How not to lose your mind

Well, it's December 11, 2025, and I am going to try to write about how not to lose your mind. I have seen people lose their mind, and you probably have too. And we all know that this is something that happens frequently in the lives of people all over the world. We use the expression (to lose one's mind) in hyperbolic fashion in most cases, we sing songs about it in a light sort of way, but I believe it is real and something people don't generally like to talk about. I have three stories about this topic. I have felt what I believe was the encroachment of a nervous breakdown of my own many years ago. More about this later, but I can only speak from personal experience. First of all, my dear, departed sister died, apparently by suicide, six years ago. She was only 53. She had had two nervous breakdowns and had been hospitalized for both of them. Regarding the second one, I had not heard about the hospitalization, I had just been sensing something was going on. I was actually thinking maybe she was going to have another one because I hadn't heard from her in such a long time, because I felt like she didn't want to talk to anyone. I had not called recently because there seemed to be some sort of resistance to my calling, like she would not feel like talking and my brother-in-law would take the call. I just felt like she needed some space. In fact, after she died, my brother-in-law told me they had decided to not tell anyone she was struggling and just to get through it together and everything would be all right. Then I get the call that she had "passed away." My reaction was total shock and disbelief. There was some speculation as to whether it was intentional or not, but my sister was a pharmacist, and a pharmacist had to know what she was doing when she swallowed a complete bottle of pills and got into the bathtub. Either that or...she had lost her mind. The second person in my life I believe lost their mind was my childhood boyfriend for three years with whom I had connected after one of the high school reunions. We had talked on the phone, and at first he seemed like he was of sound mind, except for some things he had said about his late wife, something about what "she had put him through." Then he wanted me to call the local newspaper and tell them about a Strativarius he had in his closet down in Florida, and then finally every text I got from him made absolutely no sense at all. Apparently, he had lost his mind, and we subsequently lost contact with each other. Finally, in my own experience, I was in a particularly challenging relationship about 35 years ago, regarding someone I was about to marry, and some crazy things began to happen, and I remember sitting at the piano and feeling like I was suspended over a dark pool with no light and no way to escape the feeling of fear, no way to retrieve a sense of sanity, and saying to myself, "I must be losing my mind; this is what it must feel like when you're about to have a nervous breakdown." I believe I was spared, and circumstances began to return to a certain stability, but I believe that was the closest I got, personally, to breaking down emotionally. My mother attempted suicide when I was about five and I remember visiting her at the hospital and staying with my maternal grandparents while my brother stayed with the paternal grandparents. We walked back and forth between the houses, and the whole thing lasted about two months. My neighbor told me that she had attempted suicide and told me about it in somewhat gruesome detail. The sum of all this is emotional instability and mental impbalance seems to surround us. Now we have the story about the Michael Jackson impersonator threatening to kill people on a New York City subway train, and we have the ivy league graduate assassinating the United Healthcare CEO after being out of touch with his friends and family for a period of time. And, finally, we have masses of people rejoicing over the murder of the healthcare CEO and people furious that a jury acquitted the guy who restrained the mentally ill would-be killer on the train until he died. The jury apparently did not believe the prosecution had proved that the death resulted from intent on the part of the man who restrained him. And still people are being stirred up to seek revenge on entire swaths of their fellow humans... So we see all this insanity around us, in our society, in our families, among our friends and associates, and we wonder if all these people have simply lost their minds. And what does it even mean to lose our mind? To lose control of our ability to think logically, to become overwhelmed to the point of being unable to handle normal stress in life? Maybe, like so many other experiences in life, there are different ways of perceiving what it means to lose one's mind. l think it takes losing your mind to commit suicide. That's just my personal opinion, but suicidal ideation is one thing, actually killing yourself is something else. I personally do not believe you can be in your right mind and kill yourself. I don't believe you can be in your right mind and kill another person. I think that is why so many people in the military, especially if they have killed other human beings, return with PTSD, suicidal ideation, depression and all the rest of the the maladies that accompany that. The fact that I believe you have to have lost your mind to commit murder does not mean that I don't think anyone should be punished for doing so. I don't believe everyone who claims "temporary insanity" should get off scot free. There are legal issues involved in all that, and I am not equipped to discuss those. I just think perhaps that losing one's mind is a very common occurrence in our world today, and I believe this one point that I am going to make here. I believe, as a Christian, that we were created in the image of God, and that, therefore, God has the right to own us completely and be the Lord of our life. I believe that if we accept the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on the cross and receive forgiveness of sin from God and repent of that sin and rebellion against God that we can give our whole life to him without fear of being destroyed or have no freedom or anything else we are afraid of. When we give our life to God, and release our claims on all its various components (ambition, dreams, desires, wants, preferences, etc.) that in exchange we get peace and fulfillment living in the will of the one who created us. That just makes sense to me. So the commandment to love God "with all our mind, all our soul and all our strength", that clearly includes our mind. Therefore, it stands to reason, that if our mind does not belong to God, it is much more likely to be lost than otherwise. So, yes, you will not be surprised to hear me conclude that how to not lose your mind is to give it to God. Does that mean that anyone who has done that can never lose their mind? Not necessarily. This childhood boyfriend of mine was someone who had given his life to Christ and yet he seems to have lost his mind. I don't know how it happened. Lots of things happen to us all the time, and I have no idea what happened to him. I also know that he committed white collar crime and served some time for that. Still, he was a saved man. I don't say I understand it all. I don't. But I do believe that the answer to how not to lose your mind is to give it to God, and that that would be a very good place to start. Because, seriously, if it doesn't belong to God, who does it belong to? You? And if you're losing it, who is taking it, where is it going, who is in control, if you're not? I can't answer that. I have a theory about that, but it is a bit beyond the scope of this web log entry. Just let me conclude that it is my view that we are all very susceptible to the possibility of losing our mind if we don't work very diligenty to not lose it. Everyone is free to choose how they wish to approach this topic in their own or someone else's life. I just know that I have lost one too many loved ones to mental illness and suicide, and I wanted to share this with anyone who chooses to read it with the sincere hope and prayer that you will find the answer to what gives you real peace, and it is my conviction that the Prince of Peace Himself, Jesus Christ, is that answer. Just something to think about. I love you and Jesus loves you.