A Testimony by Andrew D. Gadtke
Up until the age of twenty-four, I had always considered all religious thinking to be delusional. I was a scientist who sought after truth, after all, and I knew better – I had an impeccable mind for sifting through these ill-conceived ideas of faith. But all of that changed when I was told by a psychiatrist on October 15, 2004 that I had paranoid schizophrenia, an illness characterized by a person’s inability to understand the truth about reality. My lifelong goal had been to find truth, but the psychiatrist told me that my mind was cut off from the truth, imprisoned inside a world of delusion. What followed was the beginning of my quest for spiritual truth. The important aspects of this quest, ranging from my life at the outset through identifying my need for Christ and conversion to my spiritual growth after salvation, occurred over a period of several years.
To properly comprehend my quest, one needs to understand who I was before the outset of my spiritual journey. One word encapsulates my previous self – pride. I was the master of my own universe; I was completely self-sufficient; and I was absolutely arrogant. I was an atheist through and through, but I studied philosophy and the Christian apologetic arguments so I could better defeat Christians in lay debates. Nevertheless, I also recognized the usefulness of what I considered the delusion of Christianity as a psychological crutch to help those with weak minds.
Still, there was something in me that envied the “blissful ignorance” of the Christians. I saw the world as it really was, devoid of meaning and morality; I saw emptiness. And yet these Christians, who were not very different than me in life circumstances, seemed to be experiencing something else entirely. I saw life as a sort of accidental cesspool to be endured, and they saw it as a loving gift to be rejoiced in. I kept finding that my atheistic worldview was out of sync with how I felt about and experienced the world – how could I experience the world as terribly evil when there was no objective morality? I started nightly prayers to an unknown God to reveal to me the truth. After three years of nightly (or near nightly) prayer, God began opening my eyes.
To discern what was real after I realized I had been delusional, I began rereading old philosophy texts and Christian apologetics arguments I had become familiar with, but upon rereading them I started drawing different conclusions; the same old arguments that I dismissed previously with a wave of the hand were now compelling to me. After I grew comfortable enough with the persuasiveness of these arguments, and when I was convinced I wasn’t committing intellectual suicide, I started believing in the being of God. After more study and reflection on personal experiences, I concluded that Jesus was the Son of God. This conclusion not only brought truth into my life, but also brought with it the seeds of repentance – if Jesus is actually God, then I had a lot of explaining to do for my exceedingly sinful lifestyle. I begged for God’s forgiveness, and I accepted Jesus as my Lord and Savior.
Immediately after my conversion, I told everyone I knew about God. I was overcome with a newfound joy that I wanted to share with others. Later, I was baptized. My passion to tell people about God persisted, and I started focusing my thoughts on my personal holiness. After living the atheist’s lifestyle for so many years, I had many entrenched sins to fight against. Many of the sinful thoughts and actions I had previously enjoyed were now abhorrent to me. With prayer and determination, I began a lifelong process of change. Comparing who I am today with whom I was, I see a change so great that I’m no longer the same person.
All-in-all, I have to admit that I have regret that I came to Christ so late in life; I endured so much time without the conscious presence of God – so many Godly things I didn’t get to do and experience, and so many unholy things I did do and experienced. But the one thing I don’t regret is God opening my eyes through the process of me becoming severely ill. I cannot conceive of a more compelling way to convince my old self of the truth of God than by crushing all hope of finding truth apart from God. As I struggle daily with my illness, I have hope for a heavenly future where I’m whole and holy. Until then, I am comforted and encouraged by glimpses of heaven – short periods of worship marked by joy.
You may
have picked up on my changed diagnosis – from paranoid schizophrenia to
schizoaffective disorder. For those unfamiliar with the label schizoaffective
disorder, it is simply the compound of two terms: schizophrenia and affective
(mood) disorder (such has bipolar disorder or major depression). Psychiatrists
now conceptualize there to be a spectrum of disorders, with a classic
schizophrenic presentation on one and a classic mood disorder presentation on
the other. My changed diagnosis indicates that it appears that I’m not really
at the end of the schizophrenic side of the spectrum like previously thought,
but rather somewhere more near the middle.
This was
first hinted at early during my treatment due to subclinical mood swings.
However, it wasn’t really confirmed for many years, as I had been relatively
stable on meds and my dominate symptom has been paranoia. However, a little
over a year ago I had gone off my medications (a story for another day), and
within days I started becoming manic. Severe paranoia set in following the
mania, and forced me back on medication. It was then that my diagnosis was
changed to schizoaffective disorder, due to the presentation of a mixture of
symptoms of both schizophrenia and bipolar disorder.
Due to
the close relatedness of these disorders, our approach to treatment hasn’t been
any different due to the new diagnosis. However, the prognosis for
schizoaffective is better than that for schizophrenia and worse than bipolar
disorder, so I suppose the change should spark some increased hope for me. To
be completely honest, it hasn’t given me any new hope, but it has allowed me to
understand better some of the impulsive things I had been doing, e.g. drinking,
gambling, etc.
I have an interesting new development in life: some heightened paranoia. I have not had paranoia of this intensity since earlier this spring. I suppose it is the stress of my upcoming speech at the MACMHP conference in Duluth. I’ll explain what’s going on.
About four hours ago a couple of squad cars pulled up to my condo building. I was just going to go to bed, but was curious as to why the police were here. I didn’t find out, and they came and went. If that had been the end of it, perhaps I would be sleeping now. Instead, they have been patrolling outside my building with drive-bys every few minutes. This has gotten me paranoid that they were coming for me, and so I have been refusing to let myself rest, lest they come to kill me in my sleep. After about two hours of paranoia and anxiety, I picked up my cell and called 911. I told the dispatcher that I had noticed the police patrolling outside my building and was wondering if I were safe. She told me the officers were looking for someone earlier, and now just happened to be driving by to go to other calls.
I don’t know what to make of that. I think she . . . well, I don’t know what to think. The police might still be coming to kill me, and so I’m going to have to stay awake. This is just what I don’t need right now. I’ll try to get some sleep later today.
As of late, I have felt a little unmotivated. I guess I’m always a little unmotivated; what I mean is that I’m a little more unmotivated than usual. Ordinarily this wouldn’t be too much of a problem, since I don’t have much in life depending on me. This time is different.
In less than a week I will be giving a speech at the Minnesota Association of Community Mental Health Programs’ annual conference in Duluth. I’ve been working on my remarks, but they are not polished as of yet. Over the next few days I will really have to put my nose to the grindstone and overcome this unmotivated state, all the while trying to keep my stress levels low so that I’m healthy enough to give a good presentation in Duluth. If you are in the area, check out the conference and be sure to stop by and say hello.
