The Pharmakon Trap

The Descent

Daniel had never been the type to question authority. When his life began unraveling, he did what society told him to do—he sought help. The weight of despair crushed his soul, and the doctors, the supposed caretakers of the broken, welcomed him with sympathetic nods and sterile smiles.

"You have clinical depression," they said. "A chemical imbalance. Nothing to worry about. Take this."

A small orange bottle slid across the desk. Selective Serotonin Reuptake Inhibitors. The magic pills that promised relief. He swallowed his first dose that night, expecting hope. Instead, the days turned into a numbing fog, the colors of life bleeding into a grayscale monotony. The darkness didn’t leave. It only shifted its shape.

When the side effects appeared—insomnia, trembling hands, nausea—the doctors furrowed their brows and scribbled on their pads.

"It means your body is adjusting. We’ll increase the dosage."

So they did. And when that didn’t work, they tried something heavier. Mood stabilizers. Antipsychotics. Sedatives. One by one, the bottles lined his shelves like shackles in pharmaceutical form.

The Forbidden Alternative

At first, he trusted them. The doctors in their crisp coats, the nurses who walked briskly down the halls, the therapists who asked about his childhood in rehearsed monotony. He believed them when they told him he was sick, broken, and in need of their chemicals. But they never spoke of Christ.

"We follow medical protocol," they reminded him. "Religious discussions have no place in professional treatment."

Daniel didn’t know any better. He thought healing meant submission to their prescriptions. What he didn’t realize was that he wasn’t being healed. He was being enslaved.

The Breaking Point

The side effects became unbearable. The pills twisted his thoughts into something unrecognizable, a relentless storm of paranoia and rage. The world felt like a blur, his emotions disconnected from reality. Then one day, he acted on an impulse he could not understand.

The crime was on the evening news. A nameless perpetrator, drugged into delirium, caught on surveillance cameras. His mind barely processed the horror of it. Was that truly him? Or was it the monster they created?

The answer didn’t matter. The system had its solution. Involuntary commitment. Stronger drugs. No escape.

The Awakening

Strapped to a hospital bed, the poison coursing through his veins, Daniel saw it for what it was. This was not health care. This was a ritual of submission.

And in that moment of despair, a whisper—not from the doctors, not from the system, but from within his soul.

"Come unto me, all ye that labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest." (Matthew 11:28)

The words burned through him, a clarity he hadn’t known in years. The answer was never in the pills. The answer was in Christ.

When they finally released him, he sought a Bible. A King James Bible. He devoured the words like a starving man, and for the first time in years, he felt whole. No more chemicals. No more chains. Only Christ.

The Betrayal

The churches should have been a refuge. They were not.

When he shared his testimony, their eyes clouded with concern. "Brother, are you sure it's wise to stop taking your medication?"

The doubt seeped into their voices, the unspoken allegiance to the system evident. They claimed to serve Christ, but their faith bowed to another god—the god of modern medicine, the god of the world.

They would not stand with him. Judas goats, all of them.

Daniel withdrew, taking his Bible with him. He had been betrayed by the world, by its physicians and its pastors alike. But he had Christ, and that was enough.

The Isolation

He wandered, an exile among men. His former atheist friends mocked him. The lost souls who called themselves "spiritual" sneered at his narrow way. The ones who claimed to be Christians whispered of his past, hinting that his mind was unstable, that perhaps he was still sick.

"The mercy of the wicked is cruelty," he murmured, recalling Proverbs 12:10.

Yet, he survived. A pilgrim. A stranger. Set apart from the world.

The Great Tribulation

Then came the darkness. The world unraveling in ways he had long seen coming. The signs were all there—wars, plagues, deception. The system that had once ensnared him now sought to ensnare the whole world.

The healthcare tyranny had been a precursor. Now, it was total control. The governments demanded allegiance, their mark of loyalty required to buy, to sell, to live.

Daniel did not yield.

As the days grew darker and the persecution intensified, he held tightly to his Bible, the words of Christ seared into his heart.

He was not truly alone, for he had Christ. And he was free.