Friday, August 13, 2021

The Human Malfunction and the Origins of Most Kinds of Psychiatric Disorders

      The basis of most kinds of psychiatric disorders is either the psyche cannot reconcile what has been done to it according to its understanding of good and evil, or it cannot reconcile what it itself has done with its understanding of good and evil. It is true that there are some which are entirely chemical in nature, which is why I said "most" and not "all." The vast majority of disorders described in the DSM-V are triggered by experiences both traumatic or not, with a genetic predisposition often involved as well, but are then exacerbated by the internal conflict which I described which the psyche tries to protect itself from thus at times also causing those chemical imbalances. 

     You have to remember that the human brain is not only a self-programming computer, but also a self-rearranging logic circuit creating new neural pathways it thinks it's supposed to create based on the conscious or unconscious feelings or thoughts of the person in question, and it will do what it thinks it has to in order to protect what it perceives to be its "self." DID is a good example of this, where the mind splits into multiple personas in response to horrific childhood trauma. The brain is trying to protect the host personality by creating alternate, independent personalities.

     Fundamentally, the human psyche considers what is good as those things which please it or with which it agrees. It considers what is evil those things which don't please it, or with which it does not agree. Those things which it considers good, it clings to, those things which it considers evil it pushes away, and frequently tries to destroy or do away with as a threat to either its physical or psychological survival. The things we cling to trigger our hoarding responses, and feeding and sexual survival responses specifically. The things we push away trigger our fear and aggression survival responses. 

     Those things which the psyche sees as a threat to itself which have been done to us trigger the fear or aggression response, and if it traumatic enough, the fear or aggression response does not switch off as the psyche tries to defend itself. The greater conflict comes into play when the person does something that registers as evil with their psyche. Then the psyche sees itself as a psychological threat, and an error occurs which must be resolved in order to return to sanity. Thus the psyche tries to defend itself either by redefining what it considers evil, letting the violation go, or continuing with the conflict and heading towards mental illness.

     Frequently, as Christians, we beg and plead for God's forgiveness, even though we know He's already forgiven through faith and through Scripture, because we do not feel forgiven. All the while it doesn’t register with us that, it's not that He hasn't forgiven, but it's that we haven't forgiven ourselves, and our brain is still trying to resolve the paradox of itself doing the bad thing or categorizing itself as “bad.”

     The internal "moral" conflict must be dealt with in order to move forward and return to sanity. These conflicts happen as a regular part of normal life and continue to causes errors which build up as much as they happen under traumatic circumstances. This is why forgiveness, letting go of the violation, is so absolutely necessary. Forgiveness for the other person, and forgiveness for yourself. This is also why God's forgiveness through Jesus Christ is a blanket forgiveness covering everything except, according to Christ, unforgiveness which continues the downward spiral into insanity, and treating Christ as nothing while having experienced who He is and what He's done through the Holy Spirit according to the rest of the New Testament, also known as blasphemy of the Holy Spirit.

     The ransom which Christ paid for us was paid neither to God nor Satan as are the two most popular theological answers, but to our hamartia malfunction itself and its need to categorize things as either good or evil, right or wrong. You pay a ransom to those holding the hostages in order to free them. You pay a slave price to the slave owner. By way of metaphor, our own Hamartia disorder is our hostage taker and slave owner. By dying in our place and giving us a blanket forgiveness, all debts and demands to our disorder are paid because death is the only thing which will satisfy it, and the only one freed from Hamartia is the one who has died. Hamartia must have its due, and that due is death.

Quite literally, it is our own internal demand that things be either good or evil, which began in Genesis 3, that is holding us hostage and from which we need to be freed.

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