My Journey Towards Writing A Fiction Novel (Part 1)

 

Most of you already think of me as a Mental Health Advocate who runs a full-time mental health ministry, who has written some books on faith and mental health for the sole purpose of reaching out to people who suffer from mental illnesses while educating Christians who do not properly understand mental illness. Most of my work until now has been serious work, but what you may not know about me is that I am a lover of a good fictional story. As a matter of fact, I really love superhero stories, especially when they pertain to Batman lore. Well, I'd like to introduce you to a new novel idea that I have decided to write. It has nothing to do with mental health, so this will be a challenge, but I am up for the challenge. The purpose of this blog is to give you a brief synopsis of what this story will be about without giving you any spoilers. In future posts, I will be documenting my journey. The reason why I want to do this because I believe that fiction stories can be good for mental health. I say this because sometimes it is good to get away from all the seriousness of life and just jump right into a different world. I know this from personal experience because in my life, it has helped me to get away from real-life drama. I suggest that this tactic should be utilized sparingly because it can cause you to lose track of reality if used too much. I will now proceed to tell you more about my story idea. But first, I'd like to give you the back story to how I came up with this idea, and I even want to explain the character biographies, too. 

It all started when I was a teenager in juvenile detention. I have always had a dark viewpoint in life. Well, during some of the darkest times in my life, I decided that I wanted to create a character who was an unbeatable villain.  The reason for this was that I was tired of seeing bad guys in movies always losing to the good guys. Yeah, I know that may sound like a horrible perspective because who seriously desires to see the bad guys win? Well, as a troubled young teen, I honestly did want to see that because at the time I was a little "antichrist" who thought I could beat God Himself, even though I believed that the devil was foolish for thinking that same thing! So, at this point in my life, I came up with an unbeatable foe that would utterly annihilate any good guy that comes across his path. His name is Dark Crow. However, I eventually scrapped the idea after becoming a Christian because I believed the idea was too dark for a Christian. After all, shouldn't we be about joy and peace instead of dark and dreary? However, in recent years, I have decided to revive my Dark Crow character, who is still very much unbeatable, but this time, there will be a heroine who will fight against him. Her name is Jessica Johnson. I will now get into their character bios. 

Character Biographies: 

Dark Crow

Age:37 

Ethnicity: African-American 

Powers: teleportation, telekinesis, superspeed, energy absorption, master of all martial arts, telepathy, reality changer, morph, soul-snatcher, mind control, immortal, and indestructible 

Weakness: being separated from his staff 

Purpose: Take over the world and make it submit to Satan 

Jessica Johnson AKA White Ninja 

Age:36 

Ethnicity: Asian-American 

Abilities: Master Martial Artist, agility, perfect aim with a golden faith gun,  and genius-level intellect 

Weakness: Overly Emotional 

Purpose: Save her husband 

Synopsis 

Jason Johnson is a rising lawyer who started his own law firm, Johnson & Johnson. His firm is such a success that his wife, Jessica Johnson, can retire from being the CEO of a Fortune 500 corporation to just be a housewife who takes care of their young son. Everything seems great until one day the devil sends an evil spirit to possess Jason and make him into his devilish servant. As a result of what the devil has done, God recruits Jessica to become a heavenly warrior called the White Ninja. As the White Ninja, she is to go to war with the intention of freeing her husband from the spirit of the Dark Crow. Can Jessica succeed in freeing her husband, or will she just become another victim of the devil? 

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog, and I hope that it has generated interest in you to want to read my novel. Please pray for me as I work on this, too. May the grace of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ richly bless you all!

-David Lee Chu Sarchet 
Christian Mental Health Advocate 

Check out the Christ-Centered Mental Health Ministry Website

How To Honor Your Father & Mother When They Are Toxic

 

"Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be long upon the land which the Lord your God is giving you"

As some of you may know that I did not have the model parents. My mother was a chronic schizophrenic who refused to treat her mental illness. As a result, my mother has caused a lot of drama in my life, but I never stopped loving her because I know that she couldn't help herself. As for my father, I suspect that he is a chronic narcissist who is a pathological liar, too. It is for this reason that my relationship with my father is virtually non-existent. Every time I would attempt to have a relationship with him, he would always become disrespectful by either starting arguments with me or by insulting my faith in Christ. However, I do understand that as a Christian man, I am obligated to honor my father and mother. The Scripture above commands us to do so. It does not say that we should only honor the parents who were good to us, but instead it just tells us to honor them regardless of whether or not they deserve to be treated. I know that this is difficult to do, especially when we do not have good parents. As you can tell, the Scripture above belongs to the Ten Commandments, not "Ten Suggestions", and it is the only commandment that has a reward attached to it. I believe that the promise means that if we honor our parents, even when they do not deserve our honor, God will bless our lives. Trust me, I know that this is difficult, and this is why I decided to write this blog. The purpose of my writing this blog is to help you better understand how you can honor your parents, even if they are toxic. Now, I am not saying that you need to bring your toxic parent back into your life. As a matter of fact, I will argue that you can honor your parents from a distance without even talking to them again. As you read this blog, please think about what I am saying and try to think of how you can apply what I am saying to your daily lives. For the sake of this blog, I will focus on three ways that you can follow the command to honor your toxic parent(s), but there are many other ways, though. If you can think of other ways, please feel free to comment below. The three ways you can honor your toxic parent(s) are the following: 

1) Never Say Anything Negative About Them 

2) Always Pray For Them 

3) Don't Allow Yourself To Be Consumed With Anger Toward Them 

As I said earlier, these are not the only ways you can honor your toxic parent(s). I will now elaborate on each of these points. 

Never Say Anything Negative About Them 

When we turn to Proverbs 15:1, we read the following, 

"A soft answer turns away wrath, but a harsh word stirs up anger" 

Believe it or not, how you speak about your parent(s) can be dishonoring to them. I am not saying that you cannot report when they mistreat you, but it does mean that you should never say anything slanderous about them. For example, I may have had bad experiences with my father, but you will never hear or read anything where I have said that "my father is a moron," or that "my father is an idiot," or any other variation. The reason I will never say anything demeaning about my father is that, as a Christian, I believe it is my ultimate duty to represent Jesus Christ accurately to the unbelieving world. I know unbelievers can have toxic parent(s), and so I need to show them what it looks like to show their poisonous parent(s) honor and respect. It is part of my testimony to an unbelieving world that needs to see an accurate representation of Jesus, who prayed to the Father while He was on the cross to forgive His enemies. I would like to add that if you are merely reporting to someone what your toxic parent(s) have done to you, then that does not count as speaking slanderously of them. If you need to let someone know what they have done to you, then do not feel guilty about it, as long as you do not speak a word of slander against them. 

Always Pray For Them

If we turn to 1 Timothy 2:1-3, we read the following, 

"Therefore, I exhort first of all that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks be made for all men, for kings and all who are in authority, that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth." 

Now, I know that this is one of the prooftexts that Arminians use to justify their position that God wants every single individual in all of humanity to be saved. However, this would be a gross misunderstanding of what Paul is saying. If you read this text in context, Paul is clearly saying that God desires all kinds of people to be saved, but I digress. As you can see, God wants us to "pray for all who are in authority". I believe that this command is not only for professional authorities but for personal authorities as well. Your parent(s) are still over you regardless of whether or not they are toxic. This means the command to pray for all authority still applies. Paul never said, "Only pray for those in authority who are good to you". Keep in mind, when Paul penned these words, he was under arguably the most heinous rulers known to mankind. So, we have no excuse to not pray for those who rule over us. I know that this is a difficult teaching for those of us with bad parents to grasp, and I know I will ruffle some feathers with this blog, but it is what God's word teaches, and I am constrained by His Word to be faithful it His teaching. As Christians, we are commanded to pray for the well-being of our parent(s) simply because they rule over us. And when we follow this command, God promises us that we "may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and reverence" 

Don't Allow Yourself To Be Consumed With Anger Toward Your Toxic Parent(s) 

When we turn to Ephesians 4:26, we read the following, 

"Be angry and do not sin, do not let the sun go down on your wrath..." 

First, I'd like to make the obvious point that being angry is not sinful. I say this because if anger were sinful, Paul would not feel the need to clearly separate being angry from sin by telling us to not sin in our anger. So, please do not allow yourself to feel condemned if you struggle with anger toward your toxic parent(s). However, just as it says, "do not let the sun go down on your wrath", do not allow yourself to become consumed with wrath toward them. I understand that this is easy for those of us with toxic parent(s) to do, but we need to resist that temptation by any means necessary. When we allow ourselves to be consumed with wrath, it will only harm ourselves because our parents are most likely not even thinking of us. Why should we allow our toxic parent(s) to rent space in our heads any longer? As I stated earlier, Jesus asked the Father to forgive His enemies while He was on the cross. As people who claim to follow Jesus Christ, we are commanded to do the same thing. We should be willing to forgive the toxicity of our parent(s) even if we choose to never talk to them again. That is what God would want from us. 

I hope that this blog helps you better understand how you can honor your parents, even when they are too toxic for you. We are commanded to always forgive, but forgiveness does not always mean reconciliation. If you cannot reconcile with your parent(s) for any reason, then just remember these points, so that you can understand how you can still follow the command to honor your father and mother. Thank you very much for reading this blog, and may the grace of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ richly bless you all! 

-David Lee Chu Sarchet 
Christian Mental Health Advocate 

Check out the Christ-Centered Mental Health Ministry Website

Smoking & Schizophrenia

 

Smoking cigarettes is a common addiction for those of us who suffer from Schizophrenia. As a matter of fact, studies have shown that about 70-80% of people with Schizophrenia smoke cigarettes, according to the National Library of Medicine. This means that over half of the people suffering from Schizophrenia have a nicotine addiction. I know that in my own personal life, I have struggled with smoking myself.. Actually, I have been going on and off from cigarettes since I was 19 years old. And now I am 37. So, believe me when I tell you that I completely understand what it is like to deal with a nicotine addiction. Actually, I have heard that quitting smoking is a lot more difficult than quitting heroin, and I believe that to be a fact, even though I have never done heroin. I know that for those of us who deal with nicotine addiction, it is very difficult to not feel deep shame concerning the addiction. After all, doesn't the Bible tell us not to be mastered by anything? I believe that it does; however, the same Bible also tells us that we are no longer condemned. If we turn to Romans 8:1, we read the following, 

"There is therefore NOW no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus..." 

Let that sink in for a minute. Paul is telling us, in the present tense, that we are no longer condemned. Why can he say this? It is solely because of what Jesus has done on our behalf. If we turn to 2 Corinthians 5:21, we read the following, 

"For our sake, he made him to be sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God" 

Theologians have referred to this as "The Great Exchange." What this means is that when Jesus went to the cross on our behalf, God literally made Jesus sin, and then He made us righteous in Christ. He did this for us based solely on His grace. He did not have to do this. As a matter of fact, if God had never sent Jesus to the cross for us, He would still be holy, just, and loving. So do not think that God saved you because you were somehow more special than anyone else. God freely chose to lavish on us His grace and mercy and love, and it had nothing to do with anything we did. I know this is hard for us to grasp because grace is not something we can easily grasp. We are hard-wired for law: we do some work and we get payment of some sort. That makes sense to us. But God flips that upside down on us by saying we did not do anything, yet He is giving us everything. So, if you are struggling with a nicotine addiction, please keep this in mind. 

Another thing I'd like to address is the fact that some people think that smoking cigarettes is sinful. I personally do not think smoking is sinful because there is nothing in Scripture that either explicitly or implicitly condemns smoking. If there is an act that is not explicitly or implicitly condemned in Scripture, then you are free to engage in that act because it is not sinful. However, if we turn to 1 Corinthians 6:12, we read the following, 

"All things are lawful for me, but not all things are beneficial for me. All things are lawful for me, but I will not be dominated by anything" 

As you can see from this text, all things are "lawful" for me, but not all things are "beneficial" for me. What I believe this means is that while we are free in Christ to smoke cigarettes without fear of condemnation, smoking cigarettes will not be beneficial. We may be free to smoke cigarettes if we want to, but we will suffer the consequences of smoking cigarettes. We are not condemned for lighting up a cigarette, but we should not allow it to master us. What are some of these consequences? 

Smoking Breaks Down Your Medication

It is a known fact that when you smoke a cigarette, the nicotine will break down your medication in your system. This means that the medication will not work to its fullest potential. This is why a good psychiatrist will encourage you to quit smoking because they want you to be at your best. 

Smoking Cigarettes Will Cause You To Urinate Out Your Medication

This is another known fact in the mental health world. When you smoke cigarettes, it will make you have to urinate much more than usual, and when this happens, your medication will be coming out of your body. This means that your medication will no longer be in your system, and then you will be more susceptible to psychosis. As a result, you may have to be hospitalized if your psychosis is severe enough.

I hope that this blog helps you to better understand what it means for someone with schizophrenia who suffers from nicotine addiction. If you are in this boat, please do not feel condemned, but realize that there is hope at the end of the tunnel. There are resources out there to help you quit smoking, such as the 1-800-QUIT-NOW line. That is a free program where they will set you up with a coach who will talk to you once a week to give encouragement and support on your quit journey. The program will also give you free nicotine patches, gum, or lozenges. Do not give up on quitting smoking because if you succeed at this, then you will greatly benefit. 

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog, and may the grace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ richly bless you all! 

-David Lee Chu Sarchet 
Christian Mental Health Advocate 

Check out the Christ-Centered Mental Health Ministry Website