WLFTW: How have your psychoses and/or manias been closely related to God, if at all?



Spirituality was a prevalent theme. My own experience was quite marked in that I experienced myself as being in a different world which was populated by other figures. The most important figure was a male who served as my companion but other figures were also of great importance. All of them were related to real people in what had been my reality but within that different space I was in, they all become larger-than-life figures including: the Devil, Jesus, God, a fierce warrior Goddess and a small cameo performance from some trees which were angels in disguise, charged with the task of helping to keep me safe at that time.

Some of the "spiritual themes" experienced in that state included:

- self-identifying with the suffering, pain and betrayal of Christ
- feeling immense sorrow, compassion and grief for myself and others
- feeling I'd had to make a great sacrifice
- the sense of a "crucifixtion"
- experiencing a presence I had no other term for but to label as "God"
- feeling that my very soul was at stake and I had to "save it"
- feeling that what I was doing had a spiritual purpose
- feeling connected to the universe
- feeling the pain of all of humanity
- experiencing "hell"
- experiencing darkness, a void, nothingness, intense energy
- experiencing light that "filled the rooms" of my [psychological space]
- feeling that I had to "save the world" by "killing the devil" (I was quite concerned with this task because I felt that if I employed any method of violence or hatred, I would only be empowering the evil that the devil epitomized. In the end, I settled on love as my weapon of choice.)

Other prevalent themes in that experience:
- death
- birth
- water
- fire
- experiencing a place where neither time or I existed (this would be the place I'd referenced as "God")
- the emergence of old traumas
- feeling separate from or "out of" my body
- feeling I was out in the cosmos somewhere
- union

I was not a religious person previous to that experience and although I am aware that in some ways I am deeply spiritual, I'm still not what I'd call a religious person. For example, I do not self-identity with any particular religious faith (although I've learned from a number of them) nor to I attend any sort of formal religious services or group.

Meantime, I didn't understand what all those things meant at that time -- I was simply experiencing them and doing my best to get through that. Later, when I was trying to understand, that's when I came across the work of the Jungians and realized that all the "characters" that had featured in my experience could be mapped upon Jung's model of the psyche.

- Some of the symbols and themes served to represent the collapse of my Ego/Persona/self-identity: This was the death, the sacrifice, the cruxifiction.

- the Shadow was represented by several characters, including the Devil: In "killing the devil" I was attempting to conquer my own shadow.

- the male companion was equivalent of my Animus. There came a point where he also took on "Christ-like" characteristics. We "saved" each other.

- God/Goddess were symbols of the Self.

See also: How to Produce an Acute Schizophrenic Break

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