When Chest Pain Becomes Paranoid Delusions, Demonic Voices, and Suicide

I recently had a patient who came in to the hospital for chest pain.  But it turned out that his chest pain wasn’t a heart problem—or any problem, really.  It was temporary, and brought on by sheer panic.  Why?  Because the voices in his head were threatening him, making him paranoid, delusional, and suicidal—all of which we only discovered after all of the cardiac tests came back completely negative.  And once we did discover this, we began to monitor him for suicide because in that moment he was at very high risk for self-harm.

The truth is that he really didn’t want to hurt himself.  It’s just that the constant threats from the voices in his head were tormenting and he reasoned that if he killed himself first then they wouldn’t be able to carry out their threats.  His logical reasoning is highly flawed but at least understandable—and to be fair when someone is under that level of torment in their consciousness their ability to use logical reasoning definitely is reduced.

Now, when it comes to mental health there are usually a few basic categories most Christians fall under.  First there are the “it’s just chemicals in the brain misfiring” people, and these believers usually also don’t believe in miracles or divine healing or almost any of the other things that set Christians apart from every other belief system.

The second group are the “it’s just demons” people who ignore all information to the contrary and if someone is hearing voices then the only options is demonic influence.  Now this group at least recognizes that demons are real, and can cause or contribute to mental health problems, but there are some huge limitations they hit, such as further traumatizing already damaged people when the “demons” don’t leave because the fact is that not every mental health problem is a demon.

There is a third, growing category of people who recognize that not all voices in the head are demons or simply the result of chemicals, but the result of a fracturing of the human soul into different pieces and that while sometimes the voices can be demonic, sometimes they are other portions of someone’s soul they are hearing.  These parts cannot be cast out, nor should they be, as they aren’t “another being” any more than one’s left leg is considered separate from the rest of one’s body.  What they need is to be healed (To learn more about this, read “An Introduction To Soul Fragmentation”).

I talked to this man to find out a little more about him and what he was dealing with, as it can be very helpful to get an idea of what someone’s suicide plan is, and asked him if the voices were telling him to hurt himself.  Quite often they are, and the voices create a very high level of internal pressure upon the person carry out whatever they are saying.  In this case they were just threatening him, although the level of internal pressure sounded similarly high as compared to other situations.  He didn’t tell me anything specific they were saying, but he made it clear that he didn’t really want to hurt himself but he was afraid of what they would do to him and he was just wanting to protect himself from them.  If the man were given an official diagnosis (which at some point he was), he would likely be diagnosed with paranoid delusions, auditory hallucinations, and suicidal ideation, or something along those lines.

This man and I spoke briefly about what he was experiencing, but the next thing he said to me I found most interesting, and it was very telling as to what we were dealing with.  He told me that ever since I walked into the room the voices had gotten quieter.  He described it as though they were further away, like they had been pushed off in the distance, and were quieter and harder to hear as a result.  Now, as I explained before there are mental health problems that *aren’t* demons, but in this case it became instantly clear that demons is *exactly* what we were dealing with.

I am certain that someone far more spiritual than I would have commanded them all to leave right then and the man would have been set free instantly and then gone about the rest of his life, but I didn’t do that.  Why?  Because in the medical field there isn’t an official diagnosis of “demonization.” After I cast demons out of a patient and I get asked about the “nursing intervention” I just performed, my Bible-verse-laced explanation of why I dealt with spiritual reality the way I did simply won’t cut it.  What it would actually look like is that I took advantage of a vulnerable person with mental health problems to push my spiritual beliefs on them.  Thus, unless my goal is to get fired and risk losing my license then I’m a bit limited in what I can and cannot reasonably do when I am at work in these kinds of situations.  Which certainly can be a point of frustration for me because let’s be honest—in this instance demons were 100% the primary problem. So, I did the next best thing.

I decided to expose them.  I told the man that those voices are lying to him, that they have no power over him, and that they are incapable of hurting him.  I shared that any time he starts getting upset or anxious about what they are telling him to remind himself that they are lying and that all they can do is talk.  In some situations can demons do more than just talk?  Sure.  But in this case it seemed pretty apparent that all they could do was threaten him enough to try and get *him* to come into agreement with their plans and purposes.  Every time I saw him for the remainder of the day I made sure to tell him that everything was going to be okay and that he was safe.

I’m not sure how it is in other countries, but often in the US we have a stigma about mental health disorders.  Sure, sometimes it can be chemical imbalances in the brain.  Sometimes it is demons.  Sometimes it is demons that are also causing chemical imbalances.  Sometimes its alternate personalities and/or soul fragmentation at work. Sometimes it is all of the above or any combination thereof.  At the end of the day most people with mental health problems want to feel safe, loved, and normal.  They don’t like feeling like the “crazy weirdo” even if they fully realize that’s where they’re at right then.  The internal stimuli and the pressure that it creates adds a whole new level of stress upon someone that is simply invisible to the external world, and that can be very difficult to deal with.

When someone has a broken bone everyone can look at the cast or sling or stabilization boot and see that someone has a problem.  When something in your mind is broken, whether chemically, demonically, or through trauma and fracturing of the soul, we largely write it off as “their problem” and expect people to just “be different” and fix themselves.  Broken bones often require surgery and involved medical care.  But it’s considered socially acceptable and we make all kinds of allowances for it.  Mental health doesn’t get that same consideration, partly because it is really hard to prove that is the problem and partly because “time off work” and “rest and elevation” don’t fix soul-based problems.  The primary solution for problems of the soul is actually you and me—believers who know that Jesus came to bind up the broken hearted, to set captives free, and to bring us into total wholeness.  It isn’t good enough to just have head knowledge if we never use it, and it isn’t helpful to have authority over all powers of darkness if we never bother to exercise it.  But that’s why that’s our job—to set the captives free, to make disciples, to cast out demons, heal the sick, and do all of the other things Jesus commanded us to do.  Because if we don’t do it, who will?