MindCure Seattle 2016: In Control- Living Above Your Emotions

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Kirkland SDA Church

Calvin Kim

Emotional Health’s Best Kept Secret

There's a story that I heard, I don't know if it's true or not, but there was a preacher who was preaching and some woman fell asleep.

And so the preacher said to her husband, wake her up.

Because you know, preachers don't like that when people fall asleep.

And the gentleman looked at the preacher and he said, you wake her up, you put her to sleep.

If someone falls asleep, you know whose fault it is?

So I've come up with an idea if someone falls asleep.

I think this is going to work really well.

If someone falls asleep, I'm going to just start clapping.

And everyone clap with me, and I'm going to be looking at that person who's sleeping.

When they wake up, this is what they'll do.

I'm confident they will not fall asleep again.

But what I'm going to do is I'm going to try to keep this message moving along because at this hour, it is time that a lot of people start falling asleep.

Now what I'm going to do is before I get into the main meat of the topic I'm going to be real vulnerable and I'm going to share a personal story about myself and my own personal struggles I've had with a mental health challenge that I've suffered.

Actually it was a mental illness or you could say mental disorder nowadays, politically correct, we like to call it a mental challenge.

I started having recurrent thoughts in my head.

Until then, I'd always experienced great health.

These thoughts would not go away and it got worse and they started leading me to do compulsions, things that just weren't normal.

And if I didn't follow through with the compulsions it would start leading to anxiety.

So I saw a health care worker, then I saw a doctor and I was incredulous the day that my physician looked at me with a very concerned look on his face and he said, there is no cure for OCD, but that they can manage this.

I was like, I can't live like this for the rest of my life.

Now, there are stereotypes about OCD, people being germaphobes or washing their hands and locking doors.

And I'll share later some of these things that I had to struggle with.

But what happens is when you have a compulsion, and it doesn't make any sense.

You know, for someone to have to wash their hands, it doesn't make any sense.

And when they don't, it'll literally drive them crazy.

Feel crazy and have anxiety and then have a panic attack or go and wash your hands, even if you're doing it over and over.

Like I mentioned, that wasn't the issues that I went through.

So first they put you on 1 medication, then they put you on another medication, Then they put you on another medication.

1 morning I woke up with fear just ripping through my body.

I go see the psychiatrist and he goes, Oh, we just need to put you on this medication.

And sure enough, it just takes away the fear.

But you know, because I'm a dentist, I have a drug handbook, and I look up these drugs.

Besides all the cocktail and the buffet of medicants they put me on and all the side effects that come with it.

My wife that year, she was a single mother.

I was checked out, and there was nothing she could do to help me.

It was hands down the most painful experience of my life.

OCD is not a disease that bothers, it is a disease that tortures.

See, when you have cancer, you have hope to live.

When you have depression or a mental illness, you don't have hope.

I was in a retreat center for about 19 days and most of the people there had cancers and a lot of these people were getting better with this lifestyle program that they had there.

And all the people there wanted so much to live and I wanted what they had so I could get out of this situation, so I could die.

In the housing that I was with, there was a young man with his wife and kids and he was dying of cancer.

He wanted so much to live and here I wished I had what he had.

And I'm trying to paint a picture for you what it's like for people who have a mental illness.

You know, Before I ever had this challenge in my own life, I would have looked at someone with a mental illness and I would have thought, just snap out of it.

Trying to tell someone with a mental illness to snap out of it is like trying to tell someone who is deaf to try and listen just a little bit harder, and they might hear.

Now, dentistry already requires detailed attention.

Try compounding being a dentist with OCD.

Just as an example, I would do a filling and it just wasn't right.

So what I'm going to do, take it out and redo it.

Because I'm about to do it again for the third time possibly.

What do you think my assistant's thinking?

Maybe a little bit frustrated by this time, maybe?

Like I'm crazy, and I know it, it doesn't make any sense, but otherwise I know I'm going to be dealing with the anxiety which could turn it into a full-blown panic attack.

I spent much time in prayer crying out to God that year.

Now I want to share a quote from a book that I really, really appreciate.

In fact, 1 of the chapters of this book is called Mind Cure.

And that's where the name of this conference came from, Mind Cure.

And I'm going to have you read this with me.

God never leads his children otherwise than they would choose to be led if they could see the end from the beginning and discern the glory of the purpose which they are fulfilling as co-workers with Him.

That truly if I could really see the beginning from the end that I wouldn't choose any way, it didn't make any sense to me.

Lewis says that God whispers to us in our pleasures and he shouts to us in our pains.

And this goes along with something that's very similar in Romans 8.28 that most of us are probably familiar with, right?

That all things work together for good to them who love the Lord and to them who are called according to the purpose.

God sent the right people in my life at the right time.

A friend of mine, her husband was going through health problems himself, and he had graduated with me, and he was a dentist, and he had some issues, and she told me that I need to get tested for mercury toxicity.

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Emotional Health’s Best Kept Secret

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