Leslie Dickerson
Here
is the account of Leslie Dickerson being healed from
borderline personality disorder as reported by the Christian psychiatrist
Jeffrey Boyd (source):
"Leslie Dickerson had a devastating childhood. She felt unloved and unlovable
as far back as she could remember. Emptiness, inner deadness, lack of
self-worth, and painful rejection - these were the feelings she experienced in
her soul, at the deepest level. She suffered rejection by her parents as well,
and their rejection was the picture of them that she carried within her soul. As
she grew up, she began to attempt suicide and to abuse alcohol and drugs. She
was torn by rage, depression, and anxiety.
"Eventually Leslie fell into the mental health treatment system, and she failed
to improve with every known treatment: long-term intensive psychotherapy, family
therapy, every known medication, and electric shock treatment. She suffered from
the most untreatable of psychiatric conditions, borderline personality disorder.
For a decade she was in and out of psychiatric hospitals. One time she spent
three years continuously in a state mental hospital, misdiagnosed as
schizophrenic. Her therapists all gave up on her as untreatable.
"One day she gave birth to a daughter, and suddenly knew that she had a choice of
either changing her life or losing the baby - if she didn’t reorder her life,
the state social workers would intervene. The dilemma motivated her to search
more desperately than ever for a solution to her problems. Finally, she turned
to Jesus Christ for the first time in her life, and prayed for forgiveness. For
the first time ever, she felt accepted, she felt lovable, and peace such as she
had never before experienced flooded her heart.
"From that day forward, Leslie never again attempted suicide. As she took root in
this new soil, a profound psychological reorganization occurred. It was based on
the experience of feeling forgiven and accepted at her core. As bad as she
thought she was, it had all been overcome at Calvary. Her badness, she said, had
been washed away by the Blood of the Lamb.
"Leslie has now been happy and free of psychiatrists for ten years. She works as
a transcriptionist and is devoted to her two children and to her church. Her
favorite name for God is “The Great Psychiatrist.” She has positive memories of
the psychiatrists that used to try to help her, but she claims they did not have
the medicine she needed. Before her conversion she had been haunted by an
occasional auditory hallucination, and a paranoid dread of closed doors. Since
her conversion she has been free of these psychotic symptoms, without any
medication.
"Leslie speaks of inviting Jesus into her heart. For more than an hour every
morning, before her children wake up, she sits alone in a room and talks with
Jesus, whom she calls her best friend. The conversation, she says, goes both
ways. She prays about something, and a specific Bible verse then occurs to her.
Reading this verse, she interprets it to be Jesus’ reply to her prayer. I asked
Leslie how she can tell that a certain idea is what Jesus wants her to do,
rather than her own thought. She said there are three criteria:
1. The idea is consistent with what the Bible says.
2. The idea fits her life circumstances.
3. Peace and tranquility come into her life after the decision is made...
"Leslie speaks of taking Jesus into her heart, so that He dwells inside her.
Jesus brought Leslie such a feeling of being accepted that she finally
relaxed... Jesus, she claims, also healed her self-esteem. “I used to be a
mouse,” she says. “Now I roar like a lion.” In all my years as a psychiatrist, I
have met only one person who ever truly recovered from borderline personality
disorder. Her name is Leslie Dickerson."