By Billy Hallowell
An Arkansas woman with no history of mental illness said she suddenly found herself in deep emotional turmoil in 2006, with doctors unable to diagnose her rapidly deteriorating condition.
Within months, overtaken by suicidal thoughts, Amy plunged from a second-story window, was paralyzed and nearly died.
Now, she’s speaking out, explaining that she believes she experienced a dramatic demonic possession — and healing. Her experience is told in detail in the new book, “Playing with Fire: A Modern Investigation into Demons, Exorcism, and Ghosts.”
“I’ve never had any kind of mental problems, never been on medication for anything like that,” Amy said in a recent interview, noting that, within days of her affliction, she went from a successful nurse to a person who couldn’t think clearly.
Listen to Amy share her story on “The Edifi Podcast With Billy Hallowell” (download the Edifi app here for powerful Christian podcasts) at the 42-minute mark:
Amy’s personal drama unfolded one day while she was working at a hospital and dealing with a burn patient who had survived an explosion.
“While I was in the ER giving [a] report, something wasn’t right with me,” she recalled. “I went upstairs to do my chart and it’s like my mind went out the window.”
Amy wondered what was unfolding; the mental duress continued to afflict her when she later went for a run and was unable to jog in a straight line.
GRAB A COPY: READ ‘PLAYING WITH FIRE’ TO LEARN MORE ABOUT THESE ISSUES
“I told my husband, ‘I think I’m having a nervous breakdown. My mind is not right,’” she said.
As “Playing With Fire” explains, doctors put Amy on anti-depressants, but she said the drugs did nothing to curb her problems — and the situation further devolved.
“They ended up putting me in a psychiatric hospital,” she said, “And the psychiatrist said, ‘We don’t know what we’re dealing with. We’ve never seen anything like this.’”
As time went on, Amy was in and out of hospitals, with suicidal thoughts suddenly overtaking her mind and heart.
“Nobody knew what was going on. And this happened in April and through the summer,” she said. “I was so messed up. I wanted to kill myself and I just could not think how to do it.”