My Counselor and Diagnosis

My ultimate counselor is the Holy Spirit. So, here’s how I approach human counseling, and even the advice and wise counsel of friends and ministers. I listen to them, and then I take what I hear to the Holy Spirit - the Spirit of Truth who speaks the truth that sets us free. I ask the Holy Spirit to shine the light on the truth of it all, and that truth sets everybody free. It does not lob the heads off of people like humans would like to do sometimes. The work of The Holy Spirit has the unique power to set all who are involved free! That is why the Holy Spirit is my go to counselor who trumps all other counsel. No one, and nothing else has that power.  

So, while I was in California I was taking a drive one day, and the Holy Spirit showed me something I had already known, but He showed me in a new way that would bring so much clarity and ultimately set me free like never before!   

I saw myself as a stick figure on a piece of paper standing in the middle of a circle. But then I began to see a sort of "shadow circle" that extended beyond the circle I was standing in. Then I saw a pen drawing - sort of scribbling in that shadow circle. I immediately knew what this scribbling in the shadow circle represented, and what The Spirit of Truth was showing me. I came to call it “over-response” and it is full of nasty little destructive stuff, like critical spirit, impatience, such arrogance, out of capacity exhaustion, a severe lack of self care, and an ugly, eye-rolling lack of grace. Yes, full of nastiness. 

AND THIS IS WHAT OTHERS ARE EXPERIENCING IN ME. YEP, NO DOUBT.

But they don’t know what in my life is causing the “over-response” and that is on me and only me. I am over-responding to things that only happen “behind closed doors,” when no one is watching, but still, it is completely on me to do something about it. My official diagnosis is (drum roll please)… Codependency (along with one other fun little diagnosis which I’ll share in a later blog.) The Holy Spirit has opened my eyes to recognize codependency in a very different way than I have ever seen or understood it to be before, and this is the "difficult but life-changing discovery" I referred to in an earlier blog. I used to say, “Codependency is simply compassion without boundaries.”  That is a decent definition, but here is my new definition:

CODEPENDENCY IS NOT THE NOBLE WORK OF A COMPASSIONATE PERSON. IT IS A SIN MATTER THAT NEEDS TO BE REPENTED FROM BECAUSE IT IS ACTUALLY DESTRUCTIVE. IT IS, IN FACT, A DESTROYER OF OTHERS!

Whoa! This awakening to the fact that the things contained in the shadow circle, which goes before me wherever I go, and lingers behind wherever I’ve been, shouldn’t be met with attempts to justify those nasty little behaviors, but are in fact, the results of codependency which must be seen for what it truly is, and repented from. It has been beyond freeing to realize that it is not on me to make anyone fully understand what it is that I’m over-responding to. No, it is on me to repent from codependency, period. At the end of the day, it doesn’t matter that people don’t know. My time is well spent going after the root of what has been causing the emotional illness (aka sin) of codependency all my life, and then breaking those patterns once and for all. I have learned of a breakthrough paradigm shift that has taken place in recent years of psychological studies regarding this. I will gladly share this later.

The accusation got reduced at one point from “mental illness” to “relational illness” which was appreciated, and it is actually a much more accurate accusation, but it is always good to have an official diagnosis up against the ongoing accusations (of “borderline personality disorder,” “mental illness,” “relational illness,” “spiritual delusion,” “narcissism,” “a child of trauma, and therefore simply unable to be what is needed,” “does not live up to social norms,” and on and on.) These are mostly spectrum based issues that we all struggle with on some scale, but they are confusing misrepresentations as compared to official diagnoses.      

Over the next few months through a prewritten weekly blog series, I’m going to openly share my personal journey through this. The blog is prewritten so as not to be tempted to edit according to response. Some will scoff, some will disagree with my approach, and some will find deep healing and feel less alone. It is for the latter group that I write this blog series.  

Love to all, 

Jill