I'm from South Africa and was raised in a Christian family. I gave my life to the Lord when I was 12 years old. The environment I grew up in, my family situation, and the emotional instability in my house, led to me going out of balance from low to high. I would sit on the roof of the house during arguments and pray. When I was 17 or 18, I started struggling emotionally. I tied the emotional struggles to circumstances, but I did not realize they were not the problem. It did not come from circumstances but from how I perceived them. I was a missionary in Swaziland in 2005-2006. By that time, I was 19. At the end of that, I had a complete mental breakdown. I got a bottle of painkillers and drank it all down with a soda. The people around me realized something was wrong, and they took me to the hospital. After that, they sent me to counselors and nothing seemed to work, so I had to go home. That was disappointing to me because I had given all to God and wanted to help people.
For the next seven years, I worked at a company, and in September 2008, I was diagnosed with bipolar after having another breakdown. I saw various psychologists and tried medications, but nothing seemed to work. Most of the time, I was depressed, but the times I went manic, I would spend all my money and be delusional and irrational. Back then, I thought I had to be perfect and polished when I appeared before the throne room of God, so I looked for things to make me okay. I tried everything. Later I even got involved in using drugs. (I have been clean now for seven years.) I thought God was disappointed with me and distant and angry, so I felt He would reject me if I tried to tell Him what I was going through. I felt like a disappointment every time I would wake up in a coma. My father was emotionally absent, so it was hard to relate to a heavenly Father. My mom prayed for me; she is a strong woman.
At one point, the doctor told me two-thirds of my liver was not functioning. My sister, pregnant at that time, pushed me and said, "What are you doing with your life?" At that time, my family did not want me around because I was not healthy. They loved me, but they needed to take care of themselves as well. I almost lost my job. They wanted to put me on medical retirement when I was 27 because I was in and out of the hospital so much. But my work was at such a high level they could not justify filing for medical retirement.
I even went to them when I was on drugs, and said, "I have a problem. I am on heroin." Then my job sent me to rehab for five weeks. Two years later, I even got promoted. God has been gracious. I should not have had a job. I never knew God could heal mental illness until 2015 when He healed me. I had been crying. I said, "It's too hard to follow you. I can't measure up to the standards that you have for me." I was at a very low point. After so many years of medications and hospitals, I was done. All the times I was in the hospital were 13 times. My previous overdoses were not meant so much to kill myself but to rest, to escape the sorrow, pain, and confusion of mental illness. I like to solve problems, and it was frustrating not to have a cause for it. All the therapy I'd had was only a Band-Aid. I was at the point where I was done. In September 2015, I went to a national prophetic women's camp in South Africa at the invitation of a friend. I did not want to go to the camp, but my friend said I could co-lead worship with the pastor and with her. I liked that idea, so I went. Before the women came, I sought out a quiet spot. I went to sit on a wooden bench. I said to the Lord, "I am here to lead worship, but I'm feeling like this. I don't want to do it anymore." I was crying out to Him. All of a sudden, I said, "That's it! I'm going to hang myself. I think I am a mistake, so I might as well get out of the way. I will do this camp and do my best. I will do this thing well before I hang myself."
The women arrived. On the third and final night of the camp, the pastor said, "I feel like the Lord wants to minister to you tonight, so just go in the crowd with the women, and I'll handle the worship."
I said "Okay." There was a time at the end of worship for ministry.
The pastor's wife said, "If you want prayer for anything, come up." And they were billowing a blue banner. The pastor's wife was standing under it. People went up to her, and as she prayed, people would fall under the Holy Spirit.
I heard the Holy Spirit say to me, "I want you to go up. Let her pray for you." I was helping others to go get prayer and then was about to go to my seat.
Then the pastor called me by my nickname, "Mixy! Please don't go. Come. Let her pray for you." That was my Kairos moment. I looked at his wife, Ren'e, and started crying. It was like the Red Sea of people made way for me to get to the front. As I started walking, I felt, This is it. God is going to do something. She looked at me as if she knew what I had told the Lord before the meetings. We both cried and spoke in tongues. She lifted my hands. It felt like a volcano at that moment, like everything inside wanted to explode. I told God I did not know what was happening. He told me to open my mouth, and I let out a scream and then my knees got weak. I dropped down and wept for two hours before God. After those two hours, I looked around and I felt everything. It was as if I now had color lenses. With bipolar, you don't have normal regulation of emotions so they are switched off, especially with the medicine. That was the exact thing that I was always crying out to God for, to have life inside of me. When I felt it, it was the most incredible feeling. I was free at last.
The Holy Spirit answered me and said, "I have healed you." I don't even have kidney, liver, or stomach problems. That was so incredible.
I went home and said to God, "People have to know this. I don't want people to commit suicide." I learned that what cancer is to the body, bipolar is to the soul. I asked God last year, "How many times did I actually die?"
He said, "It's not important, but I saved you." I had one experience in a hospital when I heard the long wailing of the heart machine and saw myself on the bed. At first, I thought I saw an angel in the room, also, but it was Jesus. I could not turn my head because of His glory. I felt so much love. When I looked at myself, I felt what He felt: I saw a precious, beautiful woman with no life. I heard Him say in my spirit, "Do you want this?"
I said, "No, I actually want to live. I just do not want to be dead while I'm alive." Last year I saw a vision of what Jesus would do every time I would pass out when I tried to kill myself.
He would pick up my limp body and run to the Father and scream and say, "No!" He would cry. He is so passionate. It's not His will. Now I know it's not His will for other people to go through this. I just want to see people healed of mental illness and freed from suicidal thoughts!