Filling Your Brain with Garbage

I’ve watched Christians who have filled their minds and their souls with conspiracy theory nonsense and then eventually they lose their touch with reality.

My own mother has just been going through this. As the stresses of her life’s situations got worse, she started with severe depression, but spiraled down into a psychotic break.

Like in the movies, she believed that everyone was trying to kill her. Abby and I watched something that I never want to witness again.

Mom doesn’t remember what happened, but we will never forget, and she was shocked that it was actually her, who we were talking about.

She said, “I don’t want to remember how I behaved, but I want to know how I got to that place!”

I told her that she got there through filling her mind with fear, and conspiracies, AND by not addressing the stresses that her husband was causing her, and causing everyone in our family. She felt guilt that he was hurting my family, but felt trapped.

My children don’t even want to visit our home, and I don’t blame them. There hasn’t been peace here in years. I’ve allowed it to go on, because I love Mom, but those days are over now.

Love and boundaries can both happen together. I actually used to literally teach the class on Boundaries, and yet I let them continually be crossed in this situation.

She and her husband would spend all of their time on YouTube, following one conspiracy after another, thinking it was just entertainment.

Things like watching conspiracies about The Royals. Mom came out crying one day because she had just seen that Kate had died of her cancer and so did their 4th baby. That was the same weekend that Kate was greeting the Trump’s.

I would tell her that this was dangerous for them to do. It was filling them up with garbage, but she wouldn’t listen.

When the psychotic break happened, all of that garbage became her “reality”.

She recovered from that and realized how dangerous it all was, promising to get help, and not feeding those ugly ideas into her mind.

Then she was back home, all of a day, and she and her husband started the spiral again. Each day it got worse, until any progress that had been made, was gone.

They were telling friends that they needed burner phones, and that we were trying to track them, etc. One of their friends recognized that there was something wrong, and she called me. We pieced it all together and realized that it was about to be a crisis again.

I’m very thankful for that friend. We knew Mom’s thinking was getting really bad again, but having independent confirmation was very helpful.

Two days ago we had to call 911 again, to get mom in for her infected leg.

When confronted about her mental state and what being in that room with that man was doing to her, she was mentally “back” again, and vowed to take the actions needed to stop the madness that she was creating in our home.

We have a lot of tough actions to take, and it’s not easy, but we have peace again, knowing that this will end soon.

I’m sharing this as a warning to my friends who let their minds wallow in conspiracy theories, and feed their souls with that garbage. Political podcasts that are far left or right. The nonsense social media posts that your algorithms push to you, which only confirm your bias. You may take these things seriously, or you may think of them as a form of entertainment. Either way, you’re feeding your brain garbage!

When your friends warn you that you’re sounding “crazy”, maybe listen to them before you end up in a mental health crisis too.

Our bodies get sick or healthy, depending on what we feed them. It’s the same for our brains. Feed your brain garbage and your brain will break down!

I recommend feeding your brain the Red Letters in the Bible! That’s the only absolute truth I know. Other scripture has parts of truth, but can also be twisted to fit any agenda, especially conspiracy theory agendas!

Spend your time mastering what Jesus said.