When Feelings Aren’t the Final Word

Dr. Michael Brashears

If, if you wake up on a Tuesday morning and your mind is telling you, you know, telling you that you are fundamentally worthless, and we tell you that your feelings are, are ultimate reality, then as a counselor or as a friend, I am forced to validate your despair. I have to nod and say, yeah, that is your truth today, instead of anchoring you to actual reality.

Steve Miskelley

Right, you, you basically trap someone in, in the weather report instead of looking at the actual ground under their feet.

Jill Miskelley

It is, it is terrifying, Steve. We see this with so many young people and families. When, when my truth becomes the only ruler you have, feelings stop being an internal dashboard indicator, you know, telling you what the emotional weather is, and they become the whole sky. But feelings shift every twenty minutes.

Dr. Michael Brashears

They do, er, they absolutely do. And if feelings are the whole sky, then objective human dignity, what, what historically we call the imago Dei, the image of God, just gets completely swallowed up. Dignity is an unshakeable objective blueprint. It exists whether you feel great on a Friday or completely hopeless on a Tuesday.

Steve Miskelley

And, and without that external anchor of objective goodness, what happens to concepts like, like justice or trauma or abuse? They lose their binding authority, right? They just, er, they devolve into personal preferences, like saying I prefer vanilla and you prefer chocolate.

Jill Miskelley

Yes! That is where the collapse happens. If there is no objective reality outside ourselves, then when someone suffers abuse, it is just one person's story against another's, rather than an outrage against a real, objective human worth. And, and honestly, the sheer exhaustion of it all, Steve and I talk about this constantly in our work with families, this identity creation fatigue.

Steve Miskelley

Oh, the fatigue is massive, Jill. Kids and adults are running on this endless hamster wheel of having to invent their own worth every single morning. If you have to create your own value from scratch based on how you perform or feel today, you are going to burn out. There is such profound relief in realizing you do not have to construct your dignity. It is already given. It is unalienable.

Dr. Michael Brashears

It is received, not manufactured. And when we lose that, we lose the boundary that keeps us grounded when mental storm clouds roll in.

Dr. Michael Brashears

Which brings us right to where spiritual support ends and medical crisis begins. Pastoral care, spiritual direction, community support, these are wonderful for ordinary existential questions, moral distress, relational friction. But there is a firm red line when we cross into serious mental illness.

Jill Miskelley

Mm, absolutely. Trying to treat a acute psychotic episode or severe mania or a major clinical depression with, with just prayer or more spiritual discipline, it, it is like trying to heal a compound bone fracture by preaching a really great sermon to the leg.

Steve Miskelley

The leg is still broken!

Jill Miskelley

The leg is still broken, exact, exactly! And when our son Ian was struggling, we saw how dangerous it was when people blurred those lines. Treating a biological brain impairment as a spiritual deficit is not just unhelpful, it causes massive spiritual shaming and harm.

Dr. Michael Brashears

It breaks my heart because honoring human dignity means recognizing that our bodies and our brains get sick. Prompt referral to psychiatric professionals is not a failure of faith. It is actually honoring the imago Dei by getting proper medical care for a physical organ. These are circumstances in which a higher level of care or more acute intervention may be needed.

Steve Miskelley

So, so Michael, what are the concrete crisis indicators? Like, what are the specific red flags where a pastor or a friend needs to stop and say, okay, this requires emergency clinical help right now?

Dr. Michael Brashears

We have to look for three big ones. First, active thoughts or plans of self harm or suicide. Second, severe impairment in reality testing, like hearing voices, paranoia, or delusions where someone cannot tell what is real. And third, a total loss of basic self care, like when a person stops eating, sleeping, or maintaining basic hygiene for days. When those appear, these are circumstances in which a higher level of care or more acute intervention may be needed immediately.

Jill Miskelley

Knowing that distinction saves lives. It lets us love people as whole human beings, holding onto their objective worth while getting them the exact medical medical intervention they need to survive.

Steve Miskelley

That anchor is everything.