Toxic Conscience, Toxic Soul: And the Cure to All Toxicity

By Susanna Duphidat

This is the true story of a woman disdained and rejected by people she trusted and loved. Their positions of leadership in her local church only enhanced her suffering. Through her trials, however, the sovereign will of her loving Lord kept her strong.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Word Alive Press
• Release date: Sep 14, 2017
• ISBN: 9781486613618

Book preview

Loose!

Introduction

Mental illness remains one of the most misunderstood ailments in

society today. Sufferers must deal not only with their symptoms, which often manifest physically, but with the stigma and judgement that accompany this battle. It’s said that mental illness is one of the few illnesses that can change a person’s personality, adding to the hostility they may face from friends and family.

The perceptions and experiences that often go along with mental illness are very real to those afflicted with certain disorders. Although medication can help, it can also carry with it side-effects that make it unbearable. The patient often must choose between the lesser of two evils.

The story you are about to read is true. The author has experienced first-hand the pain of mental illness, the reality of spiritual warfare, the rejection of those who don’t understand, and the hope that comes from a God more powerful than any illness or attack we can face in this life. May the message of this book create empathy towards those who suffer from this disease, and encourage hope for the future redemption of all creation.

Preface

This is the true story of a motherless, young, Christian girl’s rough journey. The names and locations have been changed. This story is not unique; it’s likely happened all too often in our churches to innocent victims. When those victims tell the truth through their pain, they are ignored, rejected, hated, and ostracized—sometimes even by those in authority who know better and should take some action to help.

I wasn’t aware that I was in a fight … neither was I aware of the level of attack that was upon me, even though a voice firmly and clearly spoke to me one morning and said: He who fights and runs away will live to fight another day.

Although what we see on television and around us may appear real, one still has to ask and seek God for His divine gifts of insight, foresight, and wisdom, as well as His sharp, deep, spiritual radar detector. Seeing is certainly not always believing, as we’ve always thought. When my friend, Beniah, told me he’d been healed through the self-proclaimed prophet, I was doubtful at first, but later believed. Then I learned that one’s personal experience is not always good enough for the other, so I believe that our spiritual radar detector is necessary and important to have.

When my situation changed for the worse, and before I started crying out deeply to God, I felt He was talking to me through dreams and visions, but I couldn’t understand them, nor could I interpret them. I sought help from my pastor and his wife, but I feel as though they turned against me. Once from the pulpit he announced that I shouldn’t tell my dreams in church, but only to him. He would then give me the okay to share my dreams publicly. I didn’t know that Christians could hate one another for their dreams. I thought we learned from Joseph, the son of Jacob and Rachel, that dreams could come from God. I was experiencing something that I didn’t know existed for people other than the patriarchs and other biblical people, but I soon realized that God doesn’t show partiality. As the psalmist said, He is a very present help in trouble (Psalm 46:1).

The feeling of walking through the valley of the shadow of death that I’d experienced in the Holy Land in 2014 became a daily emotion, and I asked myself, Can someone actually live through this kind of pain? It was a pain within the pain, where no deeper pain can be felt. An inch beyond this pain lies death. When my mind, stomach, and desire for food were impacted, I knew that the next step was death. The only thing that stood between me and death was God’s mercy, which I had been depending on to sustain me.

None of the specialists my doctor sent me to found any cause of my complaints, and all my efforts to overcome these attacks resulted in failure. Then I remembered Psalms 55:12–14:

For it was not an enemy that reproached me; then I could have borne it: neither was it he that hated me that did magnify himself against me; then I would have hid myself from him: But it was thou, a man mine equal, my guide, and mine acquaintance. We took sweet counsel together, and walked unto the house of God in company.

After reading this, I painfully encouraged myself as a lonely soldier in the Lord my God.

One night as I was crying out to God, I heard Him reply: Remember Job. Remember Joseph. Those words brought me hope. The attitudes of the people to whom I’d looked for help alarmed me, because they only kicked me down. After I cried for help and expressed in my testimony my turmoil and the terrible attacks I’d been experiencing, I realized that the ministers of God took me for a wicked person. I poured my heart out to God at the altar, and one person anointed me scornfully on my forehead with one finger.

When the sovereign God showed me what I was up against, I couldn’t stop praising Him. I said, God, I thank You for You. I know that there is no power on earth or in hell or on any other planet that can ever equal God, for You are God all by Yourself. Many events in my life, including the attacks I’ve been through and am still going through, taught me the awesome power of our sovereign God. How certain are His words!

Chapter 1

Emmanuel

The old church bell rang from the little tower built over it on the hill just above the village square. Mr. Mack, the caretaker of the church building and yard, never failed to remind the village, as far as the sound travelled, that it was Sunday morning. The old man’s bed must be uncomfortable to him, lest he would sleep in longer and forget the old bell every Sunday morning, instead of disrupting my peaceful, laid back Sunday morning sleep, I thought. Give me a break, Mr. Mack. I jump out of bed every morning for school. Can I not have an easy morning today? Then I imagined Mr. Mack wearing his old felt cap and leaning his head to one side as his right hand went up and pulled down the rope. I never attended this church, but this was the church my nephew, Lloyd, regularly attended.

My church didn’t possess such a bell to ring, except for a small hand-held bell that our Sunday school teacher regularly rang to get our attention during Sunday school class. The sound of the Sunday morning bell was less of a threat to me, because upon hearing it I knew I had another hour or so in bed; however, things were different on weekday mornings. I didn’t have the sound of the bell on the hill to wake me up for school. After our old wind-up clock blasted off, I put a stop to it almost immediately and curled up in bed. I knew that I was entering a danger zone with my father, because any extra time in bed might land me in trouble.

From my bed, I heard the sound chee-chee-chee as my sister, Jas, called the chickens for their morning feed. My father—Pupaw, as we called him—was splitting firewood in the yard. I opened my eyes to see a sunray coming through the side door, which was already opened. I stretched, yawned, and sat up on the edge of the bed, blinking the sleep from my eyes while my body fought the desire to roll back into the bed.

After gathering my thoughts, I collected my washcloth, soap, and towel. I placed some Close-Up on my toothbrush and lazily walked outside into the crisp morning air, already scented with the mingled smell of kerosene oil and smoke from our wood burning fire pit in the kitchen, built separately from the house. I walked down the little track below our house that led through the valley to the gully for a bath. The fragrance of the plants along the banks filled the misty air. A strong, cold wind wavered in the air as it whistled among the breadfruit and cedar trees. I caught my balance once by performing swirls with my hands as my foot slipped, hitting a steep section on the narrow path that had been dampened by the leaves emptying themselves of droplets of water, and from some wet green grass still holding on to the night dew. Other times I found myself sliding sideways down the path, which certainly woke me up. The valley was motionless and silent, except for the petchary singing in the treetops. The night owls had long ceased their hooting.

I was standing beside our usual bathing spot and listening to the gurgling of water through the rocks, wondering how to brave the cold water and wishing the sun would rise faster, when I heard someone throw a stone into the water, sending ripples to the surface and smearing my reflection. I jumped, and my heart raced. I turned slowly with a look of seriousness on my face, only to see Judith standing on the hill behind me, wearing a teasing grin. She walked by me and tested the water with her right toes.

W-h-o-o-o-oh, she announced, meaning that it was cold. We undressed, placed our clothes on a large rock by the edge of the gully, and entered the water timidly. Judith wasted no time as I stood there reluctantly, trembling with chattering teeth. When she finished, she took my washcloth, dipped it and lathered it with soap, and then slapped it between my shoulders on my back. I gasped and grabbed the thing from my back, trembling my way through the bath while taking shallow, short breaths. We got out refreshed and clean. My cold, pink fingertips shrank and had dimples on them.

When we reached home after our bath, we saw that Mama had finished making breakfast. The smell of Pupaw’s freshly drawn coffee dominated the air. Drawing closer to the kitchen, I smelled our hot, homemade chocolate tea. Our kitchen was a simple structure made of plain wood and bamboo. It was built separate from the house, about fifteen feet away. Its zinc roof was blackened from our wood burning fire and smoke. My father was seated outside the front door of the house on a cement plank, halfway through his mug of coffee. His fried dumpling and codfish fritters with hard-dough bread, sliced and cut in the shape of triangles, was beautifully displayed on his plate. Sunday morning breakfast was exceptionally delicious. The morning menu on Saturdays and Sundays consisted of callaloo with codfish and bread, or ackee with codfish and roasted breadfruit. During the week, we satisfied ourselves with cornmeal porridge, fried dumplings, or chocolate tea with coconut milk in it.

During breadfruit season, we’d all enjoy a large plate of roasted breadfruit with ackee and salted codfish for lunch or even supper, served with mouth-watering avocado pears, abundantly grown on our properties. At times we had so many avocados at home, we couldn’t eat them all.

As the morning brightened and the sun rose above the tops of the cedar, coconut, and breadfruit trees—which were the tallest trees on our property—a gentle, warm breeze blew, and the temperature began to change. The petchary continued their singing among the branches and leaves, and then they started flying from tree to tree.

I entered my room to find my church clothes laid out on the bed along with my only journeyed-out pair of church shoes, which had been polished and placed beside the bed on the floor by Mama.

Sunday school starts in half an hour, Mama announced from her room. Judith ran to her grandmother (Mama is Judith’s grandmother) and got her hair combed. Mama combed mine next and placed a large clip at the front of my hair. Meanwhile, my sister, Jasmine, stood over two large basins of water that sat on the old wooden table. One contained soapy water, and the other held clean water for rinsing the dishes. We had no