I met Linda Darin, an energy medicine practitioner, a year after my attempted suicide. I had been weaned off medication and sought a more natural approach to deal with my anxiety and depression. I was drawn to Linda because her methods and passion for her work were unlike any other therapist I had worked with.
Through her psychotherapy and nursing background, Linda is knowledgeable in many mental health diagnoses, and the truth about my mental health came out through her expertise. Before my suicide, I didn’t have God in my life. I had stopped attending church and dabbled in New Age practices: psychics, angel cards, numbers, and astrology. Soon after my initial consultation, Linda invited me to participate in a bible study she taught, and I began to learn about God in a new way. Although I was Catholic from birth, I did not have a relationship with God or know Bible teachings; I knew rituals.
I habitually hid the truth and pretended; lying and deception were my way of life.
One night, while I was at our bible study, I discovered a picture of Linda on my phone that I had taken from a holistic magazine several years earlier. I realize now that this was a spiritual marker, and I was led by God to Linda at the right time to help me with my spiritual journey and to choose to do soul work to help me heal on many levels.
As I shared my story, I uncovered old wounds from traumas and unmet childhood needs. Through the Darin Method ®, I discovered unhealthy childhood patterns, beliefs, and emotions attached to those wounds and how they played out in my life and magnified during the crisis that led to my attempted suicide.
Through Spiritual healing from trauma, I learned about the supernatural and how negative entities attached to my dark emotions affected my thinking and mood. As a child, I had opened the door to demonic entry through a wound of abandonment and unworthiness of not having my father emotionally available and shame about growing up in a family of untreated mental illness.
I was anxious as a child, not knowing how to cope with my family members’ mental instability. As a teen, my family tried hiding my brother’s illness when he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. As I got older, I never sought help for myself and hid my family’s illnesses, causing my anxiety to worsen. I also suffered from other mental health problems, including alcohol addiction, as I tried to cope. Without knowing, I gave access and permitted the demonic to operate by continuing to lie and hide, preventing rejection.
My daughter developed mental health problems and had several diagnoses throughout her childhood. I didn’t seek help for myself and only focused on my daughter’s issues. I became overwhelmed and chaotic, affecting everyone around me. I fell into old childhood patterns of blocking out my emotions or going into a panic or rage when I had no control over a situation and embracing a victim mentality by blaming others or looking for someone to rescue me.
My husband also had mental health issues from his childhood behaviors of disconnecting from reality through denial, intellectualization, displacement, or dissociation, which triggered more anxiety.
I often blamed my husband or daughter when I felt powerless over a situation rather than taking responsibility for my decisions or actions. It was easier to blame than to look at myself and admit I had a problem. We often played out the drama triangle, where each of us took on the role of either persecutor, victim, or rescuer and then switched roles. I often took the role of either rescuer or persecutor and then became the victim. This theme played out in the events that led to my attempted suicide.
I discovered my daughter was in an abusive relationship the night of her high school graduation party. Her friend had confided in me that my daughter’s boyfriend had injured her hand and was isolating her from her friends, although she denied it. While my daughter was upstate visiting family after the graduation party, several family members expressed concern over her boyfriend’s abusive behavior.
Unfortunately, we couldn’t show proof of their exchanges because they used Snapchat, but I started to put the pieces together. She wasn’t admitting a problem, and I couldn’t get an order because she needed to request one at 18 years old, which she wasn’t willing to do. I tried to keep her away from her boyfriend and limit her contact with him by having her return to my mother-in-law’s house with my niece after her visit upstate.
My mother-in-law and husband did not take any of this seriously and allowed my daughter to continue meeting him against my wishes. While at my friend’s house, I went into a tirade, screaming and cursing. We couldn’t believe it, so my friend called two of my other friends and tried to do an intervention with my daughter after her boyfriend dropped her off at home. Still, she refused to go to the police and made excuses for her boyfriend.
My rage and hate infiltrated me with demonic spirits, and my chaotic thoughts held me captive as my mind raced. Since school ended, my daughter was no longer in therapy and had no outside counselor. I had become so frantic over the rapid events that it never occurred to me to contact her school counselor and seek additional help. I felt crazy!
My mood shifted, and my personality changed over the next few days as I had no control to protect my daughter. I was furious at my daughter, her boyfriend, and my husband for acting like there wasn’t a problem. I felt hopeless, powerless, and helpless. My despair began to bring thoughts of self-harm, but I kept it a secret.
After discovering that my daughter’s boyfriend had put a tracker on her phone, I panicked, lost hope, and impulsively acted on my thoughts of suicide, taking a handful of pills and temporarily ending up on life support.
My suicide was kept a secret; only my mother, best friend, and her husband knew. Although my mother and husband never expressed their feelings, I sensed their shame as my husband became detached, and my mother told me how my children would be affected. I was hospitalized for six days, riddled with fear, anger, shame, and guilt, and alone with my thoughts before being transferred to a psychiatric hospital for three weeks. While in the hospital, my daughter attended the behavioral center attached to my hospital.
I felt some relief in the psychiatric ward as I began sharing my story during group and individual sessions. My anxiety lessened as I talked and processed, and I began to learn dialectal behavioral therapy, which is cognitive therapy. It was the first time I looked at how to cope with life at fifty years old.
As patients were discharged and new people were admitted, the dynamics of the groups changed. I became anxious, isolating myself more because I didn’t feel safe. The doctor told me I had depression and ordered an antidepressant that flattened my emotions. I disagreed, but I followed the plan so I could get out!
After my discharge, my daughter went to the psychiatric hospital for two weeks. We received individual counseling and participated briefly in family therapy after our hospitalizations. Our family sessions didn’t last long because my family had difficulty communicating and sharing their feelings authentically. My son was distraught after learning of my suicide at our first family session, bottling up his emotions and acting cold and distant afterward. At the same time, my husband had a flat affect, emotionless.
Following family counseling, everyone pretended nothing had happened, and we no longer discussed it, which made me feel worse. I was too ashamed to talk to my friends about my suicide. My relationships with my family were deeply affected, and I lost my relationship with my son because we hadn’t healed from the trauma or spoken about our feelings as time passed.
Hiding everything kept me in bondage to bitterness and unforgiveness and not taking complete accountability for my part in my suicide, which gave demons the right to access my life. As a result, I became more depressed and anxious and drank wine to numb myself to cope.
My life completely fell apart. I was broken, hateful, and vindictive when I met Linda over six years ago in 2016. It took 1 ½ years before I even spoke about my suicide with her. I began releasing many demons and seeing more clearly through Linda’s virtual soul-healing techniques, intuitive counseling, guided imagery, visualization, chakra work, and energy healing.
Deliverance and spiritual cleansing of negative energy through distance healing sessions were instrumental in releasing many strongholds and bondages to guilt, shame, and unforgiveness from my mind, body, and soul.
As I continued with Linda’s virtual holistic healing services and the Darin Method ®, I could see so many patterns from my childhood before I tried to kill myself: hiding and pretending, panic attacks, disconnecting from myself, doubting myself, lots of shame, anger, and rage, and struggling with life. I could connect the pieces of mental illness before my suicide that never healed. As I take accountability and responsibility and look at my behavioral patterns, I can see how far I have come since then and choose a new direction. I am more than my mental illness, addiction, anxiety, depression, and borderline personality disorder.
Choosing to heal and accept the truth gives me new life!
I can understand more, accept my weaknesses, and be transparent. My mood has stabilized without medication, and I no longer have panic attacks or drink alcohol. I have developed compassion for my son and recognize that my family and I did not receive proper treatment because of family shame.
Through Christian faith healing with Linda Darin, I learned I blamed and resented my family for their silence and expected them to fill me up instead of God. The more I processed my suicide in counseling and sought God’s forgiveness through prayer, confession, and repentance, I began to forgive myself and others. It has taken years of healing and my choice to face my demons. Even in my darkest hour, I can see how God was with me and is working through this tragedy to give me strength, courage, and hope to continue to release and heal. I can accept His forgiveness and not stay stuck in shame and hate. I have tools such as worship, prayer, self-care, changing patterns and beliefs, and looking at my spiritual markers to help me overcome negative thoughts and find peace. It is not about a religion but a relationship I am developing with God.
Having Linda as my holistic spiritual healer and spiritual mentor has been essential to my healing and recovery. She provides me with teaching and discipleship through her Experience God workshop I’ve attended for the past two years. I am forever grateful for God’s healing power through Linda’s Spiritual Gifts.