Chapter 2
My Bipolar Breakdown
God can make our biggest embarrassment our biggest source of ministry.
Bipolar 1, with psychosis was what the discharge papers said back in mid-June as they were handed to me by the staff at Crestwyn Behavioral Center. Over the course of this memoir it is my plan to move back and forth between a chronological progression of my wife and I’s adventure together and a careful processing of the epicenter of my mental health breakdown, June 16th, 2020.
If truth be known the most important papers in my hand that day were not the one’s relaying my diagnosis, they were the one’s reminding me I was a “Dad.” As a father of 4 boys with a 5th one on the way the notes from my children, alongside the medicines given by the doctor, had helped steady my heart and ready my mind for the war that awaited me outside the confines of Crestwyn.
I was resolved in my mind that the church that had “excommunicated me” and sent me into a spiral of manic and panic were going to come clean up their mess, and help restore my position as the Kids Pastor at First Baptist Church. I had just finished helping the design and outfit a $3 million Kids Wing over the last four years and God was moving mightily in our ministry. I knew the road to Recovery & Restoration wouldn’t be easy, but I was certain they would honor the “Leave of Absence” they tried to put me on back on June 9th. Back then this was paper coming from my once-friend-turned-enemy boss who was attempting to get me to seek medical intervention when I had no clue that anyone thought I needed it.
The only thing was, I was seeing a counselor and I was working through the anxious thoughts and unwanted emotions that were flooding my heart and mind during March through May. When they placed before me the paper that said, ‘I was being placed on a three month leave of absence, I would receive full pay, I had to go see a doctor for help, I had to fix my family, and lastly, I couldn’t come to church for work or for worship” I was absolutely crushed. “What is going on, Lord?” was my only logical thought. I remember putting my pen to the tear drench paper and walking out with my copy of the agreement.
For the first 8-hours of laboring with this news I was transfixed on the charge to go fix my family. “Who does “DJ” think he is to tell me to fix my family?” I was a passionate father to my 4 boys, a loyal husband to my wife, and here I was being told by this council of questionable men to “go fix my family…? “What is happening, God?” Through the counsel of one of my pastor-friends they noted the severity of the final clause, the one that said I couldn’t come to the church for work or for worship.
In the Bible there are few times when God’s Word says to remove a person from fellowship. The most noted one was when Paul told a church to kick out a man who was boasting about loving Jesus and sleeping with his stepmother. I quickly reached out to Stony Wisely and demanded that the council meet and tell me what I was guilty of that would warrant me being excommunicated. That night the council conference called with Lisa and I, and together with my wife we began to answers to their concerns, and turn the tides of the conversation off the idea that I wasn’t harming my home.
Then, it happened. I remember vividly my wife reaching across her body to press mute on the speaker-phone screen as she looked at me with eyes of shock and spoke six words that sent a hush to my anger and a confusion to my soul. “Mike…this is all my fault.”
Confused by this confession she proceeded to ask, “Mike, if I reached out to Jamie, your counselor, he couldn’t talk to DJ, your boss…could he? I was stunned by the question and I was trapped in the world of an already manic mind that had been reeling at the Leave of Absence Notice served to me less than 24-hours before. We continued the conversation a little further with the council and then agreed to have further discussions at a later date.
That night I learned that my wife Lisa back in early May had reached out to my counselor to suggest that I might have bipolar. In her email to him he hinted at seeing signs of my bipolar condition as well. When she responded on May 6th asking him for any recommendations of Christian psychiatrists he went radio silent. Not a word spoken to my wife. Not a word spoken to me.
On June 7th, 2022, on that conference call from our bedroom closet I learned that my wife had reached out to my counselor, who took her concerns to my boss, and who set out to fix my family without ever broaching the concerns of bipolar to me. The betrayal I felt in that moment sent me into a tailspin and over the next 9 days I likely slept a combined six hours. I didn’t fly into a rage, I simply set out to defend my name, to get my position back at the church, and to get my wife back. I felt like I had lost everything and I was crushed.
Had I sought help immediately in that moment I would have likely avoided the embarrassment of my public meltdown nine days later, but I was reeling and I couldn’t find sleep or relief from anyone or anything.
BIPOLAR PROCESSING: The road of denial I traveled in 2020 was one of good intentions and genuine ignorance. Throughout the course of my life I had always experienced seasons of highs and lows and I had always found comfort in the men of history that had similar lots in life. As I shared in my opening Bible Processing, the author of Psalm 119 was and is one of my heroes in the faith. Also, I believe that God supernaturally intervenes in our lives through different seasons and for different reasons. My religious bend toward Jesus made me a Jesus freak, not a bipolar freak. I would never had said this, but I felt like bipolar sufferers and schizophrenic travelers were ones that heard voices and saw things that weren’t really there. Up until my mental breakdown on June 16th I had never heard a voice or seen anything that wasn’t real. I had just thrown my life into pursuing excellence through sports, ministry and family. When my wife suggested I might have Bipolar I quickly dismissed it because I wasn’t violent or incoherent, I was called by God to pursue an intimacy with Him that others didn’t understand. When I walked out of Crestwyn they did placed on my papers what every hospital I have been to since has placed there, “hyper-religious.” This analysis only amplified my natural propensity to ignore the diagnosis. The three times I have spiraled out of hypomania into mania were all on the wake of being fired, or seemingly fired in the 2020 Leave of Absence instance. Looking back on the attempts to intervene leveled by First Baptist Church I see that man’s wisdom is often flawed. I do not know what would have happened had my counselor and wife come together to confront me about the possibility of having bipolar. What I do know is that my counselor’s decision to involve my boss in my mental health care was seemingly a disregard of HIPPA regulations, and unethical in the realm of counseling. More than that it was a neglect of my wife and I’s trust in him personally. Because he and my boss chose to follow conventional wisdom, forfeiting the call to confront sin in a Matthew 18 manner, and because they refused to allow me to share my story with the church. I grew in my disdain for the diagnosis and the decision of that council to not let me tell the church about my breakdown. They claimed that they were saving me the embarrassment, however what I felt then and what I feel today is that they were saving themselves from having to answer questions. “Why did Mike’s counselor feel he had the right to involve his boss?” “Why did he not respond to my wife’s request for a psychiatrist recommendation on May 6th?” “What did Mike do that warranted him being excommunicated so harshly?” The answer to these questions may never be known, but I know that what happened on June 16th isn’t because any one of these things, but rather, it was because I was unwilling to listen to the one who loved me dearest, my wife, and I was unable to slow the thoughts that were sent speeding off into oblivion on June 7th.
BIBLE PROCESSING: “Moreover if your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained a brother. But if he will not hear, take with you one or two more, that ‘by the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established.’ And if he refuses to hear them, tell it to the church. But if he refuses even to hear the church, let him be to you like a heathen and a tax collector” (Matthew 18:15-18). God lays out in his Word clearly how we are to handle our concerns for a sinning brother. If we a follower of Christ in a fault we are to go to them individually first. On June 6th I was being treated as a heathen and a tax collector without ever having a hearing with the church. I was completely clueless that Daniel had warranted suspicions about me having bipolar. The fact that he didn’t run me out of my position immediately speaks to the level of my “bizarre behaviors.” I wasn’t harming people, I wasn’t seeking satisfaction in illicit or worldly pursuits, I was chasing God in prayer. I was seeking health in slow, methodical and meditative training sessions in the gym. I see now that I was moving into a manic phase of life, and when the tethering cord to the church was cut, I floated away into the recesses of my own reasoning. For those who have loved ones that you believe might have bipolar I want to encourage you to confront them in love. If they will not hear you then take a godly friend that they trust. If they still will not receive your complaint then take it before the marked leaders in your church. That was what was lacking from my story. The men that Daniel chose were random men that loved him, not men that were close to me. They weren’t representatives of the church for there was no defined distinctions in their positions.