination. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the enemy had taken captive of me and I had no clue. I wanted the pain to stop; I just didn’t know how to make the pain stop. Like most people, I adapted to the oppression of the enemy. I became more pessimistic. Things that brought me hope and joy, I stopped doing because what was the point? My mindset became more aligned with people around me.
God can do anything and it wasn’t until I started going to church and reading my Bible more when God could finally reached me to tell me to go to therapy. How many times has someone told you something and you ignored it, but when someone else said it, it was like a lightbulb went off? God knows this about us. God knows that sometimes we’re not open to what He tells us or what He tells us through our friends and family. He knows that sometimes we need an outside source because when they start repeating something that our friends and family have said or they bring to our attention an issue or an incident we’ve ignored, it can open our eyes to what we need to change.
Furthermore, we don’t see an issue with getting a checkup for any other part of our body. We get a physical once a year, women get pap smears every few years, we go to the dentist twice a year, we see the eye doctor once a year, but the part of our body that controls everything else, we don’t want to make sure is working properly.
I once saw a pastor make an illustration using a cylinder container and small tennis-like balls. The container represented us and the balls represented different types of trauma and media that promotes the beliefs and ideas of this world. When the cup was full, the pastor mentioned that nothing could get the balls out. He then grabbed a pitcher of water, which represented God’s Word, and the balls began to come out of the container. The illustration depicted that the more God you put into yourself, the more you could combat the evil though patterns of the world.
Philippians 4:8 (KJV) says: “Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.” However, we are flesh. Just like it takes a mustard seed of faith to move a mountain; it takes a mustard seed of doubt to multiply that mountain and inhibit you from where you’re trying to go.
The book of Proverbs talks about wisdom. Proverbs 1:5 (KJV) says: A wise man will hear, and will increase learning; and a man of understanding shall attain unto wise counsels.” Proverbs 12:15 (KJV) says: “The way of a fool is right in his own eyes: but he that hearkeneth unto counsel is wise.” In my opinion, seeking the help of a therapist is wisdom. Seeking help from a person who has studied the psychology of a person’s mind, how different traumatic experiences can affect the mind and methods to combat those traumatic experiences is wisdom. I believe you need both God and therapy to fight the good fight of faith because God can’t do His work if we aren’t giving Him good soil to work with (Matthew 13:1-23).
Therefore, seek help if you need it or go just for a checkup to make sure the enemy isn’t hindering you with a limiting belief somewhere.
God wants to use the action hero within you, but it’s harder to use you when you’re hurt.
